Thicker Than Blood (Thicker Than Blood #1)(129)

I don’t remember the last word I uttered. I don’t remember the last meal I had. I don’t remember the last hour I saw on a clock. I don’t remember …

I don’t remember my name.

“That was a little joke of mine,” she says with a squeaky snicker. “Wake the dead. You’re not laughing.”

I’m panicked by the silence in my body where a heart should be racing. I’m gasping for air that isn’t there, with lungs that stubbornly refuse to fill. I’m in agony, I think.

“Let go of my hair!—You’ll pull it straight off!”

Her soft hair clenched in my fist, it’s the first sensation I have that isn’t horrible. It grounds me like an anchor. Suddenly gravity makes sense. My position of lying on cold hard ground makes sense. I’m aware of my ears for the first time and the information they helpfully lend … the ambiance of howling winds and whispers … the distant rumbling of thunder … the precise location of the strange accented voice that’s been speaking to me …

“You’re coming to, at last. I feared there was no hope for you, screaming as you were. Now please, a finger at a time, let go of my hair.”

My eyes have been open, but they only just now discover how to work. The furious haze of earlier releases me to my new world. Hovering over me is the face of a twenty-something-year-old with wide-set beady eyes and curls of black hair that gather atop two sharp shoulders.

“Really, I’d hoped for a prettier Raise, but you’ll have to do. Oh, your skin is so tragic.”

Who is this person?

“My name is Helena Trim,” she tells me, “and yours will be—Oh, I hadn’t noticed your hair! It’s so … white. A snowdrift in a dream. Almost makes up for your face. I’ll call you Winter.” She smiles for the first time. It sits oddly on her stiff, pointy face. “There, that was easy. Now are we ready to try standing?”

I push myself off the damp ground. Curiously, I find all the pain and torment I’d only a moment ago felt is gone, leaving an empty ringing in my ears that echoes down my body like a bell. I feel hollow. I feel weak. I feel like a vacuous shell holding nothing, not even air.

“Where,” I say, startled for a moment by the sound of my own voice, “am I?”

“The Harvesting Grounds,” this person called Helena informs me. “This is where the dead are Raised, girl. This is where everyone’s Final Life begins … if this can be called a life.”

“I’m—I’m dead?”

“Undead.” She delicately moves a strand of hair out of my eyes, wrinkles her face in pity. “We should get you to the Refinery straight away. Death hasn’t been kind to your—ah, never mind.”

I don’t remember leaving the murky field. I don’t remember being guided down a winding road that cut through an endless array of dead trees and into a city. I don’t remember walking crowded streets or being steered into a squatty pink building, but now I’m leaning back on some kind of doctor’s table and there’s a large flush-faced woman with green eye shadow looming over me.

“Her hair is just exquisite!” she squeals, taking a handful of it into her puffy palm. “I’ve never seen hair like this, the color of pearls. And coming straight from the earth, no less! Her skin, however … oh, help us all.”

“Will someone,” I whisper quietly, “please show me a mirror?”

“Not a chance, sweetheart. Roxie, dear precious, hand me my Chromo and a two-inch carving blade, will you?”

I’m not sure what is happening, but it reminds me of prom night. The large lady starts working on my nails while gossiping sweetly with the others. Another girl who couldn’t be more than twelve years old starts scrubbing my legs for some reason. The one called Roxie takes to my hair, combing it and applying some pungent formula that makes my nose recoil. Helena keeps stealing my attention away, talking her little head off and, I suppose, trying to distract me from looking at myself. Despite her efforts, I catch a glimpse of what looks like an arm missing half its flesh, the bones of the hand visible. Of course I don’t recognize it as my own hand because, well, denial’s a powerful thing. And I’m still pretty sure I’m dreaming, except I’m not sure where I’d wake up. The idea of having a bed, or even a home to return to seems strange.

“Have I lost my memory?” I ask finally. “For good?”

“Oh, here we go,” the large lady sings.

Helena faces me quite seriously. “Yes and no. Your Old Life is gone. Your memory of it and all the memory you had in your previous life is no longer. It’ll come back someday, sure, but it’s best not to think of it at all. Just let go now and never again look back.”

“But—But I remember how to speak, obviously. I know language. I know how to walk. I remember concepts like … like prom night!—of all things. How is that possible if I lost all my memory?”

“Some things stay, most things go,” the large lady chimes in, working some tool into my foot. “It’s not ours to decide. Do you prefer cherry or coral toenails?”

I move my eyes back to Helena. “But you said it would come back someday?—my memory?”

“It’s called a Life Dream,” she answers. “Or Waking Dream. Or the Dreaming Death. It has many names, but it’s when everything rushes back all at once, the memory of your Old Life returning to you in an instant. It will happen someday, but I assure you, it will be like an unwelcome enemy arriving at your doorstep. It’s best to forget it and leave it in the dust behind you, girl.”