Blue

The room is painted blue. The wooden bed frame, the quilt, the sheets, the nightstand, the lamp, the doorknobs, the window panes, the slippers by the bed. All blue.

She remembers the color before she remembers her own name. Blue.

Then, Clara.

Is that her name? No, someone else’s. She looks at her reflection in the mirror. No, Clara is someone else.

There is a knock on the bedroom door, and the door swings open. A man with a swirled mustache, wearing an early-20th-century butler’s uniform, stands in the doorway, holding a silver tray.

“May I come in?” he says.

Not-Clara nods.

He proceeds a few steps and dips into a dramatic bow as he presents the tray: “Your morning tea, madame.”

Not-Clara does not move. The man in the butler’s costume does not unbend, and Not-Clara does not for the baby blue tea cup and saucer in the center of the oversized tray. They are still for an impossibly indeterminate amount of time.

“Am I dead?” Not-Clara asks.

The butler does not acknowledge her question. He does not rise. She picks up the teacup, leaving the saucer, ignoring the pastel blue ceramic milk pitcher and the pile of blue sugar cubes. The tea is blue, too.

Pea flower, she thinks.

The man unbends, his mustache upturning as he smiles. He is her height exactly.

“You are on vacation, madame,” the butler says. “I hope you enjoy your stay.” He closes the door behind him on his way out.

Not-Clara sits on the bed and drinks her tea. She has a distant, detached sense that she should be alarmed by her current situation, or frightened, but she is not. She feels nothing, but she is not numb. She wonders if this is the happiest she has ever been.

Another knock, and the door opens again—a woman this time, more like Not-Clara’s reflection in size and shape, but not in color. She is pale, almost ghostly, with eyes that match the room, wearing a loose cotton set in pure eggshell white.

“Hi there,” the woman says in a singsong voice. “You can call me Wendy.”

“Hi Wendy,” Not-Clara says. She frowns. “I don’t remember my name.”

“That’s okay! You don’t need one here,” Wendy replies.

Wendy guides her down a bright hallway to a white room, empty except for two white rubber mats and a vintage wired TV set. Wendy sits cross-legged on one of the mats and motions for Not-Clara to sit on the other.

A video plays on the screen. “This is morning yoga with Siena,” a chipper blonde woman says. Wendy copies the movements of the woman, and Not-Clara copies Wendy. They follow along with Siena for the length of the video—stretching, holding, stretching, holding.

“Now that you’ve warmed up your muscles, you’re ready to start your day!” Siena says. The screen goes dark.

Wendy leads her through a kitchen to a garden filled with pink knock-out roses and orange lantana. Wendy hands Not-Clara a pair of gloves and a small shovel. Together, they sit on their knees on plush kneeling pads. They do not speak. Not-Clara pulls the weeds between her fingers, digging out the deeper ones with the shovel, and Wendy prunes the knockout roses with a pair of gardening shears. When Wendy is satisfied with their work, she fills a copper watering can from a hose in the corner of the yard and douses the plants. Not-Clara feels faintly pleased.

Sweating and covered in a thin layer of dirt, Wendy takes her back to the kitchen. There is a pot on the stove that Not-Clara did not notice before, letting out a steam that fills the room with the faint scent of green chilis. Wendy ladles soup from the pot into two bowls, and they sit on wooden stools around a tall granite countertop to eat. The soup is hot, in temperature and in spice. It’s filled with cubes of chicken and little white kernels that could be dumplings, or vegetables, or a type of grain. Not-Clara picks one of the kernels out of her bowl with her fingers and crushes it between her fingers. Soup dribbles down her arm.

“Hominy,” Wendy says, watching her. Clara nods.

“Wendy,” she says. “Where am I?”

“You’re on vacation,” Wendy says.

After they eat, they go down another hallway. Wendy opens a door onto a deck, overlooking a sandy beach with crystal blue water. Not-Clara laughs with surprise.

“I didn’t know we were at the beach!” she exclaims. Wendy beams at her.

Wendy guides her to a singular beach chair on the shore, feet from the water.

“I have some work to do inside, but you’ll be fine here on your own. You can swim, if you want, or I brought you something to read.” Wendy hands her a book titled Great Expectations.

Not-Clara alternates between reading and swimming. She lets the waves wash her body up to shore and creates angel outlines in the sand. She finishes the book as the sun sets, the words of the last page barely illuminated by the dying light. And when she closes the book, Wendy is there again.

“Ready for dinner?” Wendy asks.

Dinner is in a different room—the dining room, Wendy says. The butler from the morning brings them each a plate of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and green peas.

“Ice cream or pie?” Wendy asks her once they’ve finished.

