Ida Read online

  I’m sitting on the floor, I’m not sure how. It was clearer this time, whatever that means. More solid.

  I check the date on my phone, and it’s the same day. There’s no mark on the calendar. Downstairs, no one is anywhere. There’s a huge pile of dishes in the sink and the kitchen floor looks like it hasn’t been swept in a million years.

  I stare at the grimy windows, the sticky floor. Do I still live here? I’d never let it get like this.

  ‘Hey, Dad,’ I say as he walks in through the door. I want to ask why everything is so messy, but his face makes me shut up. There are more grey hairs than usual and his mouth is screwed into what looks like a permanent frown.

  We stare at each other for a couple of seconds, he lets out a surprised hello in a gruff voice. Then, turning on his heel, he walks through the hallway and into his room. The door shuts behind him.

  I watch the hallway and, once it’s pretty much confirmed he isn’t coming out again, I go back upstairs. This space is so cold.

  The doppelganger – that’s got something to do with this. And the person from the gallery – they know what’s going on. They must.

  It’s then I notice the tea on the wall. There are too many splashes to count. I look up at them, and some of them are very old. Some of it has black mould growing on it, and it’s then the smell comes. I walk over and wedge the window open, a cold breeze blows in. I shiver in the cool but at least it doesn’t smell as much by the window. Sitting down in front of the glass, I rest my head against it.

  A thought occurs to me, and I pull out my phone. I scroll down, reach D, and Daisy’s still there. There are goosebumps on my arms as I breathe. At least that’s something: I won’t have to search for Daisy here in this cold place.

  I stand up and mean to go back to look at the tea, but I trip over something. It’s an apple, squishy and wrinkled. I stare at it and my eyelids droop. Maybe now I’ll be exhausted enough to actually sleep like a real person.

  Switching off the light, my room looks hulking, as shadows from objects that I should know are cast onto the walls. I strip down and get into bed so I can stop looking at the room that is mine but not.

  Wriggling around, I try to warm the sheets. They haven’t been washed in a long time. I wonder what Dad’s doing, it’s only six in the evening, not really time for bed. I don’t know what made him so indifferent to me … Did I do something?

  I lie on my back and end up staring at the moon through the window. The moon always looks the same, just different shadows sometimes. It’s almost full as it casts its bright light down; it shines off leaves and the river over the valley.

  My mouth draws back in a yawn, snarling my nose. My power, ability, whatever, this thing, was always convenient, but now, in this gross bed, I just want to not worry about what’s going to happen tomorrow. I just want to sleep and not wonder who I am in the morning, if I know Daisy, if my father hates me.

  I don’t know that I’ll be able to get home.

  Someone else

  Damaris watches Ida Wagner from upstairs. Ida’s lying next to another person in the middle of the huge room with the gigantic glass ceiling. Damaris needs to get Ida alone.

  Damaris is fairly sure this is the right Ida. It’s hard to tell; Damaris has never had an assignment quite like this one, she has never been unsure of who was who. Ida’s skipped so much that her selves are getting blurry.

  This case is too specific. Ida’s moving sideways instead of forwards and the further she gets, the harder it’ll be for Damaris to find her. If Ida gets too far, she will be forever wandering, lost in her own lives that are not really her own at all. And that can make things fragile for other travellers: Damaris, Adrastos.

  The other one gets a call on her phone. Damaris peers in closer, leaning against the barrier. Hopefully the other one will leave the room and Damaris can speak to Ida alone. What seems the most obvious way Damaris could get Ida alone is to go to her house, but most people don’t react in a favourable way when she appears in their living rooms unannounced.

  She learnt this the hard way when, on her first assignment, all that time ago, her subject ran screaming from her and she had to track him down for three days. She doesn’t like to think about it and Adrastos has thankfully stopped bringing it up.

  The person beside Ida stands and leaves the room, muttering into their phone in a voice that doesn’t travel.

  Ida watches them leave for a few moments and then sits up, fiddling with her skirt.

  Damaris does not hesitate. This may be one of the last chances she has to get Ida alone and finish this job. She spins on her heel and makes her way downstairs to the ground floor of the glittering room.

