354 Walsh Street

TW: Mental health, not-so-great parents, references to killing

Her ceiling was not blue. Why was she looking up at a blue ceiling? As she rolls over, she discovers that the bed is not hers: hers does not have frilly white pillowcases and rag dolls. Her brow furrows. Why was it a familiar room? She gets out of bed and discovers she has a headache. Unfortunate, but she has dealt with worse. It appears to be a safe enough room, but the familiarity of it nags at her like a petulant toddler. 

Toddler. 

She gasps as she remembers the room. This is her little sister’s room. Why is she in her little sister’s room? She is supposed to be in her room. There is a knock on the pink door. The device. Where is it? In her pocket. She breathes a sigh of relief.

She needs to find the railroad tracks as soon as possible. But first, pleasantries.

“Come in, mother.” She says. She discovers that her voice is raspy. She clears her throat, but that doesn’t do anything. 

“Mother?” 

Her eyes widen as she takes in the sight of her father, who she has not seen since she was fifteen years old. 

He pushes up his glasses and smiles at her. “No, I mean… I mean father. Hello, father. May I be dismissed now?”

He nods owlishly. 

“Father, what year is it?” She asked slowly. She was remembering what happened before she woke up in her sister’s bed.

“Oh, you are so stupid. So stupid. It is 2003.” Her father said before chuckling meanly.

“Father, where is Lane?” Her voice wavered as she said Lane’s name. She understood what had happened now. The training program was sufficient in providing solutions for all contingencies.

“She is downstairs, eating breakfast. Why are you asking me such odd questions? Are you even stupider than usual, this morning?”

“Sorry, Father. I am simply slightly confused.” 

“It is quite alright, Anna. Shall we eat breakfast together as a family?”

She inhaled slightly. Nothing was correct. If she had guessed right, this was to be expected. That everything was switched. “Of course, Father.”

She stepped down the stairs, which were the wrong color. The smell of warm pancakes and coffee guided her. Mother never made them pancakes, and made it a point that her daughters don’t drink coffee. She must not reveal her surprise when she saw herself at that table. It was critical to preserve the safety of the mission. Even with her reassuring herself, it was still uncanny to see herself eating pancakes and drinking jet black coffee. 

“Hello, Lane. What do you plan on doing today?” Father asked with faux curiosity as he piled on pancakes and partook of milky coffee.

The other Lane's eyes flickered towards Lane. A silent plea that she would understand. “I will go to school, then go to tutoring at the Eschel Cafe. After that, I will come home, finish my homework, read for thirty minutes, and go to sleep.” 

Eschel Cafe. When the siblings were children, they would always eat cold blueberry pie and drink lukewarm coffee there. She was giving her a sign. Her stomach dropped. The girl across the table was one of her co-workers, then. They all knew Lane’s life story front and back.

“That sounds riveting, honey. And you, Anna?” Her father sneers with cutting sarcasm. Lane did not care for analogies, but his eyes felt like ice chips boring into her mind. 

“I will go to school, then go to the art museum for an AP Art field trip. I will be home by ten o’clock in the night, and will promptly take a shower and go to sleep.”

Her father nods, turning the words over in his mind. Like the car parts he inspects for his job. He never did trust his girls.

“Okay girls. I will not be home until midnight and I expect you to be asleep much before then.” 

He kisses the top of both of their heads. Slimy residue is deposited on her hair, and Lane’s smile is frozen onto her face in a most unbecoming way. But Father never really cared about how other people felt. They both smile and wave as Father pulls out of their driveway. As soon as he is out of sight, Anna turns to Lane. 

“Who are you?” 

“Jamie. You?”

“Lane.” She realizes how it sounds after the syllable leaves her mouth. 

A shadow passes over Jamie’s face. “This is the worst situation we could have gotten in. Do you remember the training?”

Lane nods. She never did think that she would have to use all of that extra training. “I do. We need to find Lorraine Hearnshaw, get an interview on tape, and get out of here.” She shudders as the gravity of the situation hits her. 

“Where… where is Lorraine?” Jamie asks hesitantly. Right. She wasn’t old enough to remember when you could easily identify Hearnshaw’s face.

“The old houses that are next to the railroad tracks.” She falters. That was where Lana had been found. “Frankly, I don’t want to immediately interview her. Shall we get pie and coffee? Go over the precautions?”

Suddenly, a loud screech comes from near Lane’s left. Both of their heads immediately turn towards the noise. 

A warning bell goes off in Lane’s head. She had never heard such loud noises when she was in high school. She smothers the thought. She must focus on correcting the littler issue first, then consider that something even worse had happened.

