My Name is Rachel Neele

“My name is Rachel Neele.”

There is a reservation under that name so they take me up to my room. It was a long day today, I think. I cannot remember any of it; it must have been long. I peel my clothes off of me and climb into the shower. I am shaky on my legs, I need to hold myself up by holding the walls and the door of the shower. 

This headache is getting worse. 

I clean my hair. 

The water that washes down the drain is tinged red. 

Did I dye my hair like that? 

I try to think, but I find that there are few thoughts there. Everything feels shattered, disconnected. I squeeze my eyes closed like a child. 

I must have dyed my hair, why else would the water be red?

I touch my hair and my hand comes away red. A moment of panic overcomes me. I rush to the sink, nearly falling over myself, and stare at my reflection. 

My head is split open at my hairline, leaving a mess of dried blood and watery blood dripping down my face. I scrub at it. The dried blood comes away, but the gash still remains. 

I dry myself off. I never take my eyes from my reflection. Not until I leave the bathroom. I wonder if I have always looked like this. Then I reason that I have never felt this tired before. 

I dress quickly then I take the phone from its hook and call down to the front desk. I ask for a doctor. They say that I did not answer the door when he knocked. I tell them that he didn’t knock. They say they will send him again. I end the call baffled. I would have heard a knock. 

I hear it this time and answer it immediately. The doctor is not polite with me. He pokes and prods and grumbles as he does it all. 

“What did you do?” 

“I don’t know.”

“How hard did you hit your head?”

“It mustn’t have been very hard if I don’t remember it.”

The doctor eyes me. “I think you hit your head very hard.”

I bristle at this. “I am not a silly woman, Doctor.”

He appears alarmed. I have put him on edge. I frown as he mumbles his half-hearted apologies and explains something about my head. I just think that I know my own head. I cannot concentrate on what else he says.

“What is your name?”

“My name is Rachel Neele.”

“What is the date today, Miss Neele?”

“April the 5th.”

The doctor frowns at my answer and gives me a look. “Miss Neele, that was the date two days ago.”

I bristle again. “No, it is the date today.”

The doctor reaches for the paper on the bedside table and hands it to me, jabbing a finger at the date. It says ‘April the 7th’ underneath the title. 

I gasp and hold the paper closer to my face. Then my eyes scan the page and catch on a picture. A picture of me! I gasp again and show the doctor the picture. I point to it.

The doctor nods gruffly. He is taking something from his doctor’s bag. I think it is some type of plaster. 

“I think you have hit your head very badly, Miss Neele. I think you have a concussion.”

I ignore what he is saying. “What am I in the paper for?”

There is my picture and underneath it says my name. The headline reads something that does not make sense. It reads, “Rachel Neele: I had nothing to do with her disappearance”. 

I wave the doctor off as I continue to read. My eyes are blurry. I read that I gave a statement to the press about the missing person, one Mrs Agnes Reeves. I stated to the press that I had nothing to do with her disappearance. She has been missing for three days. The paper goes on to outrageously claim that I had had a rather public affair with Mrs Reeves’ husband. 

Upon reading this, I shoot from my seat, crunching the paper in my hand. I never had an affair in my life!

The doctor is trying to calm me. His hands are up and outstretched. I wobble on my feet, but I show him the article. I jab my finger at it. My voice is too loud as I try to explain. There are tears beginning to choke me. I do not know where they came from.

The doctor takes the paper away from me, snatching it from my grasp. I plead for it back. I ask him why they have said such things. I just came to this hotel to relax. I wanted to get away. I would never have an affair with a man with a wife! Especially not a man whose wife is missing. 

The doctor turns from me, angling himself so that my reaching hands can’t rip the paper away from him. I want to tear it up. I want it to disappear. But he is reading it, his eyes scanning the page. I wonder how many other people have read it and fight harder to take it away. 

The doctor is a big man and I am clumsy, he does not give up the paper. He takes a moment more of me fighting him. He turns to me and looks me up and down. 

“Miss Neele, this woman doesn’t look like you at all!”

“What do you mean? That’s me!”

The doctor, frowning heavily, asks me to follow him into the bathroom. He asks me to face the mirror and then he holds up the picture of me in the paper. The woman in the mirror looks nothing like me, but the one in the paper is almost my exact reflection, just standing there in front of reporters instead. I look between the two.

“How has my face changed so much?”

The doctor ignores this and says, “What is your real name?”

“My name is Rachel Neele.”

The doctor frowns. “I think you are actually Mrs Reeves.” The doctor turns the paper over and shows an image of the missing Mrs Reeves. She is identical to the woman in the mirror. I glance between the two of them. Yes, entirely identical. 

I see the face in the mirror is stricken just like I am. The wound on my forehead is patched over now. I feel a lump forming in my throat. I have so many questions. I do not know Mrs Reeves. I am not even married. 

I glance down at my hand. There is no ring. There is no marriage, then. But a sneaking voice in the back of my mind makes me look closer. There is a tan line. A thin line where my skin is ghostly pale. There used to be a band there. 

But, no! There was never a band there.

I have never worn a wedding ring. 

“I would like you to come with me, Mrs Reeves. You have hit your head far worse than I had thought.”

I am not Agnes Reeves.