SOPHIA [?]: Mama?
21
KENNY ONLY ASKED what had happened once, and when he didn’t get an answer he didn’t press. Maybe the looks on our faces were grim enough he didn’t want the answers. By the time we got back to the dock, Dr. Kapoor and Dr. Hardcastle were waiting for us. When they asked what had happened, silence wasn’t an option.
Liam cleared his throat, but I stepped forward. I gave them a sanitized version: we went to find Liam and Abby, Lily went in, when she didn’t come out, I’d gone in and found only Liam, insensible.
I’d composed the lie on the way over. People disappeared on this island. Trying to come up with a logical explanation for what had happened, saying that I’d seen them die or something—that would just lead to more questions I couldn’t answer. But the inexplicable? The people here were used to not digging too deeply.
“You’re hurt?” Dr. Kapoor asked Liam with brusque concern.
“No, I just—I had a panic attack or something. I don’t remember anything between going into the bunker and leaving with Sophia.”
“Going into the bunker that’s supposed to be welded shut because it’s dangerous and unstable, you mean,” Dr. Kapoor said. “A room might have collapsed. The two of them might have fallen. We’ll need to go and look for them. I’ll handle that. Kenny, drive Liam home and then take yourself and Ms. Hayes back to Mrs. Popova’s.”
“I can help look for them,” Kenny objected.
“We will handle this,” Dr. Hardcastle said, not a drop of his usual friendliness in his tone. He was looking over at the island, and I couldn’t read his expression. Dr. Kapoor, though—that look was fury, pure and incandescent. Did she know what had happened? Was she part of it?
I allowed myself to be bustled along. Kenny was full of concern and trying desperately not to demand details from me.
Dr. Kapoor must have called ahead, because Mrs. Popova was waiting for us on the porch.
“You’ll be all right, yeah?” Kenny asked, parking the car without turning off the engine. I nodded. “I need to get back. In case they need my help to search,” he said.
“You’re a good friend, Kenny,” I told him. “You’re a good person.” I didn’t lie and tell him that everything would be all right.
“Thanks,” he said, distracted. I don’t think he’d actually heard me. I curled my hands slowly into fists. I’d never had to use the void so frequently before. The backlash was already threatening, like a migraine aura at the edge of my vision.
One step at a time, I told myself, and made my way stiffly toward Mrs. Popova. She took a look at my face and clucked her tongue softly.
“You look exhausted,” she said.
“I’m fine,” I told her, but my voice broke. I gulped down a breath and looked away. I just needed to get inside. I just needed—
“Oh, you poor lamb,” she said, and the next thing I knew I was sobbing.
“I’m sorry,” I choked out.
“Don’t be absurd. You cry all you must,” she told me. “There are things worth crying over. You’ll be made of steel again in the morning, but for now you weep. Come inside, and I’ll make some cocoa for you.” She rubbed my arms briskly.
I wished I could have pulled it together then, in the face of her generosity, but it only made me cry harder. She installed me at the kitchen table and didn’t ask a single question. By the time the cocoa was gone, so were my tears, leaving behind a headache and a pile of tissues she wordlessly swept into the trash bin.
“Get some rest,” she suggested. I liked her way of taking care of people—nothing particularly maternal in it, just a gentle efficiency that recognized comfort alongside hunger and cold, a practical matter to be tended to. “And make sure you stay in. Mist tonight.” She rose. All the warmth went out of me.
Mrs. Popova lived on the island. She’d lived on the island for ages. Which meant she knew. Knew that it wasn’t safe to go out in the mist, and not just because you couldn’t see where you were going. No wonder she hadn’t asked me any questions. She either didn’t want the answers, or she had them already.
I mumbled something that might have been “thank you” and stumbled back to my room. After dumping my bag on the bed, I went over to the small desk where I’d left my laptop. I turned it on and fumbled in my jacket pocket for the SD card Abby had handed me.
I wiped a bit of grit off the memory card and slid it into the slot. Video files popped up—Abby’s files, dozens of them since she’d arrived on the island. The last one was from the exact time she went into the bunker.
I started to press play, then stopped. There was someone else who needed to see this. Or maybe it was that I knew he’d want to see it, and that I could use it to make him see me.
I checked the time. Still an hour before the mist was expected to roll in. A light rain had started up, a thin layer of gray clouds rolling over the sky. I packed up my laptop and hurried out of the house, shutting the door lightly behind me so that I wouldn’t disturb Mrs. Popova.
Dr. Kapoor’s house was on the inward curve of the island, facing Belaya Skala. It took me only a few minutes to get there, crunching over the gravel road and weaving around potholes. I walked up to the front door and knocked.
I had to wait a long time before Liam appeared, his hair and clothes rumpled. He’d showered and changed, at least, but his eyes looked hollow. As soon as he saw who was at the door, he started to close it.
