by S.A. Bodeen
“What?” She looked at me in the mirror. “You wanted me to do this. Is it too short?”
I let her go and stood up, pulling out drawers until I found what I was looking for. I brandished the electric clippers. “Use these.”
“I can’t trim hair with those.”
“Don’t want it trimmed.” I handed her the clippers and sat back down. “I want it gone.”
“Why?”
There wasn’t an explanation I could put into words. “Just do it.”
The buzzing started.
She didn’t shave my head, but adjusted the setting to give me a short cut. The hair fell off in long clumps, drifting to the floor.
When the buzzing stopped, I ran my hands over my scalp.
I felt lighter. Less burdened. And totally visible to anyone who wanted to see me.
“You look good.” Lexie smiled. “Definitely an improvement, anyway.”
When I stood, I was ankle deep in my own hair.
“Go.” Lexie took the broom from the corner. “I’ll clean it up.”
“Thanks.”
On the way to the kitchen for a quick salad, I heard a bang from the direction of Dad’s office. Mom was inside the secret lab, tearing it apart. Shattered glass lay everywhere. Before I could stop her, she shoved over a table with a grunt, spilling piles of papers on the floor.
“Mom!”
She turned to look at me, her chest heaving. Her hair had come loose and a few strands hung down in front of her face. “I have to find that clue and get you all out of here.”
She noticed my hair then, and started to say something else, then fell backward, grabbing for something to hold on to. She could only reach a small stand, which toppled onto her as she collapsed on the floor, unconscious, in a small pool of blood.
I FLEW ACROSS THE ROOM, TOSSING ASIDE THE STAND AND sending it clattering to the other side of the room. Mom lay on the floor.
“Mom?”
I put one arm under her legs and the other around her waist, scooping her up in my arms. Her body flopped against mine as I carried her to the infirmary and laid her down on the bed next to Dad’s.
I dug around for smelling salts and waved them under her nose.
Her eyelids fluttered. “I don’t feel so well.”
My efforts to get her to sit didn’t work. She groaned and lay back down.
“Mom, what hurts?”
Mom licked her lips. “My stomach. Really bad cramps.” She rolled a bit with the pain.
“You’re bleeding.” I grabbed some extra sheets and towels from the linen closet and spread them under her on the bed as best as I could.
She lay propped up on some pillows, holding her stomach. “Ohhhh.” Her face was pale.
“You shouldn’t have done that. I’ll find the clue.” My words spoke what I wanted to be feeling, but I wasn’t. All I could think was that she had to be okay, I couldn’t do it without her. I could not be responsible for all of us. I wasn’t up to it.
Not even thinking, I reached to loosen my hair, put up my wall. But my hand found only the back of my head, which was covered with soft prickles.
I held my open hand in front of my eyes. My wall was gone. It didn’t matter whether I felt up to the task or not. Our lives depended on me. My fingers curled into a tight fist before releasing.
“Mom?”
Her eyes shut. “Hurts.”
My hand touched her arm. “Cramps?”
“No.” She grimaced. “Worse.”
It was crucial to figure out for sure what was wrong with Mom before I would know how to help. If I could. By paging through the index of one of the medical books, I found what I was looking for. I quickly scanned through descriptions of pregnancy complications.
Mom sighed. “I know what it is, Eli. I had it with Terese.”
I looked at my mother. “What happened?”
Her eyebrows rose. “Nothing. They put me on bed rest.”
As I glanced over at Dad, I noticed a syringe on the bedside table. A small bottle of the sodium nitroprusside sat beside it. I picked it up. Empty.
“Mom?”
She looked at the bottle in my hand and raised her eyebrows a bit. “I had to try. He may be our only way out.”
Lexie walked in. She rushed to Mom’s side as soon as she saw her face.
I explained what was going on. Then I looked at Mom. “So you’ll stay in bed until I get us out of here.”
