Chapter 11 Anna
Anna
Day fifty-three. Boredom is worst on the weekend, because I can’t even pretend there’s anything I have to do, and my heart’s only half engaged in Lockdown Project Number Two Hundred And Sixty: repainting my Rapanui T-shirt with the last of my acrylics.
This had better work. Mum finally got my T-shirt off me to wash it, but she did it too hot and now it says ‘no hope’ instead of ‘know hope’.
It wasn’t cheap either. I’m absolutely fuming.
I scroll TikTok while it’s drying. Mum reckons TikTok’s just Instagram all over again, but it’s not because the algorithms are completely different.
Mum won’t let me post photos or videos of myself, so my followings are all rubbish.
She knows when I do, even though I’ve got private accounts.
I think she might follow me under a pseudonym or something?
I can’t be bothered to catch her, it’s way too much effort.
There’s not much going on, just the same old dance videos and how-tos.
I switch to Instagram. I’m looking for glow-up stuff, but if I find anything about Julian’s march that would be interesting too, I guess.
Maddie messaged me this morning: wish u wer here xoxo She attached a selfie of her masked up with her placard.
She’s done her eyes all smoky and looks way older than she is.
It’s plastic-based makeup for sure. Sell-out.
Her big brother’s in the background, clearly scowling despite his mask, and I reckon her parents must’ve sent him with her for safety. Haven’t heard anything since.
She’s just posted a story though: five segments, mostly shaky- cam ten-second videos of the march and lots of shouting.
It looks like there’s only about ten people there, which makes me sad.
Weird stuff’s been making me sad since Mum and I screamed at the river on Thursday.
My throat still feels a bit raw from it, but it was totally worth it.
River-shouting should be compulsory, like science.
Maddie’s last story reel is a still shot of her and Julian, definitely not socially distanced, with their arms around each other’s shoulders.
She’s added text: Fightin 4 the planet wiv this gr8 boi.
#noplanetb #activistlife I feel sick. Like hell she’s an activist, not with makeup like that.
Anyway, Julian’s my crush, she can’t go after him, she’s my mate and she wouldn’t do that.
I replay the story. Maybe it’s nothing, just a friendly hug.
Julian’s the huggy type, a real hippy. It’s hard to tell with their masks on, but I think they both seem too happy for it to be a friend thing.
It’s all Mum’s fault, if I were there maybe Julian would have his arm around me instead.
The sick feeling grows, like I’ve eaten a whole giant Toblerone at once.
Not that I eat them anymore now I’m vegan, but that’s what it feels like.
There’s nothing for this situation except Lady Gaga. Jumping on the bed and shouting along really helps.
Mum opens the door without knocking.
‘Mum, oh my God, haven’t you ever heard of privacy?’
Mum turns the volume down on my Bluetooth speaker. ‘Haven’t you ever heard of respecting the neighbours?’
‘It’s not like they’re not loud. The Hiscocks’ new baby was screaming all night downstairs. And Donny has taken up the saxophone. The saxophone! During lockdown! So rude.’
‘Yeah, well don’t encourage him.’ She leans against the doorframe, headphones round her neck. ‘You been crying?’
‘No.’ Not quite.
She pretends to believe me. ‘Boy trouble?’
‘No.’
She nods. ‘Bit cooler today, isn’t it?’
‘I guess.’ It’s not. It’s still boiling.
‘Your T-shirt looks better.’ She gestures to where it’s drying on the floor.
‘No thanks to you.’
‘You know I didn’t mean to,’ she says.
‘You shouldn’t be washing that hot anyway. It wastes energy.’
To her credit she doesn’t rise to it, just does another slow nod. She’s got me in that stare like she knows I need a hug but I’m still too cross to take it. I hate when she’s right. Not that she is this time. I don’t need a hug, I’m fine.
‘Mum.’ I sit on the edge of the bed.
‘Yeah?’
‘Do you think I’m pretty?’
She comes and sits next to me. ‘I think you’re the prettiest girl in the world!’
‘You’re just saying that.’
‘I am not, you’re going to be a stunner when you grow up!’ She puts an arm around me, smelling comfortingly of last night’s garlicky stir-fry and floral antidandruff shampoo.
