White Space

“Yes.” But she wasn’t smiling. Rima’s hand had crept to her lips, and she looked as if she might be sick. “It’s not funny, Casey.”

“Yeah,” Bode said, but without a lot of muscle behind it.

“Okay, so it’s on your uniform,” Eric said. “Then it has to be your last name, right? So, what’s your first name?”

“It’s … it’s …” Bode shot Eric a thunderous look. “All right, I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m Bode, okay? That’s who I am.”

“Oh God.” Rima’s skin was pale as porcelain. “You know, until Emma asked, I didn’t realize, but … I don’t remember my last name either. I’ll bet if Tony were here, it would be the same for him, and Chad.” She looked at Eric and Casey. “What about you guys?”

Eric and Casey looked at each other, and then Casey’s mouth dropped open. “No,” he whispered. “Eric?”

“I’m sorry, Case,” Eric said, “but I don’t know either.”

Emma kept her mouth shut, grateful that no one asked her. After all, her last name, Lindsay, was right there in a scream of big block capitals. My last name is her middle name. No wonder she says we’re the closest, that I have the most of her. Come to think of it, she didn’t know Sal’s last name, or Mariane’s. Kramer was only Kramer.

Stop. Eric’s right. I could go around and around forever, but I’ve got to start with a given: I’m real. No matter what Lizzie says, I’m not words on a page. I like cherry sundaes in tulip glasses, and I save the whipped cream for last. I drink mocha Frappuccinos. I remember blue candles on birthday cakes and watching 9/11 in school and …

Her thoughts hitched up then, because she realized that she didn’t know something else very, very important. “Lizzie, when did your dad die? What year?”

“I …” Lizzie licked her lips. “I don’t remember.”

“How can you not know?” Bode asked.

Lizzie was very pale. “I just don’t, okay?”

“When’s your birthday?” Emma asked.

“That’s easy,” Lizzie said, with more than a little relief. “June ninth.”

“What?” Bode came out of his slouch. “What?”

“That’s my birthday,” Rima said, faintly. “Bode?”

He looked away, but Emma saw the small muscles ripple along his jaw. “Same day,” he said.

“Mine too.” Eric paused, and then he looked at Casey. His eyebrows folded in a slow frown. “But yours—”

“I don’t know.” Casey gave Eric a wild look. “I should know my own birthday, but I … I don’t remember!”

“What about you?” Bode said to Emma.

“Same.” Jasper and she shared the same birthday, which she’d once thought was just, well, coincidence. But now … Except for Casey, we’ve all got blue eyes, too. Lizzie’s and mine are exact matches. All of us are the same because we’re tangled up together, with Lizzie, and, through her, with her dad. All except …

“I don’t know when I was born,” Casey said again, and Rima reached for his hand. “I don’t even remember the year. But I know I’m sixteen. So what the hell, why can’t I remember?”

“What about you?” Emma said to Lizzie. “What year were you born?”

Lizzie opened her mouth, then closed it. A look of absolute bewilderment flooded into her face.

“You don’t remember,” Bode whispered. “Jesus, you don’t know.”

“Easy,” Eric said, though even he looked a little shaky. “She’s just a kid.”

“Yeah. Okay. Easy. Let’s … let’s take it …” Bode raked both hands through his dark, close-cropped hair. “Jesus, I can’t deal with this anymore, okay? What’s the bottom line? Why did you bring us here, and what the hell we got to do to get out?”

“It’s like I told Emma.” Lizzie’s cobalt eyes dropped to her hands. “I need you to get my dad. If we can, then I think he can help us.”

“What do you mean, help us?” Bode said. “We were fine until you got it in your head to put us in this mess!”

“Oh yeah,” Eric said. “Shot at by Vietcong and crawling through tunnels full of booby traps. You were doing great.”

“How can we get your dad, Lizzie?” Casey said. “He’s dead.”

“No.” Lizzie shook her head. “Not really.”

“Dead is dead,” Bode said. “Gone is gone. You just said …”

“Like I don’t know that.” Lizzie’s expression darkened with anger, and her eyes deepened to that odd and smoky sapphire glimmer Emma had trouble reading. “He’s gone from that Wisconsin,” the little girl said, “but he was tangled up in the whisper-man, and the whisper-man’s in my special Now.”