Dreamwalker. Part 5

There were none.

It looked at the car one last time and then bounded off to the north, seeking the safety of the deep woods.

6.

MANa.s.sAS.

VIRGINIA.

I FOUND THEM.

I took a while, but not for the reasons one would expect. Turned out there were a thousand pages with changeling in the name; the trick was finding one that didn't refer to a game, novel, movie, or fairy legend. There was no search engine that could help me, so I had to scan every single page by eye, one by one, rejecting any that were focused on popular culture. I didn't know what my page should look like, exactly, but I did know what it shouldn't look like.

It was a slow and frustrating process, and I was nearing the point where I was ready to give up for the night and just go to sleep, when I finally came across a page description that looked promising.

If you aren't your parents' child, but you can't be anything else, then this is your page.

If you don't have a clue what that means, it isn't.

It was a members-only page, so I sent a request to join. Ten minutes later I got a message back, asking about my changeling experience. I gave them the bare bones: DNA didn't match, babies weren't switched, who the h.e.l.l knew what was going on? Heart pounding, I pushed the send b.u.t.ton. Five minute later I was in.

And . . . holy c.r.a.p.

I wandered in awe through forests of data-posts, files, pictures, even a video-from over two hundred people. Apparently my situation wasn't as uncommon as I'd thought. I got the impression from some of the comments that there were a lot more of us out there, who had never joined the online community; apparently some of the "DNA orphans" (as they called themselves) weren't comfortable posting their stories on a public web page. I could certainly understand that. The last thing you wanted, if you were a chimera who defied the laws of science, was to wake up one morning and find your life story featured in a Weirdest Stuff On The Internet blog.

Most of the page's activity seemed to center around the mystery of our existence, but there was a smattering of personal items, including a notice that one of the list members had just died. I scanned the major discussion threads but discovered nothing new or insightful. Alien invasion, supernatural influence, government conspiracy, covert medical experiments . . . there weren't all that many ent.i.ties you could blame for a global conspiracy to switch babies in their cradles. Sadly, I realized I was not going to find answers there. But the sense of community was refres.h.i.+ng, and it was good to talk to people who understood what I was going through. So I stayed. I chatted. Long into the night and past sunrise, I typed.

Mom had to call me three times to get me to come down to breakfast. When she saw the shadows of sleeplessness under my eyes she asked if I had caught Tommy's internet bug, and would she now have to pry me loose from the computer with a crowbar, too? She was smiling, but in her eyes I could see concern. I a.s.sured her I was fine.

When she turned away to get some more orange juice, Tommy looked at me, a question in his eyes. I nodded. He grinned and gave me a thumbs-up.

School was maddening that day. Even art cla.s.s was intolerable. I wanted to be home, on my computer, exploring the great mystery of my life-not stuck in a cla.s.sroom listening to a teacher drone on about how we should attempt to make the summer "academically enriching." As soon as the final bell rang I rushed home to see if there were any new messages waiting. There were. Nearly a hundred of them. Mostly from people who wanted to tell me their life stories, or wanted to hear about mine. Or commenting on my comments about their comments. Or inviting me to join another discussion group.

One stood out from the crowd.

You're in Mana.s.sas? Rita and I are right next door. We should all get together and chat live. Devon.

I paused for a moment, trying to remember if I'd told anyone where I lived. Usually I was more circ.u.mspect than that online-you never knew who you were talking to. But I'd been very tired last night, and maybe I slipped up. Not to mention I probably had a few online profiles with the name of my school on them. Everything was interconnected these days, and sometimes profiles followed you around like stray puppy dogs. So the information was out there for the finding.

Still. Call me paranoid.

I stared at the keyboard for a few minutes, then typed, How do I know you're not some crazy psychopathic killer? Jesse.

The answer came immediately.

This isn't Craigslist. :-P I grinned, then typed, Seriously.

I expected another smart-a.s.s comment in return. Or maybe he would try to rea.s.sure me. I figured I could learn a lot about him from how he went about that.

What I got was a name and number. Dr. Jason Tilford. The number was an extension in Fairfax Hospital.

Ask my dad.

I blinked. References. This guy had just given me references.

That was . . . strangely cla.s.sy.

How could you not want to meet someone like that?

The IHOP was nearly empty when I arrived, the worst of the dinner traffic having died down long ago. I looked the place over to see if my contacts were there yet, but it didn't appear so.

Mom had actually called Devon's dad. Turned out he was a doctor of estimable rank and reputation, and no, of course he didn't mind that she'd called, because you couldn't be too careful about people on the internet, right? He a.s.sured her that his son was a good kid, then she a.s.sured him that I was a good kid, and everyone agreed that two good kids meeting for the first time should do so in a public place.

