JESSICA BRODY
FARRAR STRAUS GIROUX
New York
The water is cold and ruthless, lapping against my cheek.
Slapping me awake. Filling my mouth with the taste of salty
solitude.
I cough violently and open my eyes, taking in the world
around me. Seeing it for the first time. It’s not a world I recognize. I gaze upon miles and miles of dark blue ocean. Peppered
with large floating objects. Metal. Like the one I’m lying on.
And then there are the bodies.
I count twenty in my vicinity. Two within reach. Although I
don’t dare try.
Their lifeless faces are frozen in terror. Their eyes are empty.
Staring into nothing.
I press a palm to my throbbing temple. My head feels like
it’s made out of stone. Everything is drab and heavy and seen
through a filthy lens. I close my eyes tight.
The voices come an hour later. After night has fallen. I hear
them cutting through the darkness. It takes them forever to
reach me. A light breaks through the dense fog and blinds me.
0
4
No one speaks as they pull me from the water. No one has to.
It’s clear from the looks on their faces they did not expect to
find me.
They did not expect to find anyone.
Alive, that is.
I’m wrapped in a thick blue blanket and laid on a hard
wooden surface. That’s when the questions start. Questions
that make my brain hurt.
“What is your name?”
I wish I knew.
“Do you know where you are?”
I glance upward and find nothing but a sea of unhelpful
stars.
“Do you remember boarding the plane?”
My brain twists in agony, causing my forehead to throb again.
Plane. Plane. What is a plane?
And then comes the question that awakens something deep
within me. That ignites a tiny, faraway spark somewhere in the
back corners of my mind.
“Do you know what yearit is?”
I blink, feeling a small glimmer of hope surge from the pit
of my stomach.
“1609,” I whisper with unfounded conviction. And then I
pass out.
PART 1
Today is the only day I remember. Waking up in that ocean
is all I have. The rest is empty space. Although I don’t know
how far back that space goes— how many years it spans. That’s
the thing about voids: they can be as short as the blink of an
eye, or they can be infinite. Consuming your entire existence
in a flash of meaningless white. Leaving you with nothing.
No memories.
No names.
No faces.
Every second that ticks by is new. Every feeling that pulses
through me is foreign. Every thought in my brain is like nothing I’ve ever thought before. And all I can hope for is one
moment that mirrors an absent one. One fleeting glimpse of
familiarity.
Something that makes me . . . me.
Otherwise, I could be anyone.
Forgetting who you are is so much more complicated than
simply forgetting your name. It’s also forgetting your dreams.
1
8
Your aspirations. What makes you happy. What you pray you’ll
never have to live without. It’s meeting yourself for the first
time, and not being sure of your first impression.
After the rescue boat docked, I was brought here. To this
room. Men and women in white coats flutter in and out. They
stick sharp things in my arm. They study charts and scratch their
heads. They poke and prod and watch me for a reaction. They
want something to be wrong with me. But I assure them that
I’m fine. That I feel no pain.
The fog around me has finally lifted. Objects are crisp and
detailed. My head no longer feels as though it weighs a hundred pounds. In fact, I feel strong. Capable. Anxious to get out
of this bed. Out of this room with its unfamiliar chemical
smells. But they won’t let me. They insist I need more time.
From the confusion I see etched into their faces, I’m pretty
sure it’s theywho need the time.
They won’t allow me to eat any real food. Instead they deliver nutrients through a tube in my arm. It’s inserted directly
into my vein. Inches above a thick white plastic bracelet with
the words Jane Doeprinted on it in crisp black letters.
I ask them why I need to be here when I’m clearly not injured. I have no visible wounds. No broken bones. I wave my
arms and turn my wrists and ankles in wide circles to prove
my claim. But they don’t respond. And this infuriates me.
After a few hours, they determine that I’m sixteen years old.
I’m not sure how I’m supposed to react to this information. I
don’t feelsixteen. But then again, how do I know what sixteen
feels like? How do I know what anyage feels like?
And how can I be sure that they’re right? For all I know,
they could have just made up that number. But they assure me
that they have qualified tests. Specialists. Experts. And they all
say the same thing.
That I’m sixteen.
9
The tests can’t tell me my name, though. They can’t tell me
where I’m from. Where I live. Who my family is. Or even my
favorite color.
And no matter how many “experts” they shuttle in and out
of this room, no one can seem to explain why I’m the only survivor of the kind of plane crash no one survives.
They talk about something called a passenger manifest. I’ve
deduced that it’s a kind of master list. A register of everyone
who boarded the plane.
I’ve also deduced that I’m not on it.
And that doesn’t seem to be going over very well with
anyone.
A man in a gray suit, who identifi es himself as Mr. Rayunas
from Social Ser vices, says he’s trying to locate my next of kin.
He carries around a strange- looking metal device that he calls a
cell phone. He holds it up to his ear and talks. He also likes to
stare at it and stab at tiny buttons on its surface. I don’t know
what my “next of kin” is, but by the look on his face, he’s having trouble locating it.
He whispers things to the others. Things I’m assuming he
doesn’t want me to hear. But I hear them anyway. Foreign, unfamiliar words like “foster care” and “the press” and “minor.”
