"Look at this mess! Oh my God, what possessed me to do this?" Gracie said, looking around her room.
"Me," the voice in her head told her. "Did you find it?"
"No, of course I didn't. But I made such a mess, I have to clean this up."
"You can still do this. Come, you have to find it and dismantle it, otherwise the person across the street will continue to read your thoughts."
"Oh, fuck the woman across the street. She can do what she wants to do. I can't take this anymore. I need to take a walk." She left the room and headed down the stairs. Her mother saw her walk to the front door.
"Where do you think you're going?" she asked.
"I'm leaving. See you." Gracie walked out of the house and headed down the street. When she reached the corner, she got a burst of energy. She stared running and doing cartwheels down the street. And to her surprise, her energy wasn't fading. It usually faded right away, but now it was still strong and she was coming up on finishing a lap around her block.
When she came up to her house, her mother was standing at the front door, waiting for her to return. Mrs. Cole ran out onto the road and pulled her daughter back into the house.
"Gracie, sit down. What is wrong with you lately? You're acting very strange and I can't understand why. What's going on?"
"There's nothing going on. I'm the same I was before."
"Before what?"
"Before you started asking questions about me." Gracie got up and looked at the clock. "I'm going back to school."
"No you're not. You're staying here. I got a phone call saying you were vandalizing school property."
"No I wasn't."
"And your wrote the theory of evolution in a Catholic School where that theory has been banned."
"So they deciphered it, huh?" she asked, smiling.
"Yes, the deciphered it. How do you know Icelandic? What you wrote was too precise to be a guess."
"There's a lot of things you don't know about me, Mom," Gracie said, sighing heavily.
"Then tell me."
"Why?" Gracie asked. She was asking way too many questions. "Why do you want to know about me?"
"You're my daughter; I want to know what's going on with you."
"Why?"
"Gracie, you're paranoid."
"What do you care? You won't let me go to school, you won't let me leave the room, of course I'm paranoid that's something's going on." Gracie looked up at her mother, who was looking down at her with a piercing stare. She grew even more paranoid�she knew something was up. Did she hear the voices that Gracie was hearing? Did she know what was going on? "I have to go to my room�"
"Gracie, what's going on?"
"Nothing's going on! Everything is the way it's always been. Maybe you changed and you're blaming it on me!" Gracie screamed. "I'm fine. I've always been fine. You need to understand that."
"Gracie, as much as you think you are, you aren't the same. You're acting very strange and paranoid."
"Do you think I care?"
"Gracie, I'm worried about you."
"Mom, there's nothing to be worried about. I'm perfectly fine."
"I've been hearing you talk to nothing. Are you hiding someone from me up there?"
"Mom, I think you're the one who's being paranoid. There's nothing wrong with me. I'm still the same Gracie. You need to understand that. You don�t because you keep insisting that I'm hiding something from you! There's no one upstairs. I do have a phone in my room, I could very well be talking to someone on the phone."
"I can't believe you don't think something's wrong. But if you're so sure that everything's fine, I'll believe you."
"I'm fine, mom. Just remember that. I'm going back to school."
"It's far away. I'll take you." Gracie smiled, but her smile was diminished when she heard a voice in her head.
"She's getting onto you. You'd better bail, quick," it said.
"That's okay, mom. I'll walk. I walked here."
"You'll never get there in time. I'll take you."
"She wants to take you to a nut house! That�s why she's trying to get you in the car!" The voice screamed. "She's going to admit you, they'll talk you away and you'll never see anyone again!!"
"No! Mom I'm taking myself."
"No you're not. I'm not letting you walk there by yourself; I don't give a damn if you walked here before. You're not going by yourself now."
"No! You're going to take me away and I'll never see my friends again! I'm taking myself."
"Gracie, I'm just taking you back to school."
"No!" Gracie screamed. "No you're not!!" Gracie ran out of the house and down the street, en route to school. Her mother got into the car and followed after her. Gracie just went faster, trying to get out of the way of the car. Her mother drove beside her and lowered the window.
"Gracie, get in the car. I don't want you running around the city by yourself. Some crazy person could try to hurt you. You're a young girl, you don't need to be running around like this."
Gracie didn't say anything as she kept running. She didn't look at her mother; she looked forward at the street. Why couldn't she run any faster? She had to admit she'd never run this fast before in her life, but her mother was still keeping up with her. Of course her mother was still keeping up with her, Gracie was running in the middle of the road and her mother was in the car.
Gracie darted off the road and across her field so her mother couldn't follow her. She ran to school, not thinking about anything else except running as fast as she could to get there.