  She enters through one of the doorways and Ida looks at her. She blushes and quickly looks away when she makes eye contact. Ida continues to fiddle with the hem of her skirt.

  Damaris walks slowly, not quite directly at Ida so she doesn’t scare her off. Ida glances up at her, her face tightening when she sees Damaris is walking towards her. Ida stiffens and looks away. Damaris quickens her pace before Ida has the chance to decide if she is going to leave or not.

  Ida looks up again and Damaris is almost beside her. She takes a few steps and comes to a halt.

  ‘Hello,’ Damaris says. She still can never quite get the introduction right. She hasn’t done this kind of thing in too long.

  Ida jumps when Damaris speaks, expecting the words but still getting a little shock at the noise of them. ‘Er, hello,’ she says. She smiles in a strange, uncomfortable way.

  Damaris wants to sigh. She’s messed it up already.

  ‘Are you Ida?’ she says.

  Ida freezes. ‘How do you know that?’ she asks in a panicked voice that Damaris does not particularly like.

  Too direct. Damaris tries to put on her best soothing voice. ‘I have to tell you something.’ She can see Ida wants to run. But if she can just let Ida know that she knows, that she understands, then there is hope. ‘If you would just come with …’

  ‘What?’ Ida stands and backs away from Damaris. ‘What are you talking about?’

  Suddenly, a change comes over Ida and her eyes become bright. She leans forward, walks back towards Damaris.

  ‘Who are you? What do you want to tell me?’ she says and walks towards Damaris.

  Damaris scowls. ‘You’re not the right one,’ she says. ‘Goddammit.’ She was so close. Damaris could be on her way home in half an hour if she had got it right. ‘Excuse me.’ Damaris puts her hands up. ‘I thought you were someone else.’

  ‘But I want to know!’ the Ida says. ‘Tell me. She’s me, isn’t she? I want to know. I have a right to know.’

  ‘She’s not you,’ Damaris begins. ‘You’re … wait. What did you say?’

  ‘I want to know.’

  ‘Not that.’ Damaris grips the Ida’s arm. ‘About her, about Ida.’

  The Ida looks a little scared, but she speaks. ‘I’m her?’

  ‘You know about her?’

  ‘Of course. How else do you think I got here?’ The Ida shrugs at her, raising her eyebrows. ‘She pushed me here. Which, for once, I’m glad about. I wanted to ask you some questions.’

  ‘You know,’ Damaris says quietly, not paying attention to the Ida in front of her.

  ‘Yeah, so who are you?’

  Damaris shuts her eyes and then she is gone.

  The space Damaris inhabits is cold, freezing cold. If she could breathe in here, she knows her breath would be fog. She wades about in the non-matter, her arms are free to move them as she likes.

  She waits and waits and eventually she knows where she has to go. It is not warmth, she has not felt the warmth in a long time. It is cold, so far from home.

  She appears in front of Adrastos’s desk. He jumps, papers scatter everywhere and he leaps from his chair. His terror is rapidly replaced by annoyance.

  ‘Damaris,’ he snaps. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘The other Idas know.
’

  ‘Idas?’ he repeats. ‘What?’

  ‘The girl I’m tracking. Ida! Her other selves know.’

  ‘Well, some of them would have to.’ He picks up the papers that have scattered. His nail polish has changed to a dark, forest green that matches his tie.

  ‘This one was far off from the one that I’m trying to find. Adrastos, she’d been kicked out before. She knew who I was, too.’

  ‘What? What did you tell her?’ he frowns and stops replacing his scattered belongings onto his desk. He smoothes out his hair. ‘You didn’t tell her who you were?’

  ‘Of course I didn’t,’ Damaris says, unable to resist rolling her eyes.

  ‘How did the right one get away?’

  ‘I …’ Damaris looks away from Adrastos for a split second. ‘I scared her off.’

  Adrastos looks at her. ‘You what? Damaris, I could forgive a rookie for that.’

