"They're calling me the 'Miracle Girl'," I said, fearful and overwrought as I looked up from the newspaper.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart," said Uncle Bill. "I did my best to keep you out of this, but it was inevitable they'd find out sooner or later."
"That's the media for you," said Aunt E, her face pinched in censure. "Nosing about where they've no business."
"I suppose it is their business," said Uncle Bill. "It is an incredible story."
"William!" Aunt E glared at him. "I'm trying to make the poor girl feel better." She turned to me and smiled consolingly. "Never you mind, child; eventually it'll all blow over. These things usually do." But I could see the disquiet in her eyes, the anxiety she wanted to hide but couldn't, and I didn't miss the silent exchange between her and Uncle Bill.
"What if it doesn't?" I said. "They're making such a big production of it, and I can't even go outside because they're waiting for me." I stole a look toward the front of the house. "The newspapers, the TV and radio—there are scads of them. What if they get a picture of me and it's splashed all over the front pages or shown on the news? What if someone recognizes me?"
"You've changed a lot in the last few years," said Aunt E. "You're a young woman now. I very much doubt anyone who knew you in the past would recognize you as being the same person."
I thought she was being hopelessly optimistic and said, "And what if one of those reporters goes digging?"
"Jim has done a good job of creating a convincing and thorough backstory for you," Uncle Bill assured me. "Anyone who bothers to look is just going to find out that you're everything we've always said you are: the daughter of my brother who perished with his wife in a tragic fire. All the records will show you were in hospital down in Point Barrow after the fire and that once you recovered from the ordeal you came here to live with us."
"But if they start asking around down there..."
"Even if they do," he said, "they're not going to find anyone in Point Barrow who'll challenge who you are. Heck, the girl's own teachers are convinced she pulled through."
"Someone must know the truth," I argued. "Someone had to deal with the body. What if they talk?"
"That's all been taken care of. Those people were moved to other towns long ago, while Mallory was still in office."
It was tempting to be swayed by his arguments, but I'd the nagging suspicion that if a picture of me got out through the press there was a good chance people who'd known Uncle Bill's real niece would see it, and they'd have to think that that girl had changed an awful lot since the last time they'd seen her. At some point someone was going to put two-and-two together and then the jig would be up.
"In a few days something else is going to come along and the media will turn their attention to that," said Aunt E. "We just have to weather the storm."
For her sake I tried to look mollified, but even more than the media I was fearful of the people who'd been chasing Mom and me. They were here, in Caelo, and if they got so much as a whiff of my presence...
"I just worry about what might happen to you and Uncle Bill," I said, looking from one to the other. "I don't want you getting hurt because of me. Amelia Westerly doesn't seem to care about the law or anything, and you've got your daughters and grandchildren to think about. Maybe it'd be better for everyone if Uncle Jim found me somewhere else to live."
"You're part of our family now," Aunt E said with a firm and dignified conviction as tears shone in her eyes. "We're not going to abandon you."
"But this isn't just about me," I said. "I have to think about everybody else."
"We're going to be fine," said Uncle Bill, with his usual doggedness. "We're all going to be fine. But maybe the best thing to do would be to give the reporters what they want."
My jaw dropped and so did Aunt E's.
"William, you can't be serious!" she said.
"Hold your horses." He raised a hand to silence us before we could further object. "If you keep on hiding from them you're only going to make them more determined," he explained, fixing his eyes on me. "And it might just force them to do exactly what we don't want them to do. If they get their pictures and a few words from you here, that might be enough to satisfy them, and before you know it you'll be yesterday's news."
"Aunt E?" I turned to her, waiting for her to say something.
"William's right," she said at length. "But maybe we can at least be a little creative about your appearance before we unveil you to the public. Perhaps make it a little more difficult for anyone to connect you to one of your former selves." Her eyes twinkled with mischief and she gave me a wink.