Every so often they all pause and glance over at me. They shake
their heads. Then they continue whispering.
There’s a woman named Kiyana who comes in every hour.
She has dark skin and speaks with an accent that makes it
sound like she’s singing. She wears pink. She smiles and fluffs
my pillow. Presses two fi ngers against my wrist. Writes stuff
down on a clipboard. I’ve come to look forward to her visits.
She’s kinder than the others. She takes the time to talk to me.
Ask me questions. Real ones. Even though she knows I don’t
have any of the answers.
“You’re jus’ so beautiful,” she says to me, tapping her finger
10
tenderly against my cheek. “Like one of those pictures they
airbrush for the fashion magazines, you know?”
I don’t know. But I offer her a weak smile regardless. For
some reason, it feels like an appropriate response.
“Not a blemish,” she goes on. “Not one flaw. When you get
your memory back, you’re gonna have to tell me your secret,
love.” Then she winks at me.
I like that she says whenand not if.
Even though I don’t remember learning those words, I understand the difference.
“And those eyes,” she croons, moving in closer. “I’ve never
seen sucha color. Lavender, almos’.” She pauses, thinking, and
leans closer still. “No. Violet.” She smiles like she’s stumbled upon
a long- lost secret. “I bet that’s your name. Violet. Ring any bells?”
I shake my head. Of course it doesn’t.
“Well,” she says, straightening the sheets around my bed,
“I’m gonna call you that anyway. Jus’ until you remember the
real one. Much nicer soundin’ than Jane Doe.”
She takes a step back, tilts her head to the side. “Sucha pretty
girl. Do you even remember whatcha look like, love?”
I shake my head again.
She smiles softly. Her eyes crinkle at the corners. “Hang on
then. I’ll show you.”
She leaves the room. Returns a moment later with an oval-
shaped mirror. Light bounces off it as she walks to my bedside.
She holds it up.
A face appears in the light pink frame.
One with long and sleek honey- brown hair. Smooth golden
skin. A small, straight nose. Heart- shaped mouth. High cheekbones. Large, almond- shaped purple eyes.
They blink.
“Yes, that’s you,” she says. And then, “You musta been a
model. Such perfection.”
11
But I don’t see what she sees. I only see a stranger. A person
I don’t recognize. A face I don’t know. And behind those eyes
are sixteen years of experiences I fear I’ll never be able to remember. A life held prisoner behind a locked door. And the
only key has been lost at sea.
I watch purple tears form in the reflecting glass.
“Mystery continues to cloud the tragic crash of Freedom
Airlines flight 121, which went down over the Pacifi c Ocean
yesterday eve ning after taking off from Los Angeles International Airport on a nonstop journey to Tokyo, Japan. Experts
are working around the clock to determine the identity of the
flight’s only known survivor, a sixteen- year- old girl who was
found floating among the wreckage, relatively unharmed. Doctors at UCLA Medical Center, where she’s being treated, confirm
that the young woman has suffered severe amnesia and does
not remember anything prior to the crash. There was no identification found on the girl and the Los Angeles Police have
been unable to match her fingerprints or DNA to any government databases. According to a statement announced by the
FAA earlier this morning, she was not believed to be traveling
with family and no missing- persons reports matching her description have been filed.
“The hospital released this first photo of the girl just today,
2
13
in the hope that someone with information will step forward. Authorities are optimistic that . . .”
I stare at my face on the screen of the thin black box that
hangs above my bed. Kiyana says it’s called a tele vi sion. The fact
that I didn’t know this disturbs me. Especially when she tells
me that there’s one in almost every house hold in the country.
The doctors say I shouldremember things like that. Although
my personal memories seem to be “temporarily” lost, I should
be familiar with everyday objects and brands and the names of
celebrities. But I’m not.
I know words and cities and numbers. I like numbers. They
feel real to me when everything around me is not. They are concrete. I can cling to them. I can’t remember my own face but I
know that the digits between one and ten are the same now as
they were before I lost everything. I know I must have learned
them at some point in my eclipsed life. And that’s as close to a
sense of familiarity as I’ve gotten.
I count to keep myself occupied. To keep my mind filled
with something other than abandoned space. In counting I’m
able to create facts. Items I can add to the paltry list of things
that I know.
I know that someone named Dr. Schatzel visits my room
every fifty- two minutes and carries a cup of coffee with him
on every third visit. I know that the nurses’ station is twenty to
twenty- four footsteps away from my room, depending on the
height of the person on duty. I know that the female newscaster standing on the curb at Los Angeles International Airport blinks fifteen times per minute. Except when she’s
responding to a question from the male newscaster back in the
studio. Then her blinks increase by 133 percent.
I know that Tokyo, Japan, is a long way for a sixteen- year-
old girl to be traveling by herself.
14
Kiyana enters my room and frowns at the screen. “Violet,
baby,” she says, pressing a button on the bottom that causes my
face to dissolve to black, “watchin’ that twenty- four- hour news
coverage is not gonna do you any good. It’ll only upset you
more. Besides, it’s gettin’ late. And you’ve been up for hours
now. Why doncha try to get some sleep?”
