(Don't You) Forget About Me (17 page)

“Okay, I don't want to talk about it. Not right now anyway. And I really do want to hear about Piper.”

“You've been living here for three months. You've probably heard all the Piper stories by now.”

“Maybe I want to hear them from you.”

“Well, maybe I'd rather not talk about it.”

My tone is more sharp than playful, but Foote laughs anyway, a low rumble that gives me goose bumps. “Okay, then.”

But now, of course, I can't stop thinking about Piper. I wonder what he's been told and who's been telling him. Was it Elton's version of Piper? The old-timers at Milly's? Or maybe it was someone else.

“Do they all hate her?” I hear myself ask in a small voice. The question never reaches Foote's ears, because at the same instant the alarm wails.

“What's happening?” Foote says, and I can hear the tension in his voice.

“The daily walk.”

“Like a get-fresh-air kind of thing?”

“No.” I shake my head for emphasis. “Like a reprieve kind of thing. People say the walk is like trudging through snow and hot coals all at the same time. It hurts to fall down. It hurts to keep walking. But it's a billion times better than being inside, and they fight to be the first out the door.”

I stop talking, even though I haven't explained it very well and feel like I should try again. But then the inmates come into view, and my throat closes and I cannot say anything more.

It feels the same way it has ever since the first time Piper brought me here when I wasn't much older than Wills. There are only thirty-some of them doing the walk today. I know them all by name. I know what they're in for and when they'll get out. But then I notice something else. Or
the lack of something
would be more accurate. The gray skin. The stooped shoulders and slow shuffling feet. The faces crumpled and clenched in pain and defeat. Those details that I recall with a surprising amount of clarity are all . . . gone.

Am I remembering wrong? It doesn't seem possible. I know the reformatory walk like I know my own name.

I stare harder, wondering if they are just trying to be brave. But no. They are not skipping or filling their lungs with fresh air or holding their pale faces up to the sun. They are as miserable as you would expect locked-up teenagers to be, but they are not faded ghosts.

“Let's move it along,” one of the guards yells. Another difference. Usually the guards are lazy and quiet. But the two out today seem tense and worried. They keep pushing the inmates, urging them to walk faster. It's like they want to get this over with.

The inmates are just rounding the corner, where they will once again be out of sight, when the bigger guard pushes the boy at the end of the line.

Grady Stonard. He shouldn't even be doing time. During any other year, his midsummer show would've been seen as nothing more than a harmless prank. He'd made the sky light up with brilliant flashes using an empty old squirt gun. I'd watched it from the middle of a field where I was just coming off a forget-me-not afternoon. Not a single person was hurt. Still it scared the shit out of everyone. They gave him six months, with the possibility of getting out in three for good behavior.

Seems like Grady's chances of getting out early aren't so great. When the guard pushes him, he stumbles forward a few feet and looks as if he's going down but catches himself at the last minute. Stooped over, he rests with his arms on his thighs. The guard comes up behind him again.

“Keep moving,” he bellows, his hand out to push Grady once more.

But Grady is prepared this time. He spins and takes a swing at the guard, catching him in the nose. Blood sprays. Grady gets him a second time with a fist to the gut.

His fellow inmates have stopped to stare. I am ready to stand up and cheer.

Then the other guard comes in. He uses his stick and swings it like a baseball bat straight at Grady's head. Grady turns just in time to have it hit his ear. He falls.

I gasp and scramble to my feet, ready to throw myself into the fray. Foote's hand grips my arm, pulling me down beside him.

There is no one to hold back the other inmates though.

Seven of them rush the guards, while the rest hang back, probably too scared to join the fight. Still at seven to two, the odds should be in their favor. But the same soil that leeches strength from the inmates gives it—along with a propensity for cruelty—to the guards. They pull out their sticks, with their electrode tips, and even the odds very quickly. Two inmates go down almost immediately. But that still leaves five. Among them is Stasia Cole, the girl who had half the school howling at the moon last year, when they became werewolves. Arnie Stock crashed a party and put all the guests to sleep by humming a lullaby and then made mustaches grow on their faces when they were out. But their abilities faded as quickly as they'd bloomed and can't help them now. Stasia and Arnie fall. The last three run, with the guards chasing after them.

