River: A Novel (7 page)

 My eyes
snapped open to a bright room. I was warm in blankets and comfortably sheltered
from the cold, stormy blasts of my unconscious world. Uncertain of
where
I was, however, I sank back in hopes it wouldn’t come to me, effectively ruining
my relief and contentment.  There were things I didn’t want to remember.

 Unfortunately,
by sitting up, the previous day and night rushed back. After all the recall, my
head was in both my hands. I still couldn’t believe what was happening and had
to nurse a killer headache as well. Untangling my legs from the mess of sheets,
I looked around bleary eyed at an ultra-cool room, glossy and modern. Desperate
to find some aspirin, I guessed that a bathroom resided behind one of the frosted
glass doors. Who knew what the day would bring—talking trees or a wicked witch?
Whatever it was, I needed to be
ready.

 Emerging
from the bedroom, I noticed blankets and a pillow folded neatly on the sofa. Danny’s
maid must’ve arrived. Unsure about speaking, I shuffled to where the aroma of
coffee originated. After waving at
Dan, who smiled in return, I pointed to a mug and he nodded. He
must have heard me approach because my coffee was already sugared with frothy cream.
The warm, sweet drink made me feel more aware, and I hoped it would kick in the
aspirin. I’d only figured out what was in the bottle by the label. It was a
depiction of cartoon characters holding their heads in pain. 

  After a
few seconds, a plate of pancakes with butter and syrup appeared in front of me.
My stomach groaned as the smell made me suddenly ravenous. I still remembered a
little sign language from school and thought I did pretty well with the
Good
morning
and
Thank
you
I busted out, but he just looked at
me curiously. I held up my hands and mouthed
what?
I was pretty
impressed with myself for remembering
.
It had been three years since I’d taken that class.

 Music
played, something lovely, but I could still hear Dan’s pencil scratching. 

 
Why aren’t you speaking
?
 

 He showed
me his query, keeping the paper far from the syrup.

 I stared at
him over my empty fork. As he handed me the paper, I squinted and realized my
glasses were missing. “Isn’t your maid here?” I asked under the music.

 Dan shook.
I froze, wondering if he was having some kind of episode. He couldn’t write for
a moment—he was laughing too hard. I took two more bites and ignored him. I’m
sorry, but there was no way Dan’s place was this neat and clean with only
himself to depend on, in any world.

I just snap my
fingers and the
place cleans itself, like
an oven.
 

 “Ha ha,” I
said to his semi-witty reply, rolling my eyes as he erased the teasing comment.
I was sure his oven was immaculate, too. Whatever. I had bigger issues on my
mind. 

 “Did the music
last night give me this headache?” My voice reverberated in my skull, adding to
the pressure.  

 Dan was
instantly serious. His head bobbed up and down
yes
. I had a Lulling
hangover.

 “It was the
weirdest feeling. I couldn’t think… couldn’t form words. It was almost like
being anesthetized.” 

 His mouth
made a strange line across his face: anger. I looked away. Maybe my being here with
the ability to talk was causing him pain, though unintentionally. “We need to
find a better way to communicate, you apparently can’t go around writing, and code
is too time-consuming. What’s this signing you’re doing? Was my ‘thank you’
right?”

 He nodded and
held up a finger for me to wait. Impatient, I walked around the table to read
over his shoulder.

It’s different,
as though you have a strange dialect
.

 Danny
paused, handed me my newly polished glasses,—had he
buffed
the scratches
out of them?—and pointed to a new question:

 
What happened to you
?

 I looked at
him, trying to find a way to explain that wouldn’t sound crazy. Amnesia
wouldn’t work, having run straight to him the previous day. I decided to go for
the truth, maybe he could help me figure out how I’d arrived here, in whatever
form, damaged or whole, depending on how my situation was perceived. 

 “I woke up
in some woods by a lake.” My reply was quick, getting the words out there, for
better or worse. I began pacing nervously; the coffee was making me more anxious,
if that were possible. “I’m not sure where. It was outside of this town, and I‘d
never been there,” I glanced around pointedly, “or here. My memories are barely
coherent of right before the time I woke up, the previous night, I guess. But,
none of my memories is of this place—I don’t know anything about River or… Mutes
and Speakers.” My heart thudded apprehensively with the mere mention of the
murderous Speakers.

 I could
feel Dan’s eyes on me, but I couldn’t look at him. Pacing again, I went on with
full disclosure, consequences be damned. “I’m from New York, a huge city with
millions of people, and most can talk. If they can’t, it’s not because they’re
muted by others. You grew up there, too, with a much more cluttered room, I
imagine.” I threw him a grin, meeting his stoic eyes for just a second, and continued,
“I grew up in foster care, shuffled from place to place, after my parents had abandoned
me… when I was a newborn.” Unwilling to go there at all, I skipped ahead. “I
used to be a dancer. I’d met
you at a party with Petra, my best friend until she left, and I was injured.
After I stopped dancing, we hung out constantly. I even moved in with you
temporarily.” I finally looked up at him again, after staring at the floor. Danny
was gazing toward the door,
probably deciding if he should call the Speaker police on me and catapult my insanity
as far from him as possible.

 Without
knowing what to do, I rambled on. I was almost looking forward to the Funny Farm
destined to be in my near future. At least I would know where I was. “We were
at a party you were throwing. I was depressed, so you gave me some sort of drug
to make me feel better.” He looked at me then, horrified. “I’d asked for it,” I
admitted, not blaming him—he hadn’t done anything. As far as I knew, Old Dan
and my old life were gone. “That’s all I remember,” I paused while staring at
him. “Danny… you can speak, or you could before I woke
up here
.”