“Ice cream,” Not-Clara decides.

—————

The next day is the same—tea, yoga, garden, lunch, beach, book, dinner, bed. She reads Pride and Prejudice. The next day: Catcher in the Rye. Then Treasure Island. The Hobbit. Jane Eyre.

On the seventh day, after she drinks her tea, Wendy greets Not-Clara with a surprise.

“We have a guest today,” Wendy says.

Wendy leads her to the kitchen.

“What about my garden?” Not-Clara asks.

“It’ll be fine until tomorrow.”

In the kitchen, the countertop is arrayed with a spread of foods Not-Clara recognizes but has not yet tasted. At least, not that she remembers. There are biscuits and gravy, grits, bacon, scrambled eggs, and an orange and green fruit salad in an ornate crystal bowl.

A woman is already sitting on one of the stools. She stands up when she sees Not-Clara and moves to hug her.

Wendy raises her arm to block her. “Not yet,” she says. The woman sits back down, and Not-Clara takes the seat to her right.

“Hello,” Not-Clara says.

“Hi,” the woman says, quietly. They sit in silence for a few moments.

“What’s your name?” Not-Clara asks.

“Clara,” the woman says.

Not-Clara laughs. Wendy and the woman both startle.

“No, it isn’t,” Not-Clara says. The woman, Supposedly-Clara, looks at her, then at Wendy, then back to her. And then she starts to cry.

“Oh no,” Not-Clara mumbles. “No, no, no.” Wendy stands.

“You can be Clara, if you want,” Not-Clara says quickly. “I was just surprised to hear that name.” Clara nods and tries to smile. The kitchen is silent but for the sound of her quiet sniffling.

“Clara, can you guess what book we read yesterday?” Wendy asks.

“Was it something by Jane Austen?” Clara guesses, wiping away her tears.

“Close,” Wendy says. “She read Jane Eyre.”

Wendy turns her attention to Not-Clara. “Clara is a professor of 19th-century British literature,” she says.

“Oh?” Not-Clara says. “I liked Pride and Prejudice too.”

Clara smiles. “You should read Emma next,” she says.

Not-Clara leans over the edge of the countertop and grabs Clara’s hand conspiratorily.

“Can I ask you something, Clara?” she says. Clara nods.

“Where am I?”

Clara’s eyes fill with tears again, and she looks over to Wendy for a long time before her gaze shifts back to Not-Clara.

“You’re on vacation,” she says.

—————

When Clara visits next, Not-Clara has read Emma.

“Who was your favorite character?” Clara asks her.

Not-Clara frowns. “I don’t remember,” she says. She can tell that Clara is dissatisfied with her answer. “No, actually, I do. It was Emma,” she lies.

Clara tilts her head, smiles, and squints at her. “I can still tell when you’re lying,” she says.

“I’m not lying. I liked her the best,” Not-Clara says.

“Really? What did you like about her?” Clara asks.

“I don’t remember,” Not-Clara says.

—————

The following week, Clara comes to visit wearing a suit. Wendy lets her hug Not-Clara this time, and Not-Clara cannot decide if she likes the contact. It makes her feel strange.

“You look nice,” Not-Clara says.

“Thank you,” Clara says, sitting on her stool.

Clara tells her about a presentation she’s giving that day, on the aesthetics of the Brontë sisters.

“Who are the Brontë sisters?” Not-Clara asks.

“You know, like Charlotte Brontë.”

Not-Clara shakes her head.

“Charlotte Brontë, you know, who wrote Jane Eyre?”

“Oh, I don’t think I’ve read that one yet,” Not-Clara says.

Clara glares at Wendy.

—————

The crystal bowl is filled with red fruits this week, and Clara is telling Not-Clara about her favorite former students. One girl, who graduated two years ago, has just published an article in an online magazine comparing a pop singer’s breakup songs to Jane Austen’s characters.

Not-Clara is bored, but she listens patiently.

“Do you have any kids?” Not-Clara asks when she’s done talking.

Clara laughs. “No,” she says.

“Do you have a husband?”

Clara stares at her for a long time before she looks away. Not-Clara can see her eyes filling up with tears.

“Sorry,” Not-Clara says. “I didn’t know that was a sensitive subject.”

“It’s okay,” Clara says, and rests her hand on top of Not-Clara’s.

“I don’t have a husband,” she says.

—————

“Clara, where am I?” Not-Clara asks again the following week.

“You’re on vacation, of course,” she responds, then mumbles something under her breath.

When Not-Clara doesn’t respond, she whispers again, only barely louder, “I’m trying to get you out of here.”

“What do you mean?” Not-Clara asks.

