I was five feet, five inches tall and hoped against all odds to grow taller.
I weighed 121 pounds.
I knew my social security number.
I knew my student ID number.
I knew my driver’s license number, which surprised me because I didn’t think I’d ever memorized that.
It was as if every number I’d ever known was coming bubbling up into my brain. My home was at number 72. My birthday was July 26. My phone number . . .
“That’s not what matters,” I said.
“I thought you wanted to see your memories,” Messenger said.
“Those aren’t the memories. Those aren’t what I need. Did you do that to me? Can you turn my memory on and off?”
He surprised me by giving me a direct answer. “Yes.”
“That’s not fair!” The words were out of my mouth before I’d even begun to think about them.
“Fair.” He said the word with something like reverence. Like the word had deep significance to him. “I’m sorry you find me unfair, but I think you are mistaken. You don’t yet understand, and whether it is fair or not in your judgment, I will hold your memories. I will hold them back.”
“What? Who says? I mean, what?”
“It’s part of the deal you made,” Messenger said.
I froze.
“What?”
He did not repeat himself. So I did.
“What? What do you mean, it’s the deal I made?”
“You must trust me, Mara.”
“Trust you? I don’t even know your name. I don’t even know what you are. I don’t know where we are or why. Trust you?”
“Yes, Mara. You must trust me.”
I stared at him, and this time I did not lower my eyes but met his gaze. “What is this about?” I asked.
He could have easily sidestepped such a poorly phrased question. But he did not. Instead he chose to answer, emphasis always on “chose” because though I didn’t yet know it, I was entirely in his power. At that moment, and for a long while after as well, I belonged to Messenger. I was his to control.
“This,” he said without the least drama or emphasis, “is about true and false. Right and wrong. Good and evil. And justice, Mara. This is about justice. And balance. And . . .” He nodded as if to himself rather than to me. “. . . and redemption.”
I said nothing. What is there to be said after such a speech?
He seemed vaguely amused that he had silenced me. And he took the opportunity to point a finger and invite my gaze to turn in the direction he indicated.
“It is also, at this moment, about Samantha Early.”
And there she was, Samantha Early, no longer at school but at her laptop computer in a Starbucks. She was chewing on her upper lip, concentrating, typing in stops and starts. Pause, then a sudden flurry. Pause, then a sudden flurry.
“What is she writing?” I asked.
“She’d already written it when she died,” Messenger said. “As to what she wrote, go and look.”
We were outside the Starbucks, looking in through the window. I went for the door, reached for it with my hand, and found that it seemed to slip away. I thought at first I had just missed, but a second attempt had the same result. On a third attempt I watched carefully and moved my hand slowly. I expected to see my hand pass in a ghostly way through the solid object. And what does it reveal about my state of mind that I expected that?
But rather than my insubstantial hand passing through a solid object, it was the door handle that moved. It was there, and then, seconds before my fingers would have touched it, it was gone. And the instant I withdrew my hand, it was back.
“You cannot alter what you see around you,” Messenger instructed. “You may see all but touch nothing. What you see is all past, and the past may not be changed.”
“How do I see what she’s writing if I can’t open the stupid door?” I said. I was annoyed by the door, irrationally annoyed. It was strange to be irritated by something so small in these wanderings with a strange boy through an impossible universe. But maybe it was easier or safer to be bothered by things that seemed familiar.
The deal I made.
Did I even want to know how I had come to make a deal with Messenger? And why had he said that we may not touch? Why may and not can? That word choice hinted at rules, and rules come from a person or institution.
“I need time,” I said. “I need to . . . to rest.” If I could just sit down somewhere, digest, put things together. Think.
“It’s a lot to understand,” Messenger allowed. “But the understanding will only come by living it.”
“Or you could explain it,” I snapped.
“Do you want to know what Samantha Early is writing?”
I have a fatal weakness: I am the cat curiosity killed. “Yes, of course I want to know. The girl is going to kill herself. Maybe her writing will tell us why.”
“Then see,” Messenger said.
It was a challenge. Or a test. He wanted to know whether I could find a way into the coffee shop.
The thing I “may” not do was to change anything around me. I could not touch, could not change. I had a thought then and wondered if it made sense. I could ask Messenger, but I sensed that this would disappoint him, and absurdly, I did not want to disappoint him.
We had become teacher and student, and I have always been a good, if not perfect, student. It’s one of the things I dislike about myself, that willingness to please. Sometimes I dislike it so much that I pick fights with people just to show that I will not be their slave. But this was not the time, and Messenger was not the person. He held my memories. He had power over me. If I were ever to get back to my own reality, escape this . . . this whatever it was. . . then it would be through Messenger.