Falls the Shadow (2 page)

So I started counting the gray-speckled ceiling tiles instead. I'd just made it to twenty-seven when I heard the heavy
whoosh
of a door opening, and I looked down and met my father's gaze. He was wearing that new, cautious smile of his. The one that never quite made it to his eyes the way the old one—the one he'd had before Violet got sick—did. And without a word to me or Mother, he stepped to the side and pulled my sister's replacement into the room.

It was like seeing a ghost. My heart skipped wildly, all the way up into my throat. I swallowed several times, trying to get it back down to where it belonged, trying to clear a path for words.

As if I really knew what to say.

What should you say to someone you'd known your whole life but were just now meeting for the first time? Was I just supposed to pick up where we left off? That was what my parents wanted, I knew. That was how this worked. And it was what Mother was doing now, fluttering all over New-Violet and asking a million pointless questions, saying a million pointless things. I hadn't seen her this animated in a long time.

But then, first impressions were important. So of course she was making the extra effort.

I thought about following her example—I should have followed her example, maybe—but I couldn't bring myself
to do it. I was still too numb. Confused. She seemed to have forgotten about me, anyways, and after I purposely avoided my father's gaze, he left me alone too. I clasped my hands behind me, leaned back against the smooth wall, and just studied my new family.

Before she got sick, Violet had always been beautiful. Like a thunderstorm was beautiful in its chaos, in black clouds billowing and lightning dancing across the dry earth. It was the kind of beautiful our grandma said would get you into trouble if you weren't careful.

It didn't seem possible or fair, but somehow this Violet was even more beautiful; her skin was like porcelain, flawless and perfect. Her cheeks were rosy. Those dark, dark eyes sparkled underneath her long lashes. This definitely wasn't the sick Violet I'd gotten used to over the past months; the circles and tired creases that sank her skin were gone. Her hair wasn't dull and coarse anymore, but black and shiny as polished obsidian. And when she moved that tall, willowy figure, it was with grace and purpose—like she'd choreographed every step.

Mother said the old and the new were the same.

I reserved judgment.

“Catelyn,” Father said suddenly. “Are you just going to stand there? Come say hello to your sister.”

My sister.

Sister, sister, sister
. They called her that so easily. Cautiously, reluctantly, I pushed away from the safety of the wall. My father's words were heavy with expectation, and I didn't want to disappoint him.

New-Violet's eyes followed me as I stepped toward her, a smile forced onto my face.
Do I look like Mother now?
I wondered.
Am I a statue? Am I doing it right? I'm not going to disappoint them, am I?

“Hi,” I said. My gaze didn't quite meet hers; instead I stared at the faded painting of wildflowers on the wall behind her. “I'm—”

“Catelyn,” she interrupted with a small smile. “But you prefer Cate. And you're twelve, and you're in seventh grade—an honors student. You love singing and horses and strawberry ice cream, and your favorite color is green.” She laughed; a quiet, twinkling sound. “You don't have to tell me anything.”

“I—”

“I know all about you,” she said.

And in that moment, I loved her and I hated her all at once.

I wanted to make it go away, but the smile seemed determined to stay on my face. Apparently, if you faked it long enough, things like that could get stuck. Mother's smile was stuck too. And Father's. We were all stuck, but somehow still moving through the room, talking and laughing as we collected our things and headed for the door as one big, happy family. Complete again.

On the way out, I grabbed the flowers from their makeshift vase, spilling water over the counter in the process. Then I handed them to Violet, blushing and apologizing for the way they'd started to brown around the edges.

I never much cared for
Samantha Voss.

Nobody did, to be honest. Or, at least, nobody
really
did; but the girl had money, and her parents owned half of the city of Haven, so of course she always had a date to socials and an entourage wherever she walked.

Once upon a time, I was even part of that entourage.

Sort of.

