Page 48 of Strange Lights

“You liar. You’ve been lying this whole time, about everything,” Calvin says. I’ve never heard his voice so full of hate. But he’s cut off by the echoing sound of footsteps in the corridor.

I abruptly rise to my feet and push past Meredith to stand and face the door.

Adele Kingsley walks into the room, removing her mask with deliberate care as she surveys the three of us, a false disappointed look on her face but triumph in her eyes. A face I’ve seen countless times over the years. The same eyes I see every time I look in the mirror, no matter how much time, space, and however many disguises come between us. My future face, in a few decades. The face of my mother.

A cruel smirk grows wide on her mouth as she looks at me.

“Well, well. The prodigal child returns at last.”

21

Thirty Years Ago

I am five the first time I disappoint my mother. More accurately, it’s the first time I understand that I disappoint my mother. I’ve spent the last month learning to read, and Nanny gave me a book of my own. It was an alphabet board book, full of future careers: librarian, teacher, scientist, engineer.

“I want to be a truck driver when I grow up,” I proudly tell my mother when she asks for the weekly update on my education.

“What a quintessentially human occupation,” she says, her lip curled as if she’s smelled something particularly rotten.

I already know that to say nothing is better than to say the wrong thing. I don’t understand what “quintessentially” means, nor why she spits the word “human” as if it were a curse. But I do understand that something inside me curls up to hide, to shrink away from the expression on her face.

“I could see the whole world. Meet lots of people.” I already have an incurable case of wanderlust⁠—understandable for an isolated child who lives among adults on a secretive base in the middle of the desert. But one thing my mother never understood was my desire for human connection. She has always wanted to stand separate, alone and apart from everyone.

“I created you for a much greater purpose than driving trucks, Regina,” she says dismissively, without cracking a smile.

This is the first time I find out I’m expected to be something besides ordinary⁠—something better, something more, superhuman.

“Nanny says I can be whatever I want,” I reply stubbornly. Proud enough to hold back the tears I feel prickling at the edges of my vision.

It’s the first time I feel the heavy weight of inadequacy, the first time I register the disgust on my mother’s face as I don’t quite measure up.

My mother doesn’t say another word about the conversation, but my book disappears, and Nanny doesn’t say goodbye. I have a new nanny the next week. It takes several years before I realize that the word “nanny” is a job title rather than a given name.

On my tenth birthday, my mother gets me a mask⁠—black mesh with silver accents, like a star-splattered night sky. My mask is similar to the one she wears outside our living quarters. But it is different enough that we won’t be mistaken for each other. Different enough to feel like my own. I feel the weight of looming adulthood and the taste of freedom in the concealment simultaneously.

Somehow I can still see perfectly through the material, though the mask remains utterly featureless. Behind it, I grin, stick out my tongue, cross my eyes, and the figure in the mirror simply cocks their head. My antics would be unnerving if you didn’t know what I was doing behind it. My head tilts from side to side, like a reptile sighting prey. When I’m upset or angry, I no longer have to work to hide it.

It’s the first time I truly feel my mother understands me. She never acknowledges the “otherness” she feels. But I know it’s there. I’ve always been able to see it. To hear it. A little voice in my head whispering, like you. Whatever it is, it lurks under her surface, lashing out like a monster when noticed. Strangely, it’s one of the few things I have in common with my mother. Though I’m determined to be different from her. To keep even the knowledge from her that we are two of a kind. It’s easy because she doesn’t invite confidence, after all. But this mask she gives me marks one of the few times she sees me for who I am, one of the few times she sees what I want and hands it to me without condition.

I can be any character in the mask. I’m “Kingsley,” eliciting a differential nod and downcast eyes. Not “Adele’s daughter,” resulting in dismissive eyes that hardly skim over me. People treat me like I’m an adult, an equal. I bask in the power of it. I’m “Regina” rarely, only in my mother’s presence. Never Reggie, like I want to be called.

The first time I wear the mask isn’t just significant because it’s my tenth birthday. It’s also the day I meet my sister. My mother walks me into a dimly lit room, the one across the hall from mine. I’m usually not allowed in this room that’s seen a rotating cast of staff wandering in and out for months. I’m used to living in this underground castle filled with off-limits areas, but they usually aren’t so busy or so near my bedroom.

At first, I’m disappointed at the mundane surroundings. The space is hardly different from my own quarters. A chair, a couch, a desk with a lamp and alarm clock. But instead of a twin bed, there’s a row of tiny, clear plastic bins on wheels. The kind I’ve seen on TV shows, the kind that hold babies.

My feet move to the three bassinets before I know what I’m doing. The first one holds a bald little cherub with pink cheeks. A blue blanket means boy. While I may not spend any time outside these walls, rarely interacting with anyone but my nannies and tutors, I’ve watched and studied diligently from afar. I take notes while watching Nickelodeon and memorize every conversational nuance in the pages of my Sarah Dessen books; I could recite them by heart. The angelic baby boy sleeps quietly, never noticing my presence. I feel bad waking him, so I let him sleep. The second bassinet holds a squalling red-faced, pink-swathed bundle over which I don’t linger long; I hadn’t realized how loud babies could be.

“Do you feel anything?” my mother asks me abruptly, removing the mask she usually wears.

My steps falter. I pause before walking to the third bassinet. There’s an edge to my mother’s voice; her eyes are intent, fixed on me. I stare at her features, the contours less familiar to me than her mask. Some undefined question is written across her face.

“Well? Can you sense anything? Anyone?”

I have no idea what she’s asking me, but I have the sense I will fail this test. Carefully, I school my face to keep my expression blank, before I remember the mask. This isn’t the first sort of test like this, given without warning, with undisclosed parameters and unrevealed stakes.

I choose silence, cocking my head questioningly.

My mother’s losing patience with me. “They’re all from powerfully magical bloodlines, if it worked⁠—” She snaps her mouth shut and frowns.