“Wait,” I said. I stuck out my hand, catching the door. “We need to talk.”
“We really don’t,” Liam said.
“I know you’re angry with me. Just let me explain.”
“Explain how you’re a sociopath? Or possibly a robot?” he asked.
I glared at him. “We’re in this together whether we like each other or not,” I said. “And I have Abby’s camera. If you want to know what happened to you two, you’d better let me in.”
He stared at me for the space of three quick heartbeats, then simply turned and walked inside, leaving the door open. I followed him in, shutting the door behind me. And, after a moment’s consideration, doing up all three heavy locks.
Liam’s room was at the back of the house. There was just enough space for a small desk, a bookshelf, and a bed. In typical teenage fashion, he hadn’t unpacked, and a large suitcase filled with unevenly folded clothes sat crammed in the corner. A few books—science fiction, mostly—were stacked on top of the bookshelf, but the only other hint of personalization was a line of collected objects on the windowsill—seashells, stones, and yet another little carving, this one of a deer. Mikhail’s work.
Liam had sat on the bed, hands laced around one knee. “All right,” he said. “Let’s see it.”
I took out the laptop. “You’re sure you want to?” I asked.
“Don’t you?”
“Yeah. I’d rather know. But it should be your choice.”
“I want to see,” he insisted.
I sat beside him and started the video.
VIDEO EVIDENCE
Recorded by Abigail Ryder
JUNE 30, 2018, 8:22 AM
Abby’s breath is loud as she follows Liam into the bunker. The change in light is too much for the camera, and the scene goes dark for a moment until she switches the settings. Now the scene is lit in eerie shades of green. Liam has paused in the middle of the main room, head cocked to the side as if listening to the music that emanates from somewhere below.
ABBY: Liam appears to be under some kind of compulsion or other effect.
Ms. Ryder is clearly trying to remain professional, but it is impossible to forget in this moment, with her voice vulnerably raw, that she is still only seventeen.
ABBY: His hand is coated with a substance—I can’t see what it is. I’m going to try to snap him out of it.
She approaches cautiously.
ABBY:
Liam? Can you hear me?
She mutters something unintelligible, then reaches for his shoulder.
ABBY: Liam, you need to—
Her fingertips brush his shirt. He jerks, turning on her, and backhands her. We cannot see the impact, but Abby—and the camera—fall backward. Abby swears loudly.
ABBY: My arm—damn it, I’m bleeding. A lot. Shit.
She doesn’t sound frightened yet, just angry. The camera, resting on the ground, is trained on her as she examines the outside of her upper arm, where a piece of metal has ripped open a nasty gouge. Blood flows freely from the wound. She covers it with her palm and looks up, presumably at Liam.
ABBY: Liam. Snap out of it.
LIAM: He’s waiting. We have to go.
ABBY: Who’s waiting?
LIAM: The lord with six wings. The prince of many voices. The one who is shattered.
ABBY: Oh, in that case, no problem.
Liam crouches in front of her. His eyes reflect oddly in the camera’s night vision. He speaks patiently, as if explaining to a child.
LIAM: He witnessed the destruction of the kingdom, and he will witness its rebirth.
ABBY: No offense, Liam, but what the f—
LIAM: We have to go. The Six-Wing is waiting. He will test us. He will discover if we are the ones who are awaited.
ABBY: And if we aren’t what he’s looking for?
LIAM: Don’t worry. We can still serve.
He stands. Closes his eyes, listening with an expression of pure bliss.
LIAM: He’s close. We must go to meet him.
He sets off swiftly, moving out of frame, but the microphone picks up the metallic creak of the stairs as he descends. Abby collects herself, swearing under her breath.
ABBY: Run or follow? Should probably run.
She stares after him.
ABBY: Not letting him die.
She picks up the camera and takes off after Liam.*
Video flickers. Abby moves awkwardly, bracing herself sometimes against the wall and leaving streaks of blood. As she descends, the video begins to glitch, lines crawling across the screen. The singing is louder down here. As Abby comes around the bend of one of the landings, there appears to be a visual distortion in the shadows near the ceiling. However, closer inspection reveals that it is the movement of mold, growing unnaturally fast across the ceiling.
Picture and audio cut out; camera records only black for several seconds. Then disconnected audio:
ABBY: This doesn’t make any sense. How deep does this go? This has to be at least sev—
The calling of birds drowns out her voice.
Video resumes. Hundreds of birds hurtle through the air, their bodies so dense it’s impossible to tell whether they’re indoors or outdoors. Their cries are deafening, the crack of their wings like a storm.
More blackness. Then three seconds of video. Played frame by frame, it shows a shadowy, winged form. It judders, flickering, the image sometimes doubling as if two figures stand there—or three. And then they collapse together again, wings quivering.
