I.D. Read online

  “I think it’s something big, Eve. Like an epidemic.”

  “It’s a heart attack. You don’t get a heart attack from germs!”

  “What if it’s something that makes the body get a heart attack?”

  “Oh, please.” Eve reached the car and opened the back door.

  “Five years ago a kid in California dies of hardening of the arteries,” Kate said, climbing in after Eve. “A couple of years later, a girl in Ohio loses her hair and develops osteoporosis. That’s weakening of the bones. An old-people’s disease.”

  “Where do you get this stuff?” Eve asked.

  “I surf, therefore I am,” Kate replied. “It’s been on a lot of the news sites. I couldn’t believe the first case, so I kept looking.”

  “The storm is breaking up,” Mr. Hardy remarked as he pulled out of the lot. “I say we head home now, while it’s still daylight.”

  “Shouldn’t we eat first?” Mrs. Hardy asked.

  “We can eat on the road,” Mr. Hardy suggested.

  “Another girl’s teeth fall out,” Kate barreled on, “and she develops chronic constipation—?

  “Kate!” Mrs. Hardy exclaimed.

  “I was hungry, up until a minute ago,” Eve grumbled.

  “All I can say is, there’s more to this than meets the eye,” Kate said, folding her arms.

  Eve threw herself into frantic packing. The weekend was over. Time to move on. Time to stop thinking about

  The eyes.

  They were following her still. Telling her something. Still looking over her shoulder.

  “Dad,” she said as they loaded the luggage into the car, “can we stop by the hospital?”

  He smiled impatiently. “It’s only been an hour and a half. We’ll call from the road, okay?”

  Eve and Kate settled into the backseat. Mr. and Mrs. Hardy sat up front.

  As the car pulled away, snow crunched dully under the tires. Mrs. Hardy turned on the radio and surfed for a weather report.

  Eve settled back. She tried to block the memory, but the image kept returning (the eyes).

  Soon Tanya would be all right, and the eyes would disappear.

  Stop thinking.

  She tried to focus on the radio. Listen. Block out all memories.

  The stations blipped in and out. A Top 40 song. Static. A scratchy classical piece. A foreign-language broadcast. More static.

  “…at a loss to speculate on the latest development at Keene Mountain Hospital…” a voice intoned.

  Eve sat up. “Leave it there!”

  “…where tonight a fourteen-year-old, Tanya Bernsen,” the voice continued, “after a heroic attempt to save her life by a team of specialists, has died…”

  Tally of deceased has risen to seventy-three.

  Pending?

  At least a dozen others. Very few are related. The mutation is occurring at random.

  The strain is stronger than we thought.

  5

  THE WORDS “LEBANON VALLEY GAZETTE OBITUARIES” flashed across Kate’s computer screen.

  “ ‘Sarah Fischer, fourteen,’ ” Eve read, “ ‘of complications from gout.’ ”

  “See?” Kate said. “Who gets gout at our age? Nobody!”

  Eve began clicking furiously, opening Kate’s bookmarks. Names and faces blinked on and off. More deaths: Meryl Haber, Walter Gilbert, Bryann Davis, Francine Etkowitz…

  “This is sick, Kate.”

  “I know. Scroll to the bottom. One of the names has a link.”

  “ ‘Alexis Wainwright…several days before her fourteenth birthday’…blah blah blah…‘premature hardening of the arteries’…‘for more information, click on…’ Bingo.”

  Eve clicked. Another site assembled itself on the screen:

  JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF GENETICS

  AND

  PATHOLOGY

  Premature Telomere Foreshortening in Chromosome of Adolescent

  Speculation over the role of telomere length in the aging process took a leap forward in the death of a teenage girl in Cold Harbor, whose aberrant genetic makeup was seen as a primary cause of preternatural senescence. Further investigation revealed the existence of the damaged chromosome in one of the parents, who remains asymptomatic.

  “You’re the science genius,” Kate said. “Do you understand this at all?”