So on the Tuesday evening following the market bombing, I made my debut before the cameras. I wore sunglasses and a dark sun hat and a mourning dress, and did my best to look older than I was and as physically different from my past self as possible. There'd never been any class photos of me at Humberton or any of the other schools I'd ever attended because I'd always been conveniently sick the days they were taken. And whenever we'd moved and I'd left a school, Uncle Jim had always made certain any record of my attendance was quietly and expediently expunged; just as he'd recently made my student file at Humberton go missing. Until the day I stepped out on the front porch and had a gazillion flash bulbs blazing at me in rapid succession, there hadn't been any pictures of me in the papers or on television—or anywhere else, for that matter, outside of those needed for ID and the like. In some respects it was as if I didn't exist, which seemed somewhat ironic given how many identities I'd had over the years.
The reporters and photographers stood in a tight circle around the porch, jostling one another for prime location and trampling Aunt E's rare begonias in the process. Notebooks were in hand, pencils were poised, and flashbulbs flared and sizzled. For a few minutes it was like being in the middle of a lightning storm, and I was glad of the sunglasses as camera after camera was thrust in my direction. On the top of the nearby Island TV truck, the operator behind the huge camera swiveled it toward the porch, aiming the lens squarely at us, no doubt zooming in for a close-up of my face.
A barrage of questions was lobbed at me, reporters shouting overtop one another in a bid to be heard. They asked how I felt, what it had been like during the bombing, and why I'd walked away from the hospital. For the most part I tried to be vague in my answers without appearing I was. Only when the subject turned to my friends did I allow myself to be frank. It was impossible not to be sad and tearful and to sob uncontrollably when I talked about Martine, Danni, and Cecilia and what they'd meant to me. And talk about them I did, because I thought the more I kept the attention on them, the less the spotlight would be focused on me.
It felt like I was out there an eternity, but it was probably only fifteen or twenty minutes. And though the reporters would have loved me to have remained longer, I was glad when Aunt E announced that that would be enough. "Chloe has been through a lot and she's still suffering from shock," she told them. "She needs to rest."
More flashbulbs flared as photographers made a last ditch effort for a final candid shot, and all was in turmoil as reporters scrambled to ask one more question while Aunt E and I retreated toward the front door. We ignored them until someone shouted, "Miss Havershaw, how do you feel about the fact that you'll be accompanying the president to the funeral service for your friends?"
I stopped dead in my tracks and looked to Aunt E in horror.
"Miss Havershaw?"
I turned back, heart galloping uncontrollably in my chest as I stammered, "I...I don't know." This was the first I'd heard of it; and if it were true, I didn't know what I was going to do. How on earth could I possibly be in the presence of Amelia Westerly, of all people? How could I hide what I was when the person who'd been hunting me since before I'd been born would be right there, sitting beside me throughout the entire service?
"I think that's enough for now," said Aunt E, turning me about again and marshaling me through the door.
"But is it true?" a reporter bellowed.
"If the president plans for Chloe to be there with her, then I'm sure we don't know anything about it," Aunt E said with just the right touch of haughtiness and dismissal.
And with that we went inside. Aunt E quickly bolted the door behind us, ignoring the continued shouts and pleas from the reporters.
"Well," she said as she slid the last safety latch in place and turned to me, "I think that went quite well."
"Really?" I said, incredulous. "It was just supposed to be a few questions and some photos. Now it sounds like someone is determined to make sure my life's a complete and utter disaster."
"I'm sure the president has no intention of asking you to accompany her. The media love to stir things up. I can assure you that Amelia Westerly isn't the type to willingly give up the limelight to someone else."
"But what if it's true?" I squeaked. "What will I do?"
"You'll go, of course."
I looked at Aunt E as if she were some sort of village idiot. "But I couldn't possibly. She'll know who I am."
"Don't be foolish," Aunt E said. "She's never seen you. They don't know what the girl they're looking for looks like. Jim has made certain of that."
"Look at me, Aunt E. I could be Mom's twin. Uncle Bill is always saying how I'll soon be the spitting image of her."
"Your mother hasn't been seen in years."
"But Amelia Westerly knew her. Mom was best friends with her daughter. She wouldn't forget someone like that."