 His eyes
widened while his face fell. Mine felt hot, feverish. Vertigo hit, and I
grabbed the counter. “I don’t feel so great.” Straightening upright with some
effort, I surmised that we both needed a break from the dismal exposition. “Do
you think I could use your shower?” Who knew if I’d get one in the mental
prison—maybe they would just hose me down periodically. I shook off the dark
thought before looking at Dan tentatively. Though my story was the truth, I
wasn’t sure he believed me. Even though the present was mind-boggling to me, it
was tangible. My past was only in my head. Could every single one of my
memories be wrong?

 I focused
my eyes into Dan’s. At the
very least, he had to see that I believed my story. He nodded, smiling a
little. With an arm around me, he walked us back to the bathroom and took out
clean towels, along with a robe so soft and warm that it made me want to cry. He
gingerly touched my sleeve with a scrubbing motion. He wanted to wash my
clothes? This was Danny—he who had worn the same shirt until I’d begged him to
change to save my
own
sense of smell? Then I remembered. Old Dan was gone. Enter New Dan, neat freak
of the New Universe.

 Dizzy again,
I nodded and smiled. “Thanks.”

..................

Showered and
squeaky clean, I sat at the kitchen table to watch Dan write. There were
roughly six pages stacked neatly beside him. He finished another and handed
them to me. “So,” I said while grinning, “you think I’m nuts, right?” He
laughed in his near-silent, breathy way and gave me a goofy thumbs-up. Maybe Old
Dan was in there after all. “You’ve been busy,” I noted as I began to read his
tome.

 Becoming
more alert after the shower, I felt I could take some more truth of where I was,
and how I’d gotten here, or forgotten that I’d always been here. Trying to
prevent another headache, I stopped that train of thought and tried to focus on
the present. The best thing I could do was not obsess over my memories,
including the hard evidence that they could possibly be false. I didn’t want to
bring up that the scar from my knee surgery seven weeks ago was gone, as if
there had been no injury. Embracing denial, I decided to keep that to myself
until I knew more. I was glad the migraine had subsided to a dull ache since the
first thing I read made my head spin
.

I don’t think
you are crazy, Elodie. I think something extraordinary has happened to you. Somehow
you have your speech back. I know you had been muted
before because
you
passed the tests
.

 “Tests?” I
must’ve looked terrified, because he held up his hands and pointed to the pages
that I should read on.

Every kid is
tested when they are four years old and begin
school. These tests
are to see what we
are
proficient in. You
were a dancer
,
I
was a musician. We had also been tested to make sure we’d had the muting
procedure and didn’t slip through the cracks.
I
know you had the surgery because
we were in some
of the same
classes due to our location and given areas of study, or suites.
We
always ate lunch together
.

 “We’ve
known each other that long?” I smiled. This information
made me feel better. He knotted two
fingers—universal for
tight
. Danny was definitely an ally. Still
smiling, I continued to read and concluded that the feeling of dread in my gut
was all a mistake.

     Petra is
here, too
.

 “What?” I
jumped in my seat
and felt myself grin hugely. Dan wasn’t exactly smiling
while he pressed a finger to
his lips, reminding me to keep it down. He had music going, but it was later in
the morning, and a neighbor might hear my voice. Danny tapped the page, wanting
me to continue.

We can’t be in
contact with Petra at all. She’s been blacklisted by the Speakers—anyone
friendly toward her is instantly on their radar. Besides, I’m not convinced she
is your friend. She spread rumors about you and a Speaker, hoping it would get
to the Speakers and dislocate you from the
theater, or worse.
I know this because I saw her sign to
an usher weeks ago. The only
thing I can think of
is
that she was jealous
.

 I scoffed,
hissing fervently, “I don’t believe it.” Petra would never do
that. And she was still my friend,
even if we weren’t very close anymore. 

 “What did
she tell the usher?” My heart deflated as I asked. Petra didn’t have a mean
bone in her body; she could be a little harsh to those she didn’t exactly
like,
but it was more sarcasm than anything. Besides that… she was jealous of
me
?
There was no way. She was perfection, not only in dance, but in everything. Dan
tapped the paper, frowning.

 The
soap-opera story I was reading continued, unfortunately.  

She signed
that you had confided to her of being raped by one of the Speakers while newly pregnant,
and he was going to force you to have an abortion in order to keep you as his personal
concubine.

 “You’re
kidding me, right?” I whispered while digesting this disturbingly bizarre
information.

 Dan grabbed
my hand, sensing my distress, while I argued, “It can’t be true. Someone else
must’ve made that up and she was dispelling the rumor, not circulating it.” There
had to be an explanation for what Dan had seen, and for the look of pity he was
giving me. And then I remembered where I was. This story could have been
entirely true if a different Elodie had been running around out there. I glanced
down at my knee.
This is still me—my body, my
soul—isn’t it?
The
signing everyone did here looked exceptionally complex; Dan must’ve gotten the
story wrong. I read on, hoping the ending was not as horrifying as the
beginning.

You
volunteered
to have an exam, proving the rumor false. Petra
was reprimanded
. 

 Well,
I
definitely wasn’t pregnant. It would have been a miracle, seeing as how I was a
late-bloomer in the sex department. My eyes shifted to my knee. I wasn’t, was
I? My face grew hot with a flash of fear. At the same time I became troubled
about Petra. She’d been
reprimanded
. Punishment here seemed to be unusually
cruel for mundane things; for example, death to a Mute with the ability to talk.