He could be lying. I have to remind myself that he could be lying.
I am not the only one.
I cannot wrap my thoughts around this. The fact that there could be others. They may have been in the same school as me, the same room as me, the same family as me. But because we keep our secret so hidden, there’d be no way to know.
I remember the boy in Montana whose story was so similar to mine. Was that true? Or was it just a trap Poole set?
There are others.
It can change everything.
Or it can change nothing.
As I drive back to Ainsley’s house, I realize it’s my choice.
Day 6029
Darryl Drake is very distracted the next day.
I guide him through school and say the right things when I have to. But his friends keep commenting that he’s lost in space. At track practice, the coach berates him repeatedly for lack of focus.
“What’s on your mind?” Darryl’s girlfriend, Sasha, asks him when he drives her home.
“I guess I’m not really here today,” he tells her. “But I’ll be back tomorrow.”
I spend the afternoon and the evening on the computer. Darryl’s parents are both at work and his brother is in college, so I have the whole house to myself.
My story is front and center on Poole’s website—a bastardized account of what I told Nathan, with some errors that come either from Nathan hiding something or from Poole goading me on.
Going outside his own site, I find out everything I can about Reverend Poole, but it’s not much. He doesn’t seem to have become outspoken about demonic possession until Nathan’s story hit. I look at photos from before and from after, trying to tell if there’s some difference. In photographs, he looks the same. The eyes are hidden by the flatness of the image.
I read all the stories on the site, trying to find myself within them, trying to find other people like me. Again, there are a couple from Montana. And others that could be similar, if what Poole hinted at is true: that the one-day limit is only for newcomers, and can be somehow bypassed.
It’s what I want, of course. To stay in a single body. To lead a single life.
But at the same time, it’s not what I want. Because I can’t help thinking about what would happen to the person whose body I’d stay in. Does he or she just wink out of existence? Or is the original soul then banished to bounce from body to body—basically, are the roles reversed? I can’t imagine anything sadder than having once had a single body and then suddenly not being able to stay in any for longer than a day. At least I’ve had the comfort of never knowing anything else. I would destroy myself if I’d actually had to give something up before leading this traveler’s existence.
If there were no one else involved, it would be an easy choice. But isn’t that always the case? And there’s always someone else involved.
There’s an email from Nathan, saying how sorry he is for what happened yesterday. He says that he’d thought Reverend Poole could help me. Now he’s not sure of anything.
I write back to tell him that it isn’t his fault, and that he has to get away from Reverend Poole and try to get back to his normal life.
I also tell him this is the last time I will ever email him. I don’t explain that it’s because I can’t trust him. I figure he’ll make that connection for himself.
When I’m done, I forward our email chain to my new email address. And then I close my account. Just like that, a few years of my life are over. The only through-line is gone. It’s silly to feel nostalgic about an email address, but I do. There aren’t many pieces to my past, so I have to mourn at least a little when one falls away.
Later that night, there’s an email from Rhiannon.
How are you?
R
That’s it.
I want to tell her everything that’s happened in the past forty-eight hours. I want to lay the past two days in front of her to see how she reacts, to see if she understands what they mean to me. I want her help. I want her advice. I want her reassurance.
But I don’t think that’s what she wants. And I don’t want to give it to her unless it’s what she wants. So I type back:
It’s been a rough two days. Apparently, I may not be the only person out there like this. Which is hard to think about.
A
There are still a few hours left in the night, but she doesn’t use any of them to get back to me.
Day 6030
I wake up only two towns away from her, in someone else’s arms.
I am careful not to wake this girl who enfolds me. Her feather-yellow hair covers her eyes. The beat of her heart presses against my back. Her name is Amelia, and last night she snuck in my window to be with me.
My name is Zara—or at least that’s the name I’ve chosen for myself. I was born Clementine, and I loved that name until I turned ten. Then I started to experiment, with Zara being the name that stuck. Z has always been my favorite letter, and twenty-six is my lucky number.
Amelia stirs under the sheets. “What time is it?” she asks groggily.
“Seven,” I tell her.
Instead of getting up, she curls into me.
“Will you be a good scout and check the whereabouts of your mom? I’d rather not leave the way I came in. My morning coordination is so much fuzzier than my nighttime coordination, and I’m always much more inspired when I’m approaching the maiden.”
“Okay,” I say, and in thanks, she kisses my bare shoulder.
The tenderness between two people can turn the air tender, the room tender, time itself tender. As I step out of bed and slip on an oversize shirt, everything around me feels like it’s the temperature of happiness. Nothing from the previous night has dissipated. I’ve woken into the comfort they’ve created.
