The Famoux Read online

  “Have you had enough, lumerpa?” Norax asks.

  “Yes,” I pant. I’ve probably had enough for my entire lifetime.

  As she emerges from the other side of the glass, I put my fingers on my temples, rubbing the divots. “What was that?” I ask.

  “Our little Famoux secret,” she says. As if they don’t have many, many Famoux secrets. “We’ve got special magnets and minerals embedded into the walls here.” Norax gestures to the stool. “When you sit, you’re in the exact right configurations to hear what anyone in the world is saying about you.”

  “All the time?”

  “As long as there’s somebody talking.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Wow.”

  Norax pulls up a tablet device with a screen coated in dots, graphs, and percentages. “This is how we make sense of what you heard.”

  In one corner of the screen, there are paparazzi shots of me surfacing from the car, eyes wide with surprise. In another, there’s a sea of articles already bearing my name, big and bold in the title. There are also clippings of videos from different news stations, registers of all the “sources” claiming they know me and my story, and a bursting list of comments updating so fast, I can barely read a word before they’re gone, replaced by new ones.

  Above it all is a blazing headline:

  EMERAY ESSENCE

  “You’re doing fair, considering the circumstances.” Norax slides her fingers across the screen, zooming in on charts and graphs. “We can work with this.”

  I nod along, feeling relief. Good. She knows what to do. But of course she does—she’s Norax.

  Norax clicks on a title labeled Consensus. Two options pop up. Positive and Negative. She chooses the former first, revealing a small list of words in a shade of mint green.

  “Pretty,” I read off. “Mysterious.”

  “These are great reasons for you to be liked,” Norax says. “Useful reasons.”

  I’m distracted by that bright-red second title, the negative end, like it’s a raucous signal. “And what do they think?”

  “I typically like to check this part alone. It’s so early, I’m not sure if you …”

  “Please,” I say.

  Norax sighs, then reluctantly taps on this section. The words, red against a white background, become like thorns, pricking me one by one:

  Fake.

  Unwanted.

  Replacement.

  “Don’t take any of this to heart. This is fine,” Norax assures me. She pats my back encouragingly. “Had we been able to wait for your reveal after the gala, as intended, they still would’ve tried comparing you.”

  But the words have already nicked me. I look down at my hands, half expecting to see them bleeding. It hits me for the millionth time where I am and what I’ve done.

  Right. I have just taken the spot of the girl who died on international television a month ago.

  Norax doubles down on the reassurance. “Lumerpa, we’ll do our damage control as best we can.” She clicks the tablet off, placing it in her bag. “The Analytix is a useful tool. The main thing you have to remember is that no matter what it tells you, it’s on your side. It wants to help.”

  “How often do I go in?” I ask.

  “Usually once a day,” she says. “Sometimes more. In your case, it will be more.”

  The Analytix and its silver stool now appear just as menacing as the Fissarex. All I can hear in my head is the roll of thick accents calling me a nightmare on a daily basis.

  “Come,” Norax says. “That’s enough for today. Let’s get you to your room.”

  × × ×

  Replacement. That’s the main word on my mind as Norax leads me to my living quarters. Replacement for Bree. No matter how many times Norax has insisted I’m anything but, and that I look nothing like her, it’s getting harder to believe it. It’s what they’re all thinking out there, after all. A whole different look isn’t enough to separate us.

  Makes me wonder what sort of horrible things those people might say if they ever knew what room Norax has chosen for me.

  Bree Arch’s bedroom feels something like a crypt. Norax is as cheery as she can be while she shows me around, but my stomach is in knots. The expanse is far too enormous to be homey. There’s a large living room–like area with sleek leather couches, onyx chandeliers, and a wall-sized vanity with a mirror almost double my size. The color scheme of it all is harsh, stark—black and white, nothing more. And it’s neat. Painstakingly so. Every cushion on the king-sized bed is tucked perfectly, and every surface is spotless, as if dusted thrice a day at least. Had I not been informed it was once Bree’s room, I would’ve assumed this was the guest quarters.

