Chapter 65
The Name Under the Name
The paper archive wrote without ink.
Letters surfaced beneath the old entries, darkening as if the page remembered them. Marisol. Claire. Rowan. Ada. Each name appeared twice, then three times, linked by lines that crossed the margins.
Everett Bell remained on his knees.
“You used the wrong name,” he said.
Claire held the torn page. “You changed yours.”
“I changed it to survive.”
“You changed it to own the record.”
The first response stood beside the ledger. “He believed a name was a door. He forgot it was also a witness.”
Mara's model moved toward the child.
“You were not meant to wake.”
“You were not meant to die.”
The two looked at one another, and Claire felt an old argument passing between them.
The page before her changed again.
CLAIRE ROWAN — FOUR HOURS MISSING.
Underneath appeared a location: ROOM 1.
“The first clinic room,” Nora said.
“Where is it?” Claire asked.
The first response pointed toward the church floor.
“Below the first church.”
The stone beneath the ledger opened.
Everett tried to stand. Ada stepped in front of him.
“You do not get to follow.”
“The archive belongs to me.”
“No one owns the witness.”
The sentence appeared across the walls.
Claire, Mara, Rowan, and Ada descended.
At the bottom was a room smaller than Cabin 12's spare room. A single lamp hung over a wooden table. On the table lay a clock stopped at 4:17 and a cassette labeled CLAIRE — ORIGINAL SESSION.
Claire reached for it.
The tape began playing before she touched the machine.
Her own voice said, “I want to know what Mara is hiding.”