Chapter Seven: Going Home

A trip back home turns dangerous.

In the subsequent weeks, Lukas took her on similar trips at least once a week and sometimes twice. Heli never appeared at the basement door. Instead, a hooded figure would lean in and speak to Lukas and disappear without stepping inside.

Just as he’d predicted, the weather got colder and the snow fell almost every day. In the quiet times between trips, Ynkeri began to venture past the alley and explore other streets, gradually branching out until she knew every corner and cobbled stone a mile in all directions. Once she got past some of the new landmarks, she realized very little had changed in the two hundred years she’d been away. From her vantage point, often on abandoned roof-tops, Ynkeri watched people walk the streets with hands full of groceries or squirming children; even the occasional couple would walk by, their hands clasped and eyes all gooey. 

Curiosity about her old home gnawed at her until she could bear it no longer. Her twelfth birthday passed quietly before she finally reached her old street. Like the rest of the city, the changelessness brought a lump into her throat. Except for the stone being more dirty and grey, the wall of houses was entirely unchanged. Day after day, she would return to Medenhall Drive and watch the door of her home. The people who lived there now were not at all like her family. There were just two of them- a man and a woman.  

The scanners showed up like clockwork in this area, always following the same patterns, Ynkeri noticed. It was a weakness she took advantage of every day for a week.

Satisfied the scanners would not surprise her, Ynkeri mustered enough courage to climb down from the adjacent roof and peer on tiptoes into the large window of what once was her home.

            The living room was completely different, making it feel less like home than she expected. Beyond, the kitchen had been gutted and where the cabinets and refrigerator used to be, there were large shelves filled with strange, square cubes. Her eyes were drawn to a familiar spot where Ari had crashed his bike inside, but the twin dents where the handle-bars had smashed were gone. Ynerki wondered if the height marks her dad had made inside the door of her closet each year on her birthday were still there or if they, too, were long ago erased.  

            This isn’t your home anymore, Ynkeri told herself. The realization didn’t hurt as much as she thought it would. In place of sadness, there was only an empty feeling.

            “What are you doing?” A voice asked from behind her. Ynkeri jumped at the sound and whirled around to see the woman who lived there. She was younger than Ynkeri expected with freckles and pale skin. For a brief moment, Ynkeri said nothing, weighing her options. Heli’s voice yelled at her to run and she did, fleeing the woman who called out to her not to be afraid. Looking over her shoulder, she saw the woman had walked up to the sidewalk and looked as if she would cross the street in pursuit. Heart racing, Ynkeri bolted up the rickety ladder, unconcerned about the icy rails, thick with ice. 

She made it halfway up before she lost her grip. The grey sky filled her eyes as she fell.

∞

Ynkeri dreamt of her parents.

When she awoke, she was warm- perhaps too warm. She was too busy pushing off several layers of blankets to take in the full weight of the situation she was in. It didn’t take her long once she felt the heat begin to subside. Sitting wild-eyed in a chair was the woman she’d been running away from.

“Oh, thanks be! I thought you were going to die!” The woman’s voice was higher pitched than Ynkeri remembered. As she sat up, she began to feel nauseous, her head a throbbing pulp. Looking around, she realized she was in Ari’s old room and that pushed her over the edge. She hurled where she sat, covering herself in her bland oatmeal breakfast. The woman rushed to her aid like a teacher might at school and cleaned her up while she sat stunned.

“You fell so hard,” the woman continued, pulling Ynkeri’s shirt over her head. Ynkeri was too tired and dizzy to protest. “Oh, and you’re so thin! Wherever are your parents? How can they do this to you?”

Ynkeri remained silent, afraid if she spoke her head would shatter.

“It’s just unconscionable.” The woman continued this way until Ynkeri was nearly naked.  The woman disappeared with her vomit-soaked clothes, leaving her to try and sort out what to do next. She couldn’t leave without clothes or shoes. Looking out the window, Ynkeri saw it was growing dark. She’d been asleep for a while. She couldn’t stay- it was only a matter of time before the woman discovered the truth, but she couldn’t leave and risk getting caught by a scanner, either. Ynkeri bit her lip as she worked out what to do.

By the time the woman came back with clothes, she had a plan.

“You poor, poor thing. My heart is breaking,” the woman said pitifully. “These are mine from when I was a girl. They probably won’t fit quite right, but they’ll be warm. You can have them.” She laid out a heavy pair of pants and a pretty sweater that had little dots all over. Ynkeri hadn’t seen anything nice in half a year. Picking up the heavy shirt she put it to her face- it was soft, softer than anything she’d felt since she’d come back. She hadn’t planned it, but she found she was crying a little.

“Oh!” the woman exclaimed with tears in her eyes, “Do you like it?”

Sticking to her plan, Ynkeri stayed silent, but nodded agreement.

“What’s your name?” The woman asked, kneeling down next to her as she shrugged on the sweater. Ynkeri shook her head, mute.

“You don’t have a name?” the woman asked, shocked. Ynkeri shook her head again and then gestured to her throat.

“You can’t speak?”

Ynkeri nodded. It wasn’t a lie- only a half truth. The logic would have made her father angry, but she didn’t guess he had a say anymore. If she didn’t speak, she didn’t have to try to lie. Heli said she was a bad liar and it was the one thing she believed.

            “Oh, you poor, poor thing,” she said again and, without warning, she wrapped her arms around Ynkeri and hugged her tightly before she had a chance to shy away. The woman released her after a few awkward seconds and sighed as she wiped tears from her eyes.

            “Well, it’s just too cold out there for you to go home now. And you must be so hungry.”

Ynkeri swallowed hard. She was hungry, but not going back to the basement room tonight would be unthinkable. Leaving Lukas without any idea of what happened to her made her feel queasy again, but the danger of leaving the house where she grew up without knowing what awaited her on the streets was worse. Painfully, she nodded. In the morning, she told herself, she’d slip out her brother’s window and head back to her real home.

∞

It took her two days to feel well enough to leave. She put on the pretty sweater and pants first then layered on the clothes Lukas gave her so she wouldn’t draw attention when she got closer to the basement. As she climbed out of the window, belly full, she felt a twinge of guilt for leaving without saying goodbye to the woman. The woman’s husband never came up the stairs though she could hear his voice in the evening. Ynkeri wondered if the woman was hiding her- wondered if she’d seen right through her mute act, but then decided against that idea. Her mother would have described the woman as “hair-brained.” Ynkeri didn’t know what that meant, precisely, but she did know her mother and that was what she would have said. 

Before closing the window, Ynkeri took one last look at Ari’s closet. It was white-washed like new, just as she’d suspected, but now there was a new indentation with her height marked on the inside. Her brother would have yelled at her to get out of his room and stop screwing with his stuff, but he only lived in her memory now. She wasn’t going to let the same thing happen to her so she picked up the spoon the woman brought up with breakfast and scratched a notch where the top of her head was, a greyish dent the only proof she still existed.

Shivering, she wondered if she should stay one more night and then decided against it. Lukas would probably yell at her and she didn’t want to think about what Heli would say. Pushing the window closed, she shimmied down the piping and landed in snow up to her knees. A few steps later, she was on the shoveled cobblestone walk, head down and pace brisk. The sooner she got back to the dark room with the coal garden, the better.  

Author's Note

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