Who We Are (17 page)

Aware that someone might see her, Desire walked away quickly, away from the stairs. She walked to the front of the church. She felt thankful to see that all the girls had left the front steps, and even more thankful to find Johnny sitting there. She felt her heart skip a few beats as she approached him.
He looks so handsome today!
His hair was tousled on his head and he was wearing denim jeans with a blue checked shirt. The sleeves were rolled up and his tanned muscular arms rested on his knees. He smiled as she approached him.

              It took all of her will power to not run and jump into his waiting arms, but she reminded herself that they were in public and such behaviour would not be tolerated.

              “Good morning Johnny,” she stated as she approached him. Her eyes gave away how delighted she was to see him.

              “Hello Desire. How about it? Are you ready to do some work today? My father has everything prepared in his workshop for us to finish the toys I started.” They both knew he was saying this only for the benefit of any nosey neighbours who may be watching or listening.

              “Yes, I am ready. And I have prepared a lunch for us. I made enough for your father as well.”

              Johnny started walking toward the workshop and she followed a few steps behind, even though it felt incredibly ridiculous to do so, but she did not want to raise any suspicion in the community.

They walked together in silence. It was a beautiful day for a walk, with the sun shining and the sky as blue as could be. There were a few fluffy clouds in the sky today and they looked like giant cotton balls. The town was pretty quiet today. Most people were busy preparing for the Celebration. There would be lots of sewing of new dresses, baking cakes, pies cookies and candies, and tending to flowers – all in addition to the regular daily chores.

              When they arrived at the workshop, they went into the little office attached to the workshop. Johnny led her into the workshop, still completely empty. No sooner had the door to the office shut behind them, Johnny turned to her and pulled her into his arms. He hugged her tight for what seemed like an eternity. She returned the embrace and buried her head in his chest. He smelled so good to her. There was something so comforting and familiar inside of his arms. He pulled back gently and looked at her face. He placed one hand gently under her chin and leaned down to kiss her. He kissed her long and soft. It felt so good, she wished they could just stay frozen in that moment forever.

              As she responded to his kiss, the workshop around them seemed to heat up. Her heart started to race a little, and she was intoxicated by his kiss. Ready for an afternoon of passion, she dropped her basket to the floor. This jolted him out of his passionate trance.

              “I love you, Desire, and I want to spend the entire afternoon making sweet love to you.” He stroked her hair as he said this. “But we have much work to do and there is much for us to talk about.”

              She understood. They couldn’t possibly spend the whole afternoon together with no work to show for it. She felt happy just to spend some time alone with him. She knew he would sneak in some more kisses during the day.

              “Johnny, I understand we only have a little more than a week to prepare, so we best not waste our time. Plus, you know my Papa. He will want a full report about what we accomplished. ”Desire picked up the picnic basket and followed Johnny to the back of the workshop. What she saw on his working table surprised her. There was about half a dozen little wooden toys on the table. Each one had been painted to perfection. On the floor next to the table, she saw a neat row of boxes all labelled with the name of a game on it, like Bingo, Tag and Musical chairs. She walked over and looked into each box. Each one was packed with all the necessary supplies to play the game indicated by the label on the outside of the box.

              “Johnny, you have done all the work, and all the prizes are ready. That must have taken a lot of time. I don’t understand though, if all the work is done, what is there for us to do today. You just said there was much work to be done.”

              He walked over to her and took the picnic basket out of her hand and, with his free hand, took one of hers. “Desire, Do you trust me?”

“Yes, Johnny, I do,” she replied emphatically.

“Then forget the boxes. Forget the games and prizes and follow me.” He led her to the opposite corner of the workshop where he pulled on a wood panel, Desire watched it disappear into the wall, just like the one in the back of the church.

Once they got through the secret door, he set the picnic basket down and slid the door shut. There was an extra locking mechanism on this side of the door and Johnny latched it shut. Desire looked around. They were in a moderately sized room that was clean and smelled fresh. There were windows high up on the walls which allowed sunlight to peek in, but too high for a person outside to see in. There was a couch at the back of the room, a bookcase and a few odd chairs. In the corner opposite to the couch, there was a little table with two chairs. There was no fireplace or icebox. Desire did not feel scared, but she did feel confused. “Johnny, this is the second secret door I have seen today. Why do you need a secret door?”

“Desire, it’s not always safe at my house so I have this secret room where I can think or just get away from everything. Come here. I want to show you something.” He walked over to the couch and moved it away from the wall. He pulled up a loose floor board and reached under and pulled out a small leather bound notebook. He ran his hands over and around the edges as if it contained precious information. He moved closer to Desire and looked into her eyes intently. “Desire, we have a lot to talk about, but you must be famished. I know I am. Why don’t you set out our lunch and we will talk later.” He placed the book on a little table beside the couch.

Desire tried to contain her nervousness as she unpacked the basket. She trembled a little because now she felt a little scared. She wasn’t scared of Johnny, but the memory of the last few days wouldn’t tuck themselves far enough away in her memory to forget. Now, Johnny had secrets to share with her, and her gut told her she needed to brace herself. As she poured the lemonade from a glass bottle, she spilled some on Johnny’s sandwich. Seeing this, Johnny took the bottle from her and dried her hand with an embroidered napkin she had brought in the basket. He poured the rest of the tart, but sweet drink into their glasses, put the bottle on the table, and took her face in his hands. “Desire, I can’t imagine how all of this must seem, but you never have to be scared around me. I will never forgive myself for letting Nathaniel get to you before I could protect you and I promise with my life you will never have to endure something like that again.” “I know a lot of strange things are going on all at once all around you. Now, more than ever, if you love me, or even think you love me, I need you to trust me.” He kissed her gently and gave her a hug.

