Dead Girl Walking

How could I have a public career with a scary face?

Panic gave me the strength to lift my head. After the dizziness passed, I blinked and my vision cleared. I struggled through the pain to click on a bedside light.

When I looked down at my left arm and saw the tube poking from my arm, I almost threw up. It was all so real now, and my heart rate increased to frantic beats on the monitor. My hands were pale ghosts that I didn’t recognize. My arms seemed unusually thin, too. As if I’d been ill so long I’d wasted away. Not the way I’d hoped to lose weight.

And where were all the nettle bumps? My skin was pale and smooth, with no rash or bruises. How long had I been hospitalized? My visit with Grammy had seemed as short as a brief nap, but if my nettles had already healed, it must have been a long time.

Days, weeks … a month?

Grammy Greta said time ran differently between worlds. Had those brief moments with her passed by in weeks on Earth? Had the school year ended? Had I missed my finals? Had my class graduated without me?

I spotted a mirror on a tray just a reach away. But moving my body hurt so much … I couldn’t … too hard. Still, I struggled through waves of dizzy pain, gasping for each ragged breath as my fingers touched the edge of the tray.

The heart monitor quickened: beep, beep, be careful, it seemed to warn. Still there was no turning away. I had to know … was my face scarred and disfigured? Worse than scared, fingers trembling, I lifted the mirror.

Then I screamed and screamed and screamed.

The face looking back at me wasn’t mine.

It belonged to Leah Montgomery.

5

“LEAH!”

An elegant blonde woman I’d never seen before rushed toward me in a cloud of lavender perfume. She pushed aside a table to sit beside me, her diamond necklace glinting, tears streaming a pale trail down her rouged cheeks.

“Oh, Leah,” she sobbed, clasping my hand. Her hand on mine felt wrong, like we were both made of plastic and none of this was real.

I’m not Leah, I tried to say, but her lavender fragrance caught in my throat. I gasped for breath.

“Leah, you’re awake! Thank God! At last!”

Not Leah. You’ve made a mistake.

“Leah, baby!” Trembling, she wrapped her arms around me. “You can’t imagine the hell I’ve been going through since Angie found you yesterday. You wouldn’t wake up! I’ve been frantic with worry that my baby girl was gone forever.”

I struggled to speak, my throat burning, suffocating.

“Are you all right, darling?” the lavender woman cried.

I might be if you’d let go, I wanted to say.

“Don’t exert yourself.” Her hold eased as she studied me. “You’re looking better already, and you’re going to be fine. That’s all that matters now.”

No it’s not, because I don’t even know you.

Shaking my head was a big mistake. Blinding pain exploded. I sagged back against the pillow and fought to speak, but only spit out a pathetic croak.

“Honey, are you trying to tell me something?”

Duh! I’m not your honey or anything. But I couldn’t do more than moan. My energy faded. I wanted to sleep.

“Leah! Stay with me!” Hands gripped my shoulders, shaking. “You’ve made it this far, you can’t go back into a coma now. Don’t you realize what a miracle it is you woke up? They told me you didn’t want to live, which was utter nonsense. What do those quacks know? Thank God they were wrong! Don’t you ever do anything like that to me again.”

She hugged tighter and my throat burned like I’d swallowed flaming coals.

“That’s it, honey. Keep those pretty blue eyes open.”

Not blue eyes. Brown. I opened my eyes wide.

“You can’t imagine the horror I’ve gone through since your accident,” the woman prattled on. “Your father blames me, and perhaps he’s right, so from now on things will be different. I vowed that if you got well, I would change, join one of those twelve-step programs, and I sincerely mean it this time. Oh, Leah, my dearest daughter.”

Lack of breath battled with the desperation to explain that I wasn’t her dearest anything. I had to make her understand that she must be in the wrong room, or needed glasses. But my body wasn’t cooperating. When I spit out “Not Leah,” my words croaked in garbled demonic language.

“What’s wrong?” Her eyes almost popped out. “Are you having an attack?”

I thrashed in bed, pointing at myself and shaking my head. Unbearable pain made me gag, jerk erratically, and even drool a little.

“Someone help! My daughter is in trouble!” The woman let loose with an ear-piercing scream that would have knocked me flat if I weren’t already lying on my back.

The door burst open with blinding light and a swarm of green-garbed figures. Noisy voices swelled like an attack of hornets. I closed my eyes, sinking into blissful sleep.

When I opened my eyes again, the empty room was dark except for ghostly lights from shadowy machinery. Rhythmic beeps echoed my own heartbeat.

Is it my heart, though? I thought with growing panic. Am I even me?

Of course I’m me, I reasoned. I had thoughts and memories that were all about me. Being anyone else would be insanity. I was a lot of things — scared, confused, hurting — but I wasn’t crazy. The whole looking in a mirror and seeing Leah Montgomery (I mean, Leah of all people!) had to have been a hallucination.

Well I was awake now, so I’d just look in the mirror and prove that I was still me.

Only when I reached for the mirror, I stared down in horror …

At a stranger’s hand. Not mine.

My own fingers were chubby, tanned sausages; these fingers were as thin as French fries, and too soft to have ever washed dishes or changed diapers. Also, Grammy’s lucky bracelet was missing, replaced by a plastic hospital bracelet inscribed “Montgomery, L.”

Abso-freaking-lutely impossible.

My identity shouldn’t be like a tough question on a pop quiz. I knew who I was. Amber. Not Leah. So why did I look so different?

Possible Answers:

a) I’d looked into a trick mirror.

b) I was asleep and having a horrible nightmare.

c) Lavender Woman was part of a twisted conspiracy.

I was leaning toward “c” because LW was definitely not my mother. Theresa Borden was soft-spoken, with a gentle touch and a fresh herbal scent from working in her garden. Mom hated cooking but loved baking pastries, so she often had dough on her hands and flour sprinkled on her dark chestnut hair. She wasn’t complicated. She was just Mom.

Childishly I thought, I want my mommy.