Page 34 of Ringer
TWENTY
“SOMETHING’S WRONG,” GEMMA SAID. SHE thought of the way Calliope had flown at her, her sharp-fisted hands, the sour heat of her breath.
What if they never come back?
“That’s an understatement,” Pete said. He smiled, but only halfway, as if he couldn’t quite remember how to do it.
“No.”He didn’t see. He hadn’t seen how Calliope looked, and hadn’t heard what she’d said. “I mean, whoever lives here should have come back by now. They should have come home. Why haven’t they?”
“Hey.” Pete had to step very carefully: he wasn’t wearing shoes, and the floor was still littered with glass. “Deep breath, okay? You’re just scared.”
“What if—what if Calliope did something to them—” She choked on the words, on the very idea of it, and Peteput his arms around her, as if he knew it was the only way to keep her on her feet.
“Come on,” he said. “It’s all right. Home stretch. You’re exhausted.”
“You’re not listening to me.” Gemma pulled away and saw reality for a moment like a fabric sail, blowing away from its mast, straining in invisible currents. “She asked me what would happen if they never came back.”
“She’s never been outside, Gemma,” Pete said. “She has no idea what to think.”
Gemma shook her head. Her mouth tasted like vomit. She was dizzy with confusion and fear. “Where are they then? You said yourself—it’s not like they went on a road trip.”
Pete’s hair was wet: when he pushed a hand through it, water sprayed through his fingers. “Maybe they walked into town.”
“What town?” Gemma no longer cared that she was shouting. “I haven’t seen a town, have you, Pete? In fact, I think the whole reason we’re here is that there is no fucking town.”
He threw up his hands and let them fall hard, a clapping sound that made Gemma flinch. “So maybe they went to a picnic. Or a ukulele bonfire. Or to make soap out of lye or something. How should I know?” Pete was doing his best to be nice, but she could tell he was losingpatience. His irritation kept showing, like the nub of something sharp rubbing up beneath a sweater, distorting the fabric. “I mean, shit. She doesn’t even know what a barn is. What could she possibly have done?”
“She knows what a barn is,” Gemma said: a stupid response, but she was on the verge of tears again. “She called it by name. She’s smarter than you know.”
Pete frowned. She was worried he would tell her she was being crazy again, and that she would start to cry, but he just shook his head.
“Look. I can’t imagine what it’s like for you—” He broke off, shaking his head. “I mean, being with her. Seeing yourface...” He smiled but only barely. “It’s weird even for me. When you’re standing next to each other...” He reached out and knuckled the counter, like there was an insect there he needed to crush. “I’d be freaking out too.”
Gemma felt a chill go through her. She was a cold mist, barely hanging together. “You think I’m freaking out,” she said.
He looked at her. Pale eyelashes. Freckles, lips, the coral inside of his nose. She’d studied his face so often—thinking it beautiful, thinking it hers. But the face was just collision, random physical accumulation that meant nothing.
“Anyone would freak out.” He tried to take her handbut she balled her fist, and weirdly enough her other hand, the injured one, pulsed with sudden pain, as if she’d balled that instead. “She’s not you. She’s nothing like you. You shouldn’t be afraid.”
“I don’t think she’s like me,” Gemma said. “I don’t think she’s anything like me.”
But she realized, even as she said it, that this wasn’t exactly true. Wasn’t that the whole point? She could have been Calliope, and Calliope could have been her. People became different bodies by chance or accident or God, depending on what you believed; but if you had the same body, the same voice, the same hair and fingers and eyes and nails, then how did you know the difference? She would have to separate from Calliope, cleave her like some horrible head in a fairy tale, and even then she would have that doubleness inside her.
“Go rinse off,” Pete said, in a voice she hated: it was a tone her father used, hooking onto anI know bestkind of thing. “It will make you feel better. I promise. By the time you get out, what do you want to bet we’ll be hitching a ride back to the twenty-first century in a buggy?”
Gemma couldn’t smile, even though she knew he was only trying to help. She wouldn’t let him help her to the washroom, either, even though she was hobbling on her swollen ankle and had to lean on the furniture for support.
The bathtub was old and spotted with rust. Pete hadleft blood behind, too, a faint ring of it where the water had turned color, and more funneling toward the drain. She pumped for water and was shocked by how cold it was. But at the same time she liked it, and liked the smell, too, like spring soil, and dirt newly turned over.
She stripped out of the clothes she’d been issued at the holding center and maneuvered into the tub, trying not to put weight on her ankle and careful, too, not to use her left hand. The shock of cold water even at her ankles made her gasp, and instinctively she went for a knob that wasn’t there. Then she wanted to cry again, not for the lack but for all the things she had always used, for how lucky she was and for her life, pure and simple, for the ability to stand naked and hurt ankle deep in cold water. She was alive: she’d made it out. Goose pimples raised the hair on her thighs and forearms. The water took blood from her skin and swirled it into pink. She was ugly and damaged, and for an instant, she didn’t care: she was alive. Her ribs held her, her heart held her, the world held her. It bound her like a promise.
Pete was right: she did feel better, infinitely better, once she’d watched a film of soot and dirt and blood wash away, as if it was carrying the memory of what had happened. Still, she was uneasy. She hadn’t heard anyone come back. The house was still silent, still wound up, like a coiled spring.
There were towels pegged to the wall, and she took one. In an adjacent room she found a closet full of dresses like the one Calliope had chosen, and she rooted around in a drawer until she found pants, a white shirt, and a dark vest, all of them obviously meant for a guy. But a pair of sandals wedged beneath the simple bed fit her pretty well, and she almost laughed when, feeling something crunch in the pocket of the vest, she fished out a half-empty pack of Marlboro Lights and a Bic lighter decorated with a peeling Steelers logo.
So. There were rule breakers here, too.
Pete wasn’t in the kitchen, although he’d swept up the glass. Calliope wasn’t back, either. In an instant, all her good feeling was swept away; she stood drowning in the air, in the emptiness. She was alone.
