Ida Read online

  Then Dad looks up from his paper. ‘I was thinking of cleaning out the shed.’

  I’m pushed out into the lightdark. The warmth is there almost instantly.

  When I’m back at the table, I’m not entirely sure it happened. This time, Dad doesn’t look up and we all finish breakfast without saying any more.

  I take the stairs slowly, because if I move too fast then something will break. How did that happen, before? I don’t know that it was me. It felt different, like I was being pushed instead of doing the pushing. I feel sweat prick in my armpits and no one’s around, no one’s watching me, but they could be. If there’s something important in the shitty old shed, I’ve got no idea what it would be. Maybe it’s filled with bodies, I think, and then snort with laughter. Who’d be stashing bodies in my shed?

  What if someone is stashing bodies in the shed?

  I’d smell them, that’s what. Calm down. Deep breaths, maybe I should think about this. There’s something else that pushed me out, something that made the tea stains come back, but what would that be?

  I open my door and the calendar catches my eye. The first X is today. I was going to stay home, but then Daisy wanted to go see this art thing. And it might be better, safer, in the city. More people around. My house is in the middle of fucking nowhere, so if something was going to happen no one would be able to help me, no one would be close enough.

  Not that someone would attack me.

  At maybe five o’clock this morning, I woke up and vomited. Got everything I had out. I had actually been asleep, that was the most surprising bit.

  My bedroom now is almost perfect, almost mine again. Except for the tea stains on the wall. This room must’ve come back just now I think, as I trace a finger around the stain. Maybe I’m losing control, maybe that’s it. Because at first this ability was always a subconscious thing … until it wasn’t. Maybe it’s reversing. But then I don’t know that I should remember it. After travelling, wouldn’t it feel like it used to when I was little?

  Maybe I’m the one the X on the calendar is referring to. There might be something in me that makes this happen.

  I run a hand through my hair, catching on a couple of knots. I let it fall against my face. It’d be nice to have someone to talk to about this, but how the hell would I bring it up? I’d been imagining it for years and just … there’s no proof, there wouldn’t be any proof.

  The time on my watch says 11:30, the clock on the bookcase says 8:30am. I pull on some clothes, enough layers to keep me warm, and go back downstairs. Dad’s asleep on the couch, snoring quietly this time.

  ‘Does he have work?’ Frank asks when he sees me.

  ‘Nah.’ I shake my head. ‘He worked last night. Sometimes he’ll have breakfast with me before he goes to bed.’

  It used to happen a whole bunch more, but started to dwindle when I got older and was more capable of getting myself out the door. Sometimes now I don’t see him for days at a time.

  I go over and turn off the television, then prod the fireplace with the poker to make sure it’s out. It is, and some soot falls out of the grate and onto the brick floor. I’ll clean it later, whatever. I turn to Dad, take the blanket draped over the back of the couch and cover him with it.

  ‘Do you need a lift to school?’ I ask Frank.

  He shakes his head. ‘I’m good.’

  ‘You sure? Your bag looks pretty heavy.’

  ‘It’s always heavy.’ He grins at me, showing his teeth. ‘Don’t worry, I can handle it.’ He packs all his books in and hoists it onto his back. I miss the days in the music room. Not his anger or his hurt, but just being with him.

  Half an hour later, I take the same route, and Daisy meets me on the train a couple of stations down the line.

  ‘Thanks for coming with me,’ Daisy says as they take the seat opposite. ‘I think you’ll like this one. It’s … different.’

  ‘Last time you said that there was a wall of vaginas,’ I laugh. ‘Not that I’m complaining, it was pretty rad.’

  I don’t mind art, not really, but I don’t understand.

  One of the earliest memories I have is going to a gallery with my mum; I don’t remember what we were looking at. The art’s faded and all I can see in the memory are endless rooms of white, and looking at things I was supposed to admire but they never touched me. The best part was afterwards, sitting in the cafe. Mum gave me the froth from her cappuccino. I’d had a hot chocolate, too, three marshmallows covering the top of the drink.