I am not the only one.
I cannot wrap my thoughts around this. The fact that there could be others. They may have been in the same school as me, the same room as me, the same family as me. But because we keep our secret so hidden, there’d be no way to know.
I remember the boy in Montana whose story was so similar to mine. Was that true? Or was it just a trap Poole set?
There are others.
It can change everything.
Or it can change nothing.
As I drive back to Ainsley’s house, I realize it’s my choice.
Day 6029
Darryl Drake is very distracted the next day.
I guide him through school and say the right things when I have to. But his friends keep commenting that he’s lost in space. At track practice, the coach berates him repeatedly for lack of focus.
“What’s on your mind?” Darryl’s girlfriend, Sasha, asks him when he drives her home.
“I guess I’m not really here today,” he tells her. “But I’ll be back tomorrow.”
I spend the afternoon and the evening on the computer. Darryl’s parents are both at work and his brother is in college, so I have the whole house to myself.
My story is front and center on Poole’s website—a bastardized account of what I told Nathan, with some errors that come either from Nathan hiding something or from Poole goading me on.
Going outside his own site, I find out everything I can about Reverend Poole, but it’s not much. He doesn’t seem to have become outspoken about demonic possession until Nathan’s story hit. I look at photos from before and from after, trying to tell if there’s some difference. In photographs, he looks the same. The eyes are hidden by the flatness of the image.
I read all the stories on the site, trying to find myself within them, trying to find other people like me. Again, there are a couple from Montana. And others that could be similar, if what Poole hinted at is true: that the one-day limit is only for newcomers, and can be somehow bypassed.
It’s what I want, of course. To stay in a single body. To lead a single life.
But at the same time, it’s not what I want. Because I can’t help thinking about what would happen to the person whose body I’d stay in. Does he or she just wink out of existence? Or is the original soul then banished to bounce from body to body—basically, are the roles reversed? I can’t imagine anything sadder than having once had a single body and then suddenly not being able to stay in any for longer than a day. At least I’ve had the comfort of never knowing anything else. I would destroy myself if I’d actually had to give something up before leading this traveler’s existence.
If there were no one else involved, it would be an easy choice. But isn’t that always the case? And there’s always someone else involved.
There’s an email from Nathan, saying how sorry he is for what happened yesterday. He says that he’d thought Reverend Poole could help me. Now he’s not sure of anything.
I write back to tell him that it isn’t his fault, and that he has to get away from Reverend Poole and try to get back to his normal life.
I also tell him this is the last time I will ever email him. I don’t explain that it’s because I can’t trust him. I figure he’ll make that connection for himself.
When I’m done, I forward our email chain to my new email address. And then I close my account. Just like that, a few years of my life are over. The only through-line is gone. It’s silly to feel nostalgic about an email address, but I do. There aren’t many pieces to my past, so I have to mourn at least a little when one falls away.
Later that night, there’s an email from Rhiannon.
How are you?
R
That’s it.
I want to tell her everything that’s happened in the past forty-eight hours. I want to lay the past two days in front of her to see how she reacts, to see if she understands what they mean to me. I want her help. I want her advice. I want her reassurance.
But I don’t think that’s what she wants. And I don’t want to give it to her unless it’s what she wants. So I type back:
It’s been a rough two days. Apparently, I may not be the only person out there like this. Which is hard to think about.
A
There are still a few hours left in the night, but she doesn’t use any of them to get back to me.
Day 6030
I wake up only two towns away from her, in someone else’s arms.
I am careful not to wake this girl who enfolds me. Her feather-yellow hair covers her eyes. The beat of her heart presses against my back. Her name is Amelia, and last night she snuck in my window to be with me.
My name is Zara—or at least that’s the name I’ve chosen for myself. I was born Clementine, and I loved that name until I turned ten. Then I started to experiment, with Zara being the name that stuck. Z has always been my favorite letter, and twenty-six is my lucky number.
Amelia stirs under the sheets. “What time is it?” she asks groggily.
“Seven,” I tell her.
Instead of getting up, she curls into me.
“Will you be a good scout and check the whereabouts of your mom? I’d rather not leave the way I came in. My morning coordination is so much fuzzier than my nighttime coordination, and I’m always much more inspired when I’m approaching the maiden.”
“Okay,” I say, and in thanks, she kisses my bare shoulder.
The tenderness between two people can turn the air tender, the room tender, time itself tender. As I step out of bed and slip on an oversize shirt, everything around me feels like it’s the temperature of happiness. Nothing from the previous night has dissipated. I’ve woken into the comfort they’ve created.