She tried to get up. “I need to …”
With a gentle touch, Lexie pushed her back. “No, we can do it. I’ll help Terese with the babies. I already told her Dad was sick. I’ll tell her you’re just … just hanging out with him and getting some rest.” Lexie looked at me. “And Eli will figure out how to get us out of here.”
She was the last person I expected to be confident in my abilities as a savior.
Before she left, Lexie kissed Mom on the cheek. And she whispered to me, “Can you get us out of here?” She didn’t wait for an answer.
Mom stared at the ceiling. “This puts a kink in things.”
“No, we’ll take care of everything, really. You need to lie still.”
She sighed. “Eli? I like your haircut.”
I picked up her hand and held it between both of mine. Although touching someone still felt like a struggle, so strange after so long without the sensation, it was becoming more normal. Maybe I needed to get used to it. If we got out of here, we would all have to get used to normal again, whatever that might be. Normal again, to me, would be to touch someone, without having to summon up courage.
“Mom, what did the doctors say when this happened before?”
She didn’t answer right away. “It wasn’t that big a deal, really.”
“Did they tell you it could happen again?”
“Yes.”
“And that wasn’t a problem?”
“Even on bed rest, there was a chance it could have been bad enough that they would have to do an emergency C-section. That’s what they told me. They also said …”
“What? What did they say?”
Mom leaned back again. “Because I was getting a bit older, they recommended that Terese be my last baby.” I felt my heart in my throat. “Did Dad know that?”
“Of course.”
“And he let you have more babies? Down here, with no doctors?” I didn’t need the answer.
She shut her eyes.
I covered her with a blanket and left, careful to be quiet as I closed the door.
Out in the hall, I leaned against the wall for support. I had to figure out what turducken meant. Was it the clue? I needed to find out. Fast.
For the first time in six years, I did not have all the time in the world.
TURDUCKEN.
I tried it as a password in the computers. Even tried to figure out a numeric code that might be attached to the sequenced letters, starting with the basics: each letter’s position in the alphabet.
Nothing. Everything I tried seemed too easy.
I knew what I had to do. Terese and Lexie were in the kitchen, eating. “Reese, we have to tell you something.”
Lexie looked at me with wide eyes, shaking her head.
Terese looked from one of us to the other.
Lexie spoke first. “Mom’s not feeling well. She’s in bed for a few days.”
Terese’s eyes widened and she set down her fork. “Is she okay?”
I tried to keep my voice upbeat. “Yeah, she’ll be fine. We’re going to get her help soon.”
Terese’s eyes narrowed and the corners of her mouth turned down. “You’re lying to me.”
If I was ever going to prove I wasn’t just out for myself, I needed to start somewhere. “We aren’t lying.”
Lexie waved her hand from behind Terese, trying to get my attention.
I ignored her.
Lexie’s shoulders slumped.
I continued, “Reese, we aren’t lying, just not telling you everything. I got through to Eddy on
the Internet. At least I think I did.”
She just stared at me.
“Reese, you were right. About everything. Eddy is fine. Gram, too. It’s a long story. They thought we were dead all these years. They’re going to try to find us. Try to get us out.”
“Father did it.” She didn’t even blink. She just knew.
That jolted me a bit. “Yeah.”
“I told you so.”
“Yeah, you did. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. Truly sorry.” I put a hand on her arm.
Her eyes slowly tracked to my hand on her arm.
I moved my hand away from her. I didn’t remember the last time I’d touched her. Maybe I never had.
She looked up at me. “Can we go home?”
“I hope so.” I forced a grin. “And now we need your help. We have to find the code for the door in order to get out, okay? I think I found a clue. I mean, Dad actually told me this word and I think it might be the clue.”
Lexie wiped her chin on her shoulder. “What’s the clue?”
“Turducken.”
Lexie spoke up. “Didn’t we have that for Christmas one year?”
“Yeah, it was great.” My mouth watered.
