Chapter 87
The Room Without Lena
The room without Lena was empty.
No photographs. No voices. No objects. The walls were painted white, and a single mirror faced the door.
Claire entered alone.
Her reflection appeared without a face.
“This is where she stopped,” Ada said from the doorway.
“Stopped being what?”
“A person others could remember.”
The mirror filled with the accident. Lena's car against the tree. Claire on the road. Mara standing in the snow.
Then the image shifted.
Lena opened her eyes.
She looked at Claire and said, “Do not save me.”
Claire remembered answering, “I will not.”
But she had saved the coat. Saved the voice. Saved the anger. She had turned Lena into evidence because evidence was easier to carry than grief.
The mirror cracked.
Behind it stood a woman with no face.
“What do you want?” Claire asked.
“A witness who will stop making me prove I existed.”
Claire placed Lena's button against the mirror.
The faceless woman took it.
For one moment, Lena's face appeared.
“You can let me go now,” she said.
Claire's hands shook.
“I am not ready.”
“That is not the same as love.”
The mirror opened like water.
The ship's alarm began to ring.
Behind Claire, the door locked.