Who does he think I am?
What does he think I am?
I head into the kitchen and Roger’s mother gives me another look of concern. She and Roger are close, I can tell. She knows how to read her son. Over the years, they’ve been there for each other. He’s helped raise his sisters. And she’s raised him.
If I really were Roger, I could tell her everything. If I really were Roger, no matter how hard it was to understand, she would be on my side. Fiercely. Unconditionally.
But I am not really her son, or anyone’s son. I can’t disclose what’s bothering Roger today, because it doesn’t have much bearing on who he’ll be tomorrow. So I brush off his mother’s concern, tell her it’s no big deal, then help her take the dishes out of the dishwasher. We work in quiet camaraderie until the task is done, and sleep calls.
For a while, though, I can’t go to sleep. I lie in bed, stare at the ceiling. This is the irony: Even though I wake up in a different body every morning, I’ve always felt in some way that I am in control.
But now I don’t feel in control at all.
Now there are other people involved.
Day 6001
The next morning, I am even farther from Rhiannon.
I’m four hours away, and in the body of Margaret Weiss. Luckily, Margaret has a laptop that I can check before we go to school.
There’s an email waiting from Rhiannon.
Nathan!
I’m so glad you emailed, because I lost the slip of paper that I wrote your email on. It was wonderful talking and dancing with you, too. How dare the police break us up! You’re my type, personwise, too. Even if you don’t believe in relationships that last longer than a year. (I’m not saying you’re wrong, btw. Jury’s still out.)
I never thought I’d say this, but I hope Steve has another party soon. If only so you can bear witness to its evil.
Love,
Rhiannon
I can imagine her smiling when she wrote this, and this makes me smile, too.
Then I open my other account, and there’s another email from Nathan.
I have given the police this email address. Don’t think you can get away with this.
The police?
Quickly I type Nathan’s name into a search engine. A news item comes up, dated this morning.
THE DEVIL MADE HIM DO IT
Local boy, pulled over by police,
claims demonic possession
When police officers found Nathan Daldry, 16, of 22 Arden Lane, sleeping in his vehicle along the side of Route 23 early Sunday morning, they had no idea the story he would tell. Most teenagers would blame their condition on alcohol use, but not Daldry. He claimed no knowledge of how he had gotten where he was. The answer, he said, was that he must have been possessed by a demon.
“It was like I was sleepwalking,” Daldry tells the Crier. “The whole day, this thing was in charge of my body. It made me lie to my parents and drive to a party in a town I’ve never been to. I don’t really remember the details. I only know it wasn’t me.”
To make matters more mysterious, Daldry says that when he returned home, someone else’s email was on his computer.
“I wasn’t myself,” he says.
Officer Lance Houston of the state police says that because there was no sign of alcohol use and because the car wasn’t reported stolen, Daldry was not being charged with any offense.
“Look, I’m sure he has reasons for saying what he’s saying. All I can tell you is that he didn’t do anything illegal,” says Houston.
But that’s not enough for Daldry.
“If anyone else has experienced this, I want them to come forward,” he says. “I can’t be the only one.”
It’s a local paper’s website, nothing to worry too much about. And the police don’t seem to feel it’s a particularly pressing case. But still, I’m worried. In all my years, I’ve never had someone do this to me before.
It’s not that I can’t imagine how it happened: Nathan is woken up on the side of the road by a police officer tapping on his window. Maybe there are even flashing lights bathing the darkness in red and blue. Within seconds, Nathan realizes what kind of trouble he’s in—it’s well past midnight, and his parents are going to kill him. His clothes smell like cigarettes and alcohol, and he has no way of remembering whether or not he was drunk or high. He is a blank—a sleepwalker waking up. Only … he has a sense of me. Some lone memory of not being himself. When the officer asks him what’s going on, he says he doesn’t know. When the officer asks him where he’s been, he says he doesn’t know. The officer gets him out of the car, makes him take a Breathalyzer test. Nathan proves to be stone-cold sober. But the officer still wants answers, so Nathan tells him the truth—that his body was taken over. Only, he can’t imagine anyone who takes over bodies except for the devil. This is going to be his story. He is a good kid—he knows that everybody will back him up on that. They’re going to believe him.
The officer just wants him to get home safely. Maybe he even escorts Nathan home, calling ahead to his parents. They’re awake when Nathan gets there. They’re angry and concerned. He repeats his story to them. They don’t know what to believe. Meanwhile, some reporter hears the officer talking about it on the shortwave, or maybe it gets around the station. The teenager who snuck off to a party and then tried to blame it on the devil. The reporter calls the Daldry home on Sunday, and Nathan decides to talk. Because that will make it more real, won’t it?