“No, it was disgusting.” Lexie pushed her plate away. “Dad made me eat a piece, ugh.”
“Do you remember anything about it?”
Lexie didn’t say anything, but her shoulders rose slightly.
Terese took a drink of water, spilling some.
I dug around in one of the drawers. My knuckles were sore and I remembered seeing a bottle of ibuprofen. “I tried to piece together a password on his computers, nothing worked.” I found the bottle. Totally expired. I swallowed two, anyway.
Lexie looked at me. “Now what?”
I hopped up to sit on the counter. “Don’t know. Any ideas?”
Terese wiped her eyes. Her voice was meek. “Do you think the word is supposed to trigger something? Make you think of something else that is the code?”
I made an attempt to encourage her, which was not something I was experienced at. “That might be true. Good thinking.” At least it sounded sincere to me.
Lexie groaned. “Why are we even trying to figure this out? Hello. Dad is a brainiac, for cripes’ sake. I mean, despite everything, he’s still way smarter than you, Eli. Can’t we wait for him to get better and just tell us the code?”
“Mom and Dad need medical help that we don’t have. We can’t wait.”
“Does he truly want us to figure it out?” Terese looked skeptical.
For a moment I glanced at Lexie. “Of course he does. So please, try to think of anything at all that might help. Even if it seems stupid. Let me know, okay?”
Terese nodded and stood up. “They’ll be waking up from their naps soon,” she said. “I’ll check on them.”
Lexie went with me to check on Mom and Dad. “I’ll stay with them, Eli.” They were both asleep.
I needed to think. And I did my best thinking when I ran.
On the treadmill, I focused. Turducken, that long-ago Christmas, what did I remember? Everything, I needed to remember everything.
Free association.
A chicken inside a duck inside a turkey. A turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken. Poultry, game bird, water fowl, webbed feet, rooster, hen, drake, mallard.
Nothing. I had nothing.
I got off the treadmill and held my hands over my head, catching my breath. I’d run more than eight miles.
“Eli.” Lexie beckoned from the door. “I may have thought of something.”
I walked over to where she stood with her arms crossed.
“What?”
“I’m not sure.” She leaned against the wall. “Maybe it’s nothing …”
I wiped my face with my sleeve and forced myself to wait, silent.
“I’d just gotten home for Christmas vacation when those things came.”
“Turduckens.”
“Yes. I’d missed lunch to take a final, and then with the ride home I was starved, so I went in the kitchen to ask Els to make me a sandwich or something. Dad was there. We just got to talking, because I hadn’t seen him since Thanksgiving. And he was so excited when they started carrying in those turduckens. I asked him why he was so excited about a bunch of turkeys and he said, ‘These have a surprise inside.’”
“That’s it?”
She shrugged a little. “Sorry.”
“No, I wasn’t being mean, Lex, honest. It may help.”
“Right.” She left.
I stripped off my sweaty shirt and dropped to the floor to stretch.
Lexie came back in. “I’m wrong.”
“About what?”
“What he said. It wasn’t, there’s a surprise, it was … Oh, now I remember, because he said it in a silly voice, like a French accent. I remember because he never did that, acted silly. He said, ‘Eeets not just a turkey. There eees a meesstery inside.’ “She waited. “Hello, I remembered. Does it help?”
I didn’t answer. My mind was whirling. A mystery inside. So familiar. I’d heard that recently. But where? And when?
A mystery inside.
Those words ate me up. For the next hour, I sequestered myself in Dad’s office and looked through everything I could find in the papers, books, CDs. Even some of the National Geographies. Nothing struck a chord.
I gave up. Had to. I was driving myself crazy.
Out in the hall, I ran into Terese. For the first time ever, her hair was down, not in pigtails. Her eyes were red. She put her head down and tried to walk right by me. “What’s wrong?”
She didn’t answer. But I knew. She was scared.
