Fragments of Time

by Dawn Dagger

Amy slowly crept forward, then tilted her face towards the door. “Hello?”

  “Oh, Amy… Amy…” the voice moaned. “I’m so glad you’re okay. Are you guys hurt? What have they been doing to you?”

  “They just… lock us in our rooms when we sleep. We get meals and they walk us around, showing us around the building and… stuff. I visit my mom.”

  I thought I heard her whisper a prayer underneath her breath. “Do you have the jaguar?”

  It was that horrible, stabbing word again. Amy said it was an animal. Why was it so important? Why did it hurt so much to hear? “No,” I coughed past my throat, which had dried. “I don’t have anything…”

  “Do you even remember what it is?”

  “No,” Amy piped up. “We don’t remember anything. We hit our heads and lost our memories. It sucks…”

  The girl groaned and there was a soft thump on the door. “No, they erased them! They tried to erase my memories, but it didn’t work. They keep hurting me because of it!” My heart wrenched in my chest. “They took my owl and I can’t do anything!”

  “Hey, we have to go.” I whispered frantically, jerking away from the door.

  “No, please—!” the girl cried.

  Amy stumbled as I gripped her arm and began to drag her down the hall. “Hey, Amy!” I said loudly, trying not to look behind me at the man that sauntered down the hallway, whistling cheerfully.

  Amy turned and looked at me, her eyes wide. They shone with fear. “Y-yeah?” She shouted.

  “I wonder if there’s anything to do around here. Let’s see if we can find Alice.”

  “Or Hazel!”

  Don’t worry, Yellow, I thought as the man shouldered past us. He was behind our backs, but I heard a door slam and I felt bile press against my throat. We’ll come back for you. I promise.

  “Hey, Blanco, what’s a jaguar?” I asked as I walked down the hall with a burly man of about 6’ 5’. We had just left my mother’s room, where she had been awake enough to smile at me. The lingering headache that came from my brain writhing in my skull whenever I saw her ached. I believed Yellow. They had taken our memories. I knew I had cared about my mother much more than I had been feeling.

  Questions flashed across his grey eyes, but it didn’t bother bleeding onto his stony face. “An animal, why?” he grunted. He reminded me of a bulldog. Big and grumpy but not all that bad. I almost liked him. He never quite knew what was going on, to no fault of his own.

  “Well, you see, it’s Amy’s favorite animal, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one.”

  He chewed on his lip, taking a look around the halls. “Well, it ain’t gonna be the end of the world…” he muttered to himself, then chuckled to himself. “Well, let’s go! We have some real nice tiny statues. They’re dumb and tiny, but kinda pretty. If you don’t touch ‘em, I’ll show ya. The rattlesnake is my favorite. It’s probably tainted cause it’s got that prick, Gerard’s, grubby paws all over it.

  Rattlesnake. Gerard.

  “I’d love to see them!” I encouraged him, feeling my heart race.

  We happened upon a large, silver door in the hallway and Blanco pulled a card off of his waist and slipped it into the card reader the door held. With a hiss, the great silver doors opened. We stepped into the dimly lit room and I squinted as Blanco clapped his hands. Lights flickered to life along the ceiling, one by one. It was a strangely familiar sensation.

  On the table in the room there sat three oversized pendants. My skull pounded with pain as we walked closer to them, and I wondered if I was going to throw up. They were so familiar, but so strange, all at once.

  There was an arching black cat whose anger frightened me, an owl that seemed both soft and intimidating at once, and a coiled rattlesnake that looked confident and dangerous. I nibbled at the inside of my lip as I stared at them.

  Blanco pointed to the cat. Part of me was attracted to him, I wanted to hold him, but another part of me hated his existence. “That’s the jaguar. In real life they orange and got spots, but whatever. It’s a lil’ statue anyways.”

  That’s, that’s what Yellow was talking about. The bird… the bird must be Yellow’s owl. I need to get it for her. Maybe it will keep her safe. Maybe they’ll stop hurting her.

  “Can I feel the stone?” I said shakily, forgetting what he had told me about not touching. My hands were trembling. I was dying, like a magnet held just far away from another that it would suffer. I swallowed bile. “Before whatever adventure we were on, we were learning about rocks. I want to make sure I know a few of my memories are right.”