  Leaning my head against the train window, I close my eyes. The tracks are bumpy as all hell, and it feels as though my brain’s being battered around inside my skull. I remember then that I’m not alone, jerk up, look at Daisy and say, ‘So, where do you …’

  I’d dismissed that night as a nightmare. I was delirious on no sleep. And now I’m numb, because a reflection of myself is looking at me from the next carriage up the train, transparent and sitting right there. I freeze; I don’t know what to do. It’s not a reflection, it can’t be.

  ‘Ida?’ Daisy asks.

  I blink, look at Daisy. I glance back up the train, but it’s empty. ‘Sorry,’ I tell them. ‘Thought I saw something. Must’ve been a trick of the light.’ I clear my throat. ‘Where do you want to go first?’

  ‘The NGV, then maybe food?’

  The National Gallery of Victoria was where I went with Mum, I remember now.

  ‘Sounds good,’ I say, trying to keep my gaze directed out the window. I’ve always liked train lines, looking at the parts of suburbs no one wants to see.

  Daisy’s eyes follow and a huge mural goes past, bright colours and unreadable words. ‘I have no idea how people can graffiti like that. How do they get their lines so crisp? I can never get the spray to do what I want.’

  ‘Maybe you could just tag your name all round the place,’ I grin at them. ‘For something different. Unique. You will speak to the morning commuters in some kind of subconscious, metaphorical way.’

  Daisy bursts into laughter. ‘Sounds good.’

  It begins to drizzle as we get closer to the NGV. We pass the black wave sculptures, and reach the fountain out the front of the gallery. I flick in a coin.

  ‘Make a wish?’

  ‘Of course.’ I wink at them.

  I didn’t know what to wish for.

  We walk past the entrance, a glass wall with water running down the front. I resist the urge to touch it. Daisy’s eyes are wide as we find ourselves in a side room that holds concept art from a movie I’ve never heard of.

  I follow them around as Daisy drinks in the images on the walls, taking their fill of the art.

  ‘I wish I could do watercolours properly,’ they say.

  ‘What’s wrong with your watercolours?’

  ‘They’re not like this,’ they answer, leaning in to inspect a picture of a dress. ‘These are … special.’

  ‘I like yours,’ I say, but I don’t know that they hear me. I want to tell them that the artist who did these is probably thirty years older than they are. Imagine how many times the artist looked at their own drawings and compared them to other people’s. If the teenage version of this artist could see their own art like this, they would be amazed. But then artists don’t really see it like that a lot of the time, I guess.

  Daisy spends a long time looking at the art, sighs deeply, and then we move back into the atrium. There are columns of concrete and thick wire reaching up to the roof. There are sections that have been crumbled away and ferns and moss are growing out of them. People mill around, one reaches out a gentle hand to touch the bright green of a fern leaf curling out.

  ‘Ooh,’ Daisy says, ‘come on.’ They drag me by the hand and we run through the pillars to the huge room beyond.

  There’s nothing really in the room, only a few pillars to hold up the roof and a couple of couches. No one else is around, everything is still. We look up; the roof is made entirely of patterned stained glass. This is the best thing about the gallery,
being here under the colours.

  ‘I love this place,’ I say, as Daisy says the same thing. I giggle and nudge them; my laugh bounces through the room. We lie down in the centre and I rest my hands on my stomach, Daisy keeps one hand under their head, one by their side.

  ‘It’s so quiet today,’ they say. ‘I love it when it’s not school holidays.’

  ‘Empty is much better.’

  They play with a loose thread coming off of the bottom of my jacket. ‘Oh, dammit.’ Their phone starts to vibrate in their pocket. ‘Ugh,’ they say as they look at the caller ID.

  I glance at the screen; it’s their mother.

  ‘I’ll be back.’ They get up, walking quickly back into the atrium as they answer.