Eventually new guards come out. They could pick up the inmates who have been beaten to a pulp and put them on stretchers. Instead they grab their ankles and drag them across the yard one by one.

When it is finally over, Foote and I crawl away, back to the cover of the trees.

Foote pulls off his hat and runs his hands through his hair, scrubbing at his scalp. “Holy shit,” he finally says. “I wasn't expecting that.”

I look back at the reformatory. The place I thought I knew. It is still large and intimidating, like it always has been. Now, though, I notice that it seems to be sitting at an odd angle, like it has shifted off-balance. Like a good shove might be enough to push it right off the mountainside. Just looking at it makes me feel unsteady too, as if it's already crashing down.

“Yeah,” I answer at last. “Neither was I.”

DO YOU REALLY WANT TO HURT ME?

Seven Years Ago

“WOW,” I SAID WHEN WE REACHED THE CLEARING
where you had set up our picnic. “It's bee-yoo-ti-ful.”

“Thank you.” You gave a little curtsy, then gestured to the blanket laid out on the grass. “Please have a seat.”

I carefully lowered myself onto the blanket and crossed my legs so that I didn't bump any of the dishes set there. Chance barked excitedly and leaped beside me. Grabbing him by the collar, I pulled him away. You had taken GG's best china—without permission. We'd both be dead if he accidentally broke something.

After getting Chance to lie down a few feet away, I took a moment to admire the elegant serving bowls and platters. I hated sitting at GG's table, knowing she'd scold me if I even breathed on them the wrong way. But here they were in the woods, in our territory, being used to hold all of our favorite treats. The serving bowl that GG usually used for her extra-sour sauerkraut was filled with butterscotch pudding. The platter on which GG placed slices of rare roast beef now held pizza bagels instead. And to finish it off, GG's giant crystal punch bowl was overflowing with a gigantic root beer float.

“This is amazing,” I said as you took your seat across from me.

“It was nothing,” you said with a shrug. “And besides, you deserve some credit too. You did an excellent job keeping GG distracted while I ransacked the china chest.”

I made a face. “Don't remind me.”

“What's wrong, Pollywog? Was she lecturing you again on the duties of a Gardner?”

“At first,” I admitted slowly. “But then I told her she was a hypocrite. That she should've done her time in the reformatory like everyone else if she was so interested in duty.”

“Oh, Sky.” You sighed. “You have a singular gift for antagonizing GG.”

“I don't know what that means.” I hated when you used big words. You'd been doing it more and more since you'd moved up to the high school.

“You piss her off,” you clarified.

“Well, she pisses me off too!” I felt angry all over again just remembering it. Normally I would have stomped away, but I'd promised you that I would keep GG distracted until you gave me the all-clear signal. So instead of fleeing, I'd opened my stupid mouth, determined to show GG I wasn't just a dumb kid. That I knew more than she thought I did.

“They say you created a duplicate of every single person in your class, using nothing more than a lock of the person's hair,” I'd told GG. “It was like having an instant twin, except they were just a copy owned by the original. At first everyone thought it was fun. They had their duplicate do their homework and chores for them while they went out all night. But after a week of that, the duplicates wanted more and rebelled. After two weeks some of the duplicates went missing. Or maybe the originals were gone. Nobody really knew. Your friends asked you to get rid of the rest of the duplicates, but you said you couldn't, that they had to do it themselves. The duplicates were tied with rope and dropped into the Salt Spring. Some people say they couldn't drown and that they're still down there waiting to be found. And you were sent to the reformatory. But most people say you didn't go. That you sent your own duplicate instead, while you hid away and waited. And after she was finally released, you drowned her too.”