I chose a table at the back of the IHOP and sat facing the door. A waitress came by several times to ask if I was ready to order yet, and "I'm waiting for someone" didn't seem to be an acceptable answer, so eventually I ordered a lemonade. Truth be told, I was too nervous to eat or drink anything, but it made me feel less guilty about taking up s.p.a.ce there.

I put my book on the table. I waited.

Two couples wandered in, then a family with kids. They all found seats and ordered food.

I waited.

Maybe they're not really coming, I told myself nervously. Maybe they chickened out. Or maybe they would show up, and I was about to share my worst insecurities with strangers.

I spilled some sugar on the table and started sketching patterns of fate in it. My version of a nervous twitch.

Then a mismatched pair of teens walked in, and I knew as soon as I saw them that it was my contacts. You could have guessed just from the way they carried themselves-clearly they'd come here for something more significant than pancakes-but the flower the guy was carrying made it a no-brainer. I'd suggested we both carry books with flowers tucked into them so that we could identify each other on sight; it was a trick I'd seen in a play once. My own copy of The Hunger Games was sitting on the table in pain view, with a dandelion sticking out the top. This guy was carrying something book-sized that had a flower tucked into its cover, but it wasn't a real book. It took me a minute to identify it, but when I did I smiled. A Kindle. Cute.

When they looked my way I pointed to my own book on the table and gestured for them to come join me.

I'm not sure why it surprised me that Devon turned out to be black. He was a good-looking guy, with dark skin and long, lean features. He was also tall-very tall-and his height was all in his legs, which gave him the look of a marathon runner. Although he was dressed in a simple T-s.h.i.+rt and jeans, something about the cut of them suggested money, and I noted that his Nikes were brand new. Mom always said that you could tell a lot about a person from two things: the condition of his shoes and how he tips in a restaurant.

Rita was a small, wiry girl, with dark hair, piercing eyes, and an aura of barely suppressed energy about her. Though she seemed to be roughly my age, there was something about her that hinted at more life experience than teenagers usually had, the majority of it probably not pleasant. There was a wariness about her, almost feral in essence, like a cat trapped in an unfamiliar environment. I saw her glance at both exits as she entered, as if taking note of where they were. I guessed that she'd had to bolt for an exit more than once in her life.

Devon smiled as they approached me. The expression seemed genuine enough. "Jessica?"

I nodded, and shook the hand that he offered me. "Jesse is fine."

"I'm Devon. This is Rita."

Rita said "Hi," but didn't offer any physical contact. She glanced around the room one last time as she slid into the booth, tucking herself into the corner of the seat with her back to the wall. Devon followed. A waitress came over with menus as they settled in, but Devon said that they wouldn't need any, as they already knew what they wanted. He ordered a milk shake for himself and nachos for the table. Rita just wanted a soda.

Then we were alone together. There was a moment of awkward silence in which we all sized each other up, wondering how you were supposed to start a conversation in a situation like this. Finally Devon broke the ice. "So, my father's a doctor, you know that already. He found out about a genetic condition that ran in my mother's family and wanted to screen me for it. Turned out I didn't have that condition . . . or anything else that runs in the family. So then he checked my birth records, looking for a breach of protocol, but everything was clean. There's no explanation for why I'm not who I'm supposed to be. Right now we're all pretending nothing's wrong, while he tries to think of some new angle to test." He shook his head and added in a sober tone, "Creepy thing is I look just like him. Dead ringer."

He looked at Rita. She had one foot on the seat and her knee was drawn up to her chest. "Paternity case," she said quietly. "I was just a little kid when the test was done, and they never told me any more than I had to know, so I don't have any details. I do know I was a home birth, so there was never any question about who my mother was. Until that test." She shrugged stiffly. "I don't think anyone cared enough to follow up on it."

Devon said gently, "Rita wound up in foster care."

"No great loss." Rita snorted. "My birth family was nothing to write home about."

It was my turn. I drew in a deep breath and said, "My dad left us years ago. He's a bit crazy, and when he started raging about how I wasn't really his daughter, Mom offered a paternity test to shut him up." I was aware of an echo of pain in my voice. "So . . . the test said I wasn't his kid, or Mom's. But the hospital has told me that I can't be anyone else's kid, so right now I'm in limbo. They're redoing the DNA test just in case there was some kind of mistake, and we should get the results on Monday. But I expect they'll be the same as the first time."

"Sheesh," Devon said, shaking his head. "How's your mother taking it?"

I sighed. "As well as can be expected. She's not going to disown me or anything." I thought I saw Rita flinch. "Beyond that . . . I don't know."

So there we were. Three genetic anomalies. Teenagers who should not exist. It made for a surreal sense of connection, like I hadn't just met these guys ten minutes ago. Somehow, in a way I didn't totally understand, I felt as if we'd been connected for years.