  ‘I haven’t done this in a long time,’ Damaris says. ‘And she’s so flighty, she skips more than five times a day. She’s so used to it she doesn’t even have to try. She barely even has to blink and she’s replaced herself somewhere else.’

  Adrastos sits still for a moment, then motions for Damaris to sit opposite him. She doesn’t.

  ‘I can’t do anything about it,’ Adrastos says. ‘I want to help, but I can’t. We have to get this done.’

  ‘It’s almost impossible to find the right one!’ Damaris says. ‘How am I supposed to do this without help?’

  ‘You did find her, though.’

  ‘But again?’ She runs a hand through her hair, it needs a wash.

  ‘You’re the best hope we have of finding her.’

  She sighs and knows he is right. ‘I’ll be back.’ She gives him no time to respond.

  Damaris closes her eyes and she is cold, cold, freezing, and then she stops.

  She stands in an alleyway and walks out onto the main street of an unrecognised suburb. In the only cafe, she orders a long black and sits at the table nearest the window.

  This is the town where Ida lives. She’ll tail her, try to figure out something.

  Twice

  My room is the same when I wake up, mine but not my own. I look over to the window, but Pilgrim isn’t there. I hope he didn’t stay outside all night. I rub my eyes, search the floor for some clean clothes. I find some that are mostly clean, if a little crinkled and crumby. I pull them on, wind a scarf around my neck and my breath still makes fog in the cold air of the room.

  I walk over to the door and the tea stains are still there, tugging at my eye like a fish hook. My fingers on them remind me they’re real, even though they don’t feel any different from the paint.

  ‘Why are you there?’ I whisper. And, no surprise, the tea stains don’t reply. I stare at them, trying to understand, but nothing comes. I take the stairs and the kitchen is lit by the cold morning sun, highlighting the dirt.

  In the pantry I find some flour, a jar of pasta sauce and a couple of other things that aren’t really food. Nothing I can really have for breakfast.

  In the fridge, there’s a carton of milk. Freezer: a bag of peas.

  It’s cold here, the coldest I’ve felt. The darkness is bright everywhere, pressing in on my skin, and then I’m free.

  There’s still no food.

  Colder, still. It’s an age until I find my way.

  Again, no food. I switch again and again until I can’t stand, my head is thumping and my legs are weak. I find the closest chair and my head pounds as I rest it on the table in front of me. The wood is cold, it smells like dirt and faint varnish. I shiver, I can feel goosebumps dotting my arms under my jumper.

  When the throbbing stops, I stand up, make sure I won’t fall over, and go over to make myself a coffee. As soon as I’ve got the steaming cup in my hands, I sit back at the table. My legs are still shaky, and they tremble as I stare at the newspaper in front of me. It looks at least a week old and has coffee rings from mugs everywhere.

  I read the main headline three times but the words just won’t go in, so I give up and I stare as I run a finger around the edge of my coffee cup, circles of porcelain until my eyes start to feel wrong. I shake my head, try to wake up, but that just makes the throbbing come back. I rest against the table, my cheek flattened against it as I breathe in the earthy wood and I wonder how many breakfasts I’ve had here.

  There’s a noise behind me and that gets my heart going again. The house was empty, I had just assumed, and I jump to my feet. A huge throb in my head makes me sway, but I keep my balance. ‘Dad?’ The word bounces on the wall, dull and flat. And then it’s just Pilgrim, padding his way to the laundry for some food.

  ‘Goddammit, Pilgrim,’ I tell him. ‘You adorable arsehole.’ I lean down to pat him, but he stops and looks at me. ‘Pilgrim?’

  His fur puffs up, he’s twice as big as he should be.

  I reach out to him and he hisses as his back arches. My hand twitches backwards and I clutch it to my chest.

  ‘Pilgrim, it’s me,’ I say, voice barely anything at all.

  He doesn’t move and his back stays arched. I back away from him and when he deems I’m far enough, he sits and watches me. His tail twitches. His fur isn’t the shiny ginger I’m used to. He’s dirty, burrs are stuck in his fur, and I want to wash him but I know he won’t let me.

