I light a few more candles and get myself a glass of whiskey while Netti collects her thoughts.  I don’t want another hangover, but I have a feeling I’m going to need at least one glass.  I offer one to Netti, but she shakes her head.

I sit down in front of her and set my glass off to the side.  I light a cigarette and look at her face, trying to be patient.

“I’m not sure where to start,” Netti says.  “Maybe you should ask a specific question.”

“How about when all of this started?  When did Iris stop being just Iris?”

“When we were very young,” Netti says.  “Seri was very sick as a child.  Did you know that?”

“No.  What was wrong with her?”

“When she was only two, Seri had a terrible case of the measles though she had been vaccinated.  There was an outbreak at her daycare.  Iris doesn’t really remember it, but I do.  Seri had to be rushed to the hospital in the middle of the night, and an elderly aunt came to the hospital to care for Iris.  Iris and the aunt bought a green teddy bear in the gift shop for Iris to give to her sister, but the doctor said Iris was too young to visit.  The aunt took her home, and there was very little to occupy Iris’s time.  She worried about her sister, so she began to talk to the teddy bear.

“As Iris talked to the stuffed animal, her mind formed the voice of her sister to respond to her inquiries.  Serenity was still too young to speak more than a few words, but in Iris’s mind, she had whole conversations with her sister.  Little Netti developed a mind of her own.”

“That’s how you began.  That’s why you are called Netti, because that’s what Iris called her baby sister.”

“Yes.”

“But Seri got better.”

“She was in the hospital for a long time, but yes.  She eventually recovered and came home.”

“But you were already inside of Iris.”

“Yes, but I was silent.  Iris had her real sister to talk to, and I was no longer needed.  I waited though.  I waited and waited for her to need me again.  I waited a very long time.”

“So Iris was the first one,” I say.  “She is the primary personality.”

 Netti stares at the floor and doesn’t respond.

“The body was originally Iris,” Netti finally says, “but she’s not anymore.  She is Seri.”

 I try to sort that out in my head but to no avail.

“Maybe you should tell me more about Iris as a child,” I say as I toss the butt of my cigarette into the fire.  “Maybe I’ll understand better.”

“Iris was always damaged,” Netti says.  “Even as a child, she had difficulty understanding why others were so good, and she was not.”

“Good?  What do you mean?”

“Good in school, good at sports, good at games—just generally good at being people.  Other children could throw and catch a ball, and Iris could not.  They could read books with ease while Iris had difficulty figuring out the letters.  Iris was envious even before Serenity got older.  She was good at things, too.”

“But those things just require a little practice,” I say.  “No one is good at them right away.  You have to work at it.”

“Iris never saw it that way.  She wanted to be perfect at everything right away.  She would become very frustrated and angry when things didn’t work out for her.  Seri was patient and took her time to learn new things.”

“So Iris was jealous of her sister?”

“Not exactly.  Iris and Seri were very close.  She loved her little sister.  Iris was more frustrated with herself, but she didn’t like to show it.  As she got older, Iris discovered the one thing she was really good at, and that was getting into trouble.  She wasn’t just good at it; she reveled in it.”

“Iris liked being a teen rebel.”

“Initially, yes, but not after Seri was lost.  Iris didn’t change her behavior, but the motivation was more self-destructive.”

“Why?”

“It was her fault, you know,” Netti says.  “It was Iris’s fault that Seri died.  She was supposed to take her little sister home after school, but she wanted to spend time with a boy.  She could have given her sister money for the bus, but instead, Iris told Seri to walk home.  That’s when it happened.”

A tight knot forms in my gut.  Though the circumstances were completely different, I understood the level of guilt Iris must have felt.  I felt the same when my mother said I had ruined her life.

“Iris was beyond devastated.  Despite her troubles, she loved Seri.  Seri was the only one Iris could really talk to—share her feelings with—and Seri was gone.

“After Seri’s funeral, Iris sat in the room that they shared and held the little green teddy bear she bought when Seri was sick, crying in silence.  After a while, she began to talk to the bear, telling it how much she missed her little sister, Netti.  I heard her crying, and I answered.”