Defiantly I press the button on the small device next to my
bed and the image of my face reappears.
Kiyana lets out a buoyant singsongy laugh. “Whoever you
are, Miss Violet, I have a feelin’ you were the feisty type.”
I watch the tele vi sion in silence as live footage from the
crash site is played. A large rounded piece— with tiny oval-
shaped windows running across it— fills the screen. The Freedom Airlines logo painted onto the side slowly passes by. I lean
forward and study it, scrutinizing the curved red- and- blue
font. I try to convince myself that it means something. That
somewhere in my blank slate of a brain, those letters hold some
kind of significance. But I fail to come up with anything.
Like the slivers of my fragmented memory, the debris is just
another shattered piece that once belonged to something
whole. Something that had meaning. Purpose. Function.
Now it’s just a splinter of a larger picture that I can’t fit together.
I collapse back against my pillow with a sigh.
“What if no one comes?” I ask quietly, still cringing at the
unfamiliar sound of my own voice. It’s like someone else in
the room is speaking and I’m just mouthing the words.
Kiyana turns and looks at me, her eyes narrowed in confusion. “Whatcha talkin’ about, love?”
“What if . . .” The words feel crooked as they tumble out.
“What if no one comes to get me? What if I don’t haveanyone?”
Kiyana lets out a laugh through her nose. “Now that’s jus’
foolishness. And I don’t wanna hear it.”
15
I open my mouth to protest but Kiyana closes it with the
tips of her fingers. “Now, listen here, Violet,” she says in a serious tone. “You’re the mos’ beautiful girl I’ve ever seen in all my
life. And I’ve seen a lotta girls. You are special. And no one that
special ever goes forgotten. It’s been less than a day. Someone’s
gonna come for you. It’s jus’ a matter of time.”
With a satisfied nod of her head and a squeeze of her fingers, she releases my lips and goes back to her routine.
“But what if I don’t remember them when they do?”
Kiyana seems less concerned with this question than the last
one. She smooths the sheets around my feet. “You will.”
I don’t know how she can be so confident when I couldn’t
even remember what a tele vi sion was. “How?” I insist. “You
heard the doctors. All of my personal memories are completely
gone. My mind is one big empty void.”
She makes a strange clucking sound with her tongue as she
pats the bed. “That doesn’t make any difference. Everybody
knows the memories that really matter don’t live in the mind.”
I find her attempt at encouragement extremely unhelpful. It
must show on my face because Kiyana pushes a button to recline my bed and says, “Don’t be gettin’ yourself all worked
up, now. Why doncha rest up? It’s been a long day.”
“I’m not tired.”
I watch her stick a long needle into the tube that’s connected to my arm. “Here, love,” she says tenderly. “This’ll
help.”
I feel the drugs enter my bloodstream. Like heavy chunks of
ice navigating a river.
Through the mist that’s slowly cloaking my vision, I watch
Kiyana exit the room. My eyelids are heavy. They droop. I fight
the rising fatigue. I hate that they can control me so easily. It
makes me feel helpless. Weak. Like I’m back in the middle of
the ocean, floating aimlessly.
16
The room becomes fuzzy.
I see someone in the doorway. A silhouette. It moves toward
me. Fast. Urgently. Then a voice. Deep and beautiful. But the
sound is slightly distorted by what ever substance is pumping
through my blood.
“Can you hear me? Please open your eyes.”
Something warm touches my hand. Heat instantly floods
my body. Like a fire spreading. A good kind of fire. A burn that
seeks to heal me.
I fight to stay awake, wrestling against the haze. It’s a losing
battle.
“Please wake up.” The voice is far away now. Fading fast.
I can barely see the face of a young man. A boy. Hovering
inches above me. He blurs in and out of focus. I make out dark
hair. Damp against his forehead. Warm maple eyes. A crooked
smile.
And without thinking, without intention, I feel myself smiling back.
I open my mouth to speak but the words come out garbled.
Half formed. Half conscious. “Do I know you?”
He squeezes my hand. “Yes. It’s me. Do you remember?”
The answer comes before I can even attempt to respond. It
echoes in some back corner of my mind. A faraway flicker of a
flame that is no longer lit. A voice that is not my own.
Yes.
Always yes.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen.” He speaks softly, almost
to himself. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
I struggle to make sense of what is happening. To cling on
to the unexpected surge of hope that has surfaced. But it’s gone
just as quickly as it came. Extinguished in the dark void of my
depleted memory.
A low groan escapes my lips.
17
I feel him moving around me. Fast, fluid motions. The tube
that was in my nose is removed. The IV is gently pulled from
my vein. There’s a faint tug on the cord attached to the suction
cup under my gown and then a shrill beeping sound fills the
room.
I hear frantic footsteps down the hall, coming from the
nurses’ station. Someone will be here in less than fifteen steps.
“Don’t worry,” he continues in a whisper, lacing his warm
fingers through mine and squeezing. “I’m going to get you out
of here.”
I suddenly shiver. A chill has rolled over me. Slowly replacing every spark of heat that was lingering just under my skin.