  Instead, I go up to my room and find some clothes. The ones I’m wearing are suddenly too dirty. Everything in this house is dirty as all hell, I need to wash. As I pass the calendar on the way back down, I see it’s blank.

  In the bathroom, I strip and wrap a towel around myself and take the clothes to the laundry.

  In the shower, I scrub until my skin aches. Tiny blood spots appear along my arms and I need to stop but I’m not sure that I can. I make myself throw the scrubbing brush over the top of the shower and it clatters on the tiles. The steam rises all around me and I close my eyes, let the water run down my face.

  Like magic, that person from the gallery just walks into my head. I don’t understand how they knew my name. I haven’t done anything to deserve special attention; I’m not anyone, really.

  I turn off the water and the shivers start as soon as I step out. It’s not until I dry off that I remember that my clothes are still washing. I sigh and click on the heater. I brush my teeth and pace around the tiny bathroom. The person in the gallery won’t get out of my head. I sit on the edge of the bath, the rim cold against my skin, and stare at the wall opposite. The tiles are cool under my feet and I can feel the moist air on my face. Who are they?

  One of the tiles on the wall is crooked. I try not to look, but it’s like when a picture is crooked. I have to fix it.

  I wedge the toothbrush to the side of my mouth and start to readjust the tile when I realise: tiles can’t be crooked unless they were set that way, and this tile has never been crooked before. As soon as I think it, the tile comes off the wall and I almost drop it.

  There’s a hollowed out space with a tiny notebook in it, one of those ones that cost twenty cents at the supermarket. The pages are filled and everything’s in my handwriting.

  It doesn’t make any sense; everything’s in code. Between two of the pages, I pull out a folded, bigger piece of paper. On it, there’s a diagram with dates and lines, too many lines, connecting all the dates.

  There’s a noise outside the door and I jump, shots of ice run with my blood, but it’s just the washing machine beeping.

  I leave the notebook on the sink with my watch so I won’t forget it, then go out in my towel and put the clothes in the dryer. It’s taking too long, and when I pull them on they’re still damp.

  The tile takes a couple of goes to get back on, but eventually it sticks in.

  There must be a decoder for this notebook, but I don’t know where to start looking for one. Maybe whoever wrote it – I can’t have done this cause I’ve got no clue what it means – knows the code off by heart.

  I frown as I walk up the stairs. It c
an’t be Dad’s because he knows I never go into his room. He wouldn’t need to hide things from me. Frank? I don’t think so. And then I see the doppelganger, sitting on my bed.

  ‘Jesus!’ I shriek.

  It stands, walks to me and it gestures at the notebook I’m holding. Its hands grapple for it but they go right through. Its mouth is going off, but I can’t hear it at all.

  I panic and close my eyes.

  In the lightdark, I drift. Waiting, waiting. It feels more familiar this time, and there! Warmth. The tiniest bit, fleeting, but I snatch hold.

  Daisy sits next to me at the kitchen table, staring into a mug of Milo. They’re wearing the too-large clothes, so it’s the same day as the gallery visit. Frank is watching telly and Dad is either at work or asleep from a night shift, because I can’t see any sign of him.

  This is home. I want to sob, my insides are back, my ribcage is filled.

  ‘How’re you feeling?’ I ask Daisy. Who is sitting right there, very much present. I would do anything for them right now. ‘Do you need anything?’

  They shake their head. ‘I’m fine.’ They lean their head on my shoulder and I smell my shampoo on them. ‘I’ll have to leave early to get to uni tomorrow, just so you know.’

  ‘You want a lift there? I’m not doing anything.’ I don’t know if I’m not doing anything. I’ll call in sick if I need to. I scramble to try to remember details. We went to the gallery, there was another me, we went to Daisy’s, they’re staying with me for a few days.

  ‘You’re too good,’ they say. I can feel their breath on my ear as they speak.

  ‘How long do you want to stay over?’

  ‘I don’t know – two, three nights?’

  ‘You can stay longer if you want.’ They could stay forever, really, if we could afford it. One day. We could get a paint-splattered apartment overlooking a street with a tram. Not near the middle of nowhere, like my house. Somewhere where things can happen.