  Blanco shrugged. “Eh, whatever. Just don’t break it.”

  I wanted to steal away the owl. But I couldn’t. Not while Blanco was watching. So I swallowed and instead let my hand dart for the jaguar. As my skin touched the cold stone, something like fire flowed through my veins. I choked through clenched teeth and I felt my muscles shudder.

  My mind was clear for just a moment, then memories poured into my mind, as if someone had flung open a door. Tears filled my eyes. The jaguar hurt too much to hold.

  I slammed it down on the table, yanking my head back. My brain felt funny, as if cool air had caressed it and cleared away a layer of dust. I groaned and rubbed my eyes. Blanco tilted his head.

  “You good?”

  “Oh, yeah,” I wheezed, wiping tears from my eyes. “I’m good. Great, actually. Sorry, it just… I got a memory back. I saw a jaguar once. That’s how I know Amy.” He looked startled by this, as if something had occurred to him. Oh, no. I said the wrong thing.

  “Cool. Good to see y’er memories are returning. Well, we oughta get outta here before someone sees us, ya?”

  “Yeah.”

  I nodded and we left the room. Blanco went one way while I began in the other. I found an empty hall and a great door. I had been a few days, and during those days I could hear her crying and banging on the door, but she was silent now. She had been silent. I hoped I could help her before she gave in.

  “Hey, hey Yellow,” I whispered into the door. I heard nothing in response. “I promise, I promise I’ll return your owl. I found it. Just hang in there, okay?”

  Silence met me, but I swallowed down the disappointment. I tapped on the door lightly and turned away.

  I needed help. I needed Amy.

  20

  “Okay, but, what do they do?” Amy asked, pulling her feet up onto my bed as we sat side-by-side in my room, staring at the wall.

  “See, I dunno. But it hurt so much. I even got some of my memories back,” I responded, hugging my own knees. I was explaining the encounter with the pendants to her. “They’re extremely important, and I can remember that only one person is allowed to touch them at a time. Yellow had the owl, like she said. I had the nasty cat. So, you…”

  “Would have the snake?” She tilted her head, and her ponytails fell across her shoulders. I had my own hair clipped back, long enough now that it was getting in my eyes. “Y’know, I think I remember that I needed to hold something like that.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, you’ll have the snake.”

  “So… If we… leave.” Amy started cautiously, her brows furrowing. “What happens? What do we do?”

  “Yellow will know!” I said confidently. “Yellow will know everything. She has all of her memories, remember?”

  Amy nodded thoughtfully, chewing on her cuticle. I coaxed her to stop. She sat on her hands. “So, do you have a plan?”

  “I’ll steal Blanco’s keycard. Or someone else’s. Doesn’t matter much. Then I’ll give it to you. You’ll find the door and grab… No. That won’t work. I’ll get the card. We’ll both open the door. I’ll grab the cat, you’ll take the snake. I can hold the owl in my pocket if I’m careful! Then we can give it to Yellow and get her out of here!”

  “And your momma?”

  My stomach lurched. In all of my desperate wishings to save Yellow, I had not realized we would have to save my mother too. I didn’t know what to do with her. She was
so, so sick. But I couldn’t leave her there. I didn’t even know how to get out!

  “Yellow will know,” I said again. “Once we get her out, we’ll be okay. She can fix everything.”

  “I can’t wait to see Yellow’s face. She’s got such a sweet voice, Clayton. I’ll feel braver with her. I already feel brave with you, but she’s gonna make it super better.”

  “I agree, Amy. I agree.”

  I explained to her that I would snatch Blanco’s keycard when he walked me to my mother that night before dinner, and we would steal the artifacts while everyone was having dinner. Amy liked the plan, so we high fived.

  “What if there’s clones?” Amy asked suddenly.

  “Clones?”

  “Yeah! What if they clone us, Clayton?”

  “Then… oh! I know. Then we make a secret handshake. If we get seperated and find each other again, we’ll do our secret handshake and be okay.”