And that’s when I realize that the touch of his hand has
vanished. With all my strength, I reach out, searching for it.
Grasping at cold, empty air. I fight to open my eyes one last time
before the darkness comes.
He is gone.
I wake up the next morning feeling drowsy. The drugs
linger in my system. My arms and legs are heavy. My throat is
dry. My vision is blurred. It takes a few moments for it to
clear.
Kiyana enters. She smiles upon seeing me. “Well, look
who’s awake.”
I push the button on the small box next to me. The back of
the bed rises until I’m sitting upright.
Kiyana retreats to the hallway and returns a few seconds
later with a tray. “I brought you some breakfast. Do you wanna
try eatin’ some real food?”
I look at the items on her tray. I can’t identify a single one.
“No.”
She laughs. “Can’t say I blame you. That’s hospital food
for you.”
She takes the tray back out to the hallway and returns, writing things down on her clipboard. “Vitals are good,” she says
with a wink. “Like always.” Her fingertip does a tap tap tapon
3
19
the screen of the heart monitor next to my bed. “A good strong
heart you’ve got there.”
The machines.
The cord.
There was a boy in my room.
I reach up and touch my face. The tube in my nose is intact.
I glance down at my arm. The IV has been reinserted. I peer
around the room. It’s empty except for Kiyana.
But he was here. I heard him. I sawhim.
Who was he? Did I know him? He said I did.
I feel the warmth in my stomach again. Hope on the rise.
“Kiyana?” I say, my voice inexplicably wobbly.
“Yes, love?” She flicks her pen against the bag filled with
clear liquid that’s attached to my IV.
I swallow dry air. “Has anyone . . .” My lip starts to quiver. I
bite it quickly before trying again. “Did anyone come in here last
night? Like a visitor?”
Her face scrunches up as she flips a page on her clipboard.
Then she slowly shakes her head. “No, love. Jus’ the night nurse.
When you knocked out your IV in your sleep.”
“What?” My throat constricts but I push past it. “Idid that?”
She nods. “I don’t think you took well to the drugs.”
I feel my face fall. “Oh.”
But the image of the boy is so clear in my memory now. I
can see his eyes. And the way his dark hair fell into them as he
leaned over me.
“But listen,” Kiyana says pointedly, her gaze darting discreetly toward the open door, then back to me. A cunning grin
erupts on her face as she bends down and whispers, “I did hear
some good news this mornin’.”
I peer up at her.
“They started interviewin’ some people who claim to be
your family.”
20
“Really?” I sit up straighter.
“Yeah,” she confirms with a pat pat paton my blanketed leg.
“Hundreds of people have been callin’ after that newscast yesterday. The police have been interviewin’ them all night.” She
steals another glance at the hallway. “But I’m not supposed to tell
you that so don’t be getting me in any trouble.”
“Hundreds?” I ask, suddenly confused. “But how could there
be hundreds?”
Her voice is back to a whisper. “So far, they’ve all been
impostors. Media- hungry fakes.”
“You mean people have been lyingabout knowing me?”
The boy’s face instantly dissolves. Just like the warm touch
of his hand on my skin.
She shakes her head in obvious disapproval. “Well, I’ll tell
you. I blame that news coverage. You’ve become a celebrity
overnight. People can be so desperate for attention.”
“Why?”
“Now that’s a question that needs a whole heap of an explanation, love. One that I don’t know if I can give you. But I’m
sure that one of those calls will prove to be the real thing.”
I feel my shoulders sink and my body slouch. Like my spine
has given out on me.
Impostors.
Liars.
Fakes.
Was that really what the boy was? Someone trying to meet
the famous survivor of flight 121? The thought fi lls me with a
surge of emotion. The idea that he was able to make me feel a
sliver of hope—falsehope— leaves me feeling foolish. And
furious.
But then again, maybe he was never here at all. The drugs
could have caused me to hallucinate. Invent things.
Invent people.
21
I fall back against my pillow, deflated. I reach for the remote
control and turn on the tele vi sion. My photograph is still on
the screen, although it’s been resized and placed in the top right
corner. A new female reporter is standing in front of the same
Los Angeles International Airport sign.
“Once again,” she is saying, “anyone with information
about this girl’s identity is encouraged to call the number on the
screen.” A long string of digits appears below the woman’s
chest. The same ones as yesterday.
And I’m struck with a thought.
“Kiyana?”
She’s writing something on her clipboard and pauses to
look up at me. “What’s that, love?”
“How do they know the callers are impostors?”
She glances back down at her clipboard and continues scribbling notes, answering my question distractedly. “Because none
of them know about the locket.”
My gaze whips toward her. “What locket?”
She still doesn’t look up, oblivious to the alarm in my voice.
“The one you had on when they found you.” Her voice slows
as she comes to the end of her sentence and notices the ghastly
expression on my face. Something she clearly wasn’t expecting
to see.
Her hand goes to her mouth, as though to recapture the
words that she has inadvertently set free.
But it’s too late. They’re already imprinted on my barren
brain.
I feel my teeth clench and my eyes narrow as I turn my glaring expression on her and seethe, “No one told me anything
about a locket.”
