ear and two in my right. I did them myself with a needle and salt water and a cork. I breathed in deep and they didn’t even bleed. There’s nothing in them any more, no studs or rings or whatever. I took them out, but the holes are still there. My ears look like pincushions.
Three. My teeth are bad. One at the front is broken and three back ones are going to come out, even though they’re supposed to last me a lifetime. My teeth are terrible.
In the picture there were no scars on my face, no piercings. I had perfect teeth. I was happy and well fed and wholesome.
In other words, it wasn’t me.
I tried to tell them. I looked up from the picture and I said, “No.”
“Cassiel,” Gordon said. He crossed his legs. His trousers and his mouth made a shushing noise.
I shook my head. “Not me.”
“Come on,” Ginny said again, her hand still on mine.
I wanted to swat it off. I didn’t answer her.
“Whatever trouble you’re in, Cassiel,” she said, “whatever reason you had for running away, we can help you.”
“No, you can’t,” I said. They were too close to me. I didn’t like it.
“We’re here to help,” she said.
“Help someone else,” I said. “Help someone who wants it. I’m not him.”
“Who are you then?” Gordon asked.
Good question.
I stared at him. I smiled my angriest smile.
“What are the odds,” Gordon said to Ginny, like I wasn’t there, “of there being two identical missing boys?”
“Billions to one,” Ginny said, like that settled it.
“I don’t care what the odds are,” I said. “It’s not me.”
“So what’s your name then?”
Maybe this is it, I thought, just a trick to get me to tell them my name. I wasn’t falling for it. They weren’t going to find me. I’d managed to keep away from them for this long.
“It’s not Cassiel,” I said. “No way it’s that.”
They glanced at each other.
“Have another look,” Gordon said, and Ginny said, “Take your time.”
They didn’t believe me. They wanted to be right, I could tell that. They were going to insist on it. It doesn’t matter what you say to people like that. When they have made up their minds they stop listening.
I breathed in hard and I tried not to think. I looked at the boy in the picture. I thought how incredible it was to have a double like that, somewhere out in the world, to look exactly like a total stranger. I looked at Cassiel Roadnight’s happy, flawless, fearless face. And the thought occurred to me then, that I could be him, if I wanted. It crept in. I could see it coming and I tried so hard not to notice it.
I could be.
And if I were Cassiel Roadnight, the thought said, I wouldn’t have to be me any more, whoever that was.
You won’t exist, it said. You could wipe yourself off the face of the earth in a second. You could vanish into thin air, right in front of your pursuers.
I gave that thought my full attention. What did I have to lose?
There were people looking for Cassiel Roadnight, but they were people who cared. He had a family and friends. He had loved ones. He had a life I could step right into.
And what did I have?
Nobody. Nothing, except the fear of being found. The people looking for me just wanted to pull me apart.
I always wanted to be someone else. Doesn’t everyone?
“OK,” I said to the thought, so quietly I almost didn’t say it at all.
“What?” Gordon said.
They looked at each other and then back at me. It was like they’d been holding everything in. Suddenly there was this noise in the room of them breathing.
“OK,” I said.
“Good,” said Ginny, and Gordon said, “Your name is Cassiel Roadnight?”
“Yes,” I told him. “My name is Cassiel Roadnight,” and I watched the smile spread and stick to his face.
I lied. That’s what I did wrong.
It didn’t feel like much. Everybody lies once in a while. And just in case it counts in my defence, I wished it was the truth, I really did.
Ginny let me look myself up on the computer. She wasn’t supposed to. Using the office equipment was against house rules. But then again so was running, or having a knife that actually cut things, or eating a peanut.
“Just for a minute,” she said, and she watched over my shoulder. I could smell her breath. I could hear her swallow.
I turned to look at her. “Do you want to leave me alone?”
There’s no way she was allowed to do that. I watched her blink three times.
“Of course, Cassiel,” she said, like she worked for me or something, like this was a hotel and I was paying to be there. “I’ll be just down the hall.”
God, having a name was something. Try being nobody and asking for your space.
Cassiel Roadnight had his own missing person’s profile. He came from a small town where everybody knew him, where everybody knew each other. He went missing on fireworks night when the place was full of strangers, packed with people all come to see the procession and the dancing and the costumes and the fireworks and the Wicker Man. It happened every year. A celebration in the town, called Hay on Fire. It was a clever time to disappear.
It was the 5th of November. I looked at that date on the screen for a long time. Cassiel Roadnight hadn’t been seen since then. Nor had I.
The profile said he was wearing jeans and a dark blue sweatshirt. His face was painted silver and gold for the procession, and over his ordinary clothes he wore a black cape and a mask that covered his eyes and nose. There were photos. It was strange to see a picture of him hours or even minutes before he was gone. It was even stranger to see my own eyes looking out from behind that mask.
His disappearance was ‘completely out of character’, which means they didn’t see it coming. He didn’t leave a note, and he didn’t tell anybody he was going.
His family said they would never give up hope of seeing him again.
