Ida Read online

  The monotony is probably going to kill me.

  I’m trying to read Slaughterhouse-Five when there’s a light knock on my door.

  ‘You don’t have to knock, Frank.’

  He enters the room. ‘Remember what happened last time I didn’t knock?’ He runs a hand through his short brown hair, still mussed from sleep.

  ‘Well, Daisy’s not here, for one.’

  He shrugs. ‘You could always have a party by yourself. Anyway, I found this downstairs while I when I was cleaning the lounge.’ He holds out a piece of paper.

  ‘What is it?’ Unfolding it, there’s a list of numbers inside. It’s in my handwriting but these numbers mean nothing. They’re just a bunch of dates.

  He shrugs again. ‘Dunno. It looked kinda important and I thought you might need it.’

  ‘Yeah.’ I fold it back up. ‘Thanks, Frank.’

  After Frank leaves, I get up and check the dates against the calendar. There’s no connection, nothing in common anywhere. It’s my handwriting, Frank’s right, but I don’t know what these mean.

  I stick the list on the wall beside the calendar. The first date is in just over a week’s time.

  In the dark

  Something wakes me. The room is silent except for our breathing, lit by moonlight, and everything is blue, empty. There’s fog in my mind, something bad, but I don’t know what. A dream? Memory of red and darkness and I don’t know what else. I press a hand to my forehead and only then realise I’m covered in sweat.

  Now that I’m awake I know I won’t be able to get back to sleep. Maybe I should have a shower, the sweat’s drying on my skin and I’m clammy. At least I don’t have work in the morning or anything, I guess.

  I sit up and swing my feet out of the sheets; they’re cool out in the open air. Daisy’s sleeping on their side, facing me. A hand reaches out into the empty space on the mattress where I was sleeping. I pull on the closest jumper. My breath fogs up in front of my face and I shiver. This is why I hate winter, my house is so cold.

  Light streams in from downstairs as I open my door and the calendar on the wall is illuminated. There’s a little red mark, a star, on the day of the first date from the list. I don’t remember putting that mark there. With my thumb, I try to rub the mark off of the waxy paper, but it’s not going to move.

  Downstairs, the clock in the kitchen says I’ve only been asleep for three hours. Dammit. My eyes are itchy as anything, I really needed that sleep. Ever since those tea stains, I’ve barely had any sleep at all. And I still don’t know what they mean.

  I shiver, the kitchen is colder than my room. The tea stains mean nothing. There’s no point in worrying about them, really, because who am I going to ask? I can’t stop, though.

  I turn my head and then fucking Christ, I yelp and back up against the wall. My head bangs against it. There’s a person outside the goddamn kitchen window. I can’t breathe until I realise it’s my own reflection.

  Uncovered windows at night are the worst. I cross the room and tug the curtain over the glass. In the kitchen, we’ve got those little half-curtains so the bottom half of the window is uncovered, but it’s better than nothing.

  I glance over at the lounge windows. These ones aren’t as bad uncovered, the lounge is dark so I can see out. But no neighbouring lights ping out of the darkness, the hills remain dark and the only light is from the moon, half taken by cloud. The house is still and I’m the only person in the world.

  The dream … something about being alone. That’s what it was. I snort at myself; how original. Remembering more of the dream would just be embarrassing at this point. I can’t get it out of my head, the feeling left after searching for Daisy and home. Maybe I should just watch terrible TV until it’s morning, forget everything. Leave Daisy alone upstairs. They’re safe there. I sit on the arm of the couch.

  A small noise begins in the spare room. Frank’s awake. I grin and make my way down the hallway. One excellent thing about Frank staying here is that he literally never sleeps. Well, not literally.

  I knock on his door and the music stops.

  ‘You don’t have to knock,’ he says, echoing my voice.

  His room is even messier than last time I was in here, and I can’t actually believe how much shit he’s got crammed everywhere. Most of the room is taken up by the bed, which is piled with Frank’s school books. A keyboard is squeezed in between the wall and the foot of the bed. On the floor is his electric guitar, plugged into his laptop. Headphones are around his neck and his acoustic guitar is in his hands. Strewn over the floor and half the bed is everything else: clothes, notebooks and dirty dishes.