Thing was, my parents were always trying to arrange dinner or tea or some other boring affair with the Vosses. Looking back now, I know that it was mostly a smart political maneuver on my father's part, an attempt to win over one of the richest families in Haven. But at the time I could only think about how much I detested it, the way they were always dragging me along with them to these dinners, all the while gushing about just what a lovely, positively
splendid
child that oldest Voss daughter was. How she would be such a good influence on me, and why didn't I have more friends like her? Violet and Samantha had always gotten along well enough, so what was my problem?

Of course, the get-togethers stopped soon after we brought my sister home. Or my sister's
replacement
, as the Vosses loved to point out—while at the same time forbidding their daughter to have anything to do with this new Violet—because they've always been among the most vocal members of Haven's anti-cloning community, despite my father's best efforts to win them over.

I wonder if they regret that, now that Samantha's dead?

They told us in second period. Some of the girls in the front row started to cry. One of them had to leave the room. Jordan Parks asked if this meant we could have the rest of the day off, because he is a stupid, inconsiderate little twit like that. Most of the class—myself included—just sat in stunned silence while the police officer told us how they'd found her body down by the abandoned railroad tracks, and about how they were still investigating what had happened. The officer was a younger guy, clean shaven and with a crew cut that meant business, and in his super-official-sounding voice he told us what a serious investigation this was. Then he gave us a number to call if we knew anything that might help. The call would be confidential, he promised, and though he never came right out with it, we all knew that meant they were looking for clues.

That there was a very good chance Samantha's death wasn't an accident.

That announcement's been hanging over the school ever since. By the time the bell rings for fourth period, everyone's still speaking in hushed voices. They go straight
to class, like death is something contagious. Like it might catch them if they linger too long beside their lockers.

That uneasy stillness, at least, is contagious; I keep my eyes straight ahead as I walk toward the auditorium for Theatre II, and my step is even quicker than usual. I'm trying not to think about it, but I still can't help but remember how I'd normally pass Samantha on the way to this class. I think she was on her way to Biology then. We'd always nod to each other. Just a nod, but somehow I still miss it.

So what if I didn't like her? Doesn't mean I wanted her dead.

And it doesn't mean I'm looking forward to telling my sister about this, if she hasn't already heard. Violet isn't at school today, and maybe that's for the best—because there's no telling how she'll react to this news. Not well, I'm guessing. Samantha was one of the few people besides me that she was actually close to. And it seems strange, since Violet has technically already died once herself, but I suppose this is really the first time she's going to have to deal with
actual
death. The complete and final kind, the kind that the person she cared about isn't coming back from.

What would that be like, I wonder? When it happened to me, at least I had a replacement to take my mind off the funeral. And after four years, I don't even think of her as a replacement. Not most of the time, anyway. Most of the time she is just my sister, for better or worse, and she at least makes it easier to pretend I never had to watch the first Violet die.

And I've gotten very good at pretending. About lots of things. It's taken most of those four years she's been here, but now I can look at this Violet and I can almost force myself to forget that her life didn't begin like mine. I can pretend she's just like me: soft skin, fragile bones, a brain that makes perfectly messy thoughts instead of supercomputer calculations. On a good day, I can convince myself—and anyone else who needs convincing—that this is the same girl who held my hand and walked me into school on my first day of kindergarten. The same sister who managed to convince me to eat a worm when I was three by telling me it was candy. Because this Violet knows all of these things happened, doesn't she? They're all safe and secure, the memories uploaded into that computer brain.

And so on a good day, it's like Violet Benson never died.

Not the way Samantha Voss and everything that went with her did.

*  *  *

I reach the auditorium, go straight to the storage room behind the stage, and grab the things I'll need for the scene we're dress rehearsing today. Opening night for our production of Shakespeare's
Much Ado About Nothing
is in less than a week, and we're still trying to get act two just right; Mrs. Heller is insisting on going all out for the masked-ball scene, which means a completely choreographed traditional dance with everyone up on that tiny stage. It wouldn't be that bad if all the girls weren't wearing huge dresses, and if we weren't all wearing these masks that bring our peripheral vision down to about zero.

