The Call from the First Room

“The person you left behind.”

“Mara?”

“No.”

The voice belonged to Claire's mother.

She had been dead for nine years.

“You made me responsible,” Claire said.

“I made you capable.”

“You made Lena disappear into my memory.”

“I made sure one of you survived.”

“That is not the same as love.”

The voice paused.

“You learned that from your sister.”

Claire looked at Mara.

Mara's face had gone pale.

“The first room was our house,” Mara said.

The phone speaker crackled.

“Room Ten is the house before the clinic.”

The courthouse floor opened beneath them.

Claire, Aster, Rowan, Elise, Daniel, and Mara fell into darkness.

Before the phone disappeared, her mother's voice said one last thing.

“Ask Claire why she was the child who survived.”