  ‘You’re not gonna tidy this ever, are you?’ I ask, making sure not to step in a bowl of cereal. Hopefully from this morning.

  He grins and clacks a few words into his laptop. ‘Not yet. Maybe one day, but definitely not today.’

  ‘I’d recommend doing it before that cereal bowl evolves into a sentient being.’ I sit on the bed, after moving some textbooks. My stomach is empty and I should have nabbed some pizza from the fridge.

  ‘Couldn’t sleep?’ he asks.

  ‘Could. Woke up.’

  ‘Bad dream?’

  I pause. ‘No. Think my room was just too hot.’ And it’s a terrible excuse because it’s cold as anything.

  ‘That’s what she said,’ he replies automatically as he types something furiously. ‘Can you pass me that pen? It should be just … Yep, thanks.’ He crosses out a line on the notebook lying next to him and writes something else down. I don’t know how he keeps up; so many threads.

  ‘Whatcha doing?’

  He shrugs. ‘Mucking around.’

  When I asked him once if he got tired from never sleeping, he’d raised his eyebrows at me, said I do sleep, then put his headphones back on. Just not a lot. Don’t need it. And then that was that, I supposed.

  He passes the acoustic guitar up to me and picks up the electric. He strums it and the screen on the laptop comes alive. After adjusting something by clicking something else, he grins and begins to play with earnest. I hear the metal strings twinging but I’m sure he’s hearing starships and glitter. Where does he get the drive to do things?

  I look down at the guitar I’m holding. Frank’s taught me a few chords, but I can’t remember the way my fingers are supposed to go.

  He records different bits and pieces, some voice, some keyboard, and some things he makes solely on the computer. Some, he tells me, are pre-recorded bits he finds. The scraping of a shoe against concrete, china clinking together, anything. Like our junk drawer in the kitchen, except he uses things.

  You never know when the weirdest thing will come in handy, he says a lot.

  He takes off his headphones. ‘What’s tomorrow? Or today.’

  ‘Friday.’

  He flicks through his school planner. ‘Damn. Assessment tomorrow. Should’ve studied.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I say. I lean against the wall, rest my head. My eyes burn as I close them, so I force myself to keep them open. ‘Are you glad you moved schools?’

  ‘My friends treat me like an actual person, it’s nice.’ He grins at me, before clicking away at his computer for a few seconds. ‘It’s nice,’ he says, more to himself.

  Last year was mostly spent with Frank in the music rooms. One time when I’d got there first, he just walked in, sat down in front of the piano, and bashed away. I didn’t know he could play like that – usually there was some kind of laughter, something not quite serious about the whole thing, but that day he just sat and played and played. Didn’t touch his food, nothing. I don’t know what song he was playing, maybe his own thing. I think he was making it up as he went along. That afternoon neither of us went to class, and then we caught the train, the bus, and walked home to my house before his dad came to pick him up. We didn’t say a word, and the next day it was like nothing had even happened.

  If he had wanted to talk about it, he would have. Sometimes you just need someone else in
the room.

  ‘I should probably get to sleep,’ Frank says, now, after he yawns. ‘Four is usually when I go to bed.’

  ‘You get, what, two hours of sleep every night?’ I stare at him. How does he manage to get up, go for a run, then not die at school? I could get through so much TV if I slept like he did.

  He begins to shut down his laptop. ‘Told you I didn’t need a lot. And I mean, it’s not every night.’

  ‘Jeez,’ I reply, laughing. ‘All right. Goodnight.’ I stand up, help him move his shit off the bed and pat his shoulder. ‘See you in the morning.’

  ‘Night, Ida.’

  In the hallway, Dad’s snoring comes out through the walls. No idea how he can sleep for all the noise, or how Mum did.

  The floor tiles freeze the soles of my feet as I walk back through the kitchen. In the living-room window, I’m reflected. My hair is sticking up at the back, so I reach up and smooth it down.

