Diana's Writing Blog

Well, I decided to go ahead and post part of my NaNo novel. I'll probably just put the first chapter or two up and it's definitely nowhere near the finished, polished version. But what the heck, here goes:

Emily tried to move, but the pain was too much. Even shallow breaths sent waves of fire coursing through her rib cage. Something heavy was pinning her against cold metal. She blinked to clear her vision and tried to make out her surroundings. There was a sickly white glow in front of her.

She tried to cry out to them, but could only manage a weak moan. An answering moan from beside her made her force her eyes open again.

It was Evie. She lay draped across the dashboard, her legs outside the car, one bent back beneath her at a sickening angle. She was facing Emily, one cheek pressed into a pool of glass. Her eyes found Emily’s but she didn’t seem any more able to talk than her twin.

One arm lay flung out in front of her. Her hand twitched, inching forward just a bit. Emily could see in her eyes that she was trying, trying desperately to reach her sister. Emily tried to move her own arm, but she couldn’t feel her left arm and moving her right sent waves of fire through her again.

Please, Evie begged with her eyes, please, help me.

Somehow Emily knew if she could just reach her sister, even just brush her fingers, she could pull her back. They’d both be okay.

But the pain was too much and Emily fell back into darkness.

She woke with a scream, like she did every night. It didn’t matter. The four other girls in the room slept on. No one could hear her. She hadn’t been able to make a sound—not that anyone else could hear—in over six months.

Emily clutched the blankets around her and buried her head further into the pillow. She knew by now she’d never get back to sleep, but Barb and Emmet, her foster parents, didn’t want any of them wandering around at night.

Emily stared at the ceiling and tried to slow her pounding heart. Her new heart. The one they’d taken from Evie and put into her. They said her parents had died instantly, painlessly. Then again, they said Evie’s brain stem had been too damaged for her to have felt anything either.

So why did she see Evie every night, pleading, reaching for her? That one memory, that one flash of consciousness, was the only thing she did remember about that night. She couldn’t even remember what had made her father swerve off the road.

Emily rolled over and looked to the little window that sat between the two sets of bunk beds. The sun was just rising, making the sky gray. Emily was the newest, so she slept on a cot in front of the closet. Barb said she wouldn’t be staying long enough for it to be worth it to get her a new bed. They were already over capacity. Not that the little room with its faded lavender walls could fit another bed. It was barely big enough for the two sets of bunk beds.

The whole house was too small. At least for the twelve people it held at the moment. The boys had it worse. There were six sharing a room not much larger than the girls’. They had two sets of bunk beds with hammocks strung between them. Terra, the oldest of the girls after Emily and the one who’d been there longest, said they had to take them down when the state inspectors came. They set up two cots instead, but there just wasn’t enough room to walk around.

Emily did finally drift back to sleep. She was woken a few hours later by Terra.

“I need the closet,” she said, exaggerating her words and pointing from herself to the little sliding door.

Emily had been there nearly a week and still no one could remember that she was mute, not deaf. She rolled to her feet and pulled the little bed out of the way. She waited for Terra to pick her clothes and then retrieved the little backpack on the floor of the closet. She hadn’t been able to get back to the house before the bank foreclosed on it. Mrs. Hendricks, her social service worker, had gone instead. She’d packed five bags. Mostly clothes. Half of it was Evie’s stuff. It was in storage, Mrs. Hendricks said. She’d given Emily one backpack to hold her over until they found a permanent place for her. A permanent place. Not a home. Terra said at Emily’s age—sixteen—they’d probably put her in a group home. Then when she was eighteen she was on her own.

She dressed in a plain red blouse and a black skirt. They were Evie’s. The blouse dipped too low, showing the surgery scar that ran from the tip of Emily’s sternum all the way down to her stomach. But she didn’t have anything but blouses until Barb did the laundry.

Terra shook her head as she pulled on her own shirt. “That thing gives me the creeps,” she said to the other girls.

Emily followed the others downstairs and into the kitchen, careful to avoid looking in the mirror at the top of the stairs. She always hated the days when she had to wear Evie’s clothes. Every time she caught a glimpse of her reflection, she got a little jolt of hope before she realized what she was looking at.

Barb had set out bowls of cereal for each of them. The six boys had already taken all the chairs at the table, shoveling their breakfast in. Emily joined the girls as they crowded around the counter. She smiled a thank you at Terra as she passed her the sugar. All they ever had were plain Cheerios and those got old really fast.

