Sangu Mandanna - The Lost Girl

The Lost Girl

Sangu Mandanna

For Lekha, for whom Id have stitched an echo if Id had a Loom

Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world.

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

Contents

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I remember being in town with Mina Ma. I must have been about ten. She wanted to buy a lottery ticket, and I stood outside the corner store and looked in the window of the toy shop next door. There was a man in the shop, sitting on a stool with a knife and a large piece of wood in his hands. He worked at the wood with the knife, chipping and whittling away, shaping the wood into arms, little legs, a face. I watched him smooth the rough edges with sandpaper, then pick up a wig of soft, almost black hair and fasten it with glue to the dolls head. Finally he sewed a tiny white dress and buttoned it around the doll. The whole thing looked like dancing. His hands moved so delicately, so lovingly .

When I imagine how I was made, thats how I imagine it. I dont know the reality, of course; no one will ever fully explain it. Mina Ma once told me there was fire. Erik said they stitch us together. So I imagine my Weaver sitting at a great oak desk in a workshop. The sunlight glints off the wood. I imagine hes got a bit of my others skin, a bit of her self , and he uses it to make me look just like her. To put a bit of her soul into me. As for the rest, he stitches me together from pieces of someone else, someone long dead, perhaps. He smokes out the old bones to clean them. He burns the old flesh to whittle it down. He uses fire to make me fit the mold he wants to cast. He stitches my infant self to life, weaving in little organs, a few fine baby hairs, a tiny white dress. He glues my edges together. It looks like dancing. But his handsno matter how many times I imagine my creation, his hands never move like they love me. Because they dont.

I suppose its one of those things I have always known. The Weavers create us, but they dont love us. They stitch us together. They make sure we grow up knowing, always, that we belong to them.

Its early. I can smell the wet grass outside, the sharp, clean morning air that turns warm and breezy over the lake later on. Its too early to be awake, but I get dressed and tiptoe out of my room, past Mina Mas, to the French windows at the foot of the cottage. The windows gleam in the sunlight. Only a few weeks ago, they were dirty and splattered with eggs. The town kids thought itd be funny. I remember looking at the pattern of egg yolks and having the strangest idea that it spelled MONSTER . That was what they called me, when they cornered me down by the lake a few days before the egg-splattering. I think they came because they wanted to know if the rumor about the girl in the cottage was true. It turned nasty fast, and I hit one of them in the face. He was twice my size. I got away with a black eye, a bloody lip, and a sense of savage satisfaction because I did what I wanted for once.

My other would have walked away. I dont think she fights against something if she doesnt like it; she has this soft, sensible way of accepting it. Erik and Mina Ma tell me that kind of grace is a more admirable quality than ferocity. They tell me that is how I should be. Her. Mina Ma thinks I like being contrary. Sometimes, she says, I think that if she were a rowdy, angry little thing, youd be soft and quiet just to be difficult. But its not true. Its simpler than that: I dont think Im much like her. I threw her favorite food on the floor when I was five. While she sat on her fathers knee and polished dusty artifacts, I secretly made sculptures of birds out of wet paper and candle wax. When I was seven, I begged Mina Ma to take me to a movie in town even though I knew my other hadnt seen it. These are small things. Risky, but not dangerous. Ive learned the difference.

I touch the glass of the French windows. I was very lucky to escape that fight without lasting consequences. My guardians were appalled. Ophelia should have told the Weavers about it. Only she didnt.

Erik didnt say much, but the disappointed look on his face spoke volumes. We can only lie for you so many times, he told me. We cant protect you if you defy their laws.

Sorry tripped to my tongue, but seemed inadequate. It didnt matter. Erik hadnt finished. Its not just the Weavers, either. What about those little brats? Dont you think they might tell their parents theyve found an echo? People talk .

I knew what he was really afraid of: hunters. That they might find out about me. Only I guess the kids didnt talk, or Erik stopped word from getting out, because nothing has happened since. There has been no witch hunt, no flaming torches at our door. No quiet attacks in the dark.

I check the mail, littered under the slot in the front door. There are two bills for Mina Ma and a blank postcard for me. I know its from Sean, the youngest of my guardians. No one else sends me anything in the mail. He knows that, and he lives less than an hour away from us, but he still sends me postcards once a month. Ive got them tucked between Oliver Twist and These Old Shades on my bookshelf, tied together with ribbon.

At the time, Sean made it clear he didnt think fighting was a clever thing to do either. His tone annoyed me enough to say, quite unjustly, Well, if it had been you , I bet theyd have battered you.

I dont batter so easily, thanks very much, he replied. And if youll notice, Im the one who can still eat without having to aim for an uninjured bit of my mouth.

It was difficult to argue with logic like that.

I watch telly until Mina Ma wakes up and bustles out of her room. We make breakfast. Eggs and bacon. I dont like eggs. Its the yolk. The way it squidges out makes me feel ill. I try not to touch it when we wash the plates afterward.

Mina Ma laughs. Dont be so insufferably idiotic, child. Its not infected .

Its like her to laugh and scold me in the same breath. I love her more than anything in the whole world. She left India close to fifteen years ago, when the Weavers offered her a job as my caretaker. We live here together. She raised me. Ever since she took me from the Weavers Loom as a baby, she has loved me. And ever since she chased a doctor out of the house with a rolling pin, after he referred to me as it, I have loved her.

Once weve put away the breakfast dishes, its time for my lessons. I put together a neat pile of textbooks and notes.

I have a routine that doesnt change much. I study a girl far away. Shes the original to my copy. She haunts me. Everything I do depends on her. And on her parents, my familiars, the two people who asked the Weavers to make me.

I learn what she learns. I eat what she eats. I sleep. Mina Ma teaches me small things every day. How to make rice in a pressure cooker. How to pronounce Indian names and words properly. She tells me about Bangalore, where my other lives. I could find my way around that city blindfolded by now. On Tuesdays and Fridays, Ophelia comes to the house to check me over. She asks me questions, examines me, takes blood. No one would call her medically qualified. She struggles to do subtraction in her head, fumbles with her instruments and notes, and I often hear her saying rude things under her breath about stupid big words. But shes learned enough about echoes to keep me healthy. All I care about, though, is that shes friendly and funny and I can trust her. I dont think Id let a real doctor anywhere near me.

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, my lessons are with Erik. He homeschools me in things like English and math, from big textbooks and lesson plans that my familiars have gotten from her school. He gives me information about my other, helps me learn it. He also tells me about my world. About the centuries-old Loom in London and the Weavers who stitch echoes there.