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the copy says, “I’m not Beth.”
Not Beth. Not Beth. Not Beth not Beth not Beth.
Helena stares into a face that could be her own, a copy, a copy cop, and an avalanche is happening inside of her chest. Not a feeling but a memory? of a feeling, something both agonizing and wonderful that surges up and up and up at the same time it crashes down around her. She thinks she might drown in this feeling she can’t even name.
Again, she thinks: copy cop, and she decides she likes the sound of it. “Dirty little copy cop,” she says, so soft, so kind. “Who are you?” Which one? Which sheep? Or is it a sheep at all?
The copy—the copy?—doesn’t answer in words. It, she, looks into Helena’s eyes, afraid, angry, shaking with the force of both. The two of them are tarnished statues frozen holding each other. Then she moves, sudden, and drives the piece of rebar into Helena’s side, an answer to her question. I am you, I am just like you.
Helena falls back. She stumbles, runs across the gravel lot with her own blood staining her shirt, a copper kiss from her sister, this person she doesn’t yet know if she loves or hates, only that she is somehow essential in a way Helena has never believed anyone could be.
Later, under fluorescent lights and antiseptic soap smell, Helena sews her wound, the pain fingernails digging into her skin, deep and bright, and she whispers, “I’m not Beth,” she whispers, “I’m not Beth,” she whispers,
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runs her finger along the blade of the knife until blood beads at the tip. It’s a beautiful weapon, and it’s hers alone. Tomas’s gift before she sets out to destroy the first copy. He trusts her to keep the blade clean and sharp, to make sure the handle, which is old like dust, like bones, doesn’t become scratched or damaged during her crusade. Helena promised, of course she promised, but she still handles the knife more than she should, when Tomas and Maggie are away, during the long days and nights she spends cold (preparing) and hungry (preparing) and lonely (preparing).
She stares down at her hands and thinks about what it will be like, killing a copy.
It will have her face, of course. There’s a mirror, cracked in two places—bad luck, Maggie says—but she can still see herself well enough to practice. She stares into the glass and pictures her eyes in another woman’s face. Maybe those eyes will cry when they see her approaching, an angel of death with a knife made for killing sinners. Maybe it will beg, or scream, or say hateful things.
“Please no,” she whispers, “please don’t hurt me,” she whispers, “I hate you, you are nothing,” she whispers, “you monster, you monster, you monster,” and she lets a scream build in her throat and tears well in her eyes, hot as blood when they hit her cheeks. Because this is how the copy will try to keep her from killing it. Because (it will say anything to justify its own existence yes Tomas I understand) nobody wants to die. Not even an abomination.
She practices hating herself, and she thinks about monsters and angel wings and the blood of copies, and she takes the knife in her hand
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twists the throttle forward. The bike is so loud that the sound of it seems to fill up the entire world. She doesn’t mind it. The screaming of the engine calms Helena’s heart. The endless motion makes her mind slow down as her focus on the precise movements gives way to muscle memory. One small flick of the wrist and she’s going faster the wind.
She knows Tomas will be furious if he sees her driving so fast, putting their mission in jeopardy, but she knows that God will protect the original. Isn’t that the way? If she crashes and dies the world will be overrun with abominations, but surely He is looking down on her and surely He can feel how free her heart is, how wonderful it is to control the speed and direction of the bike, to push it forward with the slightest tightening of her fingers.
She laughs, the sound lost in the wind, and the thought comes suddenly, without warning: You could keep going, Helena. Never stop.
Her smile fades and, gradually, she eases the bike to halt on the empty road. She pushes it to the side and sits beside it, looking out at the empty horizon. You could keep going. Never stop. Tomas would never find you.
“No,” she moans, blasphemy blasphemy blasphemy, and she reaches down, grabs a handful of the tiny rocks lining the roadside and pushes them onto her face, closing her eyes against the scratchy pain on her cheeks and forehead and eyelids.
