The Child in the Water

The child looked up.

Claire pressed both hands to the glass.

“We are coming.”

The water changed color, turning white beneath her palms.

Mara shouted, “Do not touch the glass!”

The warning came too late.

Claire fell into the memory.

She was standing in the clinic, eleven months earlier. Rowan sat in the treatment chair. Ada stood behind the glass. Mara held a black case.

“The body cannot carry both,” Mara said.

Claire answered, “Then give Rowan the choice.”

Owen Bell said, “Children do not choose.”

Claire turned toward him. “Then the program is not medicine.”

Owen pressed the transfer button.

Ada screamed from behind the glass.

Rowan opened her eyes.

The memory broke.

Claire woke on the corridor floor with Mara holding her shoulders.

“You remembered,” Mara said.

“I gave Rowan the choice.”

“You tried.”

“What did she choose?”

Ada stood at the glass. “She chose both.”

The child beneath the water opened her mouth.

The corridor filled with her voice.

“I am not the body.”

Ada answered, “I am not the memory.”

The glass cracked.

“Then what are you?” Claire asked.

The child smiled.

“The witness between.”