  She agreed enthusiastically, and we spent a long time creating the perfect handshake. After we had memorized it, Amy hopped up to meet Hazel for some sort of a lesson. I waved her goodbye as she left down the hall, then lay down for a nap.

  I was confident. This was going to work.

  Blanco and I wandered towards my mom’s room, neither of us talking. He seemed grumpy, and distant. My foot snagged on the carpet and I fell against Blanco with a yelp. He caught me before I could fall and glowered. “Watch yourself!”

  I shoved my hands deep into my pants pockets, flushing. “Sorry!” I apologized. “I didn’t mean to.”

  He threw me another glare, but didn’t say anything. He threw open the door to my mother’s room and I stepped inside, feeling a lump form in my throat. Suddenly feelings rushed into my chest, filling its cavity and stealing my breath, but I forced myself to stand still.

  Besides the new memories, the jaguar had filled me with a claw, horrific desperation that burned through me every time I saw my mother. I had no idea what we had been through, most of my memories still lost, but it must have been a lot.

  I almost wished I could forget how much she meant to me. It didn’t make sense. It didn’t leave a lot of room to care for Yellow and Amy when I was around her. I didn’t like it.

  I sat in the chair beside my mother and reached for her hand, squeezing it gently. She gave me a soft smile, falling back into unconsciousness. I sat for a long moment with her, then stood up, breathing shakily. I blinked the tears out of my eyes, and dispelled the ghost hand in mine.

  “Blanco, I’d like to visit that library Hazel told me about.”

  “I got it,” I whispered to Amy that night as we sat beside each other at dinner. “Do you want it?”

  She shook her head. “I thought about it. They’ll find it. Every night, somebody- I dunno if it’s a guy or girl or what- helps me undress and put on pajamas. I don’t like it, I’m not a baby anymore. But they won’t leave me alone, so they may find it.”

  My stomach twisted and I felt sick. “Someone undresses you every night?” Amy flushed, hiding her face and staring down at dinner. She pushed around a piece of meat with her fork. I swallowed, but decided not to make a big deal out of it. I didn’t want her feeling bad for something completely out of her control. “You’re right. I’ll keep it.”

  We ate the rest of the meal in silence. Some dark, angry part of me roared and vowed to break the bones of whoever thought they had the right to help Amy undress. No one was allowed to make her feel ashamed. I would kill them if they ever touched her.

  I knew it wasn’t me talking in the back of my mind. But I agreed with it.

  After supper we went to our rooms to go to bed. I had a stack of books on my nightstand, and was free to read them in the lamplight, even though the door was closed. I tried to read through the books, but after reading the same two pages four times and getting nothing from it, I decided it was useless.

  I stood up and began to pace in my room, feeling like my skin needed to be clawed away. I was worried. I was worried about Amy getting hurt. I was worried about Yellow getting hurt. I was worried about losing my mom. I had apologized to her, but it didn’t save the torture of my soul.

  What if Hazel or Blaco caught us? What if we accidentally hurt someone? What if one of us got hurt? Everything could go wrong. It would go wrong, I knew it.

  And then this horrid, replaying thought that had leaked into my head with the memories. You’re supposed to be dead. It just kept swirling in my brain, like something caught in a whirlpool. You should be dead.

  But what if I did die? What would become of my mother? Of Amy and Yellow? They all had to be safe. They had to go where Yellow would take them. I had to take care of them all. I couldn’t be dead.

  I was so nervous that I had to double over once or twice, believing I was going to vomit up the snakes that wriggled in my stomach. I gagged, but they never came up. Finally, I crawled into bed, shaking.

  If I just went to sleep, it would all be over. It would be okay. I would wake up, and we could just get this over with. Right?

  Just as my heart began to slow and my eyes slid closed, I heard a soft click. Then a quiet knock sounded on the door. Was it Amy? Had someone hurt her? Had something happened?

  I flung myself out of the bed and wrenched open the door, my heart racing. I blinked in the bright hall light. But, it was not Amy who stood before me. It was Alice. I had half forgotten about her. She wore her pink dress again, making me uncomfortable over again. She’s one of the bad guys, my mind flashed. I finished rubbing the light out of my eyes. “Uh, yes?” I squeaked.