Stupid, she thinks, and she pushes the stones in deeper, needing to hurt, needing to draw blood, needing to not think about anything but the pain, needing God to see how sorry she is for her awful thoughts. How sorry.
After a long time, when her mind feels clear of everything but the pain, she wipes small streaks of blood onto her sleeve and stands, breathing deeply, ready to go back to Tomas. She drives slowly, this time, careful not to let her thoughts run away from her,
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bends in front of the sink, using the faucet to rinse the burning sensation from her scalp. The air is heavy with a strange chlorine smell that makes it hard to breathe, but she sucks it into her lungs and refuses to let herself cough. Tomas is gone, but not for long. He could be back at any time. When he left, Helena was a sinner, a girl with dark hair that curled over her shoulders like devil wings unfurling, but when he returns, he’ll find an angel with hair to match. Hair as light as a halo.
She drags a comb through her wet hair, wincing as it snags in the tangles, and she whispers, “O Lord my God in thee do I put my trust save me from all them that persecute me and deliver me lest he tear my soul like a lion rending it in pieces while there is none to deliver o Lord my God if I have done this if there be iniquity in my hands if I have rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with me yea I have delivered him that without cause is mine enemy let the enemy persecute my soul and take it yea let him tread down my life upon the earth and lay mine honor in the dust arise o Lord in thine anger—”
The door opens and shuts, and Tomas’s heavy boots are on the floorboards, coming toward their small kitchen. The sound of his footsteps stops as he stills in the doorway, watching her. She turns to him with a smile—shy, hopeful.
“Look,” Helena says. “Look, Tomas.”
“What have you done to yourself?” he asks quietly. He moves closer, nudging the half-full bottle of bleach aside with one foot.
“I wanted to be…” she says, suddenly feeling much younger than sixteen, much smaller. An angel. I wanted to be an angel.
Tomas moves suddenly, striking like a snake, and slams her head against the faucet, a fistful of her blonde, wet hair in his grip. Just as suddenly, he releases her. “Don’t waste our supplies,” he says, and leaves the room without another word, leaving her crouched on the floor, breathing in the dust and the chlorine stink.
She stays like that for a long time, waiting. Her hair is damp, sticking to her cheeks. When she feels able, she gets to her feet and puts away the bleach. Next time, she won’t use this kind. Tomas won’t be angry, and she’ll still have hair like a halo.
The thought makes her smile, and she cleans up the kitchen, humming to herself. After a while, she finds Tomas and he puts an arm around her, loving, like a father,
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he says, “I’ll take care of you from now on, Helena.”
They go to a truck with balding tires and a front bumper that looks like it might fall off at any moment. Helena looks back over her shoulder to say goodbye, her breath steaming out ahead of her, but nobody is standing outside the convent to wish her well. It doesn’t matter. She climbs in through the passenger door and sniffs at the dust and smell of old sweat and animals.
She waits until he’s started the engine and the truck has roared to life around them before she asks, “Why did you come for me?”
Tomas smiles. He’s kind, so kind. She likes him already. “You’re special, Helena. I’ve been looking for you for a very long time.”
“I’m not special,” she mumbles, leaning her head against the cold window and watching as her breath fogs the glass. “I have darkness in me.”
“No,” Tomas assures her as they pull away from the convent and onto the road. “You have a light in you. This is the truth.”
“Prove it,” she says, in a tone of voice that would have made Sister Irina hit her across the face, but Tomas only smiles.
He proves it to her later when he shows her the black and white photographs of the copies. One after the other, each with dark, curling hair just like hers, each standing beside their families, mothers and fathers, an idea Helena has never known and always longed for.
“You were the first,” Tomas tells her. “You were the model for these abominations, these children without souls. And you will help us prove that God’s love is strong, that His love is justice.”
Helena finds herself hating them all, these little sheep who’ve taken what should have been hers. She bites her lip to keep from smiling and she flips through the pictures again and again, excitement blooming in her chest like a flower made of embers,
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looks at the wall beside her bed. The lines of the pencil are hard to see against the off-white wall, and the lighting is very bad, but if she knows where to look—and she does, of course she does—she can make out the drawing she finished the day before. A little girl wearing a dress.