"How many of us do you think there are?" I asked. "I mean all together, not just the ones who joined that page?"

Devon shook his head. "No way to know. My father works with an Indian doctor, who says that babies get switched pretty often in his country. State hospitals there are large, overcrowded, and understaffed. Mistakes happen. But when one of those mistakes is discovered, doctors a.s.sume the real parents are out there somewhere, waiting to be tracked down. No one is looking for . . ." He floundered for the proper word.

"Chimeras?" I offered.

"Changelings," Rita counteroffered.

The waitress brought over our food. We were silent until she left.

"I've seen some other groups on the internet," Rita said. She pulled a nacho from the cheese-covered heap in the middle of the table with practiced dexterity. "Mostly young people. I'm not sure if adults don't get tested as often, or if their lives are just so settled that when they find out about something like this they figure it's best to just pretend it never happened."

"They may not spend as much time online as we do," I offered. But I knew that was a lame explanation. Tommy knew adults who spent more time playing World of Warcraft than he did.

"I've talked to folks from all over the world," Devon said. "US, Canada, Europe, Australia, Russia . . . it's amazing how similar all the stories are. Whatever is going on appears to be global."

"Tell her about the Chinese guy," Rita said.

"Taiwanese," he corrected her, then he said to me, "Chen's father was a geneticist. Supposedly he a.s.signed a whole government lab to his kid's case. Found all sorts of anomalies, Chen said. Stuff that should have been in any human DNA, but wasn't in his. He wasn't allowed to give us details, but he did tell us that, thus far, they'd found no good explanation for it."

"I'm kind of surprised that didn't make the news," I said. "The tabloids would have loved it."

"You may not see anything about it in the popular press, but my dad has the right connections, and he told me there's a network of scientists who are pooling their resources to determine just how widespread the problem is. They want to get some solid data before they reveal anything to the public."

"Can you imagine the panic there'll be when that happens?" Rita whistled softly. "The alien abduction crowd will have a field day."

I stirred the ice in my lemonade without responding. I'm sure we were all thinking the same thing, but no one wanted to say it out loud. What if the nutjobs were right? What if we really weren't human?

That was just too crazy to think about. There had to be a simpler-and more reasonable-explanation. "So what happened to the Taiwanese guy?" I asked.

"Out of touch now." A shadow pa.s.sed fleetingly across Devon's face. "Chen warned us that might happen. He said that if his dad's people started asking too many questions, he would cut off contact with us so that we wouldn't get dragged into things. A little while after he said that, he cancelled his Gmail account; no one's heard from him since."

His voice trailed off into silence. The kind of silence where you know that important things are not being said.

"Tell her," Rita said softly.

"Tell me what?" I asked.

For a moment Devon said nothing. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out an iPhone. I could see the logo flash as he brought up the Changelings page, then he scrolled down to one of the more recent posts and handed the phone to me. "Here," he said. His expression was solemn. "Read for yourself."

To all Sarah's friends: I'm sorry to have to tell you that my daughter died in a car accident yesterday. They think she lost control of the car while trying to avoid something in the road. I'm told she died on impact. If any of you were close enough to her that you'd like to attend the funeral, message me through this account and I'll send you directions. We are located in upstate New York. -Sarah's mom.

"I saw that earlier," I said, handing him back the phone.

He shook his head. "No, you didn't."

"Yes," I insisted. "When I first joined the page. I remember thinking, 'Wow, that's one h.e.l.l of a welcome message.'"

"Check the timestamp," he said quietly.

I took the phone from him again and did so.

The message he'd just shown me had been posted while I was driving to the restaurant.

Perplexed, I scrolled down the page, looking for another post I remembered reading. I didn't have to go far.

This is Di's father. I regret to inform you that we lost our daughter today. She was struck by a hit-and-run driver and died before she could make it to the hospital. She once asked me to let her friends know if anything bad ever happened to her, so I'm doing that. She said to send her love, and to tell you all to stay safe.

Slowly I put the phone down. For a moment I just stared at it, not saying anything. For as long as I didn't ask questions I could pretend this didn't mean what it seemed to.

"There've been other deaths in the group," Rita said quietly.

I finally found my voice. "How many?"

"Eight so far." Devon said. "There are probably more we don't know about. Not everyone's family thinks to post notices to their friends."

He took the phone back and put it in his pocket. Then he waited. They both waited. Respectfully silent, mercifully silent, while I struggled to digest the terrible implications of what they had just told me.

"Do the police know?" I finally asked.

Rita shrugged stiffly. "What are the cops going to do? Every death has a different cause, and they're spread out all across the world. No one's going to believe they're connected."

"These two were both car accidents," I pointed out.