Chapter 103
The Stable Witness
When the lights returned, Claire sat at the kitchen table.
The family rule was written before her.
CLAIRE WATCHES LENA.
Mara stood on one side. Everett stood on the other. Ada and Rowan waited by the door.
“The system needs a stable witness,” Everett said.
“There is no stable witness,” Claire answered.
“There is always one person who remembers first.”
“That person can be wrong.”
“Then the record collapses.”
Claire took the blue pencil.
She crossed out CLAIRE.
Under it, she wrote THE FAMILY.
The house groaned.
Every chair at the table filled with a version of Lena: child, teenager, sister, patient, witness, stranger.
They all looked at Claire.
“Which Lena is real?” she asked.
The youngest one answered, “The one you stop choosing.”
Claire placed the pencil in the center of the table.
“Then none of you belongs to me.”
One by one, the versions stood.
The house released them through the windows as points of light.
Everett's young model remained seated.
“You think refusal makes you free,” he said.
“No. It makes me responsible for my refusal.”
The model smiled.
“That is the same thing.”
The table cracked.
Underneath was a new map.
Room Seven was marked at the Bellwether hospital.
The hospital was where Elise Vale had died.