Clara shushes her. “I don’t understand exactly what they’ve done to you, I mean, I’ve seen your body and I’ve been trying to read up on the science behind it, but it’s still beyond me.”

“I don’t understand,” Not-Clara says. Clara ignores her.

“Whatever of you is left in there, I need you to try to fight. I need you to try to hold on to as many memories as you can until I get you out.”

Wendy is behind Not-Clara suddenly, pulling her off the kitchen stool by her arms and dragging her away.

“What’s going on?” Not-Clara asks.

“Shhhh,” Wendy says. “You’ll feel better once you’ve had some sun.”

—————

As Not-Clara turns the last page of The Awakening, a rare thought enters her mind: “Something isn’t right.”

The thought has barely arrived when another follows: “I want to go home.”

“How ridiculous,” she says to herself. “This is my home.”

“Go,” the voice in her mind responds. “You need to run.”

Something in her body rises, and takes her to the shore. She imagines herself as Edna, her dresses billowing around her waist as she walks into the water. She closes her eyes. She walks until her head is below the waves, then further. Her body does not try to float the way she expected it to. Her lungs scream for air, and as her vision goes black, she imagines Clara framed by a bright halo of light.

She gasps for air, and her lungs find it. She is six feet underwater, and she is breathing. A calm settles over her, and she realizes she already knew this was how it would be. She knew she could not drown here. She walks up and away from the depths, and when her eyes rise above the waves, she sees Wendy waiting for her.

“Did you have a good swim?” Wendy asks, smiling.

Not-Clara nods.

By the next time she wakes, she has forgotten about the incident in the kitchen and the non-drowning. She has forgotten the Brontës, again, and the story about Clara’s favorite student.

What she remembers: Hominy, roses, pea flower tea, the smell of salt, a book about a woman who dies, maybe, or perhaps just goes for a swim, and Clara’s face against a backdrop of searing light.

—————

Clara does not come back to visit the next week.

Wendy lets her spend the whole day at the beach, in the absence of a visitor, but Not-Clara cannot focus on her book. At dinner, when Wendy asks about her daily reading, Not-Clara finds she doesn’t remember the title. She is overwhelmed with a sudden feeling of dread, an emotion she only recognizes because she thinks she might have read about it somewhere.

“Wendy, am I real?” She asks.

Wendy laughs, then looks at her very seriously. “Yes, you are real.”

“Wendy,” she says again. Wendy looks at her curiously. “Yes?”

“Are you real, too?”

Wendy only smiles in response.

—————

In her blue room, on the fifteenth day since Clara’s first absence, Not-Clara wonders once again if she is dead. She does not feel dead when she’s swimming, or when she’s eating. She does not feel dead when she’s stretching with Wendy in the morning, feeling her muscles stretch and hearing her joints pop. She wonders if perhaps she is insane, and the tea they bring her in the morning is not tea at all but rather a strong sedative, which keeps her calm and strange and forgetful. Perhaps it is not such a bad thing to be strange and forgetful, if you can also be calm.

—————

One morning, while she and Wendy are walking down the long hallway to their morning stretch, Not-Clara hears Clara’s voice. It is coming from nowhere and everywhere, as if she were speaking through an intercom. She sounds like she’s arguing with someone Not-Clara cannot hear.

“Just let me talk to her, please,” she can hear Clara begging.

“Do you hear that?” Not-Clara asks Wendy. Wendy looks at her with a blank expression.

“I don’t hear anything,” Wendy says.

That night, when Not-Clara lies down in her blue bed, she finds she can’t sleep. Every time she closes her eyes, she hears Clara’s voice.

“Try to hold on to as many memories as you can,” she says to herself in the dark. She gets out of bed. It has never occurred to her to leave the room on her own. She has always waited for the butler or Wendy.

“Try to hold on to as many memories as you can,” she says again. She reaches for the doorknob.

It is unlocked. She is in the hallway now, and she is running. The butler reaches for her out of the darkness, trying to pin her arms behind her back, but she shakes him off. She is faster than he is. She is going to make it. She is going to get out.

An alarm sounds overhead.

“Prisoner 237, return to your room,” a man’s voice says. She keeps running.

“Clara!” She yells.

“Prisoner 237, return to your room.”

She reaches for the first door she sees that she doesn't recognize. It is a deep mahogany, a striking contrast against the lighter woods of the rest of the house.

“Prisoner 237, return to your room.”

This door is locked with a deadbolt and a chain, and her fingers fumble as she rushes to unlock it.

“Prisoner 237—”

She throws open the door.

There is nothing beyond the doorway.

No floor, no ceiling, no ground or sky or horizon line.

There is only blue—a pure, suffocating, luminescent blue.