  “I think I do,” Eve replied. “You have these things in your body—chromosomes. You get them from your parents. They contain DNA, which make the genes, which build the proteins that make you you. Sixth-grade biology, right?”

  “I must have been absent that day.”

  “Anyway, the chromosomes have these wavy things at the ends, like tails. They’re called telomeres. Ours are, like, totally buff, because we’re young. But once you hit our parents’ age, forget it. The telomeres shrink. Some scientists think that telomeres control aging. They give the body instructions on how to get old—you know, they tell the skin to sag, the hair to fall out…”

  “That is so disgusting.”

  “Anyway, this girl’s telomeres shrank too early,” Eve explained.

  “Duh.”

  “She inherited this mutated gene from one of her parents, who didn’t actually have the disease. Her mom or dad just carried the gene, then passed it on to her.”

  “So this girl died of old age.”

  “Or some part of her body aged too quickly.”

  “Like I said. Same thing with Tanya’s heart. Same thing with the other kids. See? I’m not as dumb as I look. It’s an epidemic!”

  “It’s a theory, Kate,” Eve cautioned. “Read the first word of the article. ‘Speculation.’ They don’t know.”

  “All great discoveries start this way.” Kate grabbed the mouse. “We are on the verge of something big, Eve. A Tony Award.”

  “Nobel Prize.”

  “Whatever. We’ll split the proceeds. I think I can find some other sites, too.”

  As Kate began surfing, images flickered on the screen. Photos. Icons. Text.

  A face.

  It had flashed briefly. Not long enough to get a good look.

  “Wait!” Eve said.

  “What?” Kate asked.

  “Go back.”

  Kate clicked once, twice…

  Blink.

  The face again. A yearbook photo. Staring off into the distance. Like a million other poses of a million other junior high school kids.

  It was captioned ALEXIS WAINWRIGHT.

  But the face was familiar.

  My face.

  No. The hair was different. Shorter. And Eve would never have worn a ripped T-shirt in a formal photo.

  Eve knelt. Looked into the eyes.

  The eyes.

  I know them.

  Mine.

  But not mine.

  “Weird.” Kate’s finger was frozen over the mouse. “She looks exactly like you.”

  She’s a stranger.

  That’s all.

  A photo of a face.

  She probably looks nothing like you in person.

  Looked like you. She’s dead.

  “Eve? Earth to Eve!”

  Eve’s eyes were glued to the name now.

  It brought something to mind. An image.

  A girl from her past.

  The strong one.

  The angry one.

  The eyes stared at her. It’s me, they were saying. Me, Alexis.

  NO!

  This is ridiculous.

  A coincidence.

  No. Big. Deal.

  “Eve?” Kate repeated. “You’re scaring me.”

  Eve took a deep breath. “Sorry. I was thinking about when I was little—when I was upset. I’d become this bratty kid, and her name was—?

  “Alexis!” Kate blurted out.

  “You remember?”

  “Do I? You were, like, possessed.”

  “Well, so, you know—the face, the name. It kind of freaked me out.”

  Kate fell silent. She was staring a
t the screen now. “Oh, my god.”

  “What?”

  “Why did you pick that name—Alexis?”

  Eve shrugged. “It sounded cool, I guess.”

  “You didn’t know anyone by that name?”

  “Nope.”

  “Not even from your deepest past? From before you were adopted?”

  “I was a newborn! How could I?”

  “We don’t forget our early memories, Eve. Even I know that. You had to have seen your birth mother, right? Maybe your birth father, too. You heard their voices.”

  “Okay. So?”

  “So, what if the couple had an older daughter? What if her name was Alexis?”

  Sister.

  Parents.

  “Wait,” Eve said. “You think—this girl is my—?

  Leave.

  Now.

  Don’t listen.

  “Look at her, Eve.”

  “Kate, that is so totally—?

  Look.

  The eyes.

  I know them.

  NO.

  How could I?

