My fist slams against the wall of its own accord, and the plaster crumbles. I shake my head, my wild hair sticking to my skin. Now I’m a sniveling hole of regret. “You shouldn’t have let me do this. You shouldn’t have—”
“You remember that day, Rebecca. You were desolate. No, that’s not strong enough. You acted like you were dead, too. You asked me to take away the pain. You asked me to change who you were. Not to mention that he was still looking for you. This is the result we both came up with.”
I just keep shaking my head. Ignoring me, Denial app-roaches the nightstand beside Elizabeth’s bed. She studies a picture there of her and her brother. “It was so simple. I’m surprised it took you this long to figure it out. The only tricky part was coming back every so often to alter the illusion so you appeared older. Couldn’t have you looking like a little girl forever. And you clung to the lie so hard that you never even sensed me.”
I straighten, glaring at Denial through my tears. I can taste a blob of paint on my lip, and green hair hangs in my eyes. “What do you want from me? Your part in this is finished. The illusion is broken. I remember. You can go.”
Denial doesn’t soften. “I care about you, despite what a pain in my ass you’ve been the last thirteen years. I’ll leave when I’m sure you’re not going to slit your wrists. And I won’t let you sit around and wallow. You either continue your existence here or start anew somewhere else. Your choice.”
“That’s no choice,” I retort, but the words are weak.
She sighs, but I’m not done. There’s something that’s been haunting me, and I can’t let it go. “Just tell me one more thing,” I whisper, briefly closing my eyes as if my eyelids alone can keep away all the shadows and the mistakes. “If … if I’d broken the illusion sooner, if I’d gotten my powers back … could I have saved Maggie?”
Pity blooms in Denial’s gaze, and I hate that. But she doesn’t mince words. “Probably. There isn’t much you can’t bring back with a touch. But, Rebecca … I’d guess that you just being there prolonged her life. You gave her more time, even with the illusion intact.”
It isn’t enough. I hate that word. Probably. I turn my back on her, wishing so hard that none of this had ever happened, that I could destroy all the probablys, that I could go back in time and save Landon, tell Fear that I loved him too, stop my mom from leaving that day. But maybe she didn’t leave … maybe my father forced her away, and by the time she escaped him, got back, we were already—
The reflection in the mirror next to the door catches my eye, and I freeze.
If I needed anything else to prove that I’m really not Elizabeth anymore, the face staring back at me would be it. The girl gaping in the glass is someone I haven’t seen in a long, long time. She’s so different from Elizabeth Caldwell. Her cheekbones are high, her brown eyes slightly slanted. Her skin is paler, her hair so dark it could be called black. It tumbles over her back in exotic, uncontrollable curls. Her nose is slightly upturned, and her lips are full, pouty. Her collarbone is so delicate it looks like it could be snapped with one blow of a fist. When I raise my hand, the girl in the mirror raises her hand, too. Her fingernails are round, oval-shaped, and there, there is the one thing that reveals that she was once upon a time a girl who worked in a barn, hauled rocks from a field, withstood the abuse of a man who reeked of alcohoclass="underline" there is dirt under those nails.
And one random thought that shouldn’t even occur to me in the wake of remembering my twin’s death: what will Fear think?
Shuddering, experiencing so many things I feel like my skin is going to expand, I turn back to Denial. She’s studying the mural with something akin to sadness in her eyes. She almost seems … drained. Her gaze lands on what was once Landon before I ruined him, and now real sorrow does bloom in her expression. How could I have forgotten? She loved him, too. Many times I would catch the end of a lingering glance between Denial and my twin. Whether something ever came of those looks I’ll never know, but I do know there won’t be anything more.
I swallow. I look back at the destroyed mural, this room that no longer belongs to me. Never belonged to me, really. There’s nothing here for me anymore. All I’m leaving is emptiness, and memories that should never have been mine.
I turn my back to it all. “I know what I want to do.”
There’s a note for Charles on his bed. Three sentences, one farewelclass="underline" I’m going back to where it started. Thank you for saving me. You were the one who made me believe in humanity.
There’s a suitcase in the passenger seat of Elizabeth’s truck, stuffed with her clothes—which don’t quite fit me now, since she was taller than I am—and I have a new destination. There’s a map in my lap, and the route to Gig Harbor, Washington, is highlighted. Where I’ll find the stone house I grew up in, where Mom cooked breakfast every morning, where Landon and I were homeschooled, where we grew into our Elements.
It’s raining again. There’s been a steady downpour ever since the illusion broke. Trees speed by. It’s easier to focus on them than on the reflection staring back at me from the glass. After thirteen years I’ve grown used to the blond hair and blue eyes. These dark curls and brown irises are disconcerting, to say the least. No one would recognize me now—not Maggie, not even Joshua.
Joshua. I swallow, trying to shove down the feeling that swells up. He served his purpose. You will need that boy in the end. Joshua needed to love me, so that one Emotion could break through my defenses. In the end it wasn’t death or terror that shattered them. It was someone else’s love. How poetic.
It takes me a day and a half to get there. Since I’d never left Gig Harbor before Nightmare came, I don’t recognize the signs or the landmarks. But I follow the directions I got from Google Maps, and as soon as I take a right onto the last dirt road, I know. That’s the driveway, up ahead. I’m here. This is the place. There’s a mailbox in the ditch, no name on the side of it since Mom was always paranoid about someone finding us.
She turned out to be right.
The clouds have broken up just a little, enough that a few rays of sun touch the ground in sporadic splotches. I’m stiff, holding my breath as if I’m about to drive off the cliff into the ocean. Nothing yet … just the woods on either side and the overgrown road. No one has been back here in a long, long time. It feels like it’s all been waiting for someone.
Waiting for me. I roll down the window and let the humid air in. Smelling like salt and wind, it toys with my curls as I listen to the sound of the gravel under the car. The crunch of rocks and dirt makes me think of Elizabeth’s life in Edson. All that’s missing is a slamming screen door …
The house comes into view.
It’s lonely. It’s old. No one has bothered to chop away the tangle of vines climbing up its side. The shingles are rotting and falling off. One of the windows is broken, and the front door is wide open. It’s different and it’s the same.
My head feels light, too light, and I remember that I’m holding my breath. I let it out in an audible whoosh. So many memories, so much pain. I can almost hear Landon’s voice, reading aloud, or Mom’s gentle tenor as she firmly instructs us to sit at the table and work on our math for an hour.
I expected to feel … happy, maybe. Or at least whole. But all I feel is empty. After everything, after all the years and the pain and the pretending, I expected more.
It doesn’t matter, though. What matters is that I’m finally home.