I'm taking my own mask out of my locker when some more of the class trickles in—a group of girls, flocking and giggling around Seth Lancaster. Yes, Seth Lancaster himself—with his tan skin and dreadlocks that I somehow find both incredibly hot and incredibly disgusting at the same time. The girls hanging all over him are part of a familiar sight, and I ignore them all while I smooth out the feathers glued to the corner of my mask. They ignore me, too. Nothing new there, either. If all the world's a stage, then this scene could represent my entire existence at Haven High School.

See, people like Seth, and all those girls—they aren't mean to me. Unlike my big sister, I don't get picked on. I don't get bullied or called out. I just get overlooked. I'm like a piece of furniture that's just
there
, upholstered in some boring shade of brown that blends in perfectly with the walls.

And I've worked hard to keep it that way. For months after my sister's replacement joined our family, people kept trying to drag me away from the walls, out into the open so they could attack me with their words and threats and insults. Calling me a freak of nature. A clonie. The paparazzi were worse than ever, following me to school, waiting outside to ambush me when the day was over.

Weathering the storm, Mother called it. That's what we did that first year. Or it's what I did, anyway; and as the months passed, I slowly, slowly managed to become like her—skin thickening, hardening until I was finally that statue nothing could crack. That didn't have to fight back or shout back or have anything to do with anybody. Who
cared what they said? Who cared what they thought? I only needed me.

I only need me.

Not that I'd have anybody else if I wanted them, anyway. Because even though it's not like I'm the only one at this school with a replacement hibernating over at Huxley's labs, I might as well be. Because my father's third term isn't quite over yet. So he's still Mayor Benson, which means Violet and I are still the poster children for cloning in the city of Haven—for better or worse. And at school, it's usually for worse. Even the other kids like me, other
origins
, don't want much to do with me anymore, and I can hardly blame them. Not when there's a spotlight following my every movement.

I'd stay away from me too if I could.

It all stung at first—the hastily averted glances, the whispers behind my back—because I've spent my entire life in this city. I grew up with most of these kids. I went to their birthday parties, rode bikes with them, endured ten years of questionable-looking cafeteria lunches with them. And when we were younger, nobody cared who people's parents were, or about who was an origin or who was a clone. We
knew
about these things of course, because ten years ago the city legislators passed an ordinance that made it mandatory for all of Haven's five hundred and something Huxley families to be registered in a publicly available database. It was supposed to create peace of mind, the proponents of the new law claimed. To show people that their neighbors, that kid they hired
to mow their lawn, the teenager checking them out at the supermarket—all of these people could be clones, and they could assimilate naturally and peacefully into society. That was the intention.

But mostly, I think, it just gave the anti-cloning community clearer targets to aim for.

I'm not sure when it happened, exactly, when the people I used to call friends started aiming for me and my sister. And I have no clue who decided that growing up meant we had to divide ourselves into these tidy little cliques, to absorb the political agendas of our parents—all I know is that it happened. Sometimes I wonder what the city would be like if that law had never passed, or how things would be different if my father wasn't the mayor.

But then I remember what my mother says—that wondering is a frightful waste of time—and then I stop and I go back to blending in with the scenery.

I head to the back room and change. The dress is heavy, with its layers and layers of tulle and faux silk, and it smells faintly of the mothball-filled trunk it was stored in. Its stiff collar makes the back of my neck itch. But it does make me look like I've got some sort of figure—the way it cinches in my waist and pushes up my barely there boobs—so that's kind of nice. I would never wear anything that did that outside this class, of course. But then, I do a lot of things in this class that I wouldn't do anywhere else. It's different here. Outside, I may play the same role over and over—statue-girl, the unbreakable—but in
this auditorium, I can try on other lives. I can be whoever I want to be, as long as I can memorize her lines.