“Mrs. Hendricks called,” Barb said as Emily passed the sugar bowl. “She’s got an appointment for you with a doctor.”

“What kind of doctor?” Emily asked. Then, remembering, she pulled out her pad of paper and pencil and wrote the question out.

“I don’t know,” said Barb. “She’s coming to get you at nine, so hurry and finish your breakfast.”

Emily waited on the little stone porch for Mrs. Hendricks. She was half an hour late. When she did finally come, she honked the horn impatiently as Emily trotted down the sidewalk to the worn gray station wagon, as if was Emily who was holding them up.

Mrs. Hendricks was a tired looking woman in her late fifties. She was bony, with her old skin stretched tight. She had blonde hair that was fading to gray and thin lips that were always pressed together.

She pointed them at Emily as she struggled to pull the door shut.

“We’re late,” she told Em.

Emily pulled her seatbelt tight and gripped it where it ran across her chest. Mrs. Hendricks always drove too fast. She squeezed her eyes shut.

Twenty minutes later they parked in front of the social services office. It was a plain, brick building, the kind that rented office suites to little businesses. Emily frowned. She’d thought they’d be going to the hospital again. That was where her doctors were. The ones who’d saved her life.

“We’re going to talk to a nice woman named Dr. Helman,” said Mrs. Hendricks as they strode through the maze of cubicles. She took Emily to a little glass walled room in the back. A woman in a brown pant suit and glasses sat at the table inside the room.

“Dr. Helman, this is Emma,” said Mrs. Hendricks, ushering her into the room. She left the room, shutting the door behind her.

“Hello, Emma,” said Dr. Helman, gesturing for her to take the chair opposite her.

Emily sat and pulled out her pad of paper. Emily, she scribbled, underlining it a few times.

“Ah,” said Dr. Helman. “Sorry. Emily. Nice to meet you.” She handed the pad back and picked up manila folder on the coffee table between them. “I understand you’re having trouble communicating,” she said, flipping the folder open and scanning down the first page inside.

Emily frowned. She’d never have described it that way. She shrugged.

Dr. Helman tapped a finger against the page in front of her. “It says here the doctors in the hospital tested you. Do you know what they found?”

Emily sighed and nodded. They’d thought at first it might have been some kind of complication from the accident, scar tissue they’d missed or even swelling in the brain. Then they’d thought maybe it had been some sort of reaction to a drug she’d been given during surgery. Then they’d thought maybe it was some sort of infection. But in the end they couldn’t find anything wrong with her.

But there was definitely something very wrong. It wasn’t just that she couldn’t make sounds or couldn’t move her mouth. Not precisely. To Emily, it seemed like she was talking, just like normal. She felt her mouth move, she heard the sounds come out, but no one else could hear it or see it. She’d tried; she couldn’t even mouth words. When she’d tried to explain it all to the doctors at the hospital, they’d all looked at her like she was crazy.

Which was why, she guessed, they’d brought Dr. Helman to see her. A psychiatrist or therapist or whatever.

“And what do you think?” asked Dr. Helman. “Do you think they’re wrong? Do you think that something medical is causing this?”

Emily shrugged.

“Emily,” said Dr. Helman, leaning forward. “You’re sixteen years old. You’ve just lost your parents and your twin sister. I know you understand about emotional trauma. Try to think objectively. Do you think maybe this inability to speak might have an emotional cause rather than a physiological one?”

Emily shrugged again.

Dr. Helman reached across the table and put a hand over Emily’s notepad. “Listen to me, Emily. I know that you feel a great deal of pain and fear right now. But closing down isn’t a healthy way to deal with your emotions.”

She slid the pad over to her side of the table. “I’m going to recommend that your foster parents practice tough love for the next week. If you want anything, including food, you’re going to have to ask for it.” She tapped the pad. “Out loud.”

“What?! You’re joking, right?” The therapist didn’t hear the words, but apparently the expression on Emily’s face said enough.

“I’m not trying to be cruel, Emily,” said Dr. Helman. “I’m truly not. But we need to snap you out of this, and soon. You need to start dealing with your trauma in a healthy way. People with hysterical loss of sight or hearing or speech can progress to full blown catatonia.”