  Or maybe I wouldn’t. There’s the feeling that someone’s lived here, definitely. Norax guarantees the sheets have been washed twice over, and the floors have vacuumed up every step she’s ever taken, but it is impossible to mop up the chill in the air I feel the moment I step inside. It’s there. Or maybe I’m paranoid.

  “Get some rest,” Norax tells me. “It’s going to be a big day tomorrow.”

  “Again?” I sigh, and this makes her laugh softly. “Am I going more places?”

  “Oh, absolutely not. Tomorrow, we’ll be debriefing the members.”

  “They’re back?”

  “They’re set to arrive at the mansion later tonight,” she says. “And I am going to be quite diligent about keeping them from the Analytix before they meet you. We’ll be able to tell them the news on our time.”

  The thought of meeting the Famoux members twists my juxtaposing emotions. One half of me is fearful. Are they going to hate me? Are they going to think the same things as those voices in the Analytix? But the other half of me can’t picture their faces without getting giddy. I’m going to meet the Famoux!

  The giddiness subsides fairly quickly when Norax leaves. Suddenly, the air is deadly still, and the coal-colored bed frame grows more coffin-esque by the second. This might’ve been a fan’s feverish dream a few months ago—getting to stay in the Famoux mansion, in one of their rooms—but standing in here by myself feels a lot more like a nightmare.

  Calm down, I tell myself. This is just a bedroom. This is my bedroom. With morbid curiosity, I inspect the place closer. But as I look through vanity drawers and find half-used makeup containers, and I check the closet and find rows of satins and silks I could picture her wearing, I can’t fight tears from forming in my eyes. This doesn’t feel like my bedroom. I feel like an intruder. And that presence of something in the air is so overwhelmingly prominent now, I can’t stand it.

  There’s only one colorful piece in the wardrobe, and even then, it’s barely a shade past white. A pale yellow thing made of satin. It almost knocks me right to the floor. This is the color of my mother’s favorite house. The one in which I watched the sunrise.

  The bathroom is a curious combination of dark marble and steel, and the shower has even more buttons than one of Norax’s Analytix devices, but I barely inspect these things. I dart right over to the crystal faucet, running warm water on my hands to get some feeling back into them. I hadn’t realized until just now that it was so cold in this room, they’d gone numb.

  I need to calm down. I need to distract myself, like I did in the Fissarex. Letting the water get scorching hot on my palms, I wrack my brain for more historical facts about the Famoux to recite. But Bree is an invasive thought.

  The Famoux was founded by—

  And there’s her face filled with horror and shock on my television screen, just shot down.

  —by a man named Lennix Geddes—

  And there’s a chorus of people calling me a cheap replacement over and over and over again.

  No. I can’t think about this. I need something else. I turn the faucet off and look up, meeting my mother’s blue eyes in the face of a stranger’s. Who even is this? Who even am I?

  I run my hands along my arms. They’re far more muscular than Emilee’s ever were. And my face, so sharp and exact. I don’t think there’s a single inch on my body that hasn’t been changed by the Fissarex, besides my eyes. If my family has looked at all at the news and have seen the photos of this Emeray Essence girl, they’d never be able to feasibly guess it’s me.

  Shivering in the ghostly cold of Bree Arch’s bedroom, I sink down to the floor and let myself cry. What is my family doing right now in my absence? Have they gone to the authorities like they did when our mother left? Have they told anyone I’m missing? Do they think I’ve been kidnapped in the midst of the Darkening, and that they could someday find me? Or do they suspect the truth: That I am our mother’s daughter, selfish enough to leave our house without a word or warning?

  Suddenly the dreamier ideas of their future fall away. I can see Dalton having to forgo getting a good job, just like Brandyce did, to care for our father. I can see none of them getting out of Trulivent, getting to Betnedoor. I can see them spitting on the floor of my bedroom for ruining their lives one last time. The guilt is like a second aura all its own, swirling around me now like fog before a Darkening. It makes me feel faint.