FARRAR STRAUS GIROUX
New York
The water is cold and ruthless, lapping against my cheek.
Slapping me awake. Filling my mouth with the taste of salty
solitude.
I cough violently and open my eyes, taking in the world
around me. Seeing it for the first time. It’s not a world I recognize. I gaze upon miles and miles of dark blue ocean. Peppered
with large floating objects. Metal. Like the one I’m lying on.
And then there are the bodies.
I count twenty in my vicinity. Two within reach. Although I
don’t dare try.
Their lifeless faces are frozen in terror. Their eyes are empty.
Staring into nothing.
I press a palm to my throbbing temple. My head feels like
it’s made out of stone. Everything is drab and heavy and seen
through a filthy lens. I close my eyes tight.
The voices come an hour later. After night has fallen. I hear
them cutting through the darkness. It takes them forever to
reach me. A light breaks through the dense fog and blinds me.
0
4
No one speaks as they pull me from the water. No one has to.
It’s clear from the looks on their faces they did not expect to
find me.
They did not expect to find anyone.
Alive, that is.
I’m wrapped in a thick blue blanket and laid on a hard
wooden surface. That’s when the questions start. Questions
that make my brain hurt.
“What is your name?”
I wish I knew.
“Do you know where you are?”
I glance upward and find nothing but a sea of unhelpful
stars.
“Do you remember boarding the plane?”
My brain twists in agony, causing my forehead to throb again.
Plane. Plane. What is a plane?
And then comes the question that awakens something deep
within me. That ignites a tiny, faraway spark somewhere in the
back corners of my mind.
“Do you know what yearit is?”
I blink, feeling a small glimmer of hope surge from the pit
of my stomach.
“1609,” I whisper with unfounded conviction. And then I
pass out.
PART 1
Today is the only day I remember. Waking up in that ocean
is all I have. The rest is empty space. Although I don’t know
how far back that space goes— how many years it spans. That’s
the thing about voids: they can be as short as the blink of an
eye, or they can be infinite. Consuming your entire existence
in a flash of meaningless white. Leaving you with nothing.
No memories.
No names.
No faces.
Every second that ticks by is new. Every feeling that pulses
through me is foreign. Every thought in my brain is like nothing I’ve ever thought before. And all I can hope for is one
moment that mirrors an absent one. One fleeting glimpse of
familiarity.
Something that makes me . . . me.
Otherwise, I could be anyone.
Forgetting who you are is so much more complicated than
simply forgetting your name. It’s also forgetting your dreams.
1
8
Your aspirations. What makes you happy. What you pray you’ll
never have to live without. It’s meeting yourself for the first
time, and not being sure of your first impression.
After the rescue boat docked, I was brought here. To this
room. Men and women in white coats flutter in and out. They
stick sharp things in my arm. They study charts and scratch their
heads. They poke and prod and watch me for a reaction. They
want something to be wrong with me. But I assure them that
I’m fine. That I feel no pain.
The fog around me has finally lifted. Objects are crisp and
detailed. My head no longer feels as though it weighs a hundred pounds. In fact, I feel strong. Capable. Anxious to get out
of this bed. Out of this room with its unfamiliar chemical
smells. But they won’t let me. They insist I need more time.
From the confusion I see etched into their faces, I’m pretty
sure it’s theywho need the time.
They won’t allow me to eat any real food. Instead they deliver nutrients through a tube in my arm. It’s inserted directly
into my vein. Inches above a thick white plastic bracelet with
the words Jane Doeprinted on it in crisp black letters.
I ask them why I need to be here when I’m clearly not injured. I have no visible wounds. No broken bones. I wave my
arms and turn my wrists and ankles in wide circles to prove
my claim. But they don’t respond. And this infuriates me.
After a few hours, they determine that I’m sixteen years old.
I’m not sure how I’m supposed to react to this information. I
don’t feelsixteen. But then again, how do I know what sixteen
feels like? How do I know what anyage feels like?
And how can I be sure that they’re right? For all I know,
they could have just made up that number. But they assure me
that they have qualified tests. Specialists. Experts. And they all
say the same thing.
That I’m sixteen.
9
The tests can’t tell me my name, though. They can’t tell me
where I’m from. Where I live. Who my family is. Or even my
favorite color.
And no matter how many “experts” they shuttle in and out
of this room, no one can seem to explain why I’m the only survivor of the kind of plane crash no one survives.
They talk about something called a passenger manifest. I’ve
deduced that it’s a kind of master list. A register of everyone
who boarded the plane.
I’ve also deduced that I’m not on it.
And that doesn’t seem to be going over very well with
anyone.
A man in a gray suit, who identifi es himself as Mr. Rayunas
from Social Ser vices, says he’s trying to locate my next of kin.
He carries around a strange- looking metal device that he calls a
cell phone. He holds it up to his ear and talks. He also likes to
stare at it and stab at tiny buttons on its surface. I don’t know
what my “next of kin” is, but by the look on his face, he’s having trouble locating it.
He whispers things to the others. Things I’m assuming he
doesn’t want me to hear. But I hear them anyway. Foreign, unfamiliar words like “foster care” and “the press” and “minor.”