‘But I need to be a stunner now.’
Mum sighs. ‘What’s Julian done?’
I show her Maddie’s photo. ‘Look, there’s something between them, right?’
Mum frowns at the screen. ‘Who’s she even talking to on this app?’
‘Oh, she’s got loads of followers. She’s becoming kind of an influencer actually.’
‘Two hundred followers does not an influencer make.’ Mum’s frown deepens. ‘Try not to think about it too much, honey. It might be nothing.’
‘What if it isn’t?’
‘Then Julian’s an idiot to pass you up.’ She scruffles my hair and gets up to leave. ‘If you want to listen to loud music, keep it on the headphones, alright?’
After she’s gone, I look at Maddie’s story again.
gr8 boi. Bet I can get makeup as good as that with my homemade stuff.
I’ve got the eyeliner right now, the secret is vitamin E oil.
But Maddie’s done something with her hair too, it’s all curly and intentionally windswept.
I think Mum’s got some rollers I can use.
I don’t want to disturb her again because if she’s working on the weekend that means she’s stressed about a deadline and seriously needs to concentrate.
She won’t mind if I just nip into her room and fetch the curlers; I borrow her stuff all the time, though I’m not sure she definitely knows about it.
She probably does, she knows everything, most of the time before it’s happened, it’s really annoying.
Anyway, she comes into my room whenever she likes, and without knocking.
I tiptoe down the corridor. Mum’s bedroom door squeaks a bit, but it’ll be OK cause she’s coding hard today for a deadline on Monday, and has her noise-cancelling headphones on. My music must actually have been quite loud if she heard it through them.
Mum’s room smells of her special-occasions perfume with the poppy on the bottle and the washing drying in one corner.
Three books about AI are folded into the unmade sheets and the wardrobe door stands slightly ajar.
That’s one good thing about Mum: She never really bothers me about being tidy or doing chores cause she’s rubbish at them herself.
I sneak to the wardrobe and open it. Mum doesn’t have many clothes.
She’s all about ‘coder chic,’ which is shorthand for oversized men’s shirts, jeans, and knock-off trainers.
Sometimes it’s like she’s the teenager. Honestly, working at home isn’t good for her; if she had to go out she’d care more about how she looks.
It’s still a nightmare finding anything in here though, because Mum doesn’t particularly believe in folding or coat hangers.
I basically have to engage in an archaeological mission to unearth the curlers.
Finally, I find them underneath a pair of squashed dusty heels.
At least it’s evidence Mum had a life once.
Beneath the curlers is a collaged box. I’ve never seen it before.
Judging from the peeling glue it must be from when Mum was a kid.
I don’t know what she looked like when she was little—she’s got photos of grandma and grandpa around, but none of her.
None of Dad either. Maybe this is where she’s hiding them.
I pull it out from the tangle of backpack straps and shoelaces with a grim puff of dust. In the sunlight, the collage is pressed flowers, stuck over an old shoebox in layers and layers.
Loopy gold glitter-writing on the lid says, HOPE BOX.
TOP SECRET. NO LOOKING. The back of my neck prickles.
I probably shouldn’t look in here, but I really would love to see a photo of Dad.
Careful in case any of the flowers rip off, I open the lid, and it makes a noise like breezes passing through the allotments.
Inside, it smells like the compost we were making at school in the wildlife garden.
Maddie thinks it stinks, but I don’t mind it.
It’s like the football pitch after the rain when it’s all muddy and green and alive. More evidence she’s a faker.
There’s no photos in the box though. It’s just junk really: shards from a broken mirror, a cracked wristwatch, and broken bits of a pot (probably Archaic Greek, I’ve picked up enough off Mum’s posters to know that).
Some hope box. In amongst the health-and-safety nightmare of broken glass and pottery is a notebook—battered and spiral-bound, nothing special.
It has a tea-stain on it. I pick it out, still hoping for some photos, but it’s nothing like that.
It’s in Mum’s handwriting, but it can’t be as old as the box because it’s neat grown-up writing.
Really settled, not like mine, which is still changing every few months.
I heard you can tell a lot about someone from their writing, and I want mine to only say good things about me, so I keep altering it.
