Chapter 45

"Are you dead?"

I feel small, sticky fingers prying my eye open.

"Yeah. You're dead."

I open both eyes to see Jenna racing through a door at the end of a bed I am apparently lying in. "Kayla! I told you not to come in here! Go on out to the greenhouse with Aunt Allys. She's leaving in just a minute. She has a special chore for you."

I look at the small child at the side of my bed. She has long black hair and shocking blue eyes that squint at me suspiciously. She is clearly dubious of Jenna's commands and doesn't budge.

Jenna tilts her head and says firmly, "Kayla."

The little girl rolls her eyes like she is four going on fourteen. "I'll play with you later," she says before she skips out the door.

Jenna smiles and shakes her head, and then comes in and sits on the edge of the bed. "How are you feeling?"

"Good, I guess. How long have I been out?"

"Almost twenty-four hours, but part of that is my fault. I gave you something. I wasn't sure how it would work with your particular--" She stops like she is searching for a word. "Configuration. But you seem to have a system that responds in most ways like a typical human body, and I didn't want to stitch you up without something to put you out for a while. Besides, you needed the rest."

"Wait a minute." I push myself up on one elbow. "You stitched me?" I look down. My shirt is gone, and when I glance beneath the blanket, so are the rest of my clothes. It looks like I've been bathed. "What did you--"

"Don't worry. I'm over it. You should be too."

I pull the blanket up a little higher to cover my chest. "Where'd you learn to stitch things?"

She smiles. "There's a lot you can learn in two hundred and sixty years. I haven't been sitting around twiddling my thumbs all this time." She reaches over and lays her hand on mine like it was only yesterday that we held hands under the stars. "I'm going to bring you something to eat. If you're up to it, your clothes are over there." She nods toward a chair in the corner. "Freshly washed." She stands. "I'll be right back."

Once she closes the door, I hop out of bed and grab my clothes, scrambling them on as fast as I can. But I guess the seeing-me-naked ship has already sailed. I pull my shirt up and look in the mirror. The bandage around my middle is gone, and the gash is barely visible. She knows how to stitch. I look around the room. It's simply furnished--a bed, an antique dresser with an oval mirror, and two small wingback chairs in the corner with a small round table between them. On the floor is a basket of shells, stones, and worn pieces of glass and wood that look like they've been collected from a beach. A multicolored braided rug lies between the bed and chairs. There's only one picture on the wall. I step closer to get a better look. It's an old photo of some kind of art--hundreds of pine needles pushed into the ground, made to look like a snake weaving in and out of the earth. Right near the head of the snake is a single real sparrow with its head slightly turned, almost as if it's listening for a hiss. The title is handwritten at the bottom, Pine Serpent, with an inscription in one corner, To Jenna, and then signed in the other corner, C. Bender.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

I turn. "It's different. You know the artist?"

"I did." She walks across the room and sets a tray on the table in the corner. I look at the tray overflowing with food--eggs, fruit, French toast. Even a lace-edged linen napkin. The Jenna I knew didn't cook. At the summer cottage, Kara and I even had to show her how to fry an egg.

"Thanks. I'm starved, but I could have come to the kitchen."

"No, it's better here. We'll have some privacy."

She goes back and closes the door and then sits in the chair opposite mine. "I hope you like it. Go ahead. Eat."

She does all the talking while I stuff my face. She tells me that the French toast recipe is from her grandmother Lily. Ground ginger, that's the secret. Lily taught her how to cook. She says most of the food comes from local farmers or she grows it herself. She even has chickens and several goats who provide eggs, milk, and cheese. She keeps the air filled with chatter about vegetables, rainfall, and Lily's recipes until I take my last bite, and then she leans back in her chair and sighs. "Tell me, Locke. Who did this to you?"

"Which part? The body? The beating? The stealing of my mind?"

"Everything."

I start at the beginning with Dr. Ash, giving her Cole's version rather than Dr. Gatsbro's. She is surprised when I mention Dr. Ash, remembering him from visits to her father's labs. Ash's office was down the hall from her father's, and she always noticed how polished and well groomed he was compared to so many of the disheveled scientists who worked there. He never wore a lab coat, always nicely tailored suits.

"His tastes were apparently expensive--at least costly enough that he needed a little secret side business." But then I think about the smugness of Gatsbro's face in the alley when he found us, like we were only insects that had scurried out of his petri dish, like all the power of the world was in his hands. My mother used to say that power was a mighty drug. I didn't really know what that meant until now. "Or maybe Ash did it just because he could."

I don't tell her everything that happened in all our years apart. How can I? The restrained grimace that crosses her face when I skim the bare details tells me she is grasping our nine levels of hell and maybe experiencing hers all over again too.

"Finally we were rescued by Dr. Gatsbro--at least we thought we were." I tell her about our secluded life at the estate for the past year, his tweaking of Bio Gel to create BioPerfect, and our final realization that we were prisoners there for the purpose of showing off his illegal technology to wealthy customers who never want to die.

"And the gash and the cut on your lip?"

"His first potential customer came out to the estate. He did everything but pull back our lips and count our teeth. Kara put it all together pretty quick, and that's when we ran. Gatsbro caught up with us in Boston, and when we refused to return with him, he used another method to convince me--or his goons did. A musclehead with metal-tipped boots was responsible for this." I touch my side. "And I don't have a clue who smashed my face into the brick wall. It all happened so fast. We still managed to run. That was when Kara and I got separated."

I explain about trying to catch up with Kara in Topeka and how Miesha and Dot are off on their own trying to leave a false trail for Gatsbro.

"So Kara did get away?" she asks.

"Yes, but--"

"Good. She knew the trains in Boston like the back of her hand. And the trains now are even simpler. She'll manage. There's no one as clever as Kara." I hear the relief in her voice.

"But Gatsbro's still after us. He won't give up."

"You're right, he probably won't," she agrees. "Not when it comes to greed and money. And you'll have to worry about Security Force Officers too." She stands. "Come take a walk with me, Locke."

A walk? Now?

I stand too. "Jenna, you don't understand. It's not just Gatsbro who's a problem."

"What do you mean?"

I reach out and hold both her arms. "It's Kara. She's on her way here because--" Looking straight into her eyes, it's so much harder to say.

"Yes?"

"She's angry, Jenna. She's angry at you."

She looks at me, her brows rising at this new thought. Finally, she nods. "I suppose she would be. Who could blame her? She has every right to be. I was angry when I found out. I wanted to lash out at everyone. Just yesterday you were angry with me and eyeing a knife on my kitchen counter--"

"Jenna, you know I would never--"

She reaches up and holds my face in her hands. "I know, Locke. I know." Her hands slide from my face to grip both of my hands in hers. "And neither will Kara. She was my best friend. I knew her better than anyone. Yes, she'll be angry. Yes, she will vent. She may even throw things. But she's my friend. That will never change. We'll work this out."

I look at her, so confident, believing in everything she remembers about the Kara she knew, and I'm almost convinced. There are so many versions of the truth. Gatsbro's, Miesha's, Kara's. All those years in the darkness, I even created my own. But right now I want to believe in Jenna's version. Could it be true? Could it all work out?

I look into her eyes and nod. Her arms slide around me, and we hold each other. Just holding. No words. And my hope grows. The truth of my world flipped in an instant after the accident. It flipped again at Gatsbro's estate. Maybe it could flip again in Jenna's world.