Memento Nora (16 page)

I dreamed the dream that night.

The ash rained down smelling of cigar smoke. It was ten to two on the silver watch. The red socks twitched. The body moaned on the pavement. He turned his face, and it was Micah. Then I heard a scream. And the sound of doors opening and closing and opening again. I looked at the body once more, and it was my mother lying on the sidewalk, clutching the book with the red words on the black cover.
Memento Nora
.

27

Therapeutic Statement
42-03282028-11
Subject:
JAMES, NORA EMILY, 15
Facility:
HAMILTON DETENTION CENTER TFC-42

Winter Nomura slammed my locker shut, just barely missing my fingers.

“Micah’s gone,” she said. “And it’s your fault.” Her words were as spiky as her hair, which was all black now.

“What do you mean, gone?” I opened my locker again to get out my Spanish book.

“He never made it home yesterday.” She lowered her voice. “The Village was up all night looking for him. You turned him in, didn’t you?”

“I’d never,” I said, closing the door a little harder than I’d intended. “But I told him I couldn’t see him anymore.”

“When?” she asked.

“He came over last night before dinner.”

“Idiot,” Winter spat out. “I told him not to go to your place. He must really like you.”

She looked at me hard with those damn X-ray eyes of hers.

“Look, I believe
you
didn’t turn him in,” she said carefully. I could hear the inevitable
but
in her voice. And with a shiver, I knew what it was.

“But my dad probably did,” I said. He must’ve set the house security system to alert him if Micah ever visited. I guess I should’ve thought of that, but I’d never dreamed Dad would do something to Micah. Me, maybe. Not Micah.

“I think I’d better go,” Winter said, backing away. She had her eyes on someone or something behind me. I turned my head to get a look. It was Officer Bell. He was watching us as he searched bags across the hall. He didn’t make a move toward us, though, and Winter turned as non-chalantly as she could and walked quickly down the hall in the other direction.

Winter was right. Micah wasn’t anywhere in school. He wasn’t at lunch or in the art studio. I decided to blow off Tom once and for all, skip out, and see if Micah had come home yet.

The black dog wouldn’t let me past the inner gate to the Village, but through the iron bars I could see Mrs. Brooks consoling a woman in purple scrubs. I called to her, but Mrs. Brooks turned away and the dog growled at me. I ran back to school, stopping only to catch my breath at the bridge. I couldn’t believe he was really gone.

The rent-a-cop barely even looked at me as he searched my bag on the way back in. The late bell rang, but I ran to the bathroom. And threw up.

As I rested my head against the cool, and hopefully clean, porcelain, I thought about staying in the bathroom until school was out. I couldn’t go home yet. If I called the car service, I’d have to explain to Dad why I’d left school early. I could say I was sick, but I really couldn’t face him yet. I didn’t have any cash, and my only way home that second was on the school bus. Or on foot. I wasn’t feeling brave enough for that. But sitting on my own in there, in the same stall where I’d stashed
Memento
s, just gave me too much time to think. About Micah. About Mom and Dad. About Winter’s parents. I even thought about going to TFC and making it all just go away. For me, that is.

But I couldn’t do that to Micah. Not now.

So I went to class. I avoided everyone, but one thought kept haunting me: would Micah forget me?

28

Therapeutic Statement
42-03282028-11
Subject:
JAMES, NORA EMILY, 15
Facility:
HAMILTON DETENTION CENTER TFC-42

Dinner that night was agony. Dad was in the glossiest mood I’d seen him in for ages. He talked incessantly about the big move, which was a week from Saturday. He went on about the stuff he’d found out about the new school, the golf course, the shops in the mall. And then he mentioned that the Slaytons were next on the list to get a house. He winked at me and said that maybe I could be ungrounded for a certain dance with a certain Tom Slayton.

Mom hid behind her sunglasses. She barely ate; neither did I. All I could think about was Micah. There wasn’t anything I could do for him, but it was my fault. If he hadn’t come to see me, if I hadn’t agreed to do the comic, if I hadn’t said hi to him that day, if I hadn’t spit out the pill he would’ve been fine. I would have been fine.