"You're getting all worked up about nothing," Aunt E insisted. "It probably won't happen, anyway. Like I said, it's just silly reporter talk. That's all they're good for these days." She came over and hugged me and kissed me on the forehead. "You worry too much, child," she said. "You're far too young to be burdened with this sort of thing."
"I like it here," I said, leaning into her embrace. "I don't want to have to leave." Or be taken away.
"That's not going to happen." Aunt E smoothed my hair and tightened her hold on me, the tension in her body belying her words. "After the funerals are over, things will return to normal again. You'll see. So don't you fret so."
I tried a little laugh, but it came out like a whimper. "You're a fine one to talk," I said, wiping tears from my eyes.
"Yes, well, it's different when it's another person you're concerned about."
"Then you are worried."
"I'm not," Aunt E lied. "I just never much cared for politicians, is all. Liars and cheats is what they are. Scoundrels. They're only interested in their own agendas most of the time. And those damn reporters are just as bad. They're always making stuff up, even when they have the facts. It's all about titillation these days. They sensationalize everything. It used to be that you could watch the news and believe what you saw."
"I guess the government doesn't make it easy," I said, letting her steer me into the kitchen. She sat me down on a chair at the table, then busied herself making tea. Outside we could still hear the reporters milling about, but the noise gradually abated, and eventually the neighborhood resumed its regular character.
"There used to be a time when the papers thought themselves the guardians of the truth, champions of justice and democracy," Aunt E grumped as she filled the kettle and set it to boil on the stove. "Now they avoid criticism of the president and her council and pretend like nothing's wrong. They turn a blind eye to everything that's bad about that woman and her autocratic ways. They've become cowards and sheep."
"I guess they just don't want to end up in jail."
"That never bothered them in the past. My grandmother used to tell me about how newspapers thumbed their noses at the government and went out of their way to expose corruption and the abuse of power."
"It was a different world back then," I said.
"Sadly. And now Amelia Westerly wants to take us into the darkest corners, turning us against one another." Aunt E shook her head as she sat down at the kitchen table and took my hands in hers. "To ally ourselves with the Third Reich, the very monsters who put us here in the first place..." She didn't finish, just sat there, staring at our hands, twining her fingers with mine.
"Now that's what they should be writing about," she said. "They need to be the voice of the people when the government is no longer concerned with fulfilling its public duty and doing what's best for us."
"The government has already shut down the Herald," I pointed out. "They charged the publisher with sedition."
"What an absurd accusation," said Aunt E, denunciation in her tone. "Whatever happened to free speech? It used to be guaranteed in the constitution. Now all we hear these days is the government calling people traitors and accusing them of any number of things. There always seems to be somebody they declare is an enemy of the state. Clearly Amelia Westerly doesn't trust anyone, and unfortunately that sentiment is spreading like a disease. Now we have people pitted against one another, no longer willing to say so much as hello to their neighbors without first considering whether they're 'with us or against us.' Nobody seems at all concerned about trampling peoples' rights; just so long as the security of the nation is maintained. That's all that matters these days. That justifies everything. As if anyone could feel secure when at any moment a person could end up being thrown in jail for no valid reason. We're losing everything we believed in. We're abandoning all the principles on which this nation was founded. What is the point of it all if we lose ourselves, if we become like the very thing we despise?"
"How did it ever get to this?" I asked.
"I don't know," said Aunt E. She sat unsmiling. "Maybe in that respect Amelia Westerly is right: Maybe we got too complacent. Maybe we're too willing to accept things the way they are. Maybe Mallory just wasn't strong enough. Perhaps if he had been we'd not be governed by a tyrant."
Or maybe he was too strong, I thought. Maybe that's why Amelia Westerly and her people had gotten rid of him in the only way they knew would ensure that he was no longer an obstacle to their goals, whatever those really were.
How long before she didn't allow anyone or anything to stop her?
Aunt E and I drank tea in the silence of the kitchen, but it did nothing to cure the sickness we could see spreading around us like a cancer. Haven was dying, and everything we believed in with it.