It was a half an hour later when she arrived at her school. She ran up to the school to find her mother waiting for her with the principal and another teacher, who was a man. Upon seeing them, Gracie turned around, but the man ran after her and dragged her back to the school, kicking and screaming.
"Gracie, why aren't you fighting back?" the voice asked. She was fighting back, but he was stronger than her. "Gracie! Kick him!" She kicked him, but he didn't let go of her. "Goddammit, Gracie, you are the weakest girl I have ever known." She ignored the voice and concentrated on fighting back, but to no avail. She found herself a few minutes later in the principal's office for the second time that day.
"Gracie, tell us what's going on," the principal said, trying to look sympathetic but Gracie saw right through it. She didn't say anything as she sat back in her chair and looked away. The wall had a few diplomas and certificates on it. The one that caught her eye was a degree in Psychology. "Gracie, all we want to know is what is troubling you."
"You're not going to get anywhere talking to me when I don't want to talk. You should know that," Gracie said, looking at the principal. "You have a degree in psychology. That's the first thing they should teach you."
"Well there's obviously something wrong, and if we know about it, we'll be able to help you with it."
"One, there's nothing wrong with me," Gracie said, curtly. "Two, if there was, you would be the last person I'd want to help me with it."
"Gracie, you be nice to her," Mrs. Cole scolded from the seat next to Gracie.
"I'm not three, mother," she retorted. "I'll speak how I want to speak." She turned back to the principal. "There is nothing wrong with me. I have a bad day and all of a sudden everyone's ganging up on me like I've completely changed."
"It's not just today, Gracie. You were like this to me yesterday too. You've never been like this ever before and I'd just like to know what's going on. Is something wrong? Are you having problems with your grades or your friends? Is it that boy you met? Is he not treating you well?"
"I hate repeating myself. There's nothing wrong. Let it go."
"All right, Gracie. We'll let it go. But if you keep acting like this, I'll have to keep asking because I just want you to be okay."
"I'm fine."
"All right. Then I'll let you be. Do you want to stay the rest of the day or do you want to go back home?"
"I think I'll stay here," she said, getting up and leaving the room. She walked back to a classroom and sat down in the back corner of the room. This period was English, taught by Miss Corinne. She noticed the board filled with words she couldn't read. She raised her hand.
"Yes, Miss Cole?" Miss Corinne asked, her voice slightly pissed off.
"Um, what's with the board? Do we have to know that or something?" Gracie asked, as politely as she could.
"Now isn't the time for jokes, Gracie. I'm trying to teach the class." Gracie looked at the teacher, confused.
"What do you mean?"
"You know exactly what I mean, Miss Cole."
"I'm afraid I don't," Gracie said.
"What did you do this morning?" Miss Corinne asked. Gracie looked around; the rest of the class was turned around and staring at her. At this she grew very scared and began to scoot her desk away.
"I was at home all morning," Gracie said, her voice quivering in fear. "I just got here." Why were they all looking at her? It was bad enough she couldn't figure out the board and didn't know why Miss Corinne was personally attacking her, but now the class was staring at her.
"Miss Cole, I'd appreciate that you wouldn't be so rude in class."
"I'm not being rude!" Gracie said, her voice still quivering but lightly raising. "I just asked what's up with the board! Why are you attacking me?" She was about ready to cry now.
"They're all against you, Gracie," the voice whispered into her ear. "They're all plotting to kill you�they're going to take you away and kill you." She remembered this voice. It was the same one who talked to her earlier. It said the same thing. That everyone was against her. A tear slipped down her cheek. "They're going to take you away if you don't shape up!!"
"Miss Cole, don't even start," Miss Corinne said.
"I'm sorry," Gracie said. "I�I'm sorry. I'll shape up."
"Miss Cole you're as good as dead," Miss Corinne's voice said. Gracie screamed and ran out of the room, knocking over her desk. She heard them talking about her, the commotion drifting through the hall as she ran back to the office. Her mother was just walking out.
"Mom I want to go home," she said, tears pouring down her face. Her mother looked up at the principal.
"All right, Gracie. We can go home." Gracie cried into her hands as her mother led her to the car. She got in, a bit reluctantly, but realized she was close enough to the wheel to grab it if her mother decided to go anywhere else but home. Her mother got into the car and drove home.
"Are you all right, Gracie?" Isaac asked that night on the phone. "You sound very far away."
"Yeah, I'm fine," Gracie said, lying down on her bed. She looked up at the ceiling. Once she'd gotten home she felt a lot better. The voice hadn't talked to her since she was in the classroom, so she felt a lot more like herself. Now that she wasn't worried about anyone killing her or taking her away, she was able to remember what happened that day. "Today just wasn�t a very good day for me."
