Change Places with Me(21)

“Oh, your jacket,” she said.

“Not a problem.”

She looked down. “My hands look younger now.”

“You mean cleaner.” Cooper was starting to sound worried. Outside, the icy winds were even more chilling because Rose had gotten kind of sweaty inside. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Last week it wasn’t this cold.” She thought hard, frowning. “There was no weather at all.”

Cooper actually took her arm. “Enough zoo for today,” he said, leading her to the bus stop. “And, um, by the way, one thing you can count on is there’s always weather—it’s breezy, or raining, or the clouds are hazy, or there are no clouds at all and the sky’s a brilliant blue. You know, even if the air feels like ‘room temperature,’ that’s still weather, right?”

“I’m telling you how it was” was all Rose would say.

She was quiet on the bus home. She leaned her head against the window and stared out at rows of houses with patches of lawns surrounded by chain-link fences. Some lawns were well manicured; some were scruffy; some had wildflowers at the edges, bursting at the seams. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that Cooper kept glancing over at her. His coat was taking up half her seat.

After a while, Cooper cleared his throat. “Hey, don’t take this the wrong way, but . . . were you really at the zoo last week?”

“Of course!”

“I’m not so sure. All signs point to no on the Magic Eight Ball, if you know what I mean.” He hesitated. “My timing might be really bad here—I kinda hate to bring this up, but maybe your memory got tampered with. I mean, that happens these days. Do you ever think that?”

Rose shook her head.

“Hey, it might explain a few things.”

She kept shaking her head. There wasn’t a big enough no when it came to something like this.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I would never do such a thing, never. If you knew me at all, you’d know that.”

“Well, I’m getting to know you, right?” Cooper looked at her intently. “You’ve changed a lot, your hair, your clothes, your personality—”

She smiled brightly. The explanation for all that came to her easily. “I’m growing up.”

“Hey, I’m just saying, maybe it wasn’t your idea at all, maybe somebody arranged it for you. It wouldn’t be the first time, from what I’ve read.”

That stopped her cold. The receipt, seeing Forget-Me-Not—the flower place that couldn’t possibly be a flower place. Had something been done to her memory there? She couldn’t help thinking, If anyone did that to me—well, I don’t hate people, but I’d be very unhappy with that person forever.

Back in Belle Heights, Rose told Cooper what she was about to do. Cooper, looking even smaller in his big coat, suggested it might be a good idea to go home instead. She shook her head again. Then he offered to accompany her, but Rose said she had to do this alone. She knew, without once looking behind her, that he was watching until she disappeared from sight.

Outside Forget-Me-Not, sparrows chattered loudly in what sounded like a ferocious argument. What were they so upset about? Rose pressed the buzzer next to a camera lens.

“May I help you?” said a woman’s voice that was flat and generic.

Rose just stood there, frozen.

“Yes?” said the voice. “I can see that you’re still there.”

She managed to get the words out: “Is this a flower shop?”

There was a pause. “No.”

“What is it, then?”

“A stationery store.”

“Can I see some stationery?”

“You’re not trade. We only sell to trade.”

“I’m trade.” Rose didn’t know what it meant.

There was another pause. A hydro-bus sped by and hit a bump with a loud clunk. “Appointment only,” the lady said finally, and: “We’re about to close.”

“I know your voice,” Rose said. “The kinds of things you say.”

There was a sigh. “Oh, for heaven’s sake.” The voice was suddenly impatient. “This is Rose Hartel, isn’t it? The hair’s different—it threw me. Listen, go home, Rose. You never came here.”

“I’m not leaving,” Rose said, with a flash of what felt like a long-familiar streak of stubbornness.

Another sigh.

The door buzzed. Rose opened it and stepped inside.

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PART 2


The Glass Coffin

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CHAPTER 12


“It feels like dead man’s finger!”

That was Clara’s excuse, why she wouldn’t hold hands with her stepmother when they were crossing the street. It was something her dad had shown her. If you put your palm flat up against someone else’s palm and, with your other hand, rub the outsides of both index fingers, your finger feels numb, like your hand isn’t yours anymore.

“Her hand does not feel like dead man’s finger,” her dad would tell her. His voice always sounded like he was smiling, even when he wasn’t. He was tall like a tree and had blue eyes with heavy lids, so sometimes Clara couldn’t see them. “You hurt her feelings.”