The Shadow Girl (14 page)

“The finale is off,” she says. “Would you listen again and tell me what’s wrong?”

“Of course,” says my mother.

The video flickers, shifts and enhances, as if the person filming did some fine-tuning. Iris shivers as I take in the now-vivid picture, and a thousand needles prick my skin.

It’s like I’m seeing myself at the age of thirteen or fourteen years old, but I don’t recognize the room in the scene—the dark green velvet sofa, the long flowing draperies behind it, the fancy Chinese rug on the floor. Because
the girl isn’t me
. We could be twins, though. Except for her short haircut and her porcelain pale face, we look exactly alike. Her hair is the same dark auburn shade, her eyes the same dark brown. She wears a simple white dress like one I found in the chest in Dad’s workshop.

My twin reaches for a violin on a glass coffee table and stands. She looks into the camera and frowns, bites her lower lip as if she’s hesitant . . . unsure of herself.

“Take your time,” says the cameraman with a tone of encouragement. “There’s no need to rush, Doodlebug.”

At the sound of Dad’s pet name for me, I stop breathing. It’s his voice.
He’s
filming the scene.

The girl smiles as she looks at my father with loving eyes identical to mine.

Lily
, Iris says, her tone capturing my shock as the camera shifts to a woman sitting on the opposite end of the couch. It’s my mother when she was much younger. She’s radiant, with shiny hair so dark it’s almost black and eyes that sparkle with happiness. Scooting to the edge of the couch, she claps her hands together and says, “Aren’t you proud of our beautiful daughter, Adam? She’s worked so hard.”

“Of course I’m proud,” Dad answers, aiming the camera again at my twin. “You’re going to shine tonight, sweetheart.”

Smiling nervously, the girl places the bow against the strings and begins to play the same piece that I played this morning for Ty. The jewelry box song.

I stand frozen in place, listening, stunned, and when she finishes, Mom cheers and Dad exclaims, “Wonderful, Iris!”

A whirlwind spirals up inside of me, and the sound of a gasp spins me around. Mom stands behind me, one hand clutching the handle of her cane, the other pressed to her mouth. Our gazes lock.

“Iris was real,” I cry. “You said I imagined her, but you knew I was telling the truth. I had a
sister
! Didn’t I have a right to know?”

13

“Lily . . . please don’t do this,” Mom says, walking past me with her cane.

I whirl around to her, but the television diverts my attention when images of Iris and Mom’s smiling face flash on screen. I hear Dad’s enthusiastic voice. Their laughter. Sights and sounds of a happy family.

Mom steps in front of the television, blocking my view. “Let this go. No good can come of it.” She reaches back to turn off the video.

I rush over to stop her, but I’m too late. “What do you expect me to do? Pretend Iris didn’t exist? Well, she did! She still does.”

Mom draws back. “What are you saying?”

“The same thing I was trying to tell you when I was four years old.” I dig my fingers into my palms as the memory slams into me again. “I told you she talks to me, but you wouldn’t listen.”

“Do you mean you still think she does?” Mom asks with shock.

“I
know
she does.”

The cane thumps the floor as she limps to the couch. “We thought it would stop,” she says quietly. “That you’d outgrow it.”

My voice rises. “I didn’t imagine her, Mom. I’m not crazy. I know her name! Admit it—you and Dad never said it aloud. Not around me, so how else could I have known?” I pause for a breath, and when she doesn’t answer, I say, “Why did you keep her a secret?”

She sinks down onto the couch. “You’ve got to understand—”

“But I
don’t
understand! I had a
sister
and you didn’t tell me. What were you so afraid of? That you wouldn’t be able to move on if you admitted she was here? Because she is.” I press my fingers to my temples. “Iris is with me all the time. Inside of me. She’s here right now.”

Mom goes rigid. “Don’t say that! I can’t stand it! Iris died. She’s gone!”

“
You
can’t stand it?” I huff a humorless laugh. “Iris talks to me . . . she whispers and whispers and whispers until sometimes I want to crack my skull open and pull her out, but I can’t. I can’t get her out, even when I want to be alone and think thoughts she can’t hear. That’s not possible because she hears
everything
.”

“Oh, Lily . . .” Mom sobs, blinking up at me. “We didn’t know.”

I shake my head. “You and Dad could’ve helped me, but instead—” The enormity of Dad’s betrayal is more painful than hers. I hear him calling Iris Doodlebug. My nickname.
Mine
. “I’m not really surprised that you lied to me, but Dad . . .” My throat closes.

“Please don’t blame him,” Mom says in a quivering voice. “Your father wanted to tell you, but I wouldn’t let him. This is my fault. All of it. From the very beginning.”

