Free The Lost Girl by Sangu Mandanna Page B

acknowledges, “but I can walk you to the train station.”
    I want to tell him he doesn’t have to, but I stop. His eyes are greener than usual in the light from the lamp. I don’t want to go. I’m a girl, but I’m also an echo, and I shouldn’t want to stay. But I do. Have I always felt this way? I don’t know. All I know is, I want to stay and that’s wrong.
    Sean swears under his breath. “Stop looking at me like that,” he says.
    “I wasn’t looking!”
    “Were.”
    “Wasn’t.”
    “If I could—”
    “If I wasn’t—”
    We both stop. Whatever we were going to say, we won’t say it. I turn around and start for the door. Sean follows me. We cross through the house, without waking his mother, and walk out into the night. The air feels good, cold and sharp against my warm skin. I watch the cobbles on the street until Sean takes the plunge and starts talking about the weather , of all things, and I go along with it, leaping from there to discussing a song that’s been overplayed on the radio recently.
    “I had a dream last night,” I tell him, when there’s nothing left to say about the stupid song. “I was flying. I had wings.”
    “I used to have those dreams. When I was six, I used to dress up like Peter Pan, and every time I lost an eyelash, I wished I could fly.”
    I give him an innocent look. “Wow. So your eyelashes made airplanes!”
    He laughs.
    We sit together on a bench at the train station. For one minute I allow myself to think of those movies, where the couple goes to the train station and they kiss good-bye, and it’s sweet and sad and lovely all at once.
    My train pulls in and we stand up and I almost do it. Almost lean up on my toes and kiss him, wrap my arms around his neck, feel his fingers on my skin. But I don’t. I don’t know how.
    And I think of Ophelia, smoking her cigarette and talking about a dead girl. Of Erik telling Mina Ma, years ago, about an echo dying because she—or was it a he?—ran away. Broke the law.
    That’s enough to stop me, this time.
    “What do you dream about?” Sean asks me. “When you’re not dreaming about flying away? Is it always Amarra’s life?”
    “No, I only have the Amarra dreams now and then. Otherwise it’s cities. I always dream of cities.” I don’t tell him about my dreams of the green nursery.
    “What about people?”
    “Sometimes. People in those cities.”
    I step onto the train and turn back to look at him. He’s quiet, says nothing.
    “What do you dream about, Sean?”
    He’s staring at me, but he takes a step back as a whistle blows. I raise my hand to wave as the compartment door starts to slide shut.
    “You,” he says, before the door closes all the way. “I often dream of you.”

8
Desire
    I t’s a good photograph. Beautiful. The sunlight falls perfectly against his face, reflecting sharp and clear off its angles. Brown eyes squint at the light. And that smile, so sweet, sincere, spontaneous, a happy moment captured on film.
    Yes, it’s a splendid piece of work, but it doesn’t change that awful question. Can I love the boy smiling at me from this photograph?
    No, not at me. Smiling at her .
    “Oh.”
    I spin around at the unexpected voice. Sean is standing behind me, staring at the picture I’ve been examining. I want to hide the photograph from him, but I can’t move my hands. I’ve never seen a deer caught in headlights, but I’ve heard it’s like the poor thing’s been frozen, pinned in place, and I feel a little like that now.
    “So this is him?”
    “Yes.”
    “Bit pasty, isn’t he, for an Indian kid?”
    “He’s not pasty .”
    “He’s fairer skinned than you. But you don’t get much of a tan, seeing as you spend your life in this marvelous climate. What’s his excuse?”
    “He’s half French.”
    “How unfortunate for him. Is he called Pierre?”
    “No, as a matter of fact, he isn’t called bloody Pierre. His name’s Ray. I think his mother’s French.”
    “I’m sure