"What happened?"
"Well, I nearly got expelled from my school."
"I guess that could make your day suck. What'd you do?"
"I wrote the theory of evolution on a teacher's whiteboard in Icelandic and swore a few times at the principal and one of the teachers," she admitted. The past few days since she'd gone out with him, she'd had a lot of nice discussions with him. She felt like she could really open up to him and tell him pretty much everything.
"Well I can understand the swearing, but what's wrong with evolution?"
"I go to a very strict Catholic school, remember? Evolution is very taboo because it goes against everything the Bible teaches and all that. I'm not even supposed to know what evolution is, much less write it in a foreign language on some teacher's board. It was like I was imposing the school to accept it, and that's heresy." She paused. "I don't know how I even wrote it. I don't know Icelandic."
"Do you remember writing it?"
"No! That's another thing! I know I wrote it and I remember everything that happened from it, but I don�t remember actually writing it. So maybe I was able to find a translation somewhere, I don't know. It's just so weird."
"Yeah�"
"A lot of things have been weird lately. I'm sure it's just because I'm out of sorts and I've been really stressed lately. Exams are coming up soon and I have to study lots for them to pass, I know. Maybe that and something else made me finally snap so I just let my frustrations out in the weirdest way possible."
"Well what have you been doing?" he asked.
"I got home and my room was a complete disaster area. I'm not saying just cause it needs to be cleaned. My mattress to my bed was on the other side of the room and I can't find my sheets anywhere but I still have my comforter. My mirror is completely shattered and there were pieces of it everywhere. My furniture was overturned and my clothes were everywhere. For a moment I thought the house had been robbed but it was only this room. I cleaned it all up and I have yet to find anything missing, so I think I did it in a rage or something. I know I broke my mirror because my hands are all cut up."
"What could have possessed you to do that? Do you have a reason to be this upset?" he asked.
"No! Not at all. Everything's perfectly fine in my life right now." She sighed, looking around the room. Everything was clean and orderly now; it only took the entire day to do it. The shards of glass from her mirror were picked up and she'd vacuumed for a good half an hour to make sure it was all gone. Her hands were bandaged and so was the cut on her leg, she never did show that to her mother. "The thing that gets me is that I have no idea what happened. I don't remember anything. I got suspended from school and they refuse to tell me why."
"Do your parents know anything?"
"No. My dad's away on business this week, my mom just remembers me yelling at her, and my sisters have been at a friends' house since yesterday. My mom left to pick them up. I hope she doesn't say anything, because I don't want them to freak out about anything. As it is, I don't know how I'm going to tell them about my mirror. Maybe they won't notice and I can get a new one."
Gracie heard the garage door open, signaling that her mother was home with her two twin sisters. "Oh shoot, they're back. I'll talk to you later, Ike."
"All right." She hung up the phone. She knew that her sisters would run up and bug her the first chance they got. The three girls were close; they were identical triplets, but they were so different it was easy to tell them apart. Gracie was the oldest (if only by a few minutes) and got blessed with the larger room and connecting bathroom. Each sister had her own room, but only Gracie got her own bathroom.
"Hey Gracie, you missed the best party this weekend. Why didn't you go?" Gracie's sister Ren� asked, the other sister, Sarah, giggling behind her. Ren� and Sarah both dyed their hair so they could all be told apart easily. Ren� had blonde hair while Sarah dyed hers burgundy.
"I didn't feel like going. I had enough to do here without having to go to some stupid party where everyone's getting drunk and knocked up."
"Oh you missed it!" Ren� said, laughing in remembrance. Sarah blushed. "Sarah got drunk and was giving the guys a pretty wild strip show. I had to pull her off the table before she showed too much to everyone."
"Sarah�" Gracie began to scold, but then stopped. She reminded herself of her mother. She just shook her head and picked up what she hadn't gotten to clean yet. She was pretty much done, there was just a few things in the corner.
"What happened in here?" Sarah asked, finally walking into the room. Ren� had already plopped herself in a chair and grabbed a book from Gracie's bookcase. Gracie stiffened at her words. Did they figure it out? Did they notice something? She thought she picked up well enough.
"What?" Gracie asked, her voice slightly quivering. If it was anyone who could figure out what was going on with her, it was her sisters. And it scared her because she didn't want anyone to know about the voices inside of her head.
"Your room!" Sarah said. "It's�it's clean!" Gracie let out a breath, smiling.
"Oh yeah, I cleaned. Surprised?" Sarah nodded. "Well I figured since it was so bad I couldn't move without getting something sharp stuck up my foot, I should clean it up."
