Fiction River Read online

  Dr. Santos. Of course I didn’t recognize the name...not until I thought about the file I’d found with the ultrasound images. My OB/GYN. Crap.

  Never mind that it made Ms. Receptionist look even worse, for recognizing me and still not knowing anything about me. It didn’t matter, because I had essentially just shot Sad!Ellen in the foot. And apparently behaved erratically enough that Mom was making her purchases as if she couldn’t get us out of there fast enough.

  “I’ll be outside,” I mumbled, and ran.

  And that’s when I nearly died.

  I wish I was making all of this shit up. Everything was already terrible; who would expect a towering cement “Greek column” from the garden center to topple over just as I was about to walk beneath it?

  In fact, I would have been beneath it at the exact wrong time, if I hadn’t seen that man again. Lab Coat Guy.

  He caught me with his eyes, freezing me in place with a strange look, just before who knows how many tons of cement came crashing down in front of me.

  And then, as I was biting back a scream and clutching at my belly in terror (wait, why was I clutching my belly? It wasn’t my baby)—he disappeared. This time I am pretty sure he literally vanished from sight.

  Tons of people came rushing out. I did not want to be the center of a scene, so I brushed off agitated questions and found Mom, who had also rushed out when she heard the crash, and we fled. I did not tell her it had almost been me under that thing. She asked me if I was okay, I said I was, and left it at that.

  Of course I’m not actually leaving it at that.

  I need to get out of here before I destroy this other Ellen’s life.

  I hate her. I fucking hate her.

  She did this to herself. All of it.

  Why did she, at ten years old, have to tell anyone what she heard Daddy talking about on the phone?

  Why did she have to tell Mom, who has very strong ideas about right and wrong?

  Screw her stupid curiosity. Screw Nikola for doing something about it. Why hadn’t she let well enough alone?

  And screw Ellen for falling in with a bad crowd and getting herself knocked up seven years later, which she would never have done if she’d been at a different school, in a different neighborhood, with a different life. My life.

  Screw her for somehow turning into me. Or turning me into her.

  I got the whole story at the dinner table tonight. I had been wracking my brain for a way to get more information about what had happened with Dad, because as far as I can tell, that’s where Sad!Ellen’s story and mine first diverged. Somehow I thought knowing would be important. Maybe it is. I can’t think about it right now.

  I was pretty proud of myself. I thought I was clever, wooing Nikola in for a heart-to-heart, confessing to her that I was afraid and depressed and just wanted to talk, to get all the bad stuff out in the open. Sort of an exorcising thing. I told her I wanted to hear her talk about what happened when I was ten, if she was willing, because I was ready to put it all behind me for good. I looked really sad and pitiful while I said this, so she would be less likely to refuse. It was probably a little bit cruel.

  I don’t care. I hate her. I hate them all.

  So that’s when she told me what I had done. That I had come to her after listening on the other line of Daddy’s phone, because I was curious, and I—no, the other Ellen—had asked questions that made Nikola ask questions, and it all went downhill from there.

  As she was reliving the story and crying, I couldn’t fake my growing horror, so I covered it up by crying too—all too easy, given the situation.

  I know I should have hugged her when she begged me for forgiveness. It would have made sense for the whole “exorcising my past” thing I’d claimed. But I couldn’t do it. I took the computer and fled to my room instead.

  The worst part is the sheer chance of it all.

  I have no memory of ever listening on the other line and hearing weird words I didn’t understand. Maybe I did, and instead of asking Mom about it I got distracted and wandered off. Maybe I asked and she laughed it off. Maybe—

  No wait, I was wrong. The chanciness isn’t the worst part. The worst part is the fact that I just now assumed that Dad—my dad—is an embezzler who simply never got caught.

  And that I’m happy no one caught him. That I wish that had happened in this universe too.

  Maybe I deserve this crappy version of reality.

