Body Surfing

itself felt in the midst of so much chaos: pure, unadulterated terror.
    Michaela, it’s Jasper .
    If she felt an itch in her cheek, she had to wade through a thousand personalities, journey across all seven continents (Leo had been to Antarctica in thirteen different bodies) before it occurred to her to raise her hand and scratch it. A more complex feeling like hunger was virtually unparseable. A hundred thousand meals flashed in her mind: tabouli from Syria, arepas from Venezuela, xiao long bao from Jiangsu province, beef stroganoff from Russia, ceviche from Peru, harira from Morocco, gnocchi from Sicily, onion baji from the Indian Deccan, huitlachoche from Oaxaca, baba au rhum from Slovakia, alicha wat from Ethiopia, yakisoba from Japan, lutefisk from Norway, venison jerky from the Algonquin Nation, étouffée from New Orleans, and thousands upon thousands of other dishes, all spewed from a subconscious that had once been a simple dark well in which the usual assortment of painful memories lurked, but which was now a chasm that made the Grand Canyon look like a scratch drawn by a chicken claw. Though her autonomic nervous system might cause her mouth to water, she could never wade through the flood of memories to realize that what she needed to do was eat, let alone articulate that fact, or perform the simple mechanical functions necessary to bring food to her lips.
    I’m here, Michaela .
    And yet there were things even worse than all that, the memories that were indisputably, undeniably, her own. The memories of the last week. Of the car accident, of her coma and recovery, of that day at the river with Q. and the stranger who had called himself Jasper, and, illuminating all the others like an atomic explosion, of Eric.
    Her brother Eric.
    Coming into her room, a concerned look replacing the usual mischievous spark in his eyes. For thirteen years he’d been the prototypical bratty little brother who waterbombed her slumber parties,loosened the lid on the salt shaker, stretched cellophane over the toilet bowl. But now, because his big sister had miraculously recovered from injuries that should’ve killed her, or left her paralyzed and a vegetable, he’d come contritely into her room to let her know he was there for her. That he would help her out if she needed anything. Anything at all. And she had looked at him with eyes that fixed him like a deer in headlights. Her little brother. She had held out a hand, drawn him to her side, and from there to her bed. She had gazed into his eyes until his pupils widened and softened and his free will practically leaked out of him like smoke, and then she had undressed him. She had told him what she needed, and he had given it to her. Told him to think of her body as a gift, and he had taken it. Her little brother. He had mounted her mechanically, and only the sudden onslaught of screaming after she came snapped him out of it. Drove him from her bed and from the room. Not by the door—the window. Now it was her brother who was in the hospital fighting for his life, and she—she would have to live with the memory of what she had done to him forever.
    Michaela, I’m here to help you .
    And now this voice. Why this voice of all voices? Why Jasper’s?
    Michaela, listen to me. I can help you .
    No , she said, though whether she said it aloud she didn’t know. You’re not real. No more real than anything else in my head .
    Michaela, it’s me. I’m here. I’m really here .
    No!
    Michaela, you have to trust me. I can get you through this .
    She didn’t believe in the voice, but focusing on it made all those other voices go away. At least this one spoke English. At least it pretended benevolence.
    That’s better. I’m getting control now. Just relax .
    God, how she wanted to relax. To sleep. Just sleep. Never to wake up again. Never to face the consequences of what she’d done. What she’d become.
    Not that relaxed! A chuckle, somewhere inside her. We’ve got work to do .
    Could it really be?
    “Jasper?” she said out loud.
    It’s me, Michaela. It’s really me.
    “But…but how?”
    It’s a long story.

3
    T he applejack stills were gone too, and most of the orchards. There were about eighty trees left, McIntoshes and Cortlands mostly, which reflected the mass marketing of the apple economy in the sixties and seventies, when growers had to sell in bulk to grocery stores or go bust in the wake of competition from Washington State and China. When Van Arsdale