"Oh yeah, cause that's always a reason for you to clean. Girl, you'd rather live in garbage than to have to clean," Ren� said.
"Well I felt like cleaning, all right?" Gracie snapped. Ren�'s eyes widened and she looked back into her book.
"Sorry." Gracie gave her a look and bent to pick up a piece of ripped sheet.
"Sister? You have sisters? Hmm�" Gracie froze at the voice in her head.
"Don�t start," she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut. "Please don't start."
"Gracie?"
Gracie spun around to her concerned sisters. They heard her speak, but could only wonder if it was directed to them. Gracie's sudden temper flared.
"Could you guys get out of my room?" she snapped. "Now!?"
"Gracie, don't get mad at us if you're being a prude," Sarah said.
"Oh, go fuck yourself, Sarah. Leave me alone."
"Since when do you swear?" Ren� asked. She ran over to Sarah, who was nearly crying at Gracie's harsh words. It was a thing none of them ever had done. Sure Sarah got drunk at every party and Ren� wasn't exactly the most virgin of virgins, but none of them ever swore.
"Since I've had two annoying sisters. Get the hell out of my room! I'm sick and tired of you two coming in here and messing things up when you're not invited in. Don't go through my stuff, don't borrow my clothes without asking me, don't even look at me unless I say so, all right?" Gracie eyed Sarah. "And lose the petty crying act, Sarah, it doesn't help any." Gracie shoved her two sisters out of the room and slammed the door.
"Perfect," the voice in her head whispered. "You are so perfect."
"What did I just do?" she asked, leaning against the wall and closing the door. "I just yelled at my sisters. I never yell at my sisters."
"Isn't it time you called Ike back? I think you two should go out tonight."
"Don't change the subject," Gracie said. "Why did you make me do that? I love my sisters. I've never yelled at them before, I've never snapped at them before. Why did you have to make me do that?"
"Because they're against you, Gracie," the other voice in her head told her. She'd distinguished the two already. One was a deep male voice while the other one was a woman. Both of them wanted the same thing from her, but the woman was the one who always said people were against her. "They're you sisters, and they're getting too close."
"Yes, they are my sisters! They're supposed to be close! They're my identical triplet sisters. All three of us are the same person."
"That's why they're against you. Three's a crowd, Gracie. They've lived in your shadow long enough and they're tired of it. You're the great Gracie Cole. Everyone looks up to you. You're a straight-A student, you've never done anything wrong. You don�t get drunk at those parties your sisters go to, you're a virgin, you're the greatest role model for people out there�they're under your shadow."
"Some shadow," Gracie muttered. "I got suspended from school because of you. They won't let me make up that work. My grades are shot now because you people wanted me to write the theory of evolution on a whiteboard in a Catholic School!! The word evolution is shunned at that school and you had me write it out. And then you make me swear at the teachers and run away�"
"You ran away, Gracie," the male voice said. "We didn't make you run away. You did that on your own. We just made you do everything else."
"Why did you make me do it in the first place?" Gracie asked.
"Because you wouldn't listen to us. You still haven't cut yourself like I told you to," he said.
"Yes I did!" Gracie pulled up her skirt and grazed her fingers over the cut on her upper thigh. "See, it's right here. One nice scar."
"I told you to do it again and you didn't."
"Well if I do it again will you stop torturing me?" There was a long silence, as if the two voices in her head were conferring with each other.
"Yes, we'll stop if you cut yourself again." Gracie got up and went into the bathroom where she stored the box cutter she'd used from the first slashing. She took the razor out and looked at it. The metal was shiny and clean (she'd made sure to clean it after she'd cut herself). It looked very beautiful in her eyes, since she couldn't do much to control her mind.
"Now that's a pretty razor, isn't it?" Gracie nodded, staring at it hypnotically. She ran it along her forefinger, watching the skin tear and the blood meet the surface. The blood beaded at the cut, then slid its way down her finger until it met the connection between her hand and her finger.
It was then when she realized what she was doing and turned on the water in the sink. She put her finger under the water, washing out the cut and then putting a small towel around it.
"I didn't want you to cut yourself there, Gracie. People can see that. And since you did it in the wrong place, I can still bug you until you do it right." Gracie nodded, looking down at her legs.
"All right. Where do you want me to do it?"
"On your other thigh will be just fine." Gracie bit her lip and ran the razor on her thigh. The pain set in instantly, unlike the cut on her finger in which she'd been in a trance. The blood spilled out of this cut; she did it deeper than on the other thigh. The blood trailing down her thigh and dripping onto the floor didn't mesmerize her this time.
"Shit."
"Good girl."