  This is just a thought. The better one can still exist, I tell myself. But when I close my eyes to block it out, I see the word unwanted from my Analytix review, bright red and bloody again. Right. I might’ve just ruined my entire family’s life, just so I could hear the same thing Westin has been telling me for years. Unwanted. If I died tomorrow, I doubt any fans of the Famoux would cry the way I saw people crying for Bree. Some might even call it poetic justice.

  Imagining their jeers, like Westin’s multiplied by a million, makes me ache with fear. How do I even expect myself to win people over now? All I’ve ever managed to do is repel and draw people away from me—even my own mother. The Fissarex hasn’t changed the way I think or act. That’s still Emilee.

  I manage to calm myself down by thinking about Norax. I am not alone. She’s on my side, at the very least.

  Rising from the floor and willing myself back into the main bedroom, I think about what she said on the car ride from The X. I looked broken when she found me. I was broken then. And through my reflection in the vanity as I crawl to the bed, Emeray Essence looks impossibly whole. Scared and crying and unsure, but whole.

  I am different. I’m not a breakable stick. I am a diamond. A diamond doesn’t break when it falls, so I won’t either.

  And I’m not powerless. Not with the Famoux behind me. I’m sure I could easily ask Norax to at least check up on my family—make sure they’re coping. With the number of bodyguards I’ve seen flanking the mansion, I might even be able to get an actual search party to find my mother. I don’t know if any of this is even possible, or allowed, but it feels as though it ought to be. The idea of asking this of Norax is the only thing that’s able to lull me into a semisound sleep for at least a few hours.

  But like a child afraid of the dark, I curl up under the covers, unable to shake the feeling that Bree Arch is somehow still in this room—maybe standing right over me right now, staring, trying to figure me out.

  Replacement, she seems to whisper, just like the rest of them.

  I’m out of the room before dawn.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Without a clear plan of where I’m going, I venture deep into the throngs of the Famoux mansion, getting more lost and more relieved with equal measure. I don’t want to be anywhere near Bree’s bedroom if I can help it.

  This place really ought to have maps. The hallways are like optical illusions, deceptively long and winding. I walk for what feels like half an hour, and suddenly the doors are crimson. I must’ve entered a new wing.

  This wing has carpeted floors and plenty of artwork. As I stare into the two gigantic blue eyes of a painting down the hall, I wonder to myself just how many parts and sections a place this big might have, and if they even go explored. If I wandered too far, how long would it take for someone to find me?

  “Are you lost, love?”

  The sound of another person’s voice makes me jump, like I’m in the Analytix all over again. The panic doesn’t exactly subside, either, when I whirl around and see the voice’s source. In fact, I have to lean against the wall for stability, for fear I might keel over.

  Chapter Stones is the only other member with blue eyes, but his are not as stark and whiteish as mine. His are as blue as the painting in the hallway. Even bluer. He rubs the grogginess from them, blinking at me with pure confusion.

  “Who are you?” he asks.

  Suddenly it’s as if I’ve never learned to talk. Of course it’s Chapter who I run into. Of course. Maybe I’d stand a chance with one of the others, but he’s so elegant, so tall, so intimidating that suddenly, all my thoughts of Bree and home and everything are wiped away into oblivion. He’s asked me who I am, and I can barely remember my name now. I stand there like a fool, mouth agape, for what feels like a full minute before I come to my senses.

  “Um. I’m Emilee,” I say. And then I realize. “Wait, no. Emeray. I mean, um—”

  Chapter seems amused by my sputtering. I’m sure he gets this reaction from everyone. “You got your own name wrong?” he asks.

  “Well—” I hesitate, searching for some brilliant excuse.

  My mind is going haywire trying to decide, but then Chapter laughs and says, “It’s all right. I get it.”

  “What?” I ask.

  “It’s a new name. You’re getting used to it.” Upon my hesitation, he adds, “Well, you are the new member, aren’t you?”

