A Perfect Machine(63)

The light from the woman’s skin flickered, her eyelids opened slowly; her mouth, too, opened, and she seemed to want to speak.

“Faye,” Henry said, his voice a little clearer than before. Smoother. The battle in his head to keep the new darkness in his mind at bay was taking up nearly all his strength. He knew he was losing, but he also knew that once he gave up he would probably never be able to get himself back. Confusion regarding Faye still distracted him, and it was all he could do to try to maintain a grip on the true situation – or what he felt was the true situation. And even that seemed to be slipping through his fingers now. Everywhere in his mind was uncertainty, an ever-growing alien darkness, and a blinding, oversimplistic need to just try to understand.

“She’s here, Henry,” Milo said. “She’s safe. But I don’t understand what’s happening with–”

The woman’s skin lost some of its glow, then. Whatever internal source had been powering it was fading. Pulling back.

Then the woman slid from Henry’s hand, used her arms to steady herself. Stood up, moved away from Henry several feet.

Then she spoke.

In Adelina’s voice.



* * *



Before Adelina appeared in the woman’s body, she’d been back in her strange Otherland – the alien swirls and occasional lightning storms less a soothing balm than usual. She knew time was short, and the way she received messages in this place – the way she knew what to do and say when she returned to the world – was changing. Before, she was given no insight into the reasoning behind any of the things she was told. The thought would just appear in her mind and, moments later, she would appear near Milo to impart what she could. Why Milo had been chosen in the first place to receive her instructions was still a mystery.

There was certainly something compelling about him, but Adelina could never put her finger on what. She knew only that when she’d first laid eyes on him she felt awkward, but at the same time as though she’d known him for many, many years. Each time she appeared to him, she felt emotionally closer. Maybe it was nothing deeper than the fact that he was able to see her when so many others couldn’t.

Whatever force sent Adelina to Milo in the first place had created the imprint of memories in her mind of a life she’d never had with him. The imprint was such that it didn’t leave true memories – memories that could be accessed and replayed on the screen of her mind – but rather that the residue of the memory remained. These were memories that could never be given direct voice. No one event could be pointed to. The same had been done to Milo.

For a while, in the beginning, she had tried to communicate with whomever had been putting these thoughts into her head. But there was never any answer, no two-way communication. She eventually gave up. But now that she felt things coming to a head – though she had no way of knowing what kind of head was approaching – she felt she needed to try again.

She decided the best way would be to focus on something she could see, like a lightning fork in one of the many storms that raged around her. Once focused, she would close her eyes and try to communicate using the specific imagery still burned into her retinas. At first, it didn’t seem to be working, but then she’d used this process after telling Milo that she would try to let people see him.

This time, when she asked, she felt no response per se, but felt a subtle shift. It was so small as to be no more than a molecular distinction, but enough that she knew someone had heard her, and what she’d requested had come to pass.

Feeling empowered by this discovery, when she’d returned to her Otherland, she tried the same thing again – this time asking that she be allowed to return herself. To let people see her now.

She didn’t know how it would happen, or if it would happen at all, but then she had vanished from her Otherland and appeared in Henry’s hand.

In another woman’s body.



* * *



The moment Adelina arrived in the woman’s body, she sensed everything around her, immediately knew the situation. Was aware of every detail as intimately as if she’d witnessed it herself.

She sensed Milo’s hesitation in speaking, said, “This woman – the woman whose body I’m in – her name is Margaret Shearman. She is very sad about her husband’s death, but she wants to live. She wants to carry on without him.”

“Well, yeah. Why wouldn’t she?”

“Grief can be debilitating, Milo. Sometimes impossible to overcome. Impossible to see your way through.”

“Are you going to let her go? She’s not yours. I mean, you’re not her. Whatever.”

“She’s got barely any life left, Milo. She’s as good as dead already, and there’s nothing I can do to save her.”

Adelina felt something black and hateful tugging at her psyche, then, trying to yank her back to her Otherland. Some deep part of her understood at that moment that she was being manipulated – that whatever agency she had in this world was due to her own will. And that this other presence was fighting her every step of the way. She didn’t know what it wanted, but she knew it didn’t want to help Faye – didn’t want to help anyone. Not toward any positive end, anyway. She felt shame well up inside her, felt this as strongly now as she’d felt any emotion in her entire life.

“Listen, Milo, I don’t have much time. We’ve all been manipulated. I know that now. I feel something pulling at my thoughts.”