Chapter 70
Room Two
Room Two opened beneath the lake at dawn.
The church basement filled with water, but the candles remained lit. A circle appeared in the floor, showing a staircase descending through blue darkness.
Claire went first with Ada beside her. Mara followed. Daniel stayed close to Rowan, who walked as a child but carried herself like someone who had been waiting years for the correct door.
At the bottom, they found a chamber larger than the clinic. Its walls were made of glass. Behind each pane stood a different version of Bellwether: the resort before construction, the clinic during treatment, the lake after the flood.
“Room Two is not a room,” Mara said. “It is the place where the records disagree.”
Claire saw herself in one pane, arriving at Cabin 12. In another, she was already inside. In a third, she was standing outside the courthouse with the death certificate.
“Which is real?” Tess asked.
“All of them are records,” Ada answered.
“That is not what I asked.”
“It is the only answer the room allows.”
At the center stood a circular table with five empty chairs.
One chair carried Claire's name.
One carried Mara's.
One carried Ada's.
The fourth carried Rowan's.
The fifth was marked OWNER.
Everett Bell entered behind them.
“You cannot continue without me,” he said.
Mara looked at the chair. “That is why the room was built.”
Everett sat.
The glass walls went dark.
A question appeared on the table.
WHOSE MEMORY IS THE PROPERTY?