  “Norax said she wasn’t letting you go to the Analytix yet.”

  “Didn’t need to,” Chapter says. “I mean, we heard the crowds shouting outside the car pretty clearly.”

  “I just want to—”

  He gestures toward the end of the hall. “Would you like to get some coffee, Emeray?”

  My jaw drops again. Now this can’t be real. How many times have I seen Chapter Stones drink coffee during early mornings in The Fishbowl broadcasts?

  “You—you’re always doing that,” I stammer.

  “I’m always having coffee?”

  “I mean …” I’m kicking myself for saying anything in the first place. “Well, yeah.”

  “Did you watch us a lot? Before?”

  “No, I didn’t,” I answer quickly. He thinks I’m a rabid fan. I’m certainly acting like one. I feel the sudden urge to double down on proving I’m not. “My family didn’t even really watch the broadcasts,” I say. “When we did, we watched them muted.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “Well, my siblings …” I falter, now wishing I hadn’t doubled down, “… they’d make up stupid things you guys were saying.”

  Oh, wonderful. Insulting him. That’s even better now. I’m just about ready to dissolve right into this carpet when I hear Chapter laughing.

  “That’s incredible,” he breathes out. He turns to go down the hall, nodding to me. “Come, I need to hear more about this.”

  The kitchen Chapter takes me to is enormous. From the entrance, I can’t take in the whole thing and have to turn to capture all the massive slabs of granite and steel. The appliances are so polished, I can see my own reflection in them. While I take it in, Chapter moves around the space casually. This is a normal room to him, somehow. He prepares black liquid in a clear carafe.

  “If your family never really watched the broadcasts, how did you come to this little conclusion that I always drink coffee?” Chapter asks.

  He smiles, light, and it reminds me of the photo Abby took of me. Somehow, he looks just like a poster on a fan’s locker, every new motion a perfect pose. But the posters usually have him in costume or in a sleek suit. This morning, however, he’s still wearing what he slept in: pants of a soft material, a dark gray T-shirt. It occurs to me that this is a rare sight not many are privy to. And then it occurs to me, I’m staring at his clothes, and he’s asked me a question.

  “I mean, you always were drinking coffee when I’d see you,” I say. “I used to wake up early.”

  “You still do now,” he says.

  He asks me what I put in my coffee, and I have to admit I’ve never actually had it before. He prepares both cups the same. As we settle into two stools by the counter, I taste it. A bit too strong for me, but I’m glad to have it. It makes me feel warm.

  “Were you from Eldae too?” he asks.

  “I was.”

  “So you were …”

  I recall what Norax said about the other members. They were all anomalies like yourself. I nod, confirming his suspicion. “A glitch, yeah.”

  He furrows his brow at the word glitch. It’s not intense, but enough to make me blush and wonder what I’ve said wrong. “Which generation?”

  “Four.”

  “Ah, the boring group,” he says. “Mine was the one with the purple.”

  Gen 2, I gather, two years above mine. I try to picture Chapter’s eyes purple instead of blue, but then I remember that he must’ve looked entirely different then. The thought is a little baffling. I take another sip of the coffee, and it does well to center me.

  “How did Norax find you?” Chapter asks.

  “She walked up to me.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Was it different for you?”

  “I mean, I guess not. But she watched me get kicked out of my house first. Asked if I wanted to stay with her instead.” He motions with his burgundy mug to the kitchen around us. “Obviously, I did.”

  “Did you say good-bye to your family?” I ask.

  “I wouldn’t have wanted to.”

  He says this so simply, I can’t tell if he feels remorse. His tone doesn’t carry much in it. My first instinct is to inquire further, but I decide instead to admit the details of my own experience with Norax—how she pulled me away from Westin and Felix when she found me.

  He seems surprised by this last bit. “They saw Norax too?”

  “They were shocked.”

  “I bet they were,” he says. “They sound terrible.” Chapter notices the way I’ve bristled just talking about them, so lifts his mug to me. “And now they’re just memories.”