Nameless Face in Water Deep by Amber Budd
The woman who is not my mother is going to kill me.
I can hear her in the other room: the swish of autumn coats and her shuffling feet. It’s a rough and heavy sound, her footsteps, not the gentle thud of thick-knit socks on wooden floors, so she must be wearing her outside boots.
Any other day, I wouldn’t be surprised. She’s an active woman, my not-mother. Hardly a day passes that she doesn’t run out of the house on a last-minute errand, chasing an imagined deal at the market or a spontaneous meetup with the nearest neighbor at their house a mile down the road. Always, she wears those same ugly suede boots, the ones with a matching pair in a smaller size that barely fit my own feet and turn a strange, dark color when I wander through watery puddles. There’s not quite enough room in the tops of the smaller ones for all twelve of my toes, but Not-Mother always turns her head and shoves my foot in anyway, dragging me along because I won’t eat the food she kept for her daughter and this is the only way to figure out what I will stomach.
No, her outside boots are not the issue. The issue is that today is Sunday—and she never goes out on a Sunday. It might as well be a crime with how much she usually insists on staying home this day, not even venturing out to water her plants or admire the morning light as it streaks across the distant pond. But it is Sunday, and she is wearing her outside boots. So today is the day I die.
Perhaps she has decided that her God will take pity on her real daughter if she kills me on a “holy day.” Or maybe Sundays bring her peace, and she wants my last day to be a gentle one, even if she does not love me. Even if she does not know me.
That would be awfully kind of her.
It’s already late morning, but I’m still bound up in coarse night clothes and smoke-scented blankets, lying supine on a bed harder than dry, cracked earth. Not my bed, not my clothes. None of it mine. This wasn’t even her child’s original room: I remember how quickly Not-Mother rushed me to this half-furnished room when I first came here, half-heartedly sprucing up the space as she went (and the random clothes she sacrificed to the moths in the dusty wardrobe). But looking at the space, no matter how unhomely it feels, gives me something to focus on besides the skin that doesn’t fit quite right over my bones.
This body looks proportional in the crusty mirror hung on the wall, and the simple dresses dangling like dead men in the wardrobe fit perfectly. Still, it doesn’t change the fact that this skin itches every time I even so much as stretch a finger. It’s not fair that I have to live in such a strange body with a woman who fears me, while some other girl gets taken to my home.
Does she get to sleep in my bed? Play with my little cat, live my life? Is she loved by my parents—mine, not hers, but I’m trapped with the taken girl’s mother who watches me, afraid, while she makes my breakfast in the morning? She knows the truth – I don’t eat the same things her daughter did, I don’t play the way her daughter did. But it’s not my fault if I’m not a perfect replica.
I’m not her daughter.
She’s not my mother.
And today I’m finally going to die.
I’d heard rumors about what humans did to swapped children—desperate parents trying to bargain back their kids, or, at least, unable to handle raising a duplicate child knowing the real one is gone. Guilt, I imagine. It rarely ended well for the replacements.
Can’t say I blame the humans. Not-Mother is decent enough, but she isn’t my mother. My mother left me in a stranger’s bed, and I will never see her again.
I hear Not-Mother approaching the room before I see her. Steady steps that falter as they get closer; a pause at the door; a belly-deep huff, then the creaking of the hinges.
Her curly hair is corralled under a hat, her cotton coat already buttoned up to the wrinkles of her neck. She’s folded a smaller coat over her arm and holds the stupid, wretched pair of too-small boots by their laces.
“Come, come. Get dressed, put these on.” She flings the coat and shoes onto the foot of the bed with more energy than she’s had in the two weeks I’ve lived here. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”
***
“It’s too cold—why couldn’t we do this later?”
“Because it won’t be here later, silly.” Not-Mother hoists her weighted sack back onto her shoulder with a grunt. According to her, it has a picnic meal in it. “Just be grateful it isn’t winter. This is just the last of the morning chill.”
The pond grows ever closer as we walk, but the distance is still too far for my liking. I wish she would just get this over with, whatever she’s planning. No need for the extra hike, no matter how short a distance it technically is.
She lets me trudge along beside her without complaining about the slow pace. Her eyes are trained on the tree line, a stretch of monstrous pines so close to the house and pond that, with a firm squint, you could sometimes see the grains of the wood. If any of the neighbors were to see us, they might think that Not-Mother was simply admiring the evergreen boughs amidst the burning oranges and reds that line the road, but I know who she is looking for against all hope.
