In the burning glass box, I tried to focus on the memory of tasting those blueberries. Soft beads cloaked in violet skin. The flesh green and pink and pale and slippery and sweet.
I remembered heading back to the house, where I helped Marsha with the cleaning while Aunt Ginger conked out on the couch. When night fell, Marsha led me to the attic, and she was right: it was awesome. Huge, with a view of the pond. A high, slanting ceiling and rows of beds on either side—at least twelve beds, in several shapes and sizes. Marsha plopped down onto a saggy feather mattress, said, “Take your pick,” and promptly fell asleep.
I tried out the other beds, but none of them felt quite right. Finally, restless with my own restlessness, I gave up and tiptoed downstairs. I thought about raiding the refrigerator.
I slipped toward the kitchen through the living room, which flickered with light from the television. I glanced at Aunt Ginger asleep on the couch. Her twiggy hands lay almost gracefully on an afghan.
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers …
Aunt Ginger’s eyes sprang open. “You, girl!” An ancient finger crooked. “Come here.”
I did.
“You’re spooky, you know that?” She looked me up and down. “Your eyes are great black pools of need. You’re hankering after something. Yes, you are. It makes a body uncomfortable, seeing all that want in your face and not knowing why. Go on, tell me what you want.”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t be shy. Who knows? Maybe if you tell me your heart’s desire, it’ll come true. If not”—she grinned, flashing a full set of dentures—“I’ll forget it anyway.”
I thought about the disease creeping up the walls of her mind like the blueberry thicket coming closer and closer to the house. She was right. My secret would be safe with her.
I leaned forward and whispered in her ear.
Then I heard the crack of a door opening and fell on my face.
I opened my eyes. I wasn’t in a Michigan farmhouse with Marsha snoring upstairs. I was in another world. I was in prison.
Or out of it, it seemed. I’d been let out of my glass box. The fire was gone. I blinked against the iron floor, then shoved myself up.
I stood face-to-face with a tall woman. She had a sleek cap of silver chin-length hair and was dressed in the IBI’s gray uniform. I searched for the stitched knots that would give me an idea of her rank, but her collar was a band of solid scarlet.
“I’m Director Fitzgerald,” she said.
I stared, still spinning in the memory of blueberries and Aunt Ginger.
“Can you speak?” Fitzgerald asked.
“Yes,” I croaked.
“Good. I’ve just come from Agent McCrea’s debriefing, which I found highly interesting. I understand that you are confused about your arrest, or that you’re pretending to be. I’d like to hear things from your perspective. Who exactly are you, Darcy Jones, and what were you doing in Lakebrook, Illinois?”
Once upon a time, I wouldn’t have been willing to spill my guts to her. But I was so tired, so shaken.
I told her about my five missing years, the DCFS, my collection of foster parents. Marsha and her silly bird spoons. My friends. Meeting Conn and not knowing what to think of him. I didn’t (wouldn’t, couldn’t) tell her about the kiss. But everything else: his attack, how I vanished. Being afraid of him. Afraid of what I was. Or wasn’t. I wasn’t sure.
“I see,” said Fitzgerald when I finished. “Of course, you might be a consummate actor. But I think you could be a golden opportunity.”
“She is,” said a voice from the shadows.
Conn.
He’d been listening the whole time. As soon as I’d thought he couldn’t stab me in the back again, there he was, sliding in the knife, eavesdropping on my pathetic story.
“Darcy,” Fitzgerald said. “Do you know what the Shadow Society is?”
“Obviously, no, I don’t.”
“It’s a terrorist organization, made up of creatures like you. They look uncannily alike. They have different facial and bodily features, but the same black eyes, black hair, and pale skin. The IBI was startled to see you at the Water Tower, a portal regularly monitored to prevent unwanted traffic between our world and yours. We didn’t know who you were—your face didn’t match anything in our database. But one glance confirms that you are a Shade.”
“Which is what, exactly?”
“A nightmare. Shades look human, but certainly are not. They can become incorporeal at will, and have used that against us, and more. Look: the May Day Massacre of 1916.” An image of corpses with slashed throats lit up the wall behind her. I could see Conn clearly now. His features were harsh, almost black and white in the sudden light. “Gassing is one of their favorite techniques. The subway attacks of 1968.” The image changed. “The Ravenswood Medical Center, 1997.” More bodies, heaped up in hallways. “Hundreds of people, Darcy.”
I felt sick. They believed that I had done this? That? “That’s not my fault. All of that happened ages ago. You said the dates yourself.” Only one, the last one, had happened during my lifetime, and that was when I was about five. Surely she didn’t think that a kid had gassed the hospital.
“We’re not accusing you,” Fitzgerald said. “I’m simply telling you history that you apparently don’t know.” She swept a hand toward the last image. “This is a mere sample of the horrors the Shadow Society has perpetrated on humankind in the last century. The Interdimensional Bureau of Investigation was established with two related purposes: to patrol the borders between worlds, and to protect human society. It’s a losing battle. Catching a Shade is difficult, for how can you catch what you can’t see? How can you fight what you can’t touch?”
“I’m guessing that this has something to do with your pyromania.”
“Yes,” said Fitzgerald. “Fire keeps you solid. It can hurt and kill you. It’s our best weapon.”
“Listen, I don’t go around gassing people for fun. I’m not a terrorist. Before Conn dragged me here, I was living an ordinary life. Maybe it was a crappy one, but it was mine. Can’t you just let me go?”
“That’s exactly what I plan to do.”