Emily stared at her. “Are you insane? I’m going to starve!”

Dr. Helman glanced at her watch. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid, I’ve got another appointment. I’m going to have your social worker bring you back here in one week. I hope to hear your beautiful voice.”

Emily stood, still not quite believing what she’d heard. They couldn’t really starve her, could they? There had to be laws about that.

She waited outside the door while Dr. Helman motioned Mrs. Hendricks inside. She watched them talk, trying to read their lips, but couldn’t make much out.

She stepped back as Mrs. Hendricks emerged again.

They got into the car, but for once Mrs. Hendricks didn’t speed off. Instead, she turned to Emily and regarded her gravely. “You’ve got to talk, do you understand? You’re sixteen and a half years old and you say you’ve got no family or even close family friends who could take you in. You’ve got a year and a half to go before you age out of the system. If you can’t talk, Dr. Helman will recommend that you be committed to a psychiatric facility until you’re eighteen. And I can’t fight it. I couldn’t justify placing you with a long term foster family or even in a group home, not when there are so many other, younger children who need beds.” She gripped Emily’s arm. “You have to talk. Or at least get a name—someone, anyone who might be willing to take you.”

Emily sighed and looked out the window. They’d been through this before. Mrs. Hendricks just couldn’t fathom that a girl from an upper middle class family in a nice neighborhood didn’t have one single person who’d be willing to take her in. But her grandparents were dead and her parents were both only children. There were no uncles and aunts, no grown up cousins, no great aunts or uncles.

And friends? Yes, her parents had friends. They had work friends and they had neighbors that they said hello to and chatted with at barbecues. But they were the kinds of friends and neighbors that you asked to pick up the mail and water the plants when you went on vacation. Not to adopt your daughter.

Mrs. Hendricks sighed in annoyance. “Suit yourself.”

Emily retreated upstairs as Mrs. Hendricks explained the new “tough love” prescription to Barb. Terra was in their room when Emily came in. She and another girl, Denay, were going through Emily’s backpack.

Terra jumped up and shrugged. She and the other girl pushed past Emily and out into the hallway. “Don’t worry,” she heard Terra say. “Who’s she gonna tell? She can’t even talk.”

Emily knelt and collected her clothes, carefully folding each piece before putting it back in the backpack. Barb came to call her for lunch a half an hour later.

Emily’s hopes rose. Maybe she wasn’t the only one who thought the doctor from the social services office was insane. Her hopes sank again as Barb guided her over to the counter. Everyone else had grilled cheese sandwiches and chips. Emily had a glass of water.

“Mrs. Hendricks says if you want anything else, you have to ask for it out loud,” Barb told her. “Sorry.”

Emily gripped her water in both hands and stared across the table at Denay’s lunch. The younger girl slid her arms around her paper plate, scowling. Emily turned with a sigh and went back upstairs.

She forgot about the mirror at the top of the stairs. She stopped a few steps from the top, staring at the blonde girl in the mirror, half Emily and half Evie. She supposed that wasn’t an entirely inaccurate description: Evie’s clothes, Evie’s heart.

She’d lost weight in the hospital. She’d always been the heavier twin. Now she was skinnier than either of them had ever been. Her bones stuck out beneath her skin and her eyes looked sunken in. Her scar stood out against her pale skin. And her light blonde hair made her look almost albino. Maybe she was neither of them. Maybe she was the ghost of them both.

Terra found her in their room after lunch. Emily didn’t bother to look up as the younger girl came to stand before her.

“Here,” she said, shoving a napkin-wrapped bundle under Emily’s nose.

Emily took it, looking at the other girl questioningly. She unwrapped the offering to find half a sandwich and some chips.

“Thanks,” Emily said, wishing she had something to write with. She smiled at the girl and took a big bite of the sandwich.

Terra sat crosslegged on the floor in front of Emily. “Did you have a good family before?”

Emily stared at her sandwich, throat tight and eyes suddenly burning. “The best,” she whispered. She nodded for Terra’s benefit.

“Yeah,” said Terra, “me, too. That’s the worst. If you’re like Denay or Lucah or most of the others, this place isn’t any worse than where they came from. But if you had a good family before, it’s harder to get used to.” She picked at the fraying edge of her shirt. “You have to grab whatever you can, from whoever you can, and hide it.” She jabbed a finger at the backpack next to Emily on the cot. “And take your stuff with you whenever they take you anywhere. You never know when they’re moving you on and if you forget your stuff, they’ll say they’ll send it to you, but they never do.”