Every so often they all pause and glance over at me. They shake
their heads. Then they continue whispering.
There’s a woman named Kiyana who comes in every hour.
She has dark skin and speaks with an accent that makes it
sound like she’s singing. She wears pink. She smiles and fluffs
my pillow. Presses two fi ngers against my wrist. Writes stuff
down on a clipboard. I’ve come to look forward to her visits.
She’s kinder than the others. She takes the time to talk to me.
Ask me questions. Real ones. Even though she knows I don’t
have any of the answers.
“You’re jus’ so beautiful,” she says to me, tapping her finger
10
tenderly against my cheek. “Like one of those pictures they
airbrush for the fashion magazines, you know?”
I don’t know. But I offer her a weak smile regardless. For
some reason, it feels like an appropriate response.
“Not a blemish,” she goes on. “Not one flaw. When you get
your memory back, you’re gonna have to tell me your secret,
love.” Then she winks at me.
I like that she says whenand not if.
Even though I don’t remember learning those words, I understand the difference.
“And those eyes,” she croons, moving in closer. “I’ve never
seen sucha color. Lavender, almos’.” She pauses, thinking, and
leans closer still. “No. Violet.” She smiles like she’s stumbled upon
a long- lost secret. “I bet that’s your name. Violet. Ring any bells?”
I shake my head. Of course it doesn’t.
“Well,” she says, straightening the sheets around my bed,
“I’m gonna call you that anyway. Jus’ until you remember the
real one. Much nicer soundin’ than Jane Doe.”
She takes a step back, tilts her head to the side. “Sucha pretty
girl. Do you even remember whatcha look like, love?”
I shake my head again.
She smiles softly. Her eyes crinkle at the corners. “Hang on
then. I’ll show you.”
She leaves the room. Returns a moment later with an oval-
shaped mirror. Light bounces off it as she walks to my bedside.
She holds it up.
A face appears in the light pink frame.
One with long and sleek honey- brown hair. Smooth golden
skin. A small, straight nose. Heart- shaped mouth. High cheekbones. Large, almond- shaped purple eyes.
They blink.
“Yes, that’s you,” she says. And then, “You musta been a
model. Such perfection.”
11
But I don’t see what she sees. I only see a stranger. A person
I don’t recognize. A face I don’t know. And behind those eyes
are sixteen years of experiences I fear I’ll never be able to remember. A life held prisoner behind a locked door. And the
only key has been lost at sea.
I watch purple tears form in the reflecting glass.
“Mystery continues to cloud the tragic crash of Freedom
Airlines flight 121, which went down over the Pacifi c Ocean
yesterday eve ning after taking off from Los Angeles International Airport on a nonstop journey to Tokyo, Japan. Experts
are working around the clock to determine the identity of the
flight’s only known survivor, a sixteen- year- old girl who was
found floating among the wreckage, relatively unharmed. Doctors at UCLA Medical Center, where she’s being treated, confirm
that the young woman has suffered severe amnesia and does
not remember anything prior to the crash. There was no identification found on the girl and the Los Angeles Police have
been unable to match her fingerprints or DNA to any government databases. According to a statement announced by the
FAA earlier this morning, she was not believed to be traveling
with family and no missing- persons reports matching her description have been filed.
“The hospital released this first photo of the girl just today,
2
13
in the hope that someone with information will step forward. Authorities are optimistic that . . .”
I stare at my face on the screen of the thin black box that
hangs above my bed. Kiyana says it’s called a tele vi sion. The fact
that I didn’t know this disturbs me. Especially when she tells
me that there’s one in almost every house hold in the country.
The doctors say I shouldremember things like that. Although
my personal memories seem to be “temporarily” lost, I should
be familiar with everyday objects and brands and the names of
celebrities. But I’m not.
I know words and cities and numbers. I like numbers. They
feel real to me when everything around me is not. They are concrete. I can cling to them. I can’t remember my own face but I
know that the digits between one and ten are the same now as
they were before I lost everything. I know I must have learned
them at some point in my eclipsed life. And that’s as close to a
sense of familiarity as I’ve gotten.
I count to keep myself occupied. To keep my mind filled
with something other than abandoned space. In counting I’m
able to create facts. Items I can add to the paltry list of things
that I know.
I know that someone named Dr. Schatzel visits my room
every fifty- two minutes and carries a cup of coffee with him
on every third visit. I know that the nurses’ station is twenty to
twenty- four footsteps away from my room, depending on the
height of the person on duty. I know that the female newscaster standing on the curb at Los Angeles International Airport blinks fifteen times per minute. Except when she’s
responding to a question from the male newscaster back in the
studio. Then her blinks increase by 133 percent.
I know that Tokyo, Japan, is a long way for a sixteen- year-
old girl to be traveling by herself.
14
Kiyana enters my room and frowns at the screen. “Violet,
baby,” she says, pressing a button on the bottom that causes my
face to dissolve to black, “watchin’ that twenty- four- hour news
coverage is not gonna do you any good. It’ll only upset you
more. Besides, it’s gettin’ late. And you’ve been up for hours
now. Why doncha try to get some sleep?”
