Chapter 44
The Homecoming
Mara stood in the entryway.
She looked exactly as she had the winter before the accident: dark coat, wet hair, one hand pressed against the doorframe.
Claire wanted to believe the sight before she understood the cost of believing it.
Ada stepped in front of her.
“That is not Mara,” Ada said.
The woman in the doorway smiled. “You have always been jealous of her.”
Ada's face went blank.
Mara turned to Claire. “You let her replace me.”
The words entered the room like smoke.
Daniel lifted his weapon, but Claire stopped him.
“Do not shoot.”
“It is a model.”
“It is still a person.”
The model's eyes flicked toward the gun. “You see? He always chooses violence when he cannot choose a memory.”
Rowan drew another circle on the floor.
“The room is changing,” she said.
The walls began to shift. The living room stretched into the clinic. The fireplace became a treatment console. The clock above it showed 4:17.
Claire stood in the center of both places.
Mara moved closer.
“You asked me to make her,” she said. “You asked me to preserve the part of you that could survive.”
“I asked because I was afraid.”
“You asked because you wanted to forget what you had done.”
The clinic console lit.
On the screen appeared a child-sized hand pressing a button.
Rowan's hand.
“What did she do?” Claire asked.
Mara's model leaned toward her.
“She chose which person would leave the room.”
Claire looked at Rowan.
The child was crying silently.
“You chose Ada,” Mara said. “You left yourself behind.”
Ada shook her head. “That is not what happened.”
The model smiled.
“Then ask her.”
Claire turned to Rowan.
“What happened at 4:17?”
Rowan lifted the blue pencil.
Before she could answer, the cabin windows shattered inward.
Owen Bell's guards entered through the glass.
The model of Mara disappeared.
Rowan shouted, “The answer is in the lake!”
The floor opened beneath the spare room.
Water rose through the boards.