  Because I would rather hide a crime than lose my comfortable life. Oh God—

  Maybe that’s why I’m here. Like that one Christmas movie, only in reverse. The angels—or God, or whoever—are punishing me for a crime I didn’t even know I had committed. No...that I hadn’t even committed yet.

  That can’t be it. That absolutely can’t be.

  I...

  I don’t know how to even begin this.

  I have my answers, and I wish I didn’t.

  So...this is not hell and I’m not dead. It’s not a twilight-zone punishment from On High. Of course, knowing this now makes exactly zero difference.

  I’m still screwed.

  No, wait. Ok. I need to tell it from the beginning. Starting with last night.

  After I wrote my last entry, I couldn’t sleep. I prayed, pleaded, begged God to send me back. Just in case God really did exist. Just in case this was my punishment for being a selfish, stuck-up ass without even realizing it.

  Then I cried. For hours, off and on. And I would have paced and raged and probably even screamed, if there wasn’t the danger of waking up Nikola-not-mom, and having to see her face again.

  At some point, I knew I had to get out of there.

  It must have been about 4 a.m. by then. I got on the computer, started searching. I was going to find Dad. I hadn’t quite worked out why, or what I would do when I found him, but that’s the logic of the sleep-deprived.

  Surprisingly, I did manage to find his address in my mom’s files. Then I figured out where the nearest Amtrak station was. Around six in the morning, I packed a bag and stole out of the house. I didn’t even leave a note.

  Things were pretty quiet on the streets as I headed for my bus stop. It was just me, the cool drip of the early morning fog, and my thoughts, none of which were good. Even so, I was aware enough to know the walk sign was in my favor when I started into the crosswalk.

  A voice behind me said, “Wait—”

  I whirled to look, and saw Lab Coat Guy. Right there. Reaching out a hand toward me from the sidewalk. Of course I lunged back toward him, because answers, answers, answers. I stepped back onto the curb—

  The roar of an engine and squealing brakes, the rush of wind right behind me, told me that action saved my life.

  I jerked around again in time to see a large brown truck screaming past me, down the street and into the fog. My heart pounded and I sagged against my suitcase, only belatedly remembering who else had been right there.

  Of course he was gone when I turned back.

  My first thought was: Dammit.

  My second thought was: Holy shit I ALMOST DIED.

  My third thought was: I think Lab Coat Guy was trying to save my life.

  And that’s when I got my crazy idea. Because if Lab Coat Guy was involved in this weirdness—of course he was—and had answers—of course he did—and seemed to be strangely invested in preventing me from accidental (or oh God maybe-not-so-accidental) death, then I just needed to get his attention on purpose.

  Which meant...

  More determined than ever, I crossed that damn street, despite my racing heart. I lugged my bags onto the bus, just as I had originally planned. I tried not to let myself think about how I was taking my life—two lives—into my hands. It was either take the risk, or let despair win. I wasn’t ready to do that.

  By the time I reached the transit center, I had a plan. A really terrible one.

  On second thought, maybe let’s not talk about the details. They’re not important. The important thing, Mom-who-mig
ht-read-this-someday, is that I am alive and the baby is safe and nothing bad actually happened.

  So. As he was hauling me out of harm’s way, I reached past the terror and adrenaline to grab him by the shirt front before he could vanish again. “If you—value my life—at all,” I gasped, “answer—my—questions—now!” He didn’t try to throw me off as we found our footing.

  He was still wavering between Average Joe and Lab Coat, so I don’t even know what shirt I was actually clutching. I shifted my grip to his arm, leaning on the unexpectedly steadying support it provided, feeling my breathing become more even, my pounding heart begin to slow down. “Please. I need you to tell me what’s going on. I can’t take this much longer.”

  “This isn’t safe,” he said. His voice was low and sober, and seemed to be coming from a distance. He didn’t even try to deny knowledge of—whatever this was.