A shudder runs through me.  I want to take Iris in my arms and comfort her, but she isn’t here.  Netti is so matter-of-fact, and I don’t think that she needs the comfort, but I still hurt for Iris.  It’s a strange feeling and not one I am accustomed to experiencing.

I swallow hard and light another cigarette though I don’t really feel like smoking one.  I just need something to do with my hands while I try to make sense of this.

“Every day after school, Iris sat in her room and talked to me.  We talked about all the things she and Seri did when they were children, and I knew of these things because I was there, watching.  We talked about what we would have done in the future.”

“You stopped being in the background,” I say.

“Yes.  I was brought forth out of grief,” Netti says, “grief for a lost little sister.”

“But it wasn’t really Iris’s fault,” I say.  “It was an accident.  Sometimes accidents happen.”

“It was an accident, yes, but Iris knows it wouldn’t have happened if she had just driven her sister home like she was supposed to.  She will never forgive herself for that.”

“So that’s when you came back and stayed?  You weren’t silent anymore?”

“I was a constant presence for some time while Iris grieved.  When she found other ways to cope—chemical ways—she did not always respond to me.  When she established a relationship with Kyle, I was needed more often.”

“Because she was scared?”

“Because Kyle would hurt her.  I would come and take the pain.”

The knot in my stomach turns into a burning sensation.  Images of my father hitting my mother rush through my head, and I picture myself standing over Kyle with an axe in my hands.

I clear my throat and take another sip from my whiskey glass.

“Were there other times you came out?” I ask her.

“Yes. I only surfaced when Iris called for me,” Netti says.  “That was my purpose—to be here when she needed me.  She would go many months without talking to me.  The more time went by, the more she would need me when she finally called.  The last time she called, she was in the river.”

The abrupt jump in time catches me off guard.

“That really happened, then?” I ask.  “Kyle really did throw her off a bridge?”

“Yes.”

Just as soon as I think I have the facts straight, they turn around again.  I had begun to believe that the whole bridge incident was something Iris made up, but now it seems it actually occurred.  I consider getting my list out of the pocket of my parka, but I don’t want to leave Netti’s side.

“But…but she didn’t die, right?”

“She was badly hurt, so I swam for her.  The current was fast, and we were so cold.  It took a long time to get to the riverbank, and we were so tired…but our time in the water gave us a chance to think.”

“Think?”

“Think about how wrong it was for Seri to be dead and Iris to be alive.  Seri was the one who was good.  Seri deserved life, and Iris had only wasted the life she had.  She was dying, and she realized that she deserved to die—that she needed to die.”

“Needed to die?

“It was the only way,” Netti says.  “Seri deserved to have her life back, so Iris gave it to her.”

“I…I don’t understand.”

“When we crawled out of the water and up the mudbank, Iris died, and Seri was resurrected.”

“But Iris is still here.”

“Yes.  That wasn’t supposed to happen.  When we discussed it, Iris agreed to give up her life for Seri.  I would stay around as Seri’s guide but only for a short time.  Eventually, I would go with Iris.”

“Go? Go where?”

“Into nothing, I suppose.”  She shrugs.  “We would be no more, and Seri would have her life back.”

“But that didn’t happen.”

“Iris refused to leave.  She wanted to live life with Seri—through her—and she wouldn’t leave.  I stayed as well to mediate and to keep Seri safe.  Iris often says it’s temporary, but I think she means to remain in Seri’s mind.”

“So how long has Seri been a part of you?”

“Nearly six months now,” Netti says.

“That’s all?”  I can’t hide my shock.  To me, Seri seems to be the most complete of all the personalities.  To hear that she has been around for such a short time doesn’t seem possible.  “And she has no idea that you and Iris exist?  She doesn’t know that she actually died when she was fifteen?”

“Seri cannot know about any of this.  It could damage her if she understood that she…that things are not as she remembers.”

“But she does remember some of it, doesn’t she?  When Seri first told me about Iris, she said she was hit by a truck.”

“She did?”

“Yeah.  Then later she told me that she’d lied about that, and that Iris had been murdered.

“I don’t know how that could be.”  Netti frowns.

“I thought you were the one that knew everything the other two know.”

“I…I thought I was, too.”

“Does that mean Seri does know at least some of it?”

“No.  Seri doesn’t know about us.”

“But she knew who Kyle was.  She said she saw him.”

“When we were in Montana, we saw Kyle.  We knew Seri was in danger.  We gave her the image of Kyle as her sister’s killer so she would know who he was, and then we left.  We needed to go as far away as possible.”

I remember another question I had on my list.

“Netti?  Where are Iris and Seri’s parents?” I ask.  From everything she and Iris have said, they are good people. Why didn’t Seri go to her parents for help?”

“Our parents are dead.”

“What happened to them?”

“Kyle warned us.”  Netti’s voice gets softer as she stares down at the floor.  “When he first discovered the missing heroin, he said he would make Iris pay for what she had done.  We tried to warn them, but they were gone.”

“Gone?”

“Vanished,” Netti says.  “There was no sign of a break-in, no robbery, and no bodies.  They have never been found.  He made sure there was no place we could go for help.  Montana was remote and isolated, but he found us there.  We realized we had used Iris’s maiden name on a motel where we stayed.  We didn’t make that mistake again.”

“So you traveled north.”

“We had used almost all of our money,” Netti tells me.  “We tried to find work in Calgary, but every place we tried wanted references.  We didn’t want to leave a trail.  We wandered farther north, hoping to just go far enough away that he would stop looking, but he never did.”

“And you ran out of money.”

“Yes.”  Netti gives me a half smile.  “We left Indiana with nearly fifty thousand dollars.  We thought it would last longer.”

“Fifty grand?”  I can’t hide my shock.

“We were afraid.  We stayed at hotels with security systems and ordered room service instead of going out and being seen.”

“I only make about fifteen in a year, and that’s in Canadian dollars.”  I laugh.  “And then you tried to steal donuts from a gas station.”  I shake my head and snicker again.  Everything has come full circle.  I’m not sure I understand, but at least the timeline makes sense.  “I still don’t understand how Seri doesn’t know any of this.”

“We want Seri to be happy.  We don’t want her to be afraid.  She deserves to be happy.”

“What about Iris?”

“What about her?”  Netti’s voice is controlled and unfeeling.

“Doesn’t Iris deserve to be happy, too?”  I make a gesture towards her chest.  “She was in there first.”

“Iris is…unworthy.”  Netti narrows her eyes and looks away.

“Unworthy?”

“Seri was the one who deserved life.”  Netti’s words are short and concise.  “Iris gave it back to her, sacrificing herself in the process.  At least, that’s how it was supposed to be.”

“But Iris doesn’t want to leave.”

“She knows that she should,” Netti says, “but she fears for Seri.  She wants to remain to protect her.”

I take a deep breath and try to process all this additional information.  Iris was first, but she and Netti were supposed to give up their personalities—their lives—so that Seri could live a happy life.  Put so succinctly, it sounds simple, but there are still a lot of questions.

“Do you understand now?” Netti asks.

“Better than I did before.”  I rub my fingers with my eyes.  “It’s a lot to take in.”

“And you…you won’t make us leave?”

“I’ve told all of you that you can stay.”  I reach out and take her hand.  “I want you to stay.”

“Why?”

I’m surprised at Netti’s blunt question, and I’m not sure I have a very good answer.

“Because…because I’ve never felt comfortable with anyone else.  I didn’t think I would ever meet someone who I didn’t…”

“Didn’t what?”

“Who I didn’t want to kill on sight.  That’s all I could think about when you first got here.  I just wanted you dead and out of my way.

Netti’s eyes widen, and I see the briefest flash of fear inside of them.

“I don’t feel like that now,” I say quickly, “but that’s how I’ve always felt.  I felt that way ever since…”

I close my eyes, unable to continue.  I don’t want to bring this up.  I don’t want to talk about how truly fucked up I am.  They are all just now feeling safe with me, and anything I say will ruin that.