Now I thought I understood my mother. We both hoped that if we forgot things, everything would be fine. I thought again about going back to TFC. How else could I live in Dad’s world, in the gated castle he wanted to keep me in, knowing what I knew without going crazy?

When I was getting ready for bed that night—dreading lying there, waiting for the dream to come—I found something under my pillow. It was the last issue of
Memento
, the one with the black vans, without words, the one Micah had brought over the night before.

I looked at the frame where the van was coming out of the parking garage, the one next to Tiffany’s. I recognized that place—not the garage but the building beside it. It was 42 Randolph Street—where my dad works. Soft Target. The building and vehicles are unmarked to protect client interests, or at least that’s what he’d always said.

Why would Dad’s company blow up parked cars? The whole thing was ridiculous. Terrorists blew up things. That’s why most people go to TFC.
To forget our cares.
To forget that the Coalition is out there stalking us. One little pill makes everything tolerable.

Then I saw it. I didn’t want to see it, but there it was.

TFC is Dad’s biggest client. And the worse things seem, the more attacks there are, the more money TFC and everyone else involved make.

No, that’s insane.
I shuddered.
That can’t be the kind of security Dad provides.

I tried to justify it in some way. Maybe Soft Target just blew up parked, empty, peopleless cars. It was the real terrorists who were still out there blowing up bookstores. Right?

Maybe. Or maybe not.

My head started to pound.

I ripped up
Memento
and threw it in the trash. Forgetting my cares actually sounded pretty good just then.

I had the dream again.

This time the body arced out of the window of the top floor of the bookstore. I could see the dark suit, the red socks, the silver watch, and the book as they dived toward the concrete.

I touched the book after it hit the ground. It didn’t explode. I turned over the body, fully expecting it to be Micah. Or my mother. It wasn’t.

It was me.

The silver watch was really a charm bracelet with a little silver purse on it. And the book didn’t say
Memento Nora
. It said
Medieval Churches
.

I woke up in a cold sweat. I knew exactly what I needed to do.

I picked the pieces of
Memento
out of the trash can and taped them back together. Then I sat down at my desk and inked in the captions and dialogue. The words flowed out of me like they had the first time I told my story to Micah. And when the words were all on the paper, I nodded off. And I didn’t dream.

Someone tousled my hair.

“Did you sleep at your desk?” Mom asked, concerned.

“Uh, I forgot this was due today.” I tried my best to cover the drawings, but I thought she saw.

“Is that what Micah wanted you to help finish?” she asked. “Your art history project?”

I nodded. She didn’t try to look at the paper, only at me.

Suddenly I wasn’t sure anymore. If I got caught, it meant the Big D and the Big Pill—as Micah called it. I’d forget about the past few weeks and go back to my glossy ways, oblivious. To everything.

“Mom, why don’t we go away? The two of us,” I said, studying her face. “We could go to the beach, just like we did when I was younger.” I saw a flicker in her eyes, like she was considering it. Or had considered it. Maybe Dad wouldn’t find us this time—or even bother to look, especially if I threatened to expose him with this comic.

I felt the paper under my hands. It was so thin. It wouldn’t intimidate my father.

“Beach?” Mom asked, her face crinkled with amusement. “Honey, we’ve never been to the beach.” She laughed gently, dismissing the whole idea. “Breakfast is ready,” she added as she walked into the hallway.

“Good morning, Siddy,” I heard my father say as he moved past her. Then I heard him dash down the stairs. “Early morning meeting,” he called right before the front door slammed shut.

The black-and-white lines of
Memento
stared at me from my desk. The black van drives out of Soft Target. Van guy sticks something on car. It blows up.

I had no appetite for breakfast.

I pulled out my history book and wrote five words in block letters across the top of chapter eleven. Just in case. I dog-eared the page so I wouldn’t miss it later.

Then I stuffed the last issue of
Memento
and my copy of
Medieval Churches
into my backpack and slung it over my shoulder.

On my way downstairs I checked myself in the hall mirror. I hadn’t done my hair or my makeup, and I was wearing the same clothes I had on yesterday. The old me would’ve never gone out like this. The new me, though, liked what she saw in the mirror, bad dreams and all.