              “I do trust you, Johnny, and I think I love you. You are all I think about. But I feel confused about everything. Not about you, of course. When I am with you, everything seems right. I feel safe with you. I don’t know why, but it feels like I am supposed to be with you. More so than with my parents, or anyone.”

              Johnny hugged her again. “Everything will be okay, I promise. Let’s eat and then I will show you my book.”

He offered her a chair at the table and then sat down to eat. She looked at his soggy sandwich and felt bad.
It’s not fair for him to eat the yucky sandwich just because I can’t control my nerves!
She got up and switched their plates.  As she sat back down, Johnny switched the plates again. He had long arms so he didn’t need to get up to do this.

              “No, Johnny you shouldn’t have to eat that.” He just smiled and took a big bite of the soggy sandwich. “Well, it just so happens that I like my sandwiches with a little lemonade.” He winked at her and continued to eat. She loved that he was willing to eat her soggy, lemony roast beef sandwich.

              Biting into her sandwich, she realized just how hungry she was. She wolfed down her sandwich and drank all of her lemonade. Then she ate one of the cookies in one bite. Johnny laughed.

              “What is so funny?”

              “You are so cute when you eat. You just reminded me of last Sunday when you shoved a whole brownie in your mouth and then you couldn’t chew!” He laughed a little more. Desire felt embarrassed, but then imagined how that must have looked. She burst out laughing too. Once she started laughing she couldn’t stop. She wasn’t even sure what exactly she was laughing at after a few minutes, but it felt so good. Laughing tears ran from her eyes and her belly started to ache. Johnny was laughing hard too. When all the giggles were out, she wiped her eyes and face with the napkin. “Oh my, that felt so good.” She looked up at him and her eyes sparkled in the sunlight.

              When they had finished lunch, she tidied up the table and packed the extra cookies and fruit in the basket, folded the blanket and wrapped the lemonade bottle up in the pretty napkins. Johnny stood up and led her over to the couch where they sat down together. He grabbed her hand and kissed it. “Desire, I have a lot to tell you, and I don’t want you be scared. Some of it will be hard to believe. No matter what you hear today, I swear to you that it is the truth.” She looked at him with a curious look. She didn’t know what to think, but she did trust him.

              He reached over to the table beside the couch and picked up the leather book. It was tied shut with leather straps. He placed the book on his lap and took a deep breath. “Desire, I am going to share with you what is in this book. You cannot repeat anything I tell you today. If anyone else finds out about our conversation today, they will kill me and probably kill you too. I don’t want to put you at risk, but I know there is no way I can save us without you knowing the truth.”

             
They would kill us? Who are They? What did we need saving from?
Desire could tell by the look on his face that he was serious and, if she didn’t know any better, she saw fear in his eyes. This scared her more than his words.
What could be so bad that scared Johnny?

              After a week of surprises, she wondered if what Johnny had to say would make sense of some of it all. No matter what, she felt sure that she would not like what he had to say, but sometimes knowing is better.

              “Desire, you are not who you think you think you are – none us are.” With that he made a motion with his hand toward the other side of the room. Desire turned her head, and saw Tobias slip through the secret sliding door. Tobias, in his usual way, nodded to Desire and took a seat across the room.

             
What was Tobias doing here?

She looked back and forth between Johnny and Tobias with question in her eyes.

              “Don’t be scared, Desire. What I am about to tell you will scramble your thoughts briefly. Tobias knows what is really going on around here too and he wants to help us.” He looked at her earnestly. “Do you trust me, Darby?”

             
Darby? Why did he just call me Darby? And why doesn’t it feel wrong for him to call me that? Why does it feel so right?
She nodded earnestly.

              Johnny took a deep breath and then started. “As I just mentioned, you are not who you think you are. Your real name is Darby O’Doyle. My real name is Aedan Callaghan. We both grew up in Milton, in Massachusetts. I was 21 years old when they brought me here and you were 18. To the best of my calculation, that was two years ago, but I cannot be absolutely certain. You and I have known each other our whole lives. We grew up in the same Irish community and started to date in high school. My last intact memory is of me, my mom, my dad and you driving to Cambridge to move me into my dorm at Harvard law school. We were in my dad’s truck. The next thing I remember is waking up in a hospital. The best I can figure is we were in a traffic accident on the highway. I don’t know for sure. I don’t know how long I stayed in the hospital, but my best guess is about three months. Most of what I remember throughout that time is constantly being given many drugs through an intravenous line every time I woke up. And, I remember wondering where you were for the few lucid moments I had before the drugs kicked in and knocked me out.

              “One day, I woke up here in Hemac. For the first little while, I believed I was Johnny, that I grew up here and was part of this community. That’s what everyone told me, after all. A few months went by before I started to suspect that something was very strange here. I had peculiar dreams of people and places that felt so real. But they felt more like memories than dreams. I now know they were memories of my real life trying to creep back into my conscious brain. As my old and new memories collided, I got into some trouble. I was snooping around and asking too many questions. When They got wind of this, They took me to Work for an adjustment. You see, Work isn’t Work at all. It is actually a giant laboratory where they conduct human experiments and mutate our minds. I wasn’t conscious much of the time in the lab, but when I was, I tried to listen to everything They said. The only information I could establish for certain was that They were trying to erase my memory and re-program it and my consciousness. As soon as I realized what they were doing to me, I started to play along. I figured that the more medication they had to give me, the less chance there was for me to hang on to the real me.