  I tamped down my surge of triumph. “Then let’s find somewhere that is.” The train (that definitely had nothing to do with my near-death experience) was still loading passengers, but no one was paying us any attention anyway.

  I tugged Lab Coat Guy toward a quiet corner free of hazards (that I could see). I hadn’t let go of his arm, and he nodded when I asked him if this would be safe enough. I wished he’d be a bit more chatty. But then, I wished a lot of things.

  “Now, tell me everything.”

  He looked deeply alarmed. “I don’t—that’s impossible.” He visibly gathered himself together, and I noticed for the first time that he seemed awfully young. He seemed to have settled into Lab Coat mode, which meant I could finally get a proper look at him.

  He was lanky and angular and seemed oddly colorless, except for his eyes, which were uncomfortably blue. I can’t seem to remember anything else about him, except for the lab coat—and the expression on his face.

  He looked haunted.

  “If you ask me questions, I will answer them,” he finally said.

  I started out calmly enough. Received confirmation that this is an alternate reality, and I did switch places with another Ellen Wright.

  And just like that, I threw out all my planned questions.

  “But—why?”

  He flinched. “Ellen Wright made a wish,” he said.

  “I made no wishes,” I snapped, but I suddenly knew where this was going.

  “Not you. Ellen Prime. Ellen Wright of this reality. She wished for a different life.”

  It all made sense.

  Of course she had wished for a different life. She probably wished to go back and reverse that one little thing, that one innocent question that ruined everything. Who could blame her? She was smart enough to realize that if she could change that one moment, then nothing that happened afterward would be the same either. Maybe the baby was the last straw. Maybe it was Manager Jerkwad. But then...

  “Are you saying...she’s taken my place?” Everything screamed at me how wrong that was. She was no better than me. But the tall man nodded, looking even more distressed. Probably because he knew the question that was coming next.

  “But why? Did she know? Why was her wish granted at my expense? I thought wishes were supposed to go to people who deserved them!” Although now that I thought about it...it had been a long time since I read 1,001 Nights, but I was pretty sure Aladdin was just some random guy who found a lamp.

  I suddenly peered at my tall, form-changing informant. I had never thought of a genie in a lab coat, but...

  He sighed, finally. “She was in the right place at the right time for the Program, and no, she doesn’t know she is replacing someone else. And this would have been your life and you would never have noticed the difference, if I hadn’t made a mistake. And for that, I am sorry.” He said this and closed his eyes, but instead of looking guiltier, he looked like a great weight had been lifted off of him.

  How nice for him. “What do you mean, mistake? How the heck do genies make mistakes? Why are you always showing up here, anyway?”

  Lab Coat Guy looked away. “Genie is a misnomer. We’re not from the Ancient times of your Universe, nor Ellen Prime’s Universe, nor any other. The Program is beyond that. It reaches forward and back, and into every universe—”

  I shoved down all the burning new questions and gave him my best glare.

  “I’m a—facilitator,” he hurried on. “I helped to make the Exchange. It—it was my first time.” He sagged. “I was not supposed to follow you from your universe to Ellen Prime’s, but then...you weren’t safe. Because of me. Because my superiors...manipulate things. A freak accident at the right time to keep the hitches out of the system.”

  The world suddenly seemed infinitely more frightening. “Are they going to come for you? For us?” I clutched at my belly again.

  “No. Maybe. I’m not sure. You might have to—”

  “Can you send me back? Make everything the way it was before your Program thing meddled in our lives?”

  “I cannot.”

  The answer I dreaded most.

  I crumpled, finally letting go of his arm to sag against the wall. Then an unexpected thought pulled me back.

  “What about the other Ellen? Is she happy in my universe? What if she wants to come back to this one?”

  He shook his head. “No returns. The Program doesn’t care, as long as the Exchange goes smooth. And I don’t know if she’s happy. I’m sorry.”

