Conjured

“Never met anyone who didn’t sound pretentious saying ‘whom,’ though. Best to just imitate what people say and not overthink it. If you start thinking about it, English doesn’t make much sense. For example, the plural of ‘tooth’ is ‘teeth,’ but the plural of ‘booth’ isn’t ‘beeth.’ The word ‘abbreviation’ isn’t short. Neither is ‘monosyllabic.’”

He halted outside the cafeteria, and the lecture abruptly ended.

“Did you teach me everything I know?” Eve asked.

“No,” he said.

“Who did?”

“You did,” he said. “You listened; you learned.” He rapped her forehead lightly. “You. Not me. Not Lou. Not anyone.” He glanced at the cafeteria door. “That’s something not everyone understands. You know more than you think you do, more than you believe you remember.”

But I don’t remember! she wanted to shout. She didn’t. It wouldn’t have helped. Instead, she followed Malcolm’s gaze, looking at the cafeteria door. It was blue, with a notice that read INTERAGENCY BILLIARDS RESCHEDULED, TUESDAY, 4:00 P.M. It also had a no-smoking sign, a poster with instructions for what to do if someone were choking, and a reminder to follow security protocol. Eve heard three voices through the door: two male and one female. She noticed that the muscles in Malcolm’s neck had bunched up.

Eve listened to the voices, but they were muffled by the door. She couldn’t distinguish individual words. “Are they connected to my case?” she asked. “Will they help me remember?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he said, “After this, I’ll take you for pizza. Garlic knot crust. Kills your breath for hours, but worth it.” He pushed open the cafeteria door and then added in a low voice, “Don’t provoke them. Don’t question them. Don’t trust them.”

Inside was the cafeteria: yellow-and-green floor, round metal tables with chairs, refrigerator, water cooler. Before she’d moved in with Aunt Nicki, Eve had eaten here, either food that the agents brought for her or food from the vending machines that sold vacuum-sealed sandwiches, wilted salads, and hardboiled eggs of dubious freshness.

It felt a little like she was home.

She decided that was the saddest feeling she’d had yet.

Opposite the vending machine and kitchenette was a lounge area with a pool table, a TV, and a brown couch. The couch was backed against a wall-size mirror that Aunt Nicki had once said was designed to make the cafeteria look larger than it was—a stupid effect, she’d said, since it made you feel as though you were being watched. Eve tried to remember when they’d had that conversation, but she couldn’t.

Two boys, each about sixteen or seventeen, were at the pool table. One leaned on the table, and the other lounged against the wall. Both had the same studied ease as models at a fashion shoot. Their faces were sculpted and smooth, as if carved from marble or ice, and she could see the curve of muscles against their shirts.

On the couch was a girl, also sixteen or seventeen, with blue-black hair. Her tanned legs were tucked under her and her head was cocked to the side, resting on her hand, as she flipped through a book. She was as beautiful as a statue, too, and if it weren’t for the way she turned the pages, Eve would have thought she was made of molded plastic.

Malcolm propelled Eve into the room in front of him. “Kids, this is Eve.”

All three of them swiveled their heads to look at her.

Instinctively Eve shrank backward. She bumped into Malcolm. Solid as a wall, he didn’t budge. All three sets of eyes stared at her without blinking. She stared back. Looking at them felt like looking at herself in the mirror. Like her new face and body, they were all too perfect.

One of them—the boy who was leaning against the pool table—broke into what looked like a well-rehearsed smile, wide enough to seem friendly but with enough of a twist to convey boyish charm. “Welcome!” he said. His blond hair fell lazily over his eyes, and he pushed it back as if aware that the gesture made him look even more handsome. He was holding a pool cue in his other hand. He twirled it in a circle and then laid it down on the pool table. “We were about to play a new game. You can join us, Eve.”

“Can she?” the other boy asked. He raised one eyebrow in a perfect arch. Again, it looked like a rehearsed expression, or like he was a marionette whose master had twitched a string. He had brown hair that was so perfectly still it looked as if it had been carved out of wood. She wondered how she knew what a marionette looked like—did Malcolm show her one, or had she learned on her own?

“Aw, Big Scary Agent Man looks nervous.” The girl’s lips curved into a smile, which she aimed like a weapon at Malcolm. “Don’t worry. We’ll play nice.”