Emily clutched her backpack to her chest and nodded her understanding.

“And you better talk if you can,” said Terra, rising. “I know some girls who had to go to the psychiatric hospital. It’s not good. They can drug you up and tie you down. Even a group home’s better than that.”

And with that, she left Emily to her lunch.

She forced the food down, even though she didn’t feel much like eating any more. She didn’t know when she’d get her next meal.

***

She had the same dream again, waking with a scream. She looked to the window. The sky was pitch black and the moon was high. It had to be early yet, maybe around 2 a.m.

She looked over at Terra’s sleeping form on the top of the bunkbed. She was right. Anything was better than spending the next two years in a state run hospital. She might as well be on her own.

Emily sat up and slid her legs over the side of the cot. She reached underneath and pulled out the backpack that she’d stashed before bed. She hugged it to her chest again, gathering her courage, then stood. She crept out the door, easing it closed.

Barb and Emmet slept in the room nearest the stairs. She went slowly, step by step, careful not to shift her full weight until she was sure the old wood wouldn’t creak. Movement from the corner of her eye made her whirl, gasping in fear. But it was just the mirror.

She smiled at her reflection. “You and me, Evie, just like it always was.”

Downstairs, she moved hurriedly through the darkened house. She stopped in the kitchen first. Take what you can when you can, Terra had said, and Emily intended to take her at her word. She pulled down a half dozen cans from the pantry. She couldn’t make out the labels in the dark, but from her past experience she could guess they were either chicken with stars or ravioli. It would have to do for now.

She paused on her way to the door and ducked into the living room. She pulled a blanket off the couch. It was mid June, but she’d need it eventually. She knelt by the door to fit all her plunder into her backpack. It fit, just barely.

And then she slipped out of the house. She didn’t run, but she walked as fast as she could. She paused when she was out of sight of the house, realizing that she didn’t really know where she was going. Just like she’d been telling Mrs. Hendricks, she had no one, nowhere to go.

After a moment, she set off in the direction of the only place she’d really wanted to go since waking up in the hospital. It had been months of recovery, for her broken arms, for her new heart. Nearly five before she was done with daily visits to her specialists.

By that time, her family was long buried. There hadn’t been a funeral. Any assets the Richards family had were used to cover debts and medical bills. Not Emily’s. Not most of them anyway, after all she was a ward of the state. But not Evie or their mother and father. Somehow it cost thousands just to transport their dead parents and to verify that they were dead. And Evie. Well, she’d been technically alive. Her body at least, even though there wasn’t enough of her brain left to even tell it to breathe.

So her parents and sister were lowered without ceremony into three matching graves while Emily lay unconscious in intensive care. She’d asked Mrs. Hendricks to take her when they first met, but there hadn’t been time. She had thirty other children to worry about, too. Barb had said she’d take her, but always later.

The cemetery wasn’t so far. Maybe three or four miles. The moon was still high in the sky when she reached the little stone fence that ran around it. It wasn’t high at all, barely coming to Emily’s chest. It seemed more decorative than anything else. She threw her backpack over, then pulled herself up and over.

It occurred to her as she knelt to retrieve her backpack that she didn’t know where in the cemetery her family was buried. And she hadn’t thought to bring a flashlight. Still, the moon was bright enough to see by. And she had all the time in the world.

She stopped at a grave with a towering, shiny red headstone. Magda Lowell. Sister, Mother, Grandmother. Loved Always. The little built-in vase was teeming with flowers, with more bouquets around it. Emily stooped and picked up three white lilies.

Movement from her left drew her eyes. But when she looked, nothing was there. “Just a bird,” she muttered. Or maybe her reflection on the shiny headstones. One of them caught her eye and she thought she could make out the name Richards.

Moving closer, she saw that, yes, it said Thomas Richards and next to it was Helen Richards and then Evelyn Richards. Emily traced the smooth letters of her father’s name, wondering idly who had paid for the headstones.

Emily’s throat constricted painfully as she knelt in the cool grass in front of the three graves and placed a flower in each of their vases. She was glad that no one could hear her for once. She could sob as loudly as she wanted and not draw any attention.