Defiantly I press the button on the small device next to my
bed and the image of my face reappears.
Kiyana lets out a buoyant singsongy laugh. “Whoever you
are, Miss Violet, I have a feelin’ you were the feisty type.”
I watch the tele vi sion in silence as live footage from the
crash site is played. A large rounded piece— with tiny oval-
shaped windows running across it— fills the screen. The Freedom Airlines logo painted onto the side slowly passes by. I lean
forward and study it, scrutinizing the curved red- and- blue
font. I try to convince myself that it means something. That
somewhere in my blank slate of a brain, those letters hold some
kind of significance. But I fail to come up with anything.
Like the slivers of my fragmented memory, the debris is just
another shattered piece that once belonged to something
whole. Something that had meaning. Purpose. Function.
Now it’s just a splinter of a larger picture that I can’t fit together.
I collapse back against my pillow with a sigh.
“What if no one comes?” I ask quietly, still cringing at the
unfamiliar sound of my own voice. It’s like someone else in
the room is speaking and I’m just mouthing the words.
Kiyana turns and looks at me, her eyes narrowed in confusion. “Whatcha talkin’ about, love?”
“What if . . .” The words feel crooked as they tumble out.
“What if no one comes to get me? What if I don’t haveanyone?”
Kiyana lets out a laugh through her nose. “Now that’s jus’
foolishness. And I don’t wanna hear it.”
15
I open my mouth to protest but Kiyana closes it with the
tips of her fingers. “Now, listen here, Violet,” she says in a serious tone. “You’re the mos’ beautiful girl I’ve ever seen in all my
life. And I’ve seen a lotta girls. You are special. And no one that
special ever goes forgotten. It’s been less than a day. Someone’s
gonna come for you. It’s jus’ a matter of time.”
With a satisfied nod of her head and a squeeze of her fingers, she releases my lips and goes back to her routine.
“But what if I don’t remember them when they do?”
Kiyana seems less concerned with this question than the last
one. She smooths the sheets around my feet. “You will.”
I don’t know how she can be so confident when I couldn’t
even remember what a tele vi sion was. “How?” I insist. “You
heard the doctors. All of my personal memories are completely
gone. My mind is one big empty void.”
She makes a strange clucking sound with her tongue as she
pats the bed. “That doesn’t make any difference. Everybody
knows the memories that really matter don’t live in the mind.”
I find her attempt at encouragement extremely unhelpful. It
must show on my face because Kiyana pushes a button to recline my bed and says, “Don’t be gettin’ yourself all worked
up, now. Why doncha rest up? It’s been a long day.”
“I’m not tired.”
I watch her stick a long needle into the tube that’s connected to my arm. “Here, love,” she says tenderly. “This’ll
help.”
I feel the drugs enter my bloodstream. Like heavy chunks of
ice navigating a river.
Through the mist that’s slowly cloaking my vision, I watch
Kiyana exit the room. My eyelids are heavy. They droop. I fight
the rising fatigue. I hate that they can control me so easily. It
makes me feel helpless. Weak. Like I’m back in the middle of
the ocean, floating aimlessly.
16
The room becomes fuzzy.
I see someone in the doorway. A silhouette. It moves toward
me. Fast. Urgently. Then a voice. Deep and beautiful. But the
sound is slightly distorted by what ever substance is pumping
through my blood.
“Can you hear me? Please open your eyes.”
Something warm touches my hand. Heat instantly floods
my body. Like a fire spreading. A good kind of fire. A burn that
seeks to heal me.
I fight to stay awake, wrestling against the haze. It’s a losing
battle.
“Please wake up.” The voice is far away now. Fading fast.
I can barely see the face of a young man. A boy. Hovering
inches above me. He blurs in and out of focus. I make out dark
hair. Damp against his forehead. Warm maple eyes. A crooked
smile.
And without thinking, without intention, I feel myself smiling back.
I open my mouth to speak but the words come out garbled.
Half formed. Half conscious. “Do I know you?”
He squeezes my hand. “Yes. It’s me. Do you remember?”
The answer comes before I can even attempt to respond. It
echoes in some back corner of my mind. A faraway flicker of a
flame that is no longer lit. A voice that is not my own.
Yes.
Always yes.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen.” He speaks softly, almost
to himself. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
I struggle to make sense of what is happening. To cling on
to the unexpected surge of hope that has surfaced. But it’s gone
just as quickly as it came. Extinguished in the dark void of my
depleted memory.
A low groan escapes my lips.
17
I feel him moving around me. Fast, fluid motions. The tube
that was in my nose is removed. The IV is gently pulled from
my vein. There’s a faint tug on the cord attached to the suction
cup under my gown and then a shrill beeping sound fills the
room.
I hear frantic footsteps down the hall, coming from the
nurses’ station. Someone will be here in less than fifteen steps.
“Don’t worry,” he continues in a whisper, lacing his warm
fingers through mine and squeezing. “I’m going to get you out
of here.”
I suddenly shiver. A chill has rolled over me. Slowly replacing every spark of heat that was lingering just under my skin.