  A face. A name. That’s all. Chance.

  “What?” Kate said. “What is it? Am I right? Are you remembering?”

  She’s putting ideas in your head.

  Go. Quick.

  “Uh, Kate, I don’t like this—?

  “You have to find them, Eve!”

  “Who?”

  “Your birth parents. The Wainwrights!”

  “They’re not my birth parents!”

  “Eve, it’s so obvious.”

  “There are millions of faces, Kate. On millions of Web sites. And this one just happens to be my long-lost sister? From my long-lost family? Does that make sense to you?”

  “Okay, I know you don’t want to believe it. I don’t blame you. Sometimes the truth is hard—?

  “I know the truth already!”

  You HAVE parents.

  You are Eve Hardy. Not Eve Wainwright.

  Eve bolted. Opened the door.

  “But what if I’m right?”

  Kate’s words stopped Eve cold.

  What if?

  Mom. Dad. For real.

  A sister, too. And me.

  A family.

  Happy.

  Once upon a time.

  Eve sank against the doorjamb. “Kate, you don’t understand what you’re doing to me.”

  “You have to know,” Kate said gently. “Knowledge is power. You once told me that.”

  “What if they are my birth family? They didn’t raise me. They weren’t there for me. Why should I care about them? Why should I cross the country for them? So they can throw me out again? Or so they can fall on their knees and apologize? Either way, what do I get?”

  “A family medical history,” Kate replied.

  “A what?”

  “Alexis died because of the disease, Eve. The disease could be genetic. You’re her sister!”

  It makes no sense.

  I CAN’T BE HER SISTER.

  I CAN’T HAVE THE —

  THE —

  The eyes.

  Again.

  Following her.

  Beckoning.

  From the screen.

  From the dead.

  With a click, they would disappear from the screen.

  But they would never leave Eve’s mind.

  They know.

  They live.

  In me.

  Nothing made sense.

  But it didn’t have to.

  Some things never did.

  Eve stood frozen, indecisive, her hand on the doorknob.

  Then, slowly, she shut the door. “Ski camp is coming up. We’ll be away from home for two weeks.”

  “I can cover for you,” Kate said quietly. “Your parents don’t have to know where you really are.”

  “Can your brother help us?”

  “We’ll say he’s driving us to camp. He can drop you off at the train station.”

  “I couldn’t lie. I’d have to write Mom and Dad and let them know.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Eve scowled. “I just don’t know…”

  “Don’t you?”

  Eve thought about it. But this was beyond thought. Beyond reason.

  This was instinct.

  “I hope Cold Harbor isn’t too far away,” she said with a sigh.

  Kate smiled.

  Does this one have a chance?

  As much as the ones who came before her. No more.

  6

  “FRRRRRREEPORT NEXT!”

  The conductor’s voice woke Eve from a deep sleep.

  Her cheek was pressed against fabric. Wool.

  A sweater. A stranger’s.

  “Oh!” Eve jerked away, red-faced.

  The elderly lady next to her smiled and dusted off her shoulder. “It’s okay, I didn’t have the heart to move,” she said sweetly. “They’re very lucky, your mom and dad.”

  “They are?”

  “You talked about them. In your sleep.”

  “I did?”

  The old lady chuckled. “I know quite a bit about you, Alexis.”

  Alexis.

  The Wainwright house.

  Red brick. Big lawn. Lamppost with a swinging wooden sign.

  I’m playing on the front lawn. Digging holes. Burying Ken because he dissed Barbie.

  Dad is turning up the driveway in his car. He’s angry.

  Not Dad.

  Mr. Wainwright.

  Eve shivered.

  Stop.

  It was a dream.

  I am NOT Alexis.

  She tried to focus. Her dreams were wild. Confusing.

  Flashes from her childhood.

  When she used to think she was Alexis.

  The fantasy Alexis. Not the possible-sister Alexis.

  She couldn’t be her sister. That didn’t make sense.