I’m looking for someone too. Unlike her, however, I know they won’t be there.
Not-Mother finally blinks, and turns away from the trees. “Do you remember the first time I brought you out here?”
“Of course,” I lie. My first time here is decidedly more recent than what she is thinking of.
She keeps talking anyway. “I thought you were too young still, but your father insisted I take you to see the water in the sunlight. Didn’t even care that he wouldn’t be home for it. He just thought you’d like the reflections.”
“It was very kind of him.” This time, I don’t lie. My not-parents truly are as kind as they could be.
“You kept trying to spell your name with rocks, but never sat still long enough to finish it. I think the furthest you managed to get was ‘Emi.’” She sighs. “It shouldn’t have bugged me—kids will be kids—but it did. I didn’t yell, though, so that should count for something.”
“That was very kind of you.”
She glances at me for just a second.
There is only silence the rest of the walk.
***
She was right about one thing, at least. The water does look rather nice with the light on it.
“Hard to believe this is practically in our backyard sometimes, isn’t it?”
A quiet breeze makes the water ripple in uneven waves, scattering light in streaks across the surface. It’s hard to look away, especially with the comfort of the nearby trees that I used to call home. Even so, it doesn’t stop the beginnings of a rumble in my stomach. I hope she brought the good food.
“Can we eat soon?”
“Don’t you want to wait a little longer?”
When I don’t answer, she sighs.
“Okay, okay. Go brush off the dock. I’ll bring the food over.”
There’s not much to clean aside from a few dead leaves that crunch and turn to powder as I move them out of the way. It takes a few tries, but I finally manage to pick one up without breaking it, and release it to float on the water.
Not-Mother’s booted feet clunk against the boards as she draws closer, bag in hand.
“I’m sorry if I’ve been acting weird. Change is hard, you know?—”
I did. I don’t think I’ve been acting like myself either
“—but I just wanted a nice time out. Just like before.”
I try to reach for the bag, try to be kind and help her, but she keeps a firm grip.
“You really are a good kid. You know that, right? You’ve done everything I’ve asked of you and you never complained.”
Two steps, and Not-Mother is right in front of me, green eyes looking down. When she reaches for my cheek with her free hand, her touch is gentle, almost reverent. My real mother never was this gentle.
It’s not unpleasant. A part of me wants her to stay like this, with her kind hands and sorrowful eyes, forever.
And that’s how I know I will never be welcomed home.
“You’ve been so good, and I’ve just been sad and angry. And afraid. But I think I figured it out. How to send you home, and bring Emily back.”
She dumps the bag into my hands, looping one of the handles over my head and onto my shoulders—it’s heavy, and vaguely sharp in places. Rocks?
“I just wish it didn’t have to be so cruel.”
She rests her hands on my shoulders. And shoves.
For a moment, I’m weightless. My feet are no longer on the dock, but my back hasn’t yet hit the water waiting for me below. It’s such a wonderful feeling, and I almost wish that I’d been born a bird. Even if my bird-self had fallen out of the nest, even if I had failed to ever fly and could only fall to my death, at least I would’ve died reaching for my purpose.
The water, when it comes, is so much colder than the outside air. I hold my breath, even knowing how this will end. Not-Mother thinks I’m good—I may not be her Emily, but I could be someone different. A different daughter. I could unhook the deadweight bag from around me, swim back up to the surface. Would she forgive me, for damning poor Emily? I think so. She is so very kind. Why wouldn’t she give me a chance to be a second daughter?
I can see Not-Mother’s water-distorted outline pleading to the sky, or maybe her God, hoping my family will give back her Emily in exchange for my life.
She doesn’t know this isn’t how it works. They won’t come back, and they won’t return her real daughter. It is only me, here—no one else.
None of this is my fault, and I can’t make it any better. I know that. But I’m allowed to dream, if only for a breath.
And so at last, I breathe in. I let the water burn its way through these human lungs like Noth-Mother’s grief burns through hers. I drown slowly, violently, though the numbing cold eases some of the pain. How painful it is, to be human. How unfair. Not-Mother never even gave me a name.
It’s not all terrible, though.
The water is just as pretty from this side, too.