I feel a hand on my arm, and when I look up, it’s Seri’s eyes staring back at me.  I’m not even sure how I know it’s her, but I do.

“Go on, Bishop,” Seri says softly.  “You can tell me.”

I want to ask a dozen questions.  How can Seri be here now, in the middle of this conversation?  Is Netti still listening?  Does Seri know anything of what was said since I summoned Netti?  I have no answers.

Seri compensates.

Seri smiles encouragingly at me, and I don’t know what else to do, so I just start talking.

“When I was first arrested and charged,” I tell her as I reach for my whiskey glass, “I was evaluated by two psychiatrists.  They wanted a mental evaluation before the sentencing, but I still wasn’t really saying much of anything.  I’d already figured I was going to prison for life, and I didn’t see much point in talking.  I didn’t trust anything anyone said, and I was afraid they were going to lock me up in a psych ward instead of prison.

“The second one I talked to was kind of a bitch.  I don’t know why, but she had attitude before I ever said anything to her.  She gave me a test to take, and I think I told her to fuck off.  Then she…well, she said if I took it, I could see my mother.  I hadn’t talked to her since it all happened, and I only saw her once when I was being arraigned.  The test was one of those that they scan later, so I just filled in all the letter B answers.  I suppose that pissed her off.  I didn’t care.  I wanted to talk to my Mom.

“A few days went by, but my mother never came.  The next time I saw my lawyer, he said she was refusing to see me.  I saw her at the sentencing, but she never even looked at me.  Not even when she took the stand and said…she said…”

My throat constricts, and I can’t get another word out.  Seri grasps my hand and moves closer to me.  I rub my eyes with my free hand.

“What did she say?” Seri asks.

“At my sentencing, both the psychiatrists got on the stand.  The one said I showed all the signs of prolonged, severe abuse, but since I didn’t tell him anything, he admitted that he was basically guessing.  The second one, well, she said I was a sociopath.  She said I didn’t have the capacity to feel anything for anyone else and that I was a general danger to society.  Then my mother took the stand.

“She said the doctor…the psychiatrist…was right.  She said I was sick.  She said I must have always been sick, and she just didn’t realize it.  She said I should be put down.  She said it just like that: ‘He should be put down like a rabid dog.’  She said I deserved to die.”

Seri gasps as she tightens her grip on my hand.

“I believed her.  I mean, if my mother thought I was like that, then it must be true, right?  After I was sentenced and sent to juvie, she came to see me.  It was the first and only time she talked to me since…since that night.  She said I ruined her life.”

“But you were trying to protect her.”

“Yes, I was protecting her,” I say as tears begin to flow over my cheeks.  “I was trying to save her, but she didn’t see it that way.  He would have killed her eventually.  He would have killed both of us, but she still blamed me.  She was right to blame me.  I was the one with the axe.”

I pull my hand away and wipe the tears off my face.  I grab the whiskey glass and take a big gulp, light yet another cigarette, and force myself to go on.

“Once I was incarcerated, there were other doctors and other evaluations.  I wasn’t particularly cooperative, but I think they all came to the same conclusion anyway.  I’m violent, and I don’t care about the consequences.  I lack empathy.  That term—sociopath—came up more than once.  I thought about it a lot.  I started paying attention to the people around me, and it all started to ring true.  I didn’t give a shit about any of them.”

“But you aren’t,” Seri says.

“You don’t really know me that well.”

“Yes, I do.”  Seri gets up on her knees and takes my face in her hands.  “You took me in.  You didn’t leave me to die in the cold.  You didn’t want me to be here, but you still took me in and warmed me up and fed me.  You let me stay even when you could have taken me somewhere else.  You saved me when I fell into the marsh.  You got me medicine when I was sick.”

“It’s a cycle, Seri,” I say.  “Don’t you get that?  That’s what they kept talking about—the cycle of abuse.  My father was an abusive asshole.  Eventually, I’ll be an abusive asshole because it’s all I’ve ever known.  The only way I can really avoid it is to be alone.”

“Bishop,” Seri says as she continues to stare into my eyes, “there is absolutely nothing about you that is abusive.”

