Chapter 43
The Original Subject
Rowan waited in the spare room.
She was twelve years old again.
Not in the way a photograph made a person younger. Her body was small, her hair cut to her jaw, her blue pencil tucked behind one ear. She sat on the floor with her knees drawn to her chest.
Daniel entered behind Claire.
The child looked at him.
“You are late.”
He dropped to his knees.
“Rowan.”
She flinched from the name.
“That is the name they use when they want me to stay small.”
“You are my daughter.”
“You are my father in one record.”
“In every record.”
“Not in the one they gave me.”
Claire brought Ada into the room.
Rowan looked at her older face.
“You chose a name.”
Ada nodded.
“I did not know I could.”
Rowan reached toward her.
Ada took her hand.
The cabin lights went out.
Above them, the backward clock began to move.
Owen Bell's voice came through the walls.
“The original subject has been recovered. The witness may return to baseline.”
Claire felt the phrase enter her body like a command.
Her knees weakened.
She remembered the clinic room. The diffuser. Mara's hand. Her own voice promising to sleep.
Ada pulled her upright.
“Do not listen.”
“It is my voice.”
“That is why it works.”
Rowan drew a circle on the floor with the blue pencil. “Stand inside.”
Claire stepped across the line.
The command stopped.
The room became quiet.
Rowan looked at Daniel. “Tell her what you signed.”
Daniel stared at the floor.
“I signed that you were dead,” he said.
“Why?”
“They told me you were a model. They told me the original had been transferred and could not survive outside the program.”
“You believed them.”
“I wanted to believe you were not suffering.”
Rowan picked up the pencil.
“That is how they used you.”
The front door of the cabin opened.
Someone stepped inside.
Mara's voice said, “Claire, it is time to come home.”