Something else about her was different. “Reese, I know you’re upset about Mom and Dad. We haven’t even given you a chance to deal; we’re just shoving all this on you.” I knelt, so that I looked up at her. “I know I’ve been a crappy brother lately—”
She wiped her eyes. “You’ve always been a crappy brother.”
Her accent was gone.
“Okay, fine. I’ve always been a crappy brother. But I’m here now, okay? For whatever you need.” I figured it out. Why she looked different. She wasn’t in purple. Instead, she wore black. That and having her hair down made her look older. No. Not older. Just her own age for once.
Funny. The Compound had a way of making me feel older than I was. I’d felt like an adult since I was nine. But the Compound seemed to have done the opposite to Terese. She’d stayed the same, perhaps even regressed. Maybe she felt a change coming. So she felt she had to change, too.
“Want to go to Dad’s office with me?”
She nodded.
In the office she was quiet, just leaning against the door and looking around. “Why do you call me Little Miss Perfect?”
Embarrassed, I stammered. “You are, like, perfect. You always do the right thing and say the right thing and everyone loves you for it.”
“No.” She paused. “Not everyone.”
“Huh?”
“Lexie doesn’t love me. Neither do you.”
“Yes, she does. She just doesn’t show it.”
She waited a moment. “And you, Eli? Do you love me?”
“Of course, you’re my sister.”
“But you don’t like me. And that’s worse than not being loved.” She started to leave. “Reese, wait.”
She turned back.
I looked at my feet, stalling. “Honestly, I’ve had a hard time here without Eddy. I was closer to him than anyone. And you, you’re a lot like him.” I took a deep breath. “I hated that you were here and he wasn’t.” Even though it was my fault he wasn’t there, I had blamed her. “It was always the situation, not you. You’re my little sister. Yeah. I do like you.”
One of her shoulders went up and down. “You know, you’re not that bad a brother.”
“Really?” I wanted to know.
“There’s still a chance for you, anyway.” She smiled a tiny bit. “Want to go see th
e babies with me?”
I’d been cooped up in the office for hours; maybe new scenery would give me a fresh perspective. Or maybe I was trying to live up to my new status as not-so-crappy-brother-after-all. “Just for a while. I’ve got to get back to Mom and Dad.”
In the nursery, Lucas and Cara romped. They threw beanbags at each other while Quinn played in the playpen.
Lucas skipped over to me. “Play with us, ’kay?”
“Yeah.”
Then it hit me. Lucas had said those words. The mystery inside. The first day I came to their room. “Lucas!”
“What?”
“Come here a sec.” I whispered in his ear, “Can you show me your clown, remember, that you showed me before?”
“‘Kay. They can’t see, though.” Lucas’s eyes darted to Cara and Quinn.
“Sure.” He led me to the closet. The clown came out from the hiding place.
“You’ll be careful?”
I liked listening to him, to his nearly five-year-old diction. “Yeah.”
Piece by piece, I took the clowns apart, setting them down until I held the inner clown.
Shaking produced nothing but silence.
Close inspection revealed no secret notches or buttons.
Then I read the word written on the bottom again. At first, I had assumed it was only the manufacturer, but perhaps …
“Hey, Reese, come here.”
Lucas tried to grab the clown from me. “Don’t let her see!
I held it out of his reach. “Lucas, it’s okay.” She came into the closet. “What’re you guys doing in here?”
“Reese, is this French?” Over Lucas’s head, I handed her the smallest clown.
Squinting, she read the word. “Hautbois.”
Lucas kept trying to grab it back.
I pushed him out of the way. “Reese, what does it mean?”
“Translated? High wood.”
I groaned. Talk about cryptic. “Thanks.” I took the clown back, wondering what to do next.
Terese started to leave, then stopped. “Is that something to do with the code?”
Lucas took the clown from my hand.
I shook my head. “I thought it was, but it doesn’t make any sense.”
Terese shrugged. “I guess not. What would my oboe have to do with it?”