  Eve looked at the faces of the boarding passengers, the strangers she’d never seen and would never see again.

  That’s what the Wainwrights are. Strangers.

  I am barging in on strangers.

  She began to shake. The whole idea seemed ridiculous.

  Sneaking away. Lying.

  Showing up at someone’s house unannounced. Without even the courtesy of a phone call.

  I did call them.

  Okay, I hung up as soon as I heard Mrs. Wainwright’s voice.

  But I had to.

  They wouldn’t have believed me.

  Or they would have freaked.

  I couldn’t have handled any of that.

  I would have chickened out. The whole trip would have fallen apart.

  I have to see with my own eyes. This is the only way to do it.

  The train was beginning to move again.

  Cold Harbor was the next stop.

  She looked out the window.

  Calm. Down.

  Outside was an undulating countryside dotted with stone houses. A distant line of cross-country skiers glided along a ridge, and the smell of burning firewood permeated even the closed train car.

  It was gorgeous. Perfect.

  This is where I would have lived if—

  Stop.

  She couldn’t think of that.

  But they’re rich if they live here. Rich people don’t give up their children.

  Maybe I was awful. Unbearable.

  She glanced at her ticket. Round trip. Good any time.

  Stay on the platform. Catch the next train back.

  Don’t go. Don’t remind them. Don’t find out what you could have been but never will be—

  Soon the train began to slow. The loudspeaker crackled.

  “CO-O-O-O-OLD HARBOR!” the conductor announced.

  A station pulled into view. It was decked with holiday lights. Fresh-fallen snow coated the slate roof and gingerbread latticework. A small crowd of people dressed in winter coats gazed up hopefully at the train, their arms laden with gifts.

  Stay.

  Go.


  Eve stood.

  She grabbed her backpack from the overhead rack. Saying good-bye to the old lady, she numbly stepped into the aisle.

  As she walked toward the door, she rubbed the back of her neck.

  For some reason, it was throbbing.

  Right where her birthmark was.

  It has begun.

  7

  FOUR SEVENTY-SEVEN.

  Eve paused in front of the white-shingled house.

  Forest-green shutters. A lamppost marked WAINWRIGHT, swinging in the wind. A cobblestone walkway, freshly snow-blown. Chimes on the front porch.

  Perfect.

  Cozy. Homey. A place she could have been happy growing up in.

  To the right, tire tracks led up the driveway toward a closed two-car garage.

  Somebody was home.

  Snap.

  A light. Through the left bay window. A dining room. A woman sitting at the table. Bathed in warm amber light.

  Eve’s breath shuddered.

  This is crazy.

  What are you going to say to her?

  Eve turned away.

  “Can I help you?”

  A car was gliding to a stop in the driveway. The driver, a man wearing a fur hat, was looking at her curiously through his open window.

  “Huh?” Eve squeaked.

  “Are you looking for somebody?”

  The face was friendly. Open. Matter-of-fact. Kind.

  Familiar.

  Now or never.

  Eve’s hand reached up to the brim of her floppy hat. She slowly took it off and looked him in the eye.

  “Mr. Wainwright?” she said softly.

  His face went slack.

  The engine stopped. The man was opening the door now. Stepping out.

  Eve backed away.

  Mr. Wainwright stopped in his tracks. “Sorry,” he said, averting his eyes embarrassedly. “I—I don’t mean to stare—it’s just that you look…”

  Eve swallowed hard. “Like Alexis?”

  When the man glanced up at her again, his face was hollow, fearful. “Who are you?”

  “Eve Hardy. I think.”

  “How do you know Alexis?”

  “I’m not s-sure.”

  Eve shivered. Her jaw was numb. She could barely feel her toes or fingers.

  Mr. Wainwright gestured toward the front door. “Please, come in.”

  As they approached, the door opened. The woman inside was smiling. “Hi, honey. How was—?

  The words died in her mouth. Her face went pale.

  Mr. Wainwright took his wife’s arm. “This is Eve.”