She let the hot tears run down her cheeks as she stared at all that was left of her family. The headstones were small and plain. Just the names and the dates. Sniffling, Emily dug in her bag for the can opener she’d brought. They deserved more. Loving Father and Husband, Cherished Mother and Wife, Beloved Sister and Daughter. But there wasn’t room. So Emily just scratched Loved Always in uneven letters below each of their dates.

By the time she was done with all three graves, her hands and wrists ached. But she’d stopped crying. She ran a hand over the smooth face of each gravestone. “Hi Mom, Dad, Evie,” she whispered. “Sorry it took me so long to get here.” Her throat was tight again. “I miss you all so much.”

There was more to say, but she didn’t want to start crying again. Instead, she crawled to Evie’s grave and pulled the blanket from her backpack. She curled up, using the bag for a pillow and squeezed her eyes shut. She pretended she was back in their bedroom, curled up with Evie on her bed, whispering about boys and school and what they’d do when they got their licenses in a few months.

***

She fell into the dream again. Cold metal and broken glass and a burning in her chest. But this time Evie was calling for her. Emily tried to answer, but she couldn’t speak through the pain. And, like always, she couldn’t reach her twin.

The pain followed her into the waking world. Emily groaned instead of screaming and curled onto her side. The phantom pain subsided after a moment, and that was when Emily realized that she wasn’t alone. Someone was sitting next to her on the graves.

She rolled and found her own reflection staring back at her. Sunken eyes and pale skin. Only there was no mirror and this girl was crouched instead of laying flat.

She scrambled back with a scream as realization hit her.

The other girl reached out to her. “Em.”

“Ev-Evie?” Emily breathed.

Her sister nodded and Emily noticed for the first time that she could see a hint of her father’s grave right through Evie’s body. “You’re dead.”

Evelyn nodded, looking to her own headstone. “But not completely. I’m trapped, Em. I’m stuck in limbo.”

Emily shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

Evelyn crawled forward and traced a finger over Emily’s scar. Em felt a whisper of cool wind where Evie’s finger ought to have been and shuddered.

“My heart,” said Evie. “I can’t cross over until it stops beating.”

Emily stared. “But….”

“It’s gray here, Emmy,” said her twin. “Gray and cold. I want to cross over. I want to be with Mom and Dad. Help me, Emmy.”

“How?”

Evelyn stroked Emily’s cheek. “You’ve got to kill yourself.”

Emily scrambled away. “What?”

“You have to,” said Evie, crawling after her, trying to catch her leg with a hand that wasn’t really there. “Emmy, it’s the only way. Then we can all be together. Mom and Dad and you and me. We’ll go together, Em. You and me, Emmy, just like it always was.”

Emily finally forced her shaking limbs to work, clamoring to her feet and bolting off into the darkness. She was sobbing raggedly, not paying attention or caring where she was going. Just as long as it was away.

She collided with something and fell back, staring up in disbelief. Somehow she’d made it to the stone wall. She clawed her way over, landing on her knees on the other side and sobbing in relief.

A siren whooped in front of her and suddenly she was illuminated in a pair of headlights. She squinted against the harsh light, barely making out a flashing red and blue beyond. There was movement from her left and then she was hauled to her feet and face to face with a very irritated looking man. “What do you think you’re doing out here? You know you’re trespassing?”

The policemen were a bit nicer to her once they realized she couldn’t speak. The older one, who had a big black mustache like her father, gave her a pad of paper and pencil to write with. Still, they wouldn’t let her go back for her things. They said she could come back in the morning when the cemetery was open. Right now, they had to get her back to her foster family.

Barb and Emmet met them at the door, looking weary and annoyed. They thanked the policemen and ushered Emily inside. “That was really stupid,” Emmet said, propelling Emily toward the stairs.

“We had to call Mrs. Hendricks,” Barb added. “Add flight risk to your refusal to speak, and there’s no way she can stop them from committing you now. She’s coming to pick you up in the morning.”

Emily stared at her. Barb was obviously waiting for some reaction, some realization of how the terrible fate she’d brought on herself. But after what she’d seen in the graveyard, Emily wasn’t entirely sure that she shouldn’t be medicated and locked up. Isn’t that what you were supposed to do with someone who saw imaginary people telling them to kill themselves?

I'm already about halfway through Chapter 2, which I might post as well. Speaking of, here's my progress for today.