Foreverland Is Dead

Mad’s heels. Cyn rubs the lotion in circular motion, her eyes following the wire from the girl’s forehead to the black box on the table. Cyn’s bed is on the other side, the needle still stuck in the tube.
    When they’re finished, he hands the extra IV bag to Cyn.
    “I thought Jackie would be over here by now. Take this over there while I finish up.”
    “Where?”
    “The big house, second floor. I assume she’s taking care of Sandy, still. I hope she is. The poor girl needs the IV changed.”
    “Who’s Sandy?”
    “The little Sleeping Beauty.”
    “You mean Miranda?”
    “No.” He flicks the IV bag hanging on Mad’s hook. “I mean Sandy. She was in the brick house when we got here, second floor. Maybe she was in that empty bed before that, I don’t know.”
    He points at Miranda’s bed.
    “All I know is that she’s upstairs. Trust me, it’d be a lot easier if she was over here, but there’s no way to move her. So if you’d be a dear and take that up to Jackie, I can get this finished.”
    Cyn stands there, holding the bag.
    Miranda could be her middle name. She’s just a kid; it wasn’t her fault she woke up in the brick house.
    But she did.
    “You all right?” he asks.
    Cyn’s breathing loudly, exhaling through her nostrils like a bull pawing the dirt.

    She can hear the techs talking in the back room, the keys tapping. The office chair popping. No one stops her from going upstairs.
    All the doors are open. Boxes and folders are stacked, the beds stripped, the dressers empty. All except one.
    She lies on top of the king-sized bed, hands folded over her stomach. Her blonde hair is splayed on the pillow, eyes closed. She’s wearing loose-fitting clothing, rather plain. Probably not what they found her wearing when they discovered this place.
    The IV bag is empty.
    Cyn walks to the side of the bed. This piece of meat smells better than the others. Looks better.
    She was so frail and timid when she woke up, curling up in the corner like a mouse. But she was the one who had pulled her out of the fence that first morning. She was the one who had sent out winter gear and warned her about Roc. Cyn wanted to protect her.
    But then she went inside and never came out.
    And neither did the food.
    Not a mouse. A rat.
    She was so different from the rest of them. It wasn’t just her hair or the clothes; it was the way she spoke, the words she used. Once she was safely inside the fence, it was the way she looked at them. The way she wrinkled her nose when she was near, the way she turned her head. Kept her back straight, walked like what came out of her didn’t stink.
    And the thing in her neck didn’t work.
    “Miranda Myers is a seventy-seven-year-old woman.” Linda is at the door. “She was diagnosed with cancer, was given about six months to live before she relocated out here. When we arrived, we found her body in the back room—the one behind the computer room. Sandy Bell’s body was up here. At first, we couldn’t understand why she wasn’t in the bunkhouse.”
    Miranda’s slender hand is limp. Cyn takes it, a lump rising in her throat. The heavy bracelet slides up her bony arm. Miranda is engraved on the gold plate. Before it looked like expensive jewelry. More of a dog collar now.
    Cyn massages her hand, kneading the palm with her thumbs.
    “We think Miranda was crossing into Sandy’s body when Foreverland collapsed.”
    Sandy.
    Is she as scared and meek as she looks right now? Or maybe she was scrappy, mean, and nasty like the rest of them. I’ll never know.
    “Did she introduce herself as Miranda?” Linda digs softly with the therapist voice.
    Cyn brushes the blonde hair from the young face while rage and sadness tangle inside. She resists the urge to yank the hair from her pretty little head.
    It’s just a body. Sandy’s body.
    “She came out of the brick house when we woke up like this innocent, scared little girl that didn’t belong out here. Didn’t belong with us.”
    “Do you belong here?”
    “That’s not what I mean. She didn’t know anything about this. She was afraid of Roc. She was cold and hungry, like the rest of us. She went inside the brick house, sent out clothes for us to wear.”
    Linda takes the other hand, massaging it like Cyn.
    “Her name is Miranda,” Cyn says. “That’s all I know.”
    “Where do you think Sandy went?”
    Cyn shakes her head. “How am I supposed to know?”
    “Right now, we think Sandy—her identity or soul, whatever