I listen out, but there’s just silence from Mum’s study, so I start reading.
I shouldn’t be writing this down. But I can’t keep it in.
Anna’s only newborn and cries all the time, but her wails are so furious, it’s as if she knows.
And because I’m the only one around to calm and feed her, I’m not sleeping much, so I’m beginning to wonder if I hallucinated the whole thing.
Honestly, I can see why they use sleep deprivation as a torture method.
It’s enough to send you over the edge. I could’ve made it all up.
But then there’s Anna, reminding me with those big, familiar eyes.
It’s real. It really happened. How else do you explain her?
My stomach knots. Mum’s always told me Dad died before I even turned one, at work at the British Museum.
‘Just keeled over in the archive. A heart attack, they happen sometimes to young men, they call them widowmakers.’ But if Mum was the only one around when I was just born that can’t be true.
I close the book. I don’t think I want to know what went on.
Whatever Mum thinks she hallucinated probably really happened, and if she hasn’t told me yet, it’s probably cause she doesn’t think I’m old enough.
Maybe Dad wasn’t a nice guy, maybe that’s why he isn’t around.
Do I want to find that out from a journal? Shouldn’t I wait for Mum to tell me?
Normally, I’d text Maddie with a problem like this, but she’s not being a great friend right now and she’s probably too busy with the march to notice.
I flick through the notebook. It’s pages and pages.
Whatever Mum’s hiding, it’s pretty big—big enough to fill a whole notebook.
She might never tell me, and I might never have another opportunity to get into this box—especially if she notices I’ve been snooping. I open the notebook again, shaking.
It’s like reality’s a bubble, and if I stare at it too long it’ll burst. But I have to put what happened down somewhere—like katharsis.
I might actually have lost it. Might have!
Must have. I can’t take this to a therapist. Any therapist worth their salt would have me committed—and then what would Anna do?
Maybe I should be locked up. Or put on some kind of medication.
But when I think about it, my heart beats like a jackhammer and my hands get all pins-and-needly, and I have the sensation like I’m trying to clamp my own head by denying it.
It really happened. I really was a Traveller.
Still am. Because, I guess, there’s a thread stretching between the me that made the catopthura, piercing through the present me, and tugging all the way into that distant future where I was.
I can’t deny it: I was, am, and will always be a time traveller.
‘You are kidding me.’ I bite my lip and look at the door, momentarily scared Mum might’ve heard me.
I was, am, and will always be a time traveller.
This can’t be real, it’s got to be a rubbish novel she wrote and rightly put in a drawer.
I reread it. It can’t be a novel because she mentions me.
But it also can’t be real. My palms sweat.
Is Mum crazy? She’s never acted insane—I mean she’s got crazy, but she’s never done anything actually mad.
Never acted truly out-of-the-ordinary, even if her obsession with online safety is way out of proportion.
She did get pretty upset down by the river the other day.
But surely I’d know if Mum was crazy? Yeah. I would. I’d know.
I look in the box again, at the mirror shards.
But what if I’m crazy too? What if the-face-that-isn’t-my-face that I see in the mirror is a hallucination?
Like a bad one that’s actually a problem.
As if called into existence by my thinking about it, the face appears again.
It meets my eyes this time, for a long moment, as if the-face-that-isn’t-my-face can see me too.
It’s long enough for me to realise the reflection looks a lot like Mum.
Really almost just like her, but with shorter hair.
Maybe it is Mum. Maybe … Maybe she really is a time traveller.
That sounds ginormously stupid even in my head.
There’s a noise like rain and crowds in here, but it’s just blue skies and empty streets outside.
The sound is real though, the hubbub of so many people clustered together enough to make my eyes swim all over again.
I miss people so much—not a far-off group in a park, but crowds at a street party, or all of us singing hymns in assembly.
Then the-face-that-isn’t-my-face-Mum-in-the-mirror looks away and vanishes.
The hall clock strikes four. Real Mum will finish her pomodoro soon and emerge for a snack. I put everything back, exactly as I found it, curlers and all.
Everything except the notebook, which I tuck under my T-shirt and sneak back to my room. I don’t know who’s crazy here, but I’m going to find out.