  Something they don’t want me to hear, obviously. Sometimes this happens, and I try not to be hurt because it’s not about me. They’ll tell me if they need to, and they usually do. Maybe not straight away, sometimes they need more time to process things. Minutes pass and the room is too large for only me, my heartbeat is echoing through the room, I can hear the blood coursing in my veins. I cross my legs, cough, make a sound to make sure I can still hear.

  I should probably go find Daisy, they’ve been a while. As I decide to get up, someone else enters the room. I look at them, we make eye contact, and I quickly look away.

  I’ll wait before going, I don’t want it to seem like I’m leaving just because of them. Which might be silly but I don’t want to be rude. Yeah, it’s silly. They haven’t sat down yet. I sneak a glance at them and they remind me of Daisy, how they hold themselves.

  They almost seem to be making their way to me, but that’s silly, too. Ugh. I pick at the side of my shoe; a hole is forming. I’ve had these for years, I guess it is time they started to die. Then the red X creeps its way into my mind and … maybe I’m not silly.

  When I look up the person is way closer, close enough to talk to. Short, dark brown hair, green eyes, a constellation of freckles across their nose, light brown skin, thick eyebrows, long eyelashes … this person is beautiful.

  ‘Hello,’ they say.

  ‘Er, hello.’ I smile but my teeth are too big for my mouth. Maybe they’re just a tourist, needing directions. I don’t really mind when strangers talk to me. It usually happens on public transport, but it’s always awkward no matter what I do.

  ‘Are you Ida?’

  My body is dipped in ice. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I have to tell you something,’ they say. ‘If you could just come with …’

  ‘What?’ And now I stand up, almost trip over my own feet, backing away as I do. ‘What are you talking about?’

  I panic and my senses leave me.

  I float in nothing space, cold and flowing and bound and then there, there is the warmth, easy to find this time.

  I sit in the middle of the room, alone. I look around, but no one is there. I breathe out, huge lungfuls of air, breathe in, but the person is gone. Waiting, I start to sweat under my layers and layers of clothes, but no one enters the room until Daisy returns. They flop down on their back beside me.

  ‘What was that about?’

  ‘Dad.’ Daisy’s eyes are hard on the ceiling.

  I never really know what to say when it matters. ‘Do you …’

  ‘I don’t,’ they say.

  ‘’Kay,’ I reply, staring at the grey wall opposite. Can’t push it. There’s a glass door not too far along; it leads to a garden around the back. There’s a cafe out there. ‘But, um …’ There are no words to finish the sentence.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Daisy says. ‘Silence is all right sometimes.’

  ‘I know,’ I say. ‘I just thought that …’ I pause. I feel like I need to help them, but then maybe that’s making this about me. ‘I don’t know.’

  We stay there for a time, I don’t know how long. I stare at the garden outside, Daisy stares at the ceiling. Eventually, they sit up with a sigh and smile in a tired kind of way, one that makes their eyes warm. ‘Come on, let’s go.’ Daisy stands and holds their hand out for me.

  I take it. ‘Which way?’

  They’re walking quick, alert, cheery. I don’t under­stand them at all, sometimes. They do this, always, and I can’t help them because they pretend nothing’s wrong. It’s easier for them this way, I know.

  We go up to the second level and walk through a corridor into a large, white room. The paintings on the walls are huge, some of them at least three metres long and almost as tall.

  Daisy stands back and takes in the whole painting, all at once. I walk up and look at the brushstrokes thick with paint. How could someone spend so much time on something that would take this long? The brushstrokes this close don’t mean anything. How did the painter manage to make anything at all when, this close, it looks like nothing?

  I’ve seen Daisy work on large paintings, but nothing like this.

  And, really, this painting isn’t even that good. Sure, impressive, but what was unique about it? The detail was extraordinary, once you stepped back. But it was just people, real-looking people.

  ‘Isn’t it amazing?’ Daisy says.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, trying not to give away that I’m drowning. I’d try to read books about art – maybe they would show something that was otherwise hidden to me, scrambling for some kind of understanding.

  ‘I wonder how old it is,’ Daisy says, walking up to the little plaque beside the behemoth.