They both walk on the sidewalk to Eschel’s Cafe. “When the bodies are switched, we must…” Lane motions for Jamie to complete the sentence.

“Resist the person whose body we are in and maintain the fact that we are… we are Jamie and Lane.”

“Lane?”

Lane looks up. The chilly South Dakotan air slices through her sweater. “Yes?”

“How long do we have until the devices die out?”

“I would say from here, mmm…” She tilts her head, numbers running through her mind. “About three hours and twenty-three minutes.”

Jamie stops walking abruptly. She had scared her. Bad move. However, she deserves to know. 

“Three hours?” Jamie said shortly. 

“And 23 minutes, yes.” 

“Lane, do not fool around at this critical moment. Do you mean it?” 

“Yes, I mean it, Jamie.” She kept walking. She did not understand what the big deal was. A lot can happen in three hours. 

Lana's death took three minutes.

“Fine. But we just get coffee and then leave.” Jamie yells at her receding figure. 

She nods quickly. “Come on then.”

Jamie jogs to catch up with her. “So what was it like? Being a teenager when Hearnshaw was still alive.”

Lane exhales, the breath white in the chill. “Terrifying. She ended up killing one of my best friends at the time. It was horrible. That something that you only read in the newspapers can happen so close to home.”

“Oh, Lane. I’m so sorry.” Jamie moves to hug her. She quickly sidesteps the action. She never liked hugs.

“It is okay. I have mostly healed from that time, and I just want to know why Lorraine did it.” Lying gives her hives. However, she really did want to know why. It was a question that was branded in her head at all times, and it was the reason she chose to work for TTI. If she could stop Lorraine, stop all the pain and hurt…

 She just hopes that this will give her and other families enough closure to continue with their lives.

The broken storefront of Eschel Cafe greets Lane. Her stomach drops. “Jamie.”

She says louder, “Jamie!” There is no way that the transformation is already underway. It has been exactly twelve minutes. She cannot lose Jamie. Jamie is the nicest of the interns, and she was overjoyed to be her. Her blood will be on Lane's hands, and Lane cannot take much more of the metallic sting of blood.

“Sorry. Yes, Lane?” Jamie is kneeling down and inspecting the brick that had shattered the window. “Shall I take this in for evidence?”

“No, don’t. This never happened in the actual timeline. We are dealing with an anomalous event.” Lane states calmly. No tremors in her voice. She hopes she disguised her fear under a cool mask of nonchalance.

“Oh. Oh my God. We are in immediate danger, then?” Jamie responds, a tremor in her voice now apparent.

“We need to go to the houses right now. It is of utmost importance.” Her mental training kicks in, and she touches her hair to ground herself. 

She had to do it for Lana. They had always dreamed of living in New York together, her in Columbia and Lane in CUNY. She must take in custody the heartless woman who hurt her best friend. 

“Oh. Oh, yes. Shall I call a taxi?” Damn it all, Jamie was further along the transformation than she anticipated. 

It was time for drastic measures. 

She grabs Jamie by the shoulders. “You are Jamie Suthers. You are married to Isaac Winter, who likes earl grey tea. You have an adopted son, Tripp Suthers-Winter. He has a broken tooth and has cheeks that cover up his eyes when he smiles. Your favorite color is orange, like marigolds.” She enunciates her words and maintains eye contact with Jamie.

“Hang in there, Jamie. For Tripp.” Why were her calculations incorrect? How could they be? 

“Yeah. For Tripp.” Jamie’s eyes lost a slight glaze that they had gained gradually. 

354 Walsh Street. The pair slows down as they approach the broken and dull gray door. The shattered glass on the porch was enough to deter rebellious teenagers in itself.

Lane breaths in and breaths out. For Lana, forever sixteen. “Jamie?”

“Yes, Lane?” 

“You have the mission covered? If I…” She didn’t want to speak the thought. Make it seem more real. However, Jamie had always been tactful.

“Yes, Lane. Let’s get this done with.” Jamie said, her mouth a grim line.

The familiar scent of bergamot and clean laundry greets her. She drew in a breath before asking in a quivering voice, “Miss Hearnshaw?” 

The lilting voice of her mother answers, “It’s just Mom, honey.” 

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It was on Lane, in the end.

For getting too emotional. For letting that part of her little sister take over her. The calculations were incorrect, because everything in this world was incorrect. Backwards. Her mother was Lorraine Hearnshaw, Lane was Anna, Jamie was Lane, her father was a present parent. Everything wrong.

Lane ended up with a lot more blood on her hands than that of just Jamie.