  It’s when my reflection doesn’t do the same that I startle back and don’t know what I’m seeing, because there’s only one of me. My heart is beating too fast and my windpipe is clogged. Asthma was a fiend from my childhood, the pain is familiar but I haven’t felt it in so long.

  I put a hand on my chest and close my eyes, feel the blood course through my body. The thing in the other room is not real because it can’t be real. It’s impossible, there’s only one of me. If I don’t look it’s not there.

  My heart starts to slow, but my breathing is still not working properly. I open an eye a sliver, and the other me is gone.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Frank says from behind me.

  ‘Shit!’ I jump away from him before realising who he is. ‘Fuck. Yeah, I’m fine. Can you get my inhaler from the drawer over there?’

  He bolts over, jams it in my hands and I breathe.

  ‘What happened?’

  I look over at the lounge. ‘Thought I saw something. Must’ve been a trick of the light or whatever.’ We hug and after reassuring him I’m fine, he goes back to bed.

  I don’t look at the lounge and keep my gaze down as I climb back up the stairs, cause no fuckin’ way am I having a shower and getting naked when there’s some other me in here. I’ve seen horror movies, I know the drill.

  My room is the same way as I left it. I stand in the doorway. My bed’s only a few metres away; I can dash for it. Once I’m beside Daisy, under the doona, then it’ll be fine. That’s where it’s safe.

  I shut the door and the light source is gone. I feel my way along the wall and crawl under the sheets, plaster my eyes shut because if I don’t see it, then it’s not real. I bring the doona up over half my face, curl up beside Daisy and wait out the night. Nothing comes out of the darkness to hurt me, and I almost relax, falling into a half-sleep where I don’t remember any of my dreams.

  Calm

  Damaris looks around the deserted laneway that’s covered in flyers, rubbish and art. She’s in the centre of Melbourne, but she’s gotten the time wrong. It’s the early morning, the trains haven’t even started yet. As she walks out onto Flinders Street, there are a few cars, more cyclists, and a cleaning van. The cyclist’s lights blink as the rider speeds down the road.

  Adrastos gave her a phone a while ago, so she pulls it out and pretends to use it while she calls up the map of Ida’s timeline on the screen embedded in her eye. To most people, the timeline would not be very straightforward. Arrows and numbers everywhere, calculations need to be made as you read it. But it gives her precise information on where Ida’s selves are going to be.

  Most of the more plausibly connected Idas are at her home at the moment and most will, in the course of the day, be in the city. The concentration follows the dominant self. Of course, there are deviations, there always are, but Damaris is not interested in those.

  She checks the time. Ten hours before the first few Idas will get here and the weather is turning colder by the minute. The wind bites her neck, crawls into her jacket. A trio of men walk past her, still drunk, singing.

  Damaris considers for a moment, and she may as well begin now. Ida is still asleep – or mostly – and she wouldn’t really risk anything by skipping now.

  Double-checking to make sure no Idas will be there before noon, Damaris disappears. This is different to the skipping through parallel universes; Damaris knows that time can be manipulated. Time is in her blood.

  Now the weather isn’t as bad. Still cold and the sky is full of grey clouds; everything is blindingly bright for the few seconds it takes for Damaris’s eyes to adjust. She buttons her jacket and pops the collar. She crosses her arms and grumbles that next time, she’ll bring a scarf.

  But no, there isn’t going to be a next time. She’ll find this girl and that’ll be that, then she can get back to real work.

  Why Adrastos hasn’t found her before the situation is this bad, Damaris has no idea. He always waits too long, until things are desperate, before he gets off his arse and does anything about it. He thinks everything will be fine, but most times he will be that little bit too late. At least this Ida situation is salvageable.

  When Damaris first found him, they were insep­arable. Then they weren’t.

  She found him the job anyway. Most of their colleagues wouldn’t stay for long, either they quit or they died, some even got stuck, but Damaris held on, and Adrastos with her. It’s a good job, she knows. Not the best, but it fits her right now.

  And she did trust him; she does, still. That’s the important thing. They had been partners for a long time, but that was an age ago. She missed the companionship, sometimes.