And that’s when I realize that the touch of his hand has
vanished. With all my strength, I reach out, searching for it.
Grasping at cold, empty air. I fight to open my eyes one last time
before the darkness comes.
He is gone.
I wake up the next morning feeling drowsy. The drugs
linger in my system. My arms and legs are heavy. My throat is
dry. My vision is blurred. It takes a few moments for it to
clear.
Kiyana enters. She smiles upon seeing me. “Well, look
who’s awake.”
I push the button on the small box next to me. The back of
the bed rises until I’m sitting upright.
Kiyana retreats to the hallway and returns a few seconds
later with a tray. “I brought you some breakfast. Do you wanna
try eatin’ some real food?”
I look at the items on her tray. I can’t identify a single one.
“No.”
She laughs. “Can’t say I blame you. That’s hospital food
for you.”
She takes the tray back out to the hallway and returns, writing things down on her clipboard. “Vitals are good,” she says
with a wink. “Like always.” Her fingertip does a tap tap tapon
3
19
the screen of the heart monitor next to my bed. “A good strong
heart you’ve got there.”
The machines.
The cord.
There was a boy in my room.
I reach up and touch my face. The tube in my nose is intact.
I glance down at my arm. The IV has been reinserted. I peer
around the room. It’s empty except for Kiyana.
But he was here. I heard him. I sawhim.
Who was he? Did I know him? He said I did.
I feel the warmth in my stomach again. Hope on the rise.
“Kiyana?” I say, my voice inexplicably wobbly.
“Yes, love?” She flicks her pen against the bag filled with
clear liquid that’s attached to my IV.
I swallow dry air. “Has anyone . . .” My lip starts to quiver. I
bite it quickly before trying again. “Did anyone come in here last
night? Like a visitor?”
Her face scrunches up as she flips a page on her clipboard.
Then she slowly shakes her head. “No, love. Jus’ the night nurse.
When you knocked out your IV in your sleep.”
“What?” My throat constricts but I push past it. “Idid that?”
She nods. “I don’t think you took well to the drugs.”
I feel my face fall. “Oh.”
But the image of the boy is so clear in my memory now. I
can see his eyes. And the way his dark hair fell into them as he
leaned over me.
“But listen,” Kiyana says pointedly, her gaze darting discreetly toward the open door, then back to me. A cunning grin
erupts on her face as she bends down and whispers, “I did hear
some good news this mornin’.”
I peer up at her.
“They started interviewin’ some people who claim to be
your family.”
20
“Really?” I sit up straighter.
“Yeah,” she confirms with a pat pat paton my blanketed leg.
“Hundreds of people have been callin’ after that newscast yesterday. The police have been interviewin’ them all night.” She
steals another glance at the hallway. “But I’m not supposed to tell
you that so don’t be getting me in any trouble.”
“Hundreds?” I ask, suddenly confused. “But how could there
be hundreds?”
Her voice is back to a whisper. “So far, they’ve all been
impostors. Media- hungry fakes.”
“You mean people have been lyingabout knowing me?”
The boy’s face instantly dissolves. Just like the warm touch
of his hand on my skin.
She shakes her head in obvious disapproval. “Well, I’ll tell
you. I blame that news coverage. You’ve become a celebrity
overnight. People can be so desperate for attention.”
“Why?”
“Now that’s a question that needs a whole heap of an explanation, love. One that I don’t know if I can give you. But I’m
sure that one of those calls will prove to be the real thing.”
I feel my shoulders sink and my body slouch. Like my spine
has given out on me.
Impostors.
Liars.
Fakes.
Was that really what the boy was? Someone trying to meet
the famous survivor of flight 121? The thought fi lls me with a
surge of emotion. The idea that he was able to make me feel a
sliver of hope—falsehope— leaves me feeling foolish. And
furious.
But then again, maybe he was never here at all. The drugs
could have caused me to hallucinate. Invent things.
Invent people.
21
I fall back against my pillow, deflated. I reach for the remote
control and turn on the tele vi sion. My photograph is still on
the screen, although it’s been resized and placed in the top right
corner. A new female reporter is standing in front of the same
Los Angeles International Airport sign.
“Once again,” she is saying, “anyone with information
about this girl’s identity is encouraged to call the number on the
screen.” A long string of digits appears below the woman’s
chest. The same ones as yesterday.
And I’m struck with a thought.
“Kiyana?”
She’s writing something on her clipboard and pauses to
look up at me. “What’s that, love?”
“How do they know the callers are impostors?”
She glances back down at her clipboard and continues scribbling notes, answering my question distractedly. “Because none
of them know about the locket.”
My gaze whips toward her. “What locket?”
She still doesn’t look up, oblivious to the alarm in my voice.
“The one you had on when they found you.” Her voice slows
as she comes to the end of her sentence and notices the ghastly
expression on my face. Something she clearly wasn’t expecting
to see.
Her hand goes to her mouth, as though to recapture the
words that she has inadvertently set free.
But it’s too late. They’re already imprinted on my barren
brain.
I feel my teeth clench and my eyes narrow as I turn my glaring expression on her and seethe, “No one told me anything
about a locket.”
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