GG grabbed me and pulled me close so that our eyes were only inches apart. “The correct term is doppelgänger. And I didn't drown her. She went into the water on her own and liked it so much she decided to stay there. But if you're so clever, Skylar, why don't you tell me: what would you do with a doppelgänger of your own? Would you get rid of her, or would you make her your best friend? Would you give her parts of yourself just to keep her from going away?” GG's fingernails dug into my skin as she gave me a little shake.

I jerked away, losing a few bits of skin in the process. “Maybe we would be friends. What's so bad about that?”

“Someday you'll find out,” GG said, while she stared at me in this awful, knowing way. I shivered, suddenly afraid that GG was going to tell me that I was your doppelgänger. That she'd created me to be your shadow. I would deny it. Of course I would. Even if it did feel so terribly much like truth itself.

I never got the chance to hear what else GG was going to say, though, because you had appeared, whistling a happy tune that was the signal for “mission accomplished.”

“Never mind GG,” you said, bringing me back to our picnic. With a flourish, you handed me a spoon. “Where should we start?”

I tapped the spoon against my lips, taking my time deciding, trying to get into the spirit of the thing. “Ummm . . . How about the butterscotch pudding?”

“Excellent choice.”

Together we dipped our spoons into the bowl, clinked them together in a silent toast, and then each took a dainty little bite. After that, though, we stopped pretending and tore into the feast. You even let me lick the pudding bowl since butterscotch pudding was my favorite.

When it was over, I lay on the grass moaning, my stomach painfully full. You packed the now empty dishes back into the picnic basket, and we started to walk home. Halfway there, I began to sweat and shake. Tears streamed from my eyes.

“Piper!” I cried, and then I fell down, unable to take another step.

Pain like I'd never felt before came in waves. I curled into a ball, trying to make myself small, wishing I could disappear entirely.

You took my hand in yours and gave it a tight squeeze. “It's okay, Sky. You're gonna be okay.”

“No,” I sobbed. “I'm dying. I am, I know I am, Piper.”

You peeled my eyes open and then lowered yourself to the ground so that your nose was pressed against mine. “You're not dying. You're getting stronger. You're growing armor. And it hurts.”

“I don't know what that means.”

“Remember the dirt from the reformatory, Sky? Remember the plan? Well, today's the day.”

“You put it in the food.” I felt stupid for not guessing it sooner.

“Just a tiny bit. Next time it'll be more.”

“Next time.” I moaned the words and rolled away from you, hating you for doing this to me. Hating you for wanting to do it again. “Nooo.”

Undeterred, you finger-combed my hair away from my face and then rubbed your hand against my back. “Do you want to know when I first got the idea? It was in English class. We read this poem. It's pretty long, but this is the good part.”

“I'm gonna be sick,” I moaned.

“Try not to throw up. The longer you can hold it in, the better it will be next time.”

I cried then for real. Hot, angry tears of pain and anger and frustration. I cried, knowing that I would have to do this again. And as I cried, you recited the poem:

 

“There was a king reigned in the East:

There, when kings will sit to feast,

They get their fill before they think

With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.

He gathered all the springs to birth

From the many-venomed earth;

First a little, thence to more,

He sampled all her killing store;

And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,

Sate the king when healths went round.

They put arsenic in his meat

And stared aghast to watch him eat;

They poured strychnine in his cup

And shook to see him drink it up:

They shook, they stared as white's their shirt:

Them it was their poison hurt.

—I tell the tale that I heard told.

Mithridates, he died old.”

 

Every time after that, when we had our feasts of dirt, you would recite that same poem for me. And when I told you that wasn't enough, you added a patient explanation of the plan. We were taking the reformatory poison now in small, controlled doses to build a resistance to it in case we ended up there later. The more people who had this immunity, the easier it would become to fight the reformatory from the inside.

I hated the explanation. I hated that poem. And I hated you. Every single time.

But I still went along with it. Resentful as hell but still a good little soldier.

Eventually I asked why you weren't getting sick too. You said it must affect everyone differently. But when we started sneaking the dirt into the school cafeteria food, everyone who ate it got sick. Everyone. Every time. But not you. Not once. It was like the reformatory dirt didn't affect you at all. But that couldn't be right.

Could it, Piper?