Wilder Girls(37)

“Okay?” she says.

“Yeah.”

I settle in, tuck my face against her neck. Close my eye, hope I dream about Reese, about this afternoon in the barn.

Instead, it’s Byatt waiting for me, and I take her by the hand, lead her into the woods. There’s no light, but somehow I can see as I stitch her into her shroud.





BYATT





CHAPTER 11


I told a story when I was ten years old.

It was just after summer break. My best friend was a girl named Tracy, whose clothes were always freshly ironed, and when Tracy got back from summer break, she told me she’d met a new friend at camp.

I didn’t go to camp. I didn’t meet a new friend.

So I told Tracy something else. I told her I’d met a girl named Erin, Erin who rode horses and swam all year round. She goes to a different school, I said, and she lives on my street, just a few houses down.

And I wrote letters and told Tracy they were from Erin. And I had my picture taken with my horrible cousin, and I showed Tracy, told her it was Erin. And then one day I told her Erin wasn’t at home anymore. I told her Erin’s mother had said Erin was sick. And the day after that, I dressed in black, and I told Tracy that Erin was dead.

Tracy cried. And she cried to her mother, and she cried to our teacher, who took me to the counselor’s office and asked what had happened. And I told the whole story over again. Because I liked—I like—to see what I can do.



* * *



—

   I blink, and my mother is at the window, there is a window, and my mother is there in blue like morning.

“I thought we were past this,” she says.

We were and sometimes we still are, but there is a gnawing in my heart I cannot get out. The window shuts and disappears, and my mother gets taller and taller.

“We’re very disappointed,” she says, her head brushing the ceiling. “Disappointed disappointed disappointed.”



* * *



—

Usually, it was an accident. A lie I never set out to tell. A trick I never meant to play. I’d open my mouth, and something strange would come out, new and not mine. Like there was someone else inside.

I’m sorry, I’d tell my parents, whenever something I’d made came crashing down. I never wanted to hurt anyone. And sometimes I meant it.

But sometimes I didn’t. Anger, depthless and black, and I couldn’t cut it out of me. Growing and growing until it was all I had room for.

Go to Raxter, my mother said. Start again.

And I tried. But we all have things we’re good at.



* * *



—

   I don’t miss talking. I thought I would, but it’s so easy this way. The smallest word written down, and they’ll build a version of me in their head. Sounding just the right way, meaning just the right thing. Half my work done for me.

When Paretta comes back I see her shape through the curtain around my bed. I see her stop in the doorway, and I see her hesitate. Like she’s remembering what I did. But then she’s pulling back the curtain, and it’s the same patched-up blue suit, the same faintly patterned mask. I wonder if they have any spares, or if the other doctors had to stitch up the tears I scratched in theirs.

“Good morning,” she says.

My hands are strapped down. Can’t reach for the whiteboard Paretta props against the bed, can’t do anything but give her a thumbs-up, and I certainly won’t be doing that.

“Do you know what a resonant frequency is?”

I raise my eyebrows. What a way to start the day.

“It’s the frequency at which a particular object vibrates,” Paretta explains. She sounds uncomfortable, like she’s not used to putting anything so simply. “When you match an object’s resonant frequency, it can break. Like a glass, if you sing the right note.”

I clench my fists, wishing she’d let me use my whiteboard. I don’t understand why she’s telling me this.

   “Most everything has one.” She looks at me for a long moment. “Even bone, Byatt.”

I swallow hard. Remember the pain shattering through me, shaking me apart. Me, and Paretta, and anybody else who heard me scream.

“There’s nothing,” Paretta says softly, “that ever hits that frequency hard enough to make it hurt. Nothing but you and your voice.” She reaches out and rests one gloved finger against my throat. “What is it doing to you, sweetheart?”

I don’t know, I want to say. You tell me.

Instead, she steps back, the sadness sweeping out of her eyes as I hear her clear her throat. “I’d like to show you something,” she says, waiting briefly for an answer I can’t give. “But I think you can understand why I’ll need your word that we won’t have a repeat of the other day.”

I nod, because what else is there to do, and she bends over me to unbuckle my wrists. This close she smells like sweat, like salt. I can see patches of dry skin at her hairline, a mole at the corner of her eye.

I’m not strong enough yet to stand on my own, so Paretta has to help me into a wheelchair. Shivering out from under the blankets, legs bruised, toenails broken. Our bodies never seemed odd at Raxter, but here, I pull down the hem of my hospital gown, sit up straight to hide the second curve of my spine.