  Maybe that was some part of the motivation; you could create something that people would look at with wonder after you died. But then I don’t under­stand that, either. Being immortal would be less than ideal.

  But no, it’s because they love it. This artist loves it, Daisy loves it. There’s something in them that needs to create, to do things. Frank has it too. I wish I knew where it came from.

  Daisy steps back and moves on. I start to follow them, and there’s something wrong on the edge of my vision.

  I turn to look at the source of the flicker, but it’s gone and there’s nothing there but an empty room. Only the paintings and the seats, the sleek rubbish bin. A vague sense of unease creeps over me, makes my skin cold.

  More paintings in the next room, and I try my best to pay attention, but there is only so much I can stare at before my eyes turn to glass. I don’t say anything to Daisy, but my eyes are heavier than before. Who knew standing around doing nothing could be so tiring? I laugh at myself, and look at the nearest painting, a whirl of greys and blues. It might be a tornado; I’ve got no idea.

  As we leave the gallery, it starts to rain. It starts as a drizzle, just as before, and then suddenly it’s bucketing down. We stop right under the edge of the roof and watch the curtain of rain fall in front of us, splashing up onto our feet. Daisy reaches out a hand, palm up, and the rain splashes against their skin. They grin, flicking water in my face.

  I yelp, use my hands as a shield. ‘You’re cruel.’

  ‘Come on, let’s walk in the rain.’

  I look out at the sky; this rain isn’t stopping anytime soon. Well, I’m gonna get wet at some point during the day, might as well be now.

  ‘All right, but I hate you. And you must buy me a hot beverage at some point.’

  ‘It shall be done.’ They bow. ‘Let’s go, then.’

  I take a deep breath, Daisy takes my hand, and we run out into the rain. It’s freezing, the drops are huge, and we both laugh until we can’t breathe. I also can’t breathe because I’m as unfit as anything, and soon I’m wheezing. Daisy slows down, breathing almost as heavily as I am, and when we reach Flinders we’re soaked in laughter, drenched to the bone and tugging at each other.

  We walk up to one of the shops this side of the ticket barriers and Daisy gets two miso soups. ‘This counts as a hot drink,’ they say, passing me a polystyrene container.

  I raise an eyebrow at them. ‘I don’t know that it does,’ I say, feeling the warmth run through my fingers, my palms.

  They nudge my shoulder. ‘Get
lost.’ They raise a hand to my forehead and brush my fringe out of my eyes.

  We make it through the ticket barriers and the train is in ten minutes. Daisy departs for the toilet.

  ‘Don’t get diseases,’ I tell them. They give me a thumbs up as they head towards the women’s. They hate using public toilets; Daisy says it makes them feel as though they have to pick a side. So many things make them feel like that.

  The railing near the windows isn’t really made for sitting – or at least comfortable sitting – but for watching the crowds of people mill past. Flinders Street is probably my favourite station. I love the way the busy people walk in every direction without any order at all, each one thinking their business is more important than everyone else’s.

  A large group of teenagers walk past, laughing loud and low about something, and then behind them there’s something. It takes me a second to figure out what I’m looking at.

  Another me.

  The other me looks back at me and weaves its way through the crowd without touching anyone. I can’t tell if it’s just because it can phase through or it’s just supernaturally lithe.

  We stare at one another. The double … what was that word? Doppelganger. The doppelganger, my doppelganger, is see-through and its edges almost glow, but not quite.

  The doppelganger sits down next to me without saying anything or blinking.

  ‘Hello?’ I say.

  It stares at me for a second, then opens its mouth. It’s saying something, but no sound comes out. It doesn’t blink as it continues to stare.

  And then it grins, but there is no warmth. Its teeth show and I can feel my heart quicken, I grip the railing either side of me, not sure if I should talk to it or run away, so I do neither.

  ‘Ida!’ Daisy calls out and I jump, stopping the yelp in my throat.

  I look over and they’re gesturing to the escalator. ‘Train soon!’ they yell out. Their face looks normal, relaxed. They can’t see the thing beside me.