“Hello, Helena, I hope you had a good day,” she croons to herself, reaching out to touch the tiny figure. The girl under her fingertips is cold and stiff, unloveable, but she pretends anyway. “Good night, Helena,” she sings under her breath. “Happy birthday.”
The drawn girl stands motionless, arms outstretched, asking for a friend. Helena hums to herself and reaches down to her feet, flipping two fingers inside her thick woolen sock and probing until she finds the tiny pencil stub. She draws a second girl next to the little Helena, an identical girl with an identical dress. The two are holding hands. Happy.
Still humming, she draws a question mark above the second girl.
“I hope I dream of you tonight,” she whispers. “Goodnight, friend.”
She curls up on her side, facing the wall, and she thinks about the two girls together, far away from this place. She wonders if her friend is happy, wherever she is, because if Helena herself exists, so must this other girl. Somewhere. She closes her eyes
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howls at the sting of the soap as it reaches the cuts on her arms, but as soon as she makes the first sound, Sister Olga reached down and grabs her face with one strong, bony hand, squeezes hard. Now Helena’s cry is muffled, and she kicks out with both legs, hoping that her aim is right and she knocks the smile right off Sister Olga’s evil old face. She tries, for a second, to scratch with her fingernails, but it hurts too much to give it a good attempt. The nuns have started cutting them down to the quick to stop her scratching at their parchment-old skin.
Helena has darkness inside of her. She knows this, because they tell her. She deserves far worse than she gets. She should be grateful every day for the goodness of the church and the divine mercy of the Lord, amen.
Sister Olga grabs Helena by the arm and wrenches her to her feet, throws her into the tiny back room so hard that her head hits the iron bed frame and makes her scream again. “Pray for forgiveness,” Sister Olga tells her before shutting the door. Shutting Helena in. Then the sound of the padlock clicking shut. Helena howls again, an animal scream.
She hits herself and screams that she won’t pray. She’ll never pray. She’ll never.
But in the end, of course, she does. In the end, when hours have gone by and she hasn’t been given anything to eat or drink, she prays,
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curls her fingers against her sister’s own, a reflex. The two of them are turned facing each other, bare chests touching, hearts beating in sync. Swaddled in the same blanket, neither stirs as the truck bounces over a hole in the road, though the woman holding them winces and grips them tighter.
Helena breathes out and Sarah breathes in. Sarah breathes out and Helena breathes in. Helena breathes out and Sarah breathes in. Sarah breathes out and Helena breathes in.
They stay like this until the truck rumbles to a stop and the woman whispers in hushed tones to the driver, who holds his hands out, rough hands, dirty, big enough to cradle a baby in his palms like motor oil, like cash, like a stolen secret paid for in blood.
The babies are pulled apart, cold air replacing the warmth of each other’s bodies, and Sarah is handed away, away, away,
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sits, legs swinging, on a bench, waiting to be given up. Again. It’s all right. They’ll try again next time. That’s what the social worker says, her smile a bit thinner every time. They’ll try again, and next time Sarah won’t bite or scratch or scream until all of the love drains out of her foster parents, until all that’s left is that absence, that emptiness.
“She kicks the wall above her bed,” Mrs. Cullip, who has never once told Sarah to call her anything else, whispers in a stage voice that she can hear clearly. “There are marks all along the wall now. And the screaming.”
“Yes, young children often don’t understand why they’re being moved,” the social worker whispers back, all sympathy. “She’ll grow out of it in time. She’s very smart.”
“My husband won’t keep her,” Mrs. Cullip says. “We’ve had to put a lock on the kitchen door. He says the money’s just not worth… all of this.”
When Mrs. Cullip leaves the office, Sarah does not go with her. She waits on the bench, little hands clenched into fists, dirty backpack safe between her swinging feet. After a while, the social worker beckons her further into the office, picking up the phone with her other hand,
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says, “This is Sarah. Sarah, this is Mrs. S. She’ll take good care of you.” Over her head, Carlton winks. Like she doesn't know.