Another gap. When video resumes, the ground is littered with birds that seem to be in various states of dissolution, bodies collapsing into the same thick liquid that coats Liam’s hand. He stands in the middle of the round room.
ABBY: No. Take me. Let him go.
The camera jerks backward. Video blinks out, then resumes. The camera rests on the ground, pointed so that only a rough stone wall is in view.
[UNKNOWN]: No. I won’t let you.
There is a hissing, rustling sound in response, almost like words.
Video cuts out a final time.
22
LIAM LOOKED QUEASY. We sat side by side on his bed, not quite touching, the last frame of the video paused on the screen. “It’s like trying to remember a dream,” he said. “I recognize it, but I don’t remember it. All I remember is—it felt like I was in an empty room, and the room kept getting smaller. Like I was being bricked up in my own mind.”
“That sounds terrifying.”
“It wasn’t fear I felt.”
“What did you feel?” I asked, looking at him. He flicked his lip ring against his teeth and thought a moment before answering.
“Despair,” Liam said at last. “It’s not the first time I’ve felt that way. Like me was being compressed, cleaned up like so much clutter. But this time it was all at once, and it wasn’t my own mind doing it to me.” His hands were slack in his lap now, his gaze fixed on a knot in the wood paneling on the far wall. I touched his forearm gently. He jerked it away. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“You’re not the first person that’s called me a sociopath,” I told him. The words were like fingers pressed against a bruise, a hurt I didn’t often admit aloud. “When I start to get too frightened or sad or anything, I just—push it away. Don’t feel it. It’s useful. It means that I can just do what I need to do without freezing up or getting weepy. Would it help Lily if I’d fallen apart? Would it have helped us get out of there alive?”
“It would let me know you were human,” Liam said. “You ought to feel something.”
“I do,” I snapped. I shut the laptop with more force than I should have and shoved it back into my bag. “I feel horrible. Is that what you want me to say? I just . . .”
“Bottle it up?” Liam offered.
I frowned, thinking it through. I’d never had to describe it to someone before. “Not really. More like—step outside of it.”
“I think you might be describing dissociation,” Liam said. “Not exactly healthy.”
“It is when it keeps you from getting killed,” I pointed out. I kept my grip on the strap of my bag, expecting him at any moment to tell me to leave. I was already angry at him for it, scraping together rage so that I wouldn’t have to wallow in the disappointment of yet another rejection.
“Fair point,” he said instead. The fight went out of me. I slumped back, and we sat in weary silence for a while. Then he said, “That was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Me too. Obviously.”
“How do you live with a thing like that in your head?” he asked. He looked me in the eye at last, and his expression was one of utter sorrow. “We can’t even tell anyone what really happened.”
“We just have each other.”
“I’m sorry I called you a sociopath,” he said.
“Sometimes I worry that it’s true,” I admitted.
“I’m pretty sure that a real sociopath wouldn’t be bothered by being a sociopath,” Liam said. I chuckled wryly, and then was surprised when he slid his hand over mine. “At least you were useful. I just stood there like a lump.”
“It happened too fast for anyone to stop it,” I said.
“I know. I know, but . . .”
“It doesn’t make it better,” I whispered. I leaned against him, and he put an arm around me, his cheek against my brow. I don’t know how long we stayed like that, taking comfort from each other’s presence. I listened to the sound of his heartbeat, felt the rise and fall of his chest. I let the moments and the minutes slip away.
I wanted to stay like that forever, suspended between moments, far from the mist.
The mist. I jerked upright and twisted to look out the window over the bed. The air was already growing hazy.
“I thought I had more time,” I said, standing. “It was supposed to be another hour.”
“The weather doesn’t follow a set schedule even in normal places,” Liam pointed out, still sitting at the edge of the bed.
“Maybe if I hurry—”
“You don’t need to.” He put his hand on my hip. “You can stay. Until the mist is gone.” He eased me toward him with the lightest of pressure until I stood directly in front of him, too close to simply be frie
ndly.
His eyes weren’t perfectly brown, I realized; they were ringed with amber, so bright it was almost gold. It matched the faint golden highlights in his wind-tousled curls, the kind of unruly that models spent hours to achieve. It was made to run your hands through. He was skinny, but I liked skinny. And I liked his sharp features, his smooth brown skin, the one dark freckle right next to the corner of his eye.
Before I could overthink it, I kissed him. His lips were warm, and he kissed me back without any hesitation. I slid closer, and his hand moved higher on my hip, the other brushing back my hair, which had started to come free of its braid. I matched his movements carefully as he deepened the kiss.
He pulled away slightly. A flash of doubt went through me, but he stroked his thumb along my jaