Unremembered (Unremembered #1)(30)

Cody flashes me a funny look. ‘Yeah.’

We wait as the screen cycles through a series of images and text. Cody’s eyes dart nervously up at me, taking in my new dress. ‘You look . . . nice, by the way.’

I smile and say thank you because it seems like the appropriate response.

He steals another peek. ‘That dress is . . .’ he starts, but his face colours and he looks away. ‘Well . . . it fits. Which is a nice change. That’s all.’

I smooth the soft purple fabric with my hands. ‘Yes,’ I agree. ‘It fits very well.’

Cody clears his throat. ‘So anyway, you type whatever you want into this little box,’ he explains hastily, pointing to the screen, ‘and Google will show you everything there is to know about the subject.’

He pulls the computer towards him. ‘Like this for example.’ He types in: Freedom Airlines flight 121, survivor

He presses a key marked ‘Enter’. Instantly the screen morphs into a list of results. Halfway down the page there’s a row of photographs. Of me. I recognize one as the picture they showed on the news, and the rest appear to have been taken when I was walking from the hospital to the car the day I was released.

The day I saw the boy in the crowd.

‘Change it,’ I tell Cody urgently. ‘Put in something else. Please.’

He studies my face curiously for a moment before finally yielding. ‘OK,’ he says. ‘What did you want to look up?’

I lower my gaze. ‘Something I think I might have remembered but I’m not sure what it is.’

His eyebrows rise in interest. ‘No kidding? What was it?’

I take a deep breath and let my mind drift back to the dressing room. Although I don’t want to repeat it, I have to know what it means.

‘“Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments,”’ I recite, fully expecting Cody to display the same befuddled expression that I had when I first heard the words, and to confirm what I’ve believed since then: that they don’t mean anything.

But he doesn’t.

Instead he laughs.

‘What?’ I ask, affronted.

‘That’s the first memory you’ve had!?’ He laughs harder.

I don’t understand why this is humorous. And I don’t appreciate his amusement either. ‘Yes. Why are you laughing?’

He wipes his eyes. ‘Sorry. I just find it totally messed up that you can’t remember what the Internet is but you know the words to Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116.’

My eyes widen in surprise. ‘Shakespeare’s what?’

‘It’s a famous poem.’

I feel somewhat disappointed. A poem. Why would I remember a poem? Of all things? ‘Well, what does it mean?’ I ask impatiently.

Cody rolls his eyes. ‘It’s some sappy crap about eternal love or something.’ He sticks his finger in his mouth and makes a gagging sound with his throat.

Eternal love?

I think of the locket sitting in the top drawer of my dresser. Two hearts, intersecting at their cores.

‘How do you know it?’ I ask.

‘We studied Shakespeare in school last year.’

‘So it’s possible that’s where I learned it too?’ I ask, my hopes instantly rising. ‘In school?’

Not in some sinister lab.

Just a regular, everyday school.

He shrugs. ‘Probably. Girls totally dig that mushy stuff. So I guess I’m not surprised you remember it.’ He contemplates for a second. ‘Or you could have been a serious history buff or something.’

This piques my interest. ‘History?’

‘Yeah,’ Cody says, as though it was obvious. ‘That poem was written like four hundred years ago.’

My blood starts to pump faster as my mind automatically does the math. ‘Four hundred years ago,’ I repeat. ‘In what year?’

He shrugs again. ‘I don’t know. Sixteen something.’

‘Sixteen what?’ I demand, surprised by the intensity in my own voice.

Cody shoots me a look of contempt. ‘Chill out. I don’t know.’

Exasperated, I gesture towards the computer. ‘Well, can you look it up?’

He throws his hands in the air. ‘Fine, fine. Calm down.’

As he starts typing, my leg bounces nervously. Cody shoots me another strange look.

The screen morphs into a page of text. An illustration of a man with puffy black hair and a white collared shirt appears under the name ‘William Shakespeare’.

‘OK, let’s see.’ Cody leans in. ‘Sonnet 116. It says here, first published in –’ his eyes quickly scan the page – ‘1609.’





19


VISITOR


Heather says Scott wants us to meet him in town for dinner. We’re going to go to something called a restaurant. Cody explains from the back seat of the car that it’s what people do when they don’t want to cook at home. Or when they want better food than what their mother can make.

Heather gives him a bitter look in the rear-view mirror. ‘Just be grateful we’re bringing you at all, Cody.’

He crosses his arms and makes a pff sound with his lips.

‘Your father and I are still extremely disappointed in you.’