“It’s nice to meet you, Sarah.” Mrs. S offers a hand, but Sarah ignores it, looking past her and into the house. She wonders if there are any other kids here. Single women usually run homes, but this is a Mrs. Hard to tell.
“She’s a bit shy,” Carlton says apologetically. “Slow to warm up, that’s what they say, yeah?”
She pushes past her new foster mother and goes inside, up the narrow set of stairs, sniffing out the Foster Room. There’s always one, and it’s always easy to spot. She’s used to this part.
She hears Mrs. S calling after her, saying, “Second door on your left, love,” and she pushes the door open and sure enough, there’s her room. A small, near-empty square with blank walls and a bed covered in plain white sheets. There’s not a bit of personality to be found. It doesn’t matter. She doesn’t plan on sticking around for long.
She tosses her bag into a corner and flops onto the bed, judging the mattress as old, but not terrible, all things considered.
After a while, she hears Mrs. S say goodbye to Carlton and hears her mounting the stairs. She gets the sense that she’s standing in the doorway, watching her, but doesn’t turn to check if it’s true.
“I thought we could paint it this weekend,” Mrs. S says after a minute. “I know it’s not much, but it’ll look nice with some color. What’s your favorite?”
She rolls her eyes. “Don’t have one,” she lies,
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thumps her head against the airplane window hard enough to make the woman sitting across the aisle look over, concerned. S reaches over Felix and grabs her by the shoulder, hauling her into an upright position, and says, “No more of this.”
“This is shit,” Sarah snaps. “I hope the plane crashes.”
“Sarah!” Felix gasps, and she cringes into her seat, muttering, “I really, really do.”
When Mrs. S speaks, her voice is patient, though she can hear anger brimming just under the surface and knows if she pushes again she just might be in for it. “You may not realize this now, but this is a big opportunity for you, Sarah. For all of us, in fact.”
“We had opportunities in Brixton,” she says. “And my friends are back there, and my school, S!”
“You don’t know what was waiting for you back there,” she hears Siobhan mutter under her breath. Then, louder, “Chin up, love. There are friends waiting for you in Toronto. Schools, too. Come on, now. We’re family, we’ve got to be happy for each other.”
You’re not my mother, she wants to spit, but Felix is sitting between them, Fee’s getting dragged halfway across the world with her, and she won’t ruin this for him. She can’t. Even if she’s already damaged goods, she can’t drag him down with her.
Instead she musters a smile, fake as can be, and sends it in S’s direction. “Happy, right,” she says through gritted teeth, trying to make herself feel like this is an opportunity and not a prison sentence,
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shifts her hips, allowing easier access for—shit, is it Ben? She thinks it’s Ben. It’s probably Ben. He enters her, completely unremarkable in every way, but she moans in the back of her throat, a low, eager sound. Make it good for him. Make it so good he doesn’t think about anything else, after.
Later, Ben—his name is Ben, she’s sure of it now—snores on the futon and Sarah sits in the bathroom across the hall, door locked, going through his wallet. Only $200 in cash, but that’s enough for tonight. She pockets the money, and before she goes, she grabs a tube of lipstick, his girlfriend’s, and writes I WAS SIXTEEN on the bathroom mirror.
She walks out confident, stepping over the discarded clothes and easing around the drum set blocking most of the tiny living space. If the guy wakes up, she’s got a story to explain this all away. If he doesn’t buy the story, she’s got fast feet. But she doesn’t think he’ll wake up anytime soon, not until the sun rises and his hangover is going full force. He’s sleeping the sleep of the sated, and she’s got his cash in her pocket. In that way they’ve both been satisfied tonight.
“Later, drummer boy,” she murmurs as she shuts the apartment door behind her
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pulls the thin blanket over the baby, watching her in the dim light from the hall. Looking at Kira too closely scares her, sometimes. The baby’s hair is lighter than Sarah’s has ever been, and her face is one that she already recognizes. It’s eery, like the universe is punishing her for what she’s done—for what she hasn’t done. Have this little reminder, Sarah. Have this every day for the rest of your life.
“Little monkey,” she says to the baby, who only yawns in response. “You look so much like your dad.”
She wrestles daily with the feeling that she should have told him. Should have gone back. And, Christ, it’s been over a year now since she’s seen him, but every time she looks at Kira, she thinks about that guy and hates herself a little more. It’s selfish, keeping a baby all to herself. They don’t live in a bubble. Kids grow up, ask questions, want answers.
Only four months, and already she feels the urge to run, to pack her things and trust Siobhan to keep Kira fed and healthy and safe. She turns her back on the idea every morning when she opens her eyes and every night when she climbs into bed, but she knows herself. She knows herself, and it only makes her hate glow that much brighter, only makes the thought of running that much more inviting, because she knows she can’t make herself stay. Can’t. Won’t.
“Oh, baby,” she murmurs, putting a hand flat on Kira’s chest. Her palm covers the baby’s entire ribcage. So small. The little heart thumpthumping under her skin. The feeling reminds her of something she’s never known before, and she’s not sure how that can be. Sadness welling up in her, slow, like drowning, she whispers, “I’m so sorry that I’ll leave you behind.”
Kira’s eyes are closed, and Sarah closes hers as well, feeling that tiny heartbeat against her own pulse,
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rinses her face three times before it starts to feel clean. She looks up and stares at her reflection in the water-stained bathroom mirror. That fucking bruise on her cheek, that strange, dead look in her eyes. How is she supposed to go home to Kira tomorrow, pretend this all away?
The kid is too smart, that’s the real trouble. She’s got a way of looking at Sarah and just knowing things. She’s still young enough right now to trust what comes out of her mother’s mouth as the absolute truth, as gospel, but that won’t last forever. How much longer will saying “It’s just work, baby” explain away her weekend absences? How much longer will saying “It’s nothing, monkey, mummy slipped on some ice” explain away her bruises and why they’re shaped like fingers?
She thinks about Costa Rica. Her and Felix and Kira on a beach. Kira can learn to surf, get tanned and freckled in the sun. She and Fee will drink and bury their toes in the sand. Better than anything they’ve ever known, and it’s only one good con away. One more job, one stroke of luck, one gamble. Please let it be this one, she thinks, almost a prayer. Please.
Still watching herself in the mirror, she whispers, “I hate you, I really do,” and the sound of her own voice fills her with such loathing that she almost wants to scream.
I hate you. I really do, she thinks as she leaves and walks back to her mark, the idiot waiting for her like a dog,
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watches as Helena tilts her head, like a bird. “It’s a miracle,” she whispers, reverent. “We were meant to be together.”
The knife is still in her sister’s hand, the knife is still covered in blood, and Helena is alive, Helena is watching her. Helena is waiting.
“Stay away from me,” Sarah sobs, at the same time thinking, Come closer, help me, please.
Helena murmurs, “Please, сестра, I need your help.”
Sarah is trapped, but Helena needs her help. Sarah is tied by her wrists, the feeling cut off, the skin purpleblue, but Helena needs her help. “Don’t send me back,” Helena whispers, and all Sarah can see is the interior of the car as she’s driven to another foster family, the plain white walls of each interchangeable bedroom, the bruises on her arms and her face as a child and the bruises on her arms and her face as an adult, each handprint the same. Don’t send me back. Don’t send me. Don’t. Don’t.
Helena is there, suddenly, right there, so close she can smell the blood on her dress and her hands and her hair. Helena presses herself up against Sarah like an animal. Sarah is shaking, but Helena is small. She tucks herself into the hollows of Sarah’s body and closes her eyes, the two of them chest to chest for the first time in twenty eight years.
Sarah can feel her heart beating, and Helena’s heart with it, the two pulses in sync, not a memory but a feeling? of a memory,
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