  “Hey, Clayton, I was wondering…” She rubbed her toe into the carpet, and her perfume began to fill my nostrils. “Can I… talk to you? I can’t seem to sleep…”

  I wanted nothing more than to curl up in my bed and fall asleep myself, but I didn’t have the heart to turn her away. Not when she gave me that pitiful look. “Sure.” I opened the door wider and let her step inside the room.

  She crossed over to the bed and climbed onto it, sitting on her knees. I closed the door so that only a sliver of hallway light fell into the room. “What do you need to talk about?”

  She rolled her head back to stare up at the ceiling. I crossed over and sat beside her on the bed. “I don’t… feel safe. Do you? I feel like, maybe you and Amy have gotten the same sense. Maybe we’re all just nervous teenagers?”

  My heart was thumping in my chest. She felt it too? She knew something was wrong? What if she had also been kidnapped, her memories erased? What if we could take her with us? What if she had originally been with us?

  I had to bite my lip to stop from spilling out everything Amy and I had planned.

  “Is that so?” I asked shakily. “What makes you feel so unsafe?”

  “I don’t know… I just…” She shifted so that she was sitting half on her hip, her legs trailing behind her. They were bare and white. “Sometimes I just get the sense that Hazel is lying to us, y’know? What if they are doing something bad? Why aren’t we ever allowed outside?”

  “I dunno…” I scratched the back of my neck, trying to figure out what I should say to her. Her perfume was starting to make me feel lightheaded. “Maybe you’re just nervous, Alice. Or sick. I get worried when I’m sick. Those mashed potatoes the other night didn’t taste right, you know?”

  “Are you making fun of me?” Tears welled up in her eyes.

  “No! No, I’m not! Sorry.” I shook my head. “I didn’t mean to make fun of you, I’m sorry. What do you think she’s lying about?”

  “I’m not quite sure…”

  “So, what’s making you feel unsafe, Alice? What do you think is going to happen?”

  “I dunno, Clayton!” She bristled. “I just…” She placed her hand on my leg and began to rub it up and down. She turned to look at me, her jade eyes vibrant. “All I know is that you make me feel safe.”

  Where her skin touched my leg it felt like fire. I shifted uncomfortably, but she tightened her grip on my leg. “I-I’m glad I
make you feel safe…” I choked. “But I don’t really know what you want me to do about how you feel about Hazel…” My whole body was burning now.

  “You’re not leaving, are you?” She pouted. “I thought I heard you say something to Amy about leaving. Oh, Clayton, you’re not going to leave, are you? Please tell me you’re not. Is it because you feel the same way about Hazel?” She leaned closer over me. Her perfume burned my nostrils.

  “N-No, Alice. I’m not leaving. You heard wrong. We’re safe here.” I felt as if her eyes were burning into my soul. I didn’t feel safe now. I didn’t like what she was doing.

  “So, you’ll stay?”

  “Yes, Alice. I’m staying…”

  “If you’re staying, do ya think…” She twisted her body and pressed one hand against the bed on the side of my hip, her other hand still on my leg. “If you’re staying… do you think I could spend the night in your room? Can I stay here tonight, Clayton?”

  “Alice-- I think there a rule against--” I gasped as she moved her hands to press me against the bed, forcing me into a lying position. She rose above me, smiling softly. Her eyes were hungry. “There’s a rule against this,” I wheezed, gripping her shoulders. Part of me wanted to fling her off the bed. I wanted to crush her shoulders in my hands.

  “C’mon, Clayton… I know you want this,” she cooed, positioning her knees on either side of my legs. “Let me spend the night.” Her lips were above mine, her nose brushing against my own. A lump formed in my throat. “No one is going to care,” she was practically purring.

  “Get off me,” I whispered. Her hands were sliding against my chest. They were freezing.

  “Clayton, c’mon,” she whined. “You know you—”

  “Alice get off me right now!” I yelled suddenly, pushing her off of me. “Get off!” She yelped, falling off of the bed and hard onto the floor. She wore no undergarments. She gave me an accusing, offended glare from the floor. I sat up and pointed to my door, rage fueling the burning sensation through my body. “Get out of my room, Alice!”