  For the first time, I stopped thinking about myself. “How awful,” I whispered. What if Ellen Prime missed her baby? What if she had fallen too far behind in classes and would now flunk out of Eagle Prep? I realized that I couldn’t judge her for C’s in school. Not with the kind of underfunded state school my parents always used to disparage. Not with a job and a pregnancy consuming her time and energy.

  Maybe I should want her wish to backfire...but strangely, I don’t.

  I still don’t know what I’m going to do.

  “You owe me,” I told Lab Coat Genie. “Because of you, I am stuck in a life that isn’t mine, and as far as I can tell, it was for no reason at all.” He nodded, and—oddly—looked relieved. I think he wanted an excuse to help me.

  So then we worked out what to do about his superiors/the Program/whatever that is. He’d never wanted to do the exchange in the first place, so it was easy to convince him to let me try to make my own way with my memories still intact. He’ll tell his superiors he wiped me, and I’ll play along. It might work.

  It still means I’m trapped in this Ellen’s shitty life.

  “I’m going to go home and figure out how to fix the life Ellen Prime left me,” I told him at the end, trying to convince myself as much as anything else. I found myself caressing the reminder of the other life she’d left me. I was terrified. I still am. But—

  I guess it comes down to this: I could have a complete breakdown over this bleak, unwanted future. Or I can use the advantages Ellen Prime never had, and face things on my own terms. I have years of top-notch schooling behind me, for one thing. I’ll take every advanced placement test I can get my hands on. I’m fantastic at writing essays. I’ll get scholarships and make something.

  First, though, I am going to start by forgiving my mother.

  Because if anyone deserves something better out of this deal, it’s Nikola Karras, who was the only person to actually do the right thing.

  Oh yeah, and also? I’m not going to let the Program win.

  Twin Wishes

  Jamie Ferguson

  Jamie Ferguson loves “writing stories where there are magical elements in our everyday life, hidden just out of sight,” which is exactly what she’s done in “Twin Wishes.”

  Jamie has published a novelette, Bewitchery, a novel, With Perfect Clarity, and several short stories. “Twin Wishes” marks her second appearance in Fiction River (her first was in Tavern Tales), with more to come.

  Ileana floated on her back in the calm ocean and stared up at the autumn night sky, trying to figure out some way she could get John Taylor to notice she exist
ed. She spread her arms out wide and wiggled her tail fins, moonlight sparkling on the cool water that lapped at the scales on her bottom half. The air was warm and still, and smelled of salt and seaweed. She was far enough from shore that, as long as she faced out to sea, the lights from Oahu weren’t visible—but the Milky Way was.

  John had never even looked at her, so it was ridiculous to be so infatuated. But, just like at least half the girls at school, she couldn’t stop thinking about him.

  She daydreamed about walking through the park while he whispered something to her, something special and wonderful, his breath warm on her ear and his arm slung around her shoulder. Her diary was filled with little hearts drawn around variants of “I love John!” or “John + Ileana = True Love FOREVER!” all written with different colors of glitter pens and varying numbers of exclamation points. If only he felt the same way about her.

  Of course, even if he did, she couldn’t let him know she was a mermaid.

  None of her human friends knew, of course. This was how it had been her whole life. Who knew what would happen if regular humans found out that merfolk were living among them?

  Ileana was used to keeping her mermaid side a secret, but sometimes—like today—it could be totally frustrating. Her friends on the swim team had been pressuring her to join, and today the coach had ambushed her after calculus class. There was no way she could explain how aggravating it would be to swim with legs instead of a tail, especially when she was supposed to be racing and knew she was capable of going much, much faster. The only reason she swam in human form at all was because she loved to surf.

  Ileana had made up an excuse about being too busy with her harp lessons to take on anything else, but she’d walked away wishing she didn’t have to hide part of herself. Not that she’d want to be on the swim team even if they had a mermaid category. Why bother swimming in a sterile pool, where the water reeked of chlorine, when there were all of the oceans?