“Not yet.  Someday, though—someday I’ll snap.  I won’t be able to control myself.  I could…I could hurt you.”

“I don’t think you ever would,” Seri says softly.

She strokes her fingers over my cheeks and then leans back on her heels, releasing my face.  Her eyes droop closed for a moment, and when she opens them again, her face is blank.

“You have said you will protect us,” Netti says.  “You are putting yourself in danger for us.  That is not the behavior of a sociopath.”

I swallow hard and try to adjust my thoughts to deal with Netti again.  I wonder if this is how translators feel when they have to go back and forth between languages.

“I’m not sure if that counts.”

“Why would it not?”  Netti raises an eyebrow at me.

I don’t have an answer, so I give her another example.

“I treated Margot like shit, too.  I should feel bad about it, but I don’t—not really.  You should be afraid of me.  I might be just as dangerous as Kyle.  I’m fucked up, Netti.  You do realize that, don’t you?”

“We understand.”

“Do you?  Aren’t you afraid that I might hurt you?”

“We are only afraid that you might change your mind.  You might decide that you do not want the…the burden of us.”

I let out a short, humorless laugh.

“You are unconventional; that’s for sure.”

“But you don’t mind,” she says.  “You don’t seem to care that we are what we are.  Iris…Iris believes you want her to stay as well, not just Seri.”

“I want all of you to stay.  I just think Seri should know what’s going on.”

“She can’t know.”

“Yeah, yeah.  Seri has to be protected.  So you’ve said.  But that’s not really it.  You’re afraid of how Seri will take it if she finds out about the rest of you.  You’re afraid of what will happen if she finds out she is the sister who died.”

“Yes,” Netti whispers.

“If she knows, she might…I mean, could she force you to leave?”

“We don’t know.”

“If Iris was first, it seems she should be the one in control.”

“Iris has never been in control of her life.”

“But you still think Seri needs her help.  If Iris has never been able to help herself, how is she supposed to help Seri?”

“If Seri no longer needed us,” Netti says quietly, “we would be less inclined to appear.  Iris is our strength.  If you…if you could be the one who protected Seri, she would have no use for us.”

“You mean, if Seri felt safe enough with me, you and Iris would just…just what?  Cease to exist?”

“Possibly.  Isn’t that what you want?”

“I…I’m not sure.”  Throughout all of this, I haven’t considered the idea that this combination of women in front of me could somehow change into one being.  Would the others leave, or would they all merge into one?

Do I even want that to happen?

Without a doubt, all of this is confusing and frustrating and completely fucked up, but I’m not convinced I would want it any other way.

“Bishop?”  Netti reaches over and touches my arm.

“Yeah?”

“Seri cares for you deeply,” she says.  “Don’t frighten her again.”

“Well, what should I do next time?  I don’t want to upset Seri, but sometimes I need to talk to you.”

“Whisper my name three times,” she says.  “I’ll hear you.”

“That would be a lot simpler.”  I smile.  “Can you bring Seri back now?  I know I scared her, and I don’t want her to be afraid of me.”

“Yes, I can do that, but Bishop—you can’t tell her any of this.”

“Don’t you think she has a right to know?”

“Maybe someday,” Netti says, “but she is fragile.  We are all fragile.”

“That’s a crock of shit.  You don’t tell her because you and Iris are afraid.”

“Yes, we are.”

“What do you think will happen if Seri understands the truth?  What do you think she will do if she knows she is not the only one inside of there and that she wasn’t even the first?”

“We don’t know.  We just know that the risk is too high.”

“I don’t think you give Seri enough credit.”  I hold my hands up in surrender before Netti can argue about it any longer and change the subject.  “What else do I need to know about Kyle?”

“I think Iris has told you everything,” Netti says.  “None of what she said was untrue.  He is ruthless, and we don’t think he will stop looking for us.”

“And he did try to kill her before.”

“That was his intent.”

“So it stands to reason that he would try again.”  Dark thoughts invade my mind once more.

“We believe he will.  If he finds us, he will kill us.”

“I’m not going to let that happen.”