Some of the Parts (23 page)

“A little, just enough to recognize the patterns. Houdini used it to transmit fake messages from the dead to their relatives at his séances.”

“I thought he hated séances. Didn't he spend years discrediting fake mediums and spiritualists?”

Chase grins. “Someone's been doing her research.”

I free my fingers and scratch at my neck, which is prickling. “Just a bit of browsing online.”
To pass the time while I was waiting for inspiration to strike.

He sits up straighter, eager to share this tiny piece of his own weird history. “It's true that Houdini wanted to expose the spiritualists who were scamming people, but he actually really wanted to believe that some of them could contact the dead because he wanted to speak to his mother's spirit. He was just so disappointed over and over again that his hope was—”

“Shattered,” I whisper.

Chase nods. “It ruined his friendship with Arthur Conan Doyle, because Houdini just couldn't go along with what he was seeing. He knew all the tricks. And then it got worse because other people couldn't understand Houdini's tricks, so they started saying
he
was a spiritualist, that he vaporized himself to escape from things.”

“But he must have still believed, right?” I say. “Because he worked out that message with his wife and told her to contact him after he died.”

“I think he was just desperate. He couldn't let go. He couldn't accept that the door between here and there was something that could hold him back.”

“Maybe he'd used up all of his escapes while he was still alive,” I say. Threads of rain are covering the windows now. “Or maybe whatever was over there was better than he thought it would be, so he decided just to stay.”

Maybe Nate is happy where he is. Maybe he imagined this, in his last moments, parts of him being given to other people. Maybe he wasn't afraid at all. Maybe…

Chase reaches over, pulls my hand away from where it's scratching at my neck, and gathers it into his own. “Maybe he wanted his wife to move on with her life.”

I will do that,
I tell myself.
As soon as this work is done, I will go home to the after and figure out what's next.
But a little part of me, behind that thought, says,
There is no after. Not for you. You've lied, stolen, run away. You've already gone too far.

I set my head on Chase's shoulder, and it dips under the weight of me, but it stays where it is.

W
hen I wake up, it is only the waking up that tells me I slept. I have no recollection of any dreams or evidence of sleep, except for a sore neck and a small wet spot on my shirt where, apparently, I drooled on myself. I dab at it and then notice that Chase is awake, watching me.

“Morning, sunshine,” he says, even though it is early afternoon, only three hours since we left Molton. “We're here.”

We shuffle off the train with everyone else and make our way down the long platform to the station. The lights seem to flicker and brighten as we pass underneath them, and inside the station, it's like the sun itself is burning. Impossibly high ceilings, webbed with angled ironwork, pull our voices upward when we enter, and the smooth stone walls remind me of the columbarium. I have to touch one then. I stride across the room and Chase follows.

“Hold up!” he calls behind me.

The wall is cool when I press my hand to it, and I can't resist putting my forehead against it, too. Chase looks worried. “Are you okay?”

Of course not,
I say in my head. But it's amazing how easy that question has become to answer with a simple lie. “Fine,” I tell him. And before he can ask me anything else, my phone pings. I thought I'd turned it off. My confusion is causing mistakes. I need to be more careful, or just go ahead and throw the phone in a trash can somewhere. But that will have to wait until Chase isn't looking—he's my ally, but he's also made himself my keeper.

The phone's been keeping its own secret. A text from Jennifer:

hi sarah. let me know when you get to town

Seeing my mother's name there—I drag my eyes up the walls, climb with them to the ceiling, breathe and breathe.

“Everything copacetic?” Chase asks.

“Not now,” I snap.

“What?”

“Can you just— I have to think for a minute.”

He snorts. “Look, you wanted me to come along for this—”

“No!” I yell. “I didn't! You
told
me that you were coming along for this. And really, this has nothing to do with you. So maybe you should get right back on the train and go home.”

“And let you wander around the city like this? I don't think so.”

My hands are slick with sweat now, and I'm shaking so hard that I have to clutch my phone to keep it from falling on the floor. “I am not a damsel in distress, okay? So whatever weirdo reason you have for following me here—”

“Is everything all right, miss?”

A police officer has appeared next to us. His badge and his shoes and the handle of his gun are so shiny, reflecting the light like lasers in my eyes, that I have to look away. But this, of course, makes me look even more suspicious. I pull my sunglasses out of my backpack and slip them on.

“Everything is fine, Officer,” Chase tells him. “We were just rehearsing for a play. Was it convincing, do you think? Did we sound genuinely angry with each other?”

The man looks at me. “Is that true, miss? You were rehearsing?”

I cannot think straight because the paths in my brain are all full of sand. But I can imagine what Mel would say. “Well, life is a kind of rehearsal, isn't it? Is anything really real?”

The police officer slaps his hand to his nightstick and says, “Keep it down over here.” As he walks away, I hear him mutter, “Goddamn kids.”

I hope he doesn't have any of Nate's parts.

The thought makes me look around the station, wondering. All of these people. What are they made of?

“Tallie,” Chase whispers. “I'm sorry. But I'm worried about you. You're panicking or something. You need to calm down.”

I bat my eyes at him from behind my sunglasses. “You sure know how to sweet-talk a girl.” Then I hold up my phone. “I have to send a message to this woman.”

“Who is she?”

“I don't know. Jennifer something. I think she has Nate's—I think she has some information for me.”

“
What
about Nate?”

“Hmm?”

“You said ‘she has Nate's.' Has his what?”

“His doctor. The one who—worked on him. She might be able to introduce me.”

Chase's eyes narrow. “Do you think she has one of his organs? Is that why we're here?”

“Maybe.” My voice is loud again, and the police officer looks in our direction. More quietly I say, “Just give me a minute, please?”

Chase sighs. “Okay.” His own phone is cradled in his hand, a key ready to open the escape hatch.

I rub my temples. I need to keep the message short, to keep anything from sounding suspicious. And I'll have to find a way to explain myself when the time comes. I also don't want Chase to know that I've been deceiving these people, what with his whole-truth policy and everything, so I can't give anything away to him either.

I lean against the cool stone wall and keep my hands steady.

have just arrived @ south station. are you available to talk? let me know when possible. with gratitude

I leave out my mother's name this time.

“Done?” Chase asks. His voice is hard, and when I look at him, even through my sunglasses, I can see that his eyes are, too.

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Now can we talk about what we're really doing here?”

“I will make you a deal,” I tell him. “You just follow my lead and do what I ask you to do, just while we're here, and when we're done, it's your turn to be in charge. You can take me home, you can throw me in the harbor, you can do whatever you want. Okay?”

“Why would I—”

“Okay?”

He takes a deep breath. “Okay.” Then he adds, “I'm giving you twenty-four hours.”

I hear a fluttering sound above me. Two tiny brown birds are coasting and dipping through the air inside the station. I watch their unplanned ballet, shielding my eyes against the glare of the fluorescent bulbs.

“Ceiling!” I call to them.

“What?” Chase asks.

“Should be plenty of time,” I say.

We both can admit, at least, to being really hungry, so we find a diner and order cheeseburgers and milk shakes. I keep my sunglasses on even though we're inside, and the waitress looks at me strangely, but I know that she could never imagine why I'm here, could never write this story like I can, and I smile as she walks away.

Chase doesn't even bother to ask what's funny. He just keeps glancing up from his plate with a worried expression.

His phone does not ring, and neither does mine.

I wonder how long it will be before my parents find my note, if they'll see it right away or go about their business and assume that I'm with Mel somewhere. I haven't heard from her since I left her standing in Ms. Pace's room with her failed offering. But I am not anxious. I know she will do what I asked, now that she has revealed herself.

I do not really want to hear from any of them, though, so I block their cell numbers and our home phone, just to be safe. I do this robotically. I feel like a spy.

“I feel like a spy,” I whisper to Chase.

He nods, poking at his food with his fork as if he is expecting it to start moving around.

After we finish our burgers, we move on to coffee and pie. I am ravenous, like I have never eaten before. Like I will never eat again. I wonder how prisoners feel about their last meal, if they are ever satisfied with their choice, or if after they've eaten it, they immediately think of something that would have tasted better.

“What would you want your last meal to be?” I ask Chase. The silence is making me itchy.

He drums his fingers on the table. “That depends. Would I know it was my last meal? Or would this be, like, the last meal I eat before I am unexpectedly crushed by a bus?”

“I think the term
last meal
implies that you know the end is coming.”

He swirls a spoon in his coffee, leaving trails of cream. “Then I don't think I'd be hungry.”

This seems like a cop-out, and I tell him so.

“Fine, then.” He drops the spoon on the table. The metal sings out, shrieking, and I feel my heart jump in my chest. “I would have grilled cheese with avocado and tomato. But the tomato would have to be perfectly ripe. None of that crap that's forcibly ripened with ethylene.”

He goes on about genetically modified wheat for a few minutes and then excuses himself. I watch him walk between the tables and disappear into the bathroom. It makes me anxious not to have him in sight, as if he might vaporize like Houdini was accused of doing. I look around for something to focus on and see the corner of Chase's phone sticking out of his bag.

Watching my hand pull the phone out is like watching someone make a bad choice in a movie, my brain yelling,
No! You'll get caught! You'll ruin everything!
But my hand doesn't stop. And just like every bad choice, this one carries a consequence.

He texted Mel. He told her that he was worried about me, that I was acting weird. He asked what he should do.

My feelings battle like competing voices.
How could he do this? You can hardly blame him for trying to help you. I had things under control. You are falling apart in front of him.

And then Chase is there and he sees that I am holding the phone, and he is saying something but I am having trouble listening because I'm there all over again, at the beginning of after, where everyone thinks they know what to do for me and everyone gets it wrong. I am not myself, I am a butterfly waiting to be pinned into a box and kept safe.

Chase is still talking, I can hear his voice outside my ears. I feel like I'm going to be sick, and it's bad enough that Chase has seen me cry but I'll be damned if he's going to see me throw up. I grip the table, lifting myself up and out of the booth, and the phone clatters to the floor and I try to say that I'll be right back but I'm not even sure if it comes out right and then I'm running to the door, through the door, hearing the door close behind me as the frigid air outside slaps me on both cheeks and tells me to pull myself together.

Chase is calling my name and I see him banging on the window when I look up and his face looks better but I can't watch that happen again and I don't even know if he's real anymore.

Run,
Nate says in my head.
Run or he is going to catch you.

I don't know where I'm going but I can see where we came from, so I head away from South Station, deeper into the city. I move quickly. I follow the cobblestone street like Hansel and Gretel followed their little white pebbles.

I left my backpack in the diner.

But I have my phone.

Which is ringing.

I see Chase's name on the screen.
No no no,
I tell myself, and it becomes like a refrain I am singing as I walk swiftly through the streets, and there is no one who can catch me now.

The trees are monsters slipping in and out of themselves, and I watch them.

All the colors are moving, melting, slurring their words.

The air presses against me.

I am made of paper now. I can almost fly.

The trees begin to whisper their sinister sounds, their whipping branches humming a dark tune.

You belong to us,
they tell me.

We will swallow you in browning gold and hide you.

“Yes,” I whisper.

And I run.