  A lot of the time.

  She walks quickly, crosses the road and finds herself in Federation Square, opposite Flinders Street Station where Ida will get off her train. Now is not the time for reflection, the girl will be here soon.

  Damaris has always liked this part of Melbourne. The architecture is not unlike that of home: the discordant shapes that don’t fit together, except that they do. Combined with the colour scheme that doesn’t exactly look appealing but offers a kind of comfort, a groundedness.

  Consulting the timeline again, she toggles the view so only the most relevant selves’ timelines are showing.

  Learning to read the timelines was one of the more difficult tasks presented with the job. She didn’t mind danger and she could operate most of the old-fashioned devices that they gave her to use on her assignments. But drawing meaning from busy diagrams, filled with numbers and arrows pointing everywhere, was overwhelming at first. She’d been shot at, tortured, but this was a different kind of challenge. Soon, though, reading the timelines became too easy. She was given bigger jobs, taking higher risks.

  She was going to have to have a word with Adrastos when this assignment is over; he had left it too long. Anyone could have completed this in half an hour tops, if it had been dealt with before it became this problem.

  She sees these things, and maybe if she’d been there she would have seen this coming. But she wasn’t, and she didn’t.

  She exhales all at once, nostrils flared, and the girl walking past her skitters away.

  Examining the map, the Idas will be here from noon until five, at the latest.

  It’s ten to twelve.

  Damaris heads for the closest cafe and gets a takeaway long black, something to keep her hands warm. She takes a sip and the steam winds up past her face and away.

  She sighs. The last few minutes before beginning an assignment are the worst. Hopefully, she can get the right Ida today. Then she can leave the city and go yell at Adrastos.

  The clock reaches the hour and Damaris peers across the road to the ticket barriers at the station. On the screen in her eye, she pulls up a picture of Ida so she can recognise her.

  She takes another sip of her coffee.

  Multicolour waves

  Dad’s got his newspaper on the table taking up all the space except for a corner where Frank has jammed his psychology textbooks. My bowl sits over a headline about a celebrity
doing a thing. Whenever Dad turns a page I lift up my bowl, spreading the milk stains further.

  ‘Maybe you could talk to Frank about uni courses, Ida,’ Dad says out of nowhere as he skims through an article. I look over and it’s about funding cuts to TAFE courses.

  I look at him, eyes heavy from lack of sleep. ‘I don’t even know if I want to go.’ I shrug, and pause in my chewing to glare at him, but he’s still reading. Maybe talking to Frank isn’t such a bad idea; maybe he could divulge how he knew for sure what courses he wanted to put down in his preferences. But now that Dad’s said it, I don’t want to ask Frank anything at all.

  Dad looks at me for a second, misses the glare. ‘Just a thought.’

  ‘I’m good,’ Frank says, and he’s missed the whole angry exchange. A bit of milk drips down his chin. ‘I know what I’m applying for, but thanks.’

  I don’t think I even want to go to uni at all. I don’t want to waste years of my life on something I don’t even want to pursue, just because Dad thinks it’s a good idea.

  It’d be real handy if we were eating food more substantial than cereal so I’d have a fork to stab something with. I chew as loudly as I can, but, really, it doesn’t give the same satisfaction. Instead, I stare moodily at the paper in front of me, refusing to read any of it. Should I tell Dad about the five jobs I applied for last week and heard literally nothing back from? Maybe then he would know I’m trying. Or maybe he would just think I’m not trying hard enough.

  ‘I was thinking of cleaning out the shed and getting rid of a few things,’ Dad says. ‘Would you mind helping me out on the weekend?’

  I finish the mouthful of cereal that’s starting to go soggy and nod. ‘Su–’

  Everything is pressing in around, I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe, and this has never been a problem before. Have I ever needed to breathe here? And then the warmth finds me, airless.

  I’m at the kitchen table again. I take a huge breath, fill my lungs, and stare at the paper. I wipe my palms on my pants when I’m sure no one is looking at me and pick up my spoon. My hand is still shaking a little but I manage to not let my spoon clink against the sides of the bowl so they’ll notice.