“Why did you and Dad hide your past from me? Why can’t Iris move on? Why can’t
you
?” When she turns away, I start for the stairs to the loft, pausing at the landing to glance back at her. “How did my sister die?” I ask.

“She had leukemia.”

“When did she die?”

“May nineteenth. The year before you were born. She turned seventeen on May sixth.”

“May sixth is
my
birthday,” I say.

“The two of you were born on the same day,” Mom explains, sounding wrung out and ancient. “Eighteen years apart.”

My mind stumbles over that freaky twist of fate. “What did Dad mean when he asked me to reassure him that the two of you had ‘done the right thing’?” I ask.

In a harsh whisper, she says, “I don’t know.” But I don’t believe her.

“He was going to tell me about Iris when we got home, wasn’t he? How can knowing about her protect me? That’s what Dad said to you that morning—that the truth is my only protection.”

No answer.

Trembling with anger, I say, “Did the two of you run away to Silver Lake?”

Her head jerks toward me. “Run away? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Stop lying! Did you even know how to play the violin or is that a lie, too?”

“I played,” Mom says. “When I was a girl. But not like Iris. Nobody could play like her.”

“I can,” I say. “I played today.” But I’m not sure she hears me.

Covering her face with her hands, Mom starts weeping again. “Iris helped me, but I couldn’t help her. So I did what I had to. I don’t regret it. You don’t know how it is to lose a child. I couldn’t just let her go. I couldn’t.”

Confused by what she’s saying, I cross to the couch and sit beside her. I push her hair back, still upset, but hurting for her, too.

“Your father and I—we loved her so much.” Mom lowers her hands, and her eyes meet mine. “We love you, too, Lily.
I
love you. But it’s been so difficult.” She cups my cheek. “How can I move on when I see her every time I look at you?”

Her comment stings like a slap, but she’s my mother, and I can’t stand to see her in so much pain. Taking her hands, I say, “You said you don’t regret what you did to help Iris. What do you mean?”

I can tell my words don’t reach her. She squeezes her eyes shut, caught in a landslide of mindless grief.

“I’m so sorry,” Mom whispers, gripping my fingers. “We never imagined that Iris would haunt you. In a way, she’s haunted all of us.”

I lie in bed next to Cookie for an hour listening to my iPod with the volume turned up so I won’t hear Mom’s crying or Iris’s frenzied pacing around in my mind. When the playlist ends, I pull the earbuds out. The house is quiet. Iris is, too.

I go downstairs again and find Mom asleep on the couch, tossing restlessly. On the coffee table beside her, her vial of sedatives sits next to a stack of books.

I pick up the VCR remote and turn on the television, muting the volume. After hitting rewind, I retreat to a corner chair. The tape makes a whirring noise as it scrolls back to the very start of the cassette, and when it finishes, I click play.

Over the next several minutes, my sister’s life unfolds before me, beginning just after her birth. I’m completely aware of Iris watching along with me, mesmerized by each image on the screen, as numb with shock as I am.

In the video, our parents are so young that I almost don’t recognize them. They’re all smiles and wonder as they wiggle Iris’s fingers and toes, their joy so overwhelming I can almost feel the warmth of it flowing from the television set.

On the couch, Mom murmurs disjointed sentences in her sleep as I watch Iris grow into a toddler, surrounded by my parents and other adoring people I don’t know. A young woman with frizzy brown bangs and squinty eyes behind funky glasses who resembles Dad. A tall, skinny man with big ears and a grin that covers half of his face. An older couple about the age my parents are now. I wonder if they might be my grandparents.

Yes
, Iris says.
I’m not sure about the other two. So much is still hazy.

Envy spears me. Iris knew our grandparents. Why haven’t
I
ever met them? Or these other people who were once important in my parents’ lives? Why weren’t they ever even mentioned?

What else do you remember?
I ask.

We were happy. Then something bad happened. I was so scared.

You got sick.

Something else. Something they made me do.

Dreading her answer, I ask,
Who? Mom and Dad?

Not sure. I don’t think so. Maybe . . .

Iris’s anxiety becomes my own as, on the screen, I see her splashing in a lake, and I realize that she’s the girl in all of Mom’s artwork. Shaking, I fast-forward through her childhood until she’s almost the age I am now. She’s standing on a stage, wearing the green beaded dress, the violin and bow in her hands. Behind her, a black man dressed in a tuxedo sits at a glossy piano. I use the remote to ease the volume up slightly as they begin to play.

The music drifts over me like a warm breeze, and despite everything that’s happened tonight, I gradually feel uplifted. At peace. I think of the change in Cookie after he heard me play this afternoon—the bolstering effect the music had on his mood.

“Oh, darling. I’m sorry,” Mom murmurs, and I drag my gaze from the television to look at her. She’s sitting up, a dark silhouette in the shadowed room, her voice distraught. My spirit tumbles again. Pushing from the chair, I go to her.

There are so many things I want to ask her. Why did she and Dad leave their old life behind? Why did they have me after Iris died? Was I just her substitute? A baby conceived to fill the void Iris’s death had left in their lives? If so, I failed. Mom said she loves me, but does she love me as much as she loved my sister?

Sitting beside Mom on the couch, I watch Iris on the screen and jealousy stabs me again and twists the knife. I take in her chic haircut, her poised posture, her grace and confidence. No wonder I don’t measure up to Iris in my mother’s eyes. I look exactly like my sister, but she was everything I’m not. When Mom looks at me, she must only notice what’s missing.

“Forgive me,” Mom whispers.

“Please don’t cry anymore,” I say. “I’m not mad at you or Dad. I just need to understand what’s happening.”

The light on the television screen flickers, illuminating her face, and I realize Mom’s watching Iris. She’s asking for my
sister’s
forgiveness, not mine.

Resentment fills my chest and hardens like concrete. But it just as quickly crumbles when I notice the deep creases of worry on Mom’s face and the sharp glitter of anxiety in her eyes. Encouraging her to lie down, I say, “You don’t have to worry anymore, Mom. Iris is happy.”

She clutches my arm, blinks up at me. “Is she, Lily?”

I focus in on the essence of my sister, aware of Iris’s distress. “Yes,” I tell Mom. It isn’t a complete lie. I know Iris has moments of happiness.

“How do you know?” Mom asks.

Measuring my words, I say, “I sense her feelings and hear what she’s thinking in my head. You said that she haunts me, but it isn’t like that. It’s—” I glance at the girl playing her soul out on the screen. “It’s like Iris is more than a ghost—like she’s a part of me.”

“But you said she’s in your head. That she won’t stop whispering. She must be so tormented.” Mom cups my cheek with her cold, trembling hand. “You both must be.”

“No, Mom. I was upset when I said that. Sometimes I do wish she’d let me have a minute to myself, but I would never want her to go away forever.”

The music ends. Applause erupts. On the television screen, Iris bows.

“She’s always been my friend,” I whisper. “I love her.”

In the video, my sister lifts her head and peers out at the audience. The applause intensifies. Iris looks directly into my eyes and smiles as a soft voice inside my mind says,
I love you, too
.

I sit on the porch, wrapped in a blanket, waiting for the sunrise. Iris hovers at the edge of my mind.

So many lost memories . . . ,
she says sadly.
Why can’t I remember more than glimpses . . . the music . . . Jake?

Maybe it’s just going to take time for the rest.
I sigh.
The things in the tool chest are yours, aren’t they? Jake wrote the note to you.

Yes.

You loved each other.

Like crazy,
Iris says.

I want to ask more, but she curls into that dark, silent place where I can’t reach her, as if she wants to be alone with her memories of Jake.

I pick apart all I know, piece by piece. For some reason, I keep returning to the odd coincidence that Iris and I share the same birthday. I once wrote an English report about a science fiction and fantasy writer named Emma Bull. She said that “coincidence is the word we use when we can’t see the levers and pulleys.” Could there be a reason our birthdays are the same? Does that commonality have anything to do with why we’ve connected so strongly?

Tangled up inside, I call Addie as the first rays of light peek over the eastern horizon. She’s always up before dawn, and answers on the first ring.

“Something happened last night,” I tell her. “I really need to talk to somebody. Can you come over?” I burst into tears.

Addie says she’ll leave right away.

While I wait, I go check on Mom. She’s still sleeping so I put Cookie in his crate and go upstairs to change into jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. Twenty minutes later, I hear a car outside.

Rushing downstairs, I pull open the door. Wyatt is climbing the steps behind his grandmother. I’m so glad to see him that I run past Addie and throw my arms around him. “Thank you for coming.”

As we step apart, he lowers his eyes. “I can only stay a little while before I have to leave for school.”

Addie reaches for the door, saying, “Where’s your mother?”

“Sleeping on the couch. I’m worried about her. She’s totally out of it.” My voice cracks as I add, “Before she fell asleep, she couldn’t stop crying.”

Inside, the three of us pause, our eyes on Mom. Then Addie shrugs out of her coat, whispering, “Help me get her to bed, Lily.”

Wyatt goes out to the porch as Addie and I rouse Mom and take her to her room. She curls up on her bed without a word.

I follow Addie back to the living room, and call Wyatt inside. “What happened?” Addie asks, leading me to the couch and drawing me close to her.