Secrets from Myself Read online

  Secrets

  from

  Myself

  Copyright © 2017 Christine Hart

  This edition copyright © 2017 Dancing Cat Books, an imprint of Cormorant Books Inc.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free 1.800.893.5777.

  The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for its publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (cbf) for our publishing activities, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporation, an agency of the Ontario Ministry of Culture, and the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit Program.

  library and archives canada cataloguing in publication

  Hart, Christine, 1978–, author

  Secrets from myself / Christine Hart.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  isbn 978-1-77086-490-0 (softcover). — isbn 978-1-77086-491-7 (html)

  i. Title.

  ps8615.a773668s43 2017 jc813’.6 c2016-907296-7

  c2016-907297-5

  United States Library of Congress Control Number: 2016945337

  Cover design: angeljohnguerra.com

  Interior text design: Tannice Goddard, bookstopress.com

  Printed and bound in Canada.

  Manufactured by Friesens in Altona, Manitoba, Canada in June, 2017.

  dancing cat books

  An imprint of Cormorant Books Inc.

  10 st. mary street, suite 615, toronto, ontario, m4y 1p9

  www.dancingcatbooks.com

  www.cormorantbooks.com

  In Memory of Harvinder Kaur Gakhal

  May 16, 1978 – April 5, 1996

  Prologue

  I can barely see into the dimly lit room ahead through the small holes in the wall of Sanjay’s trunk. The clunk-thud of metal on metal signifies that I am locked in by a thick padlock. I am cramped and the fabric lining on the pine panels adds no comfort. This is okay, though. We are almost there and my confinement is part of our plan.

  I have been living behind a fake wall in Sanjay and his father’s cabin for almost two months. Now I welcome these brief hours of more intense imprisonment. This box is how I got on board and it is how I will get into Canada. Once this part is done, and Sanjay is safely into Vancouver, we will run from his father and start our lives.

  “Akasha?” Sanjay whispers, his lips brushing against the holes in the trunk. “Can you breathe? Will you be all right?”

  “Yes,” I whisper back. “Do not worry. And do not talk. We cannot risk it.”

  A knock on the door draws Sanjay’s attention. I hear two men bark something in Japanese. Sanjay has learned some of their language, but there has been no chance for me.

  Sanjay answers in halting, awkward Japanese words. I hope everything is all right. I have to believe everything is fine. Sanjay leaves to follow them and his cabin door slams shut.

  It seems like hours, but Sanjay finally returns, this time with his father. My presence is a secret from Mr. Hasan most of all. To the crew of this ship, I would be a mere stowaway. To Sanjay’s father, my discovery would represent his son’s ultimate disobedience. Mr. Hasan has already declined permission for Sanjay to choose his own bride in a love match. They have come to Canada for the marriage Mr. Hasan arranged for his son when Sanjay was a boy. But we have other plans.

  “Why do they not allow us to dock, father?” asks Sanjay.

  “This is exactly what I feared, but we will put up a fight,” says Mr. Hasan. “You are ready to go at a moment’s notice?”

  “Yes sir. I am ready, just as you instructed,” says Sanjay. The fear in his voice is unmistakable. A problem with port authorities is good, though, as it will provide an easy explanation for any anxiety Sanjay cannot conceal.

  “Come,” says Mr. Hasan briskly. “We need to find your uncle as well.”

  They leave the room. A few moments later, the door opens again. I strain to see the figures through my air holes. Two men speaking in hushed Japanese are looking around the room. They seem to be looking for something specific.

  The gaze of one man comes to rest on me — that is, on Sanjay’s trunk. The other man looks over and they both walk towards the trunk. They share a laugh and I can feel myself being lifted. One man mutters something I think might be a string of curse words, based on his tone.

  As they carry me out the door and up a stairwell, my excitement grows. The problem with the Canadian port must have been resolved. In hours — maybe even minutes — I will be reunited with Sanjay and we will run away together. We’ve planned for so long and the moment is finally here.

  Sounds coming from the deck do not support my interpretation. Men are arguing. Hindi, Punjabi, Japanese, English; I can hear a crowd of voices in several languages and all of them are angry.

  “There is no excuse! We are here legally,” shouts a man in Hindi.

  “— won’t stand for this!” yells another.

  “We are British citizens! You can’t do this!” calls out another man in English.

  “This is what we think of your regulations,” says another protestor in English with a very thick accent.

  I am straining to make out other statements, but a sudden lurch catches my breath. The trunk is being swung back and forth. The men carrying me are getting ready to throw it. Something is wrong.

  The trunk is suddenly free, sailing through the air. Yells and cheers fade as I feel the arc of my descent. I look out through my air holes straining to see a cart or straw or some possible soft landing.

  Oh god, we are still at SEA! The trunk hits the ocean with a CRACK-SLAP. Water starts to leak in through the seams at the corners. I can feel the icy wet seeping into my backside and onto my feet. The air holes spray water in my face.

  I have once chance; I must burst the trunk! I press my back against the short wall behind me and push with my feet against the opposite end of the box. Ice water starts to rush in. I push harder and harder still.

  Muffled snaps go off around me and the top of the trunk caves in. The water, the fabric, and the wood are all suffocating me! I kick and flail despite the body-shocking cold.

  A salty taste fills my mouth, but I am free of the debris, weighed down now only by my wet clothes. I open my eyes to see murky brown that stings instantly.

  Eyes shut, I kick up and up until I emerge on the surface. I am alive! The ship is many yards away. I look back and forth between the ship and the slimy posts of the dock nearby. The decision has to be made now.

  I start towards the shore, looking up to see if anyone on the ship or the dock has noticed me. No faces meet my gaze. Angry men shout at each other. They throw bricks, coal, and whatever else they can find with enough weight to project at their enemies.

  I reach the dock, find a ladder, and hang on, hidden from view. Before I climb, I need to think. I have to get out of these cold, wet clothes. I have nothing, nobody, and nowhere to go.

  The late spring weather of May in Canada is still cold, it seems — in the ocean at least. I can stand a few more minutes. What is my plan? There is nothing for it. I must climb up and try to hide while I dry.

  I climb onto a dock surrounded by net-covered crates. This is not a point of entry for passengers and there are very few people around. I
curl up into a space between the crates which conceals me from the shore. My brown sari, which I have been wearing to hide with ease on ship, is still working to camouflage me. I may blend in long enough to dry off.

  All the shouting has stopped. The sun is setting, paint-ing the sky a beautiful hot orange fringed with pink and purple clouds. The cold is not so bad now, or I am numb. I can make it until morning. I rest against the side of a crate, nestling my head into a gap in the netting.

  I watch the sky drain of its warm color. Stars pop out on a wall of navy blue and I can see lights across the water in the distance. The murmur of regular port noise dies down and all I can hear is the ocean lapping against the pillars below as sleep takes me.

  Chapter 1

  My hospital room is too bright. I look over at the mirror on the wall beside me. I note a twinge of cool green in my messy sandy hair. Combined with my light blue eyes, I look gaunt in the unnatural fluorescence. Only my long eyelashes and button nose rescue me from looking undead. I turned the cursed lights off a few hours ago and a nurse came in minutes afterwards grumbling about security and turned them back on. I’m waiting for her shift to end so I can turn them back off. The window at the far end of the room lets in enough light for me to read and that’s all I need. My diary is my lifeline now that I’m stuck in the Adolescent Psychiatric Inpatient Unit at BC Children’s Hospital.

  माँ, मुझे आपकी बहुत याद आती है। क्या आपको मेरे विचार और प्राथना सुनाई देते हैं? आपके बिना, संजय ही मेरा सबकुछ था। मैं उसे भी खो नहीं सकती थी। मुझे कोशिश तो करनी थी। और अब गड़बड़ हो गयी है।

  Mother, I miss you so much. Can you hear my thoughts and prayers? Without you, Sanjay was all I had. I couldn’t lose him too. I had to try. And now it’s such a mess.

  Sanjay, where are you? Why have you not come for me? You could jump overboard in the dead of night and swim to shore like I did. Have you changed your mind? I am so lost in this city. I have lost count of the days. The nights are long and dark. But I wait for you. Still waiting. I think I will be waiting forever.

  I spend several minutes thinking about this passage — again. I’ve read it dozens of times. The first time I discovered this entry, I thought someone had played a trick on me. Not just because I found another lan-guage — which I later learned was Hindi — but because I had no memory of writing it. I showed it to Mom and she thought I was playing a trick on her. I searched online until I found a description that fit: automatic writing.

  The short paragraphs made no sense, even the second one I could read. I had no idea who Sanjay was. Shortly after first reading it, I had a dream about being thrown off a boat in an antique steamer trunk. A boy had called me Akasha. I told Mom about the dream and she dismissed me again.

  It wasn’t the first time I’d been someone else in a dream. But everyone has dreams where they’re someone else. I wouldn’t have ditched my mom at a Surrey gas station and hopped a city bus over nothing more than a strange dream and a single cryptic diary passage. There have been other dreams in which I’m Akasha and there have been other diary entries in her writing. This morning, however, I’ll write more of my own story.

  July 3

  I’m trying not to be angry that I’m in a hospital bed. I’m not sick — in any conceivable way. I’m trying not to be angry at Mom for thinking I’m crazy, or at Bryce’s parents for calling the police when they found me. I wasn’t going to try living in their basement. I just needed a place to stop and regroup before going downtown. I should have gone straight downtown to find the Port of Vancouver. But I was too scared to go alone. I thought Bryce would come with me. He’s the only person other than Mom who knows about my dreams and my diary. He doesn’t think I’m nuts. Of course, I still haven’t told Bryce he looks an awful lot like the boy on the steamship from my dreams. I don’t trust it myself. I’ve had a crush on Bryce for years. Why my brain inserted him into one of my visions is beyond my understanding.

  I close my diary for a moment to think. I pull my thick tousled hair back and give it a single twist to keep it all behind me. It has been almost a month since Dr. MacDonald scheduled my visit to the Child & Youth Mental Health Offices. In our first visit, he told me unconsciously copying someone else’s writing is called cryptomnesia. I told him that wasn’t what happened to me and he eyed me carefully. During our third visit he asked if I knew why my mother thought I was mentally ill. She had told him her big secret about my “weird speech” and my “funny moments,” which she originally took for epilepsy, until several rounds of testing ruled that out. As a single mother, my mom paid a lot of attention to my physical, and more importantly to her, psycho-logical, well-being. So when I told her I believed I had been a stowaway on a ship from India in a past life, the first thing she did was make an appointment with the next available child psychologist. Where we live in Nelson — well, the Kootenays in general — child psycholo-gists are a bit hard to find.

  I don’t know if I should regret confiding in my mother about Akasha. She had already seen me “tune out” and talk about times and places I couldn’t possibly remember. It started when I was around six years old, before I had the sense to keep my weirdness to myself. Mom even took the precaution of transferring me from one elementary school to another, which is a big deal when you live in a tiny mountain town. She waited until I was old enough for a fresh start to be useful. I have to give her credit for that at least. I learned to keep my mouth shut and be as boring as plain oatmeal.

  Then again, if I hadn’t said anything to Mom about Akasha, she never would have taken me to see Dr. MacDonald. I wouldn’t have heard phrases like Dissociative Identity Disorder and Borderline Person-ality Disorder. I would never have managed a trip to Vancouver on my own, which was actually my chance to see my best friend Bryce again and find out about Akasha for myself.

  Bryce moved to Vancouver when his father, Professor Mann, got a job offer with the BC Institute of Tech-nology. He was my friend when we were little because he lived two doors down from me. He stayed friends with me after I switched schools, knowing I was a “weird” kid. When I woke up one morning and realized I had a crush on him, there was no way I was going to tell him. He was one of the cute boys. Still is. He has dark hair, light brown eyes, and warm brown skin. He’s even starting to grow tall.

  When Bryce told me he was leaving town, it was like a punch in the gut. Then my dreams kicked into overdrive and I found Hindi in my diary, along with a passage I never wrote. I felt like my life had been turned upside down, shaken, and then tilted on its side.

  By the time Mom was driving into the Lower Main-land, I hoped with every fiber of my being that I’d get a chance to bolt, and that I’d be able to find Bryce. He came from an Indian family that had immigrated and I thought he might be interested in hearing about my dreams of the steamship. Once I was on that bus in Surrey, I texted him for directions. I told him it was top secret.

  As my escape from Mom and refuge at Bryce’s house replays in my mind, my phone buzzes on the bedside table. It’s Bryce. I swipe the glass to read.

  I’m sorry. You would have been caught with or without me. And my parents would have killed me. Twice. Don’t hate me.

  What? It was Bryce? Traitor!

  Secrets from Myself

  Chapter 2

  I pick my phone out of the lined plastic waste bin I threw it into. I wipe the glass, checking for chips and cracks with a flush of embarrassment that rises up from my gut to my cheeks. I’m always quick to anger — and equally quick to feel remorse.

  I hadn’t expected Bryce to cover for me. Not for long, anyway. I know I put him in a ridiculous position, showing up after I’d run away from my mom.

  I know you
had no choice. I’m not mad. It was a stupid thing to do anyway, I tap intently, hit Send, and start tapping again. Trapped in hospital. Could use a visitor.

  A few minutes pass while I scroll through Tumblr photos, waiting, hoping to smooth things over.

  What room are you in?

  I send Bryce directions to BC Children’s Hospital and to my room specifically. The facility may be one of a kind, but I’m betting my friend hasn’t had to trek out to this part of Vancouver in the four months he’s been here.

  Bryce won’t be visiting until after dinner. Mom won’t be back for hours either. I know wandering the halls will get me in trouble with that uptight nurse. I need something to occupy my mind. My diary waits for me to rescue it from the hospital nightstand drawer next to my bed, along with a mercifully fresh pen. My precious book is trapped in a weird room too. Writing will make me feel better, but if it doesn’t I’ll still feel that sense of relief I can get no other way.

  I flip to a fresh page. The soft blue lines on crisp white paper look so inviting and … I draw a blank. Writer’s block? This hardly ever happens to me. Although, most of the time I pick up my diary because an idea grabs me, not because I’m imprisoned somewhere and bored out of my skull. I close my eyes to think. Nothing comes. But the relief from the fluorescent light is sweet. I let my tired lids stay closed a moment longer. It’s not even lunch time and I feel as though I could drift off to sleep.

  The sound of pen scratching on paper catches my atten-tion and I open my eyes. Where did THIS come from? The two empty pages I closed my eyes on are now full!

  We have finally left Punjab behind and the voyage has begun. I will never see India again. The first part was easy. I used what little money I had to buy a ticket on Sanjay’s train and hide well away from him and his father. But it was a near thing, my sneaking aboard Sanjay’s ship in Calcutta. I was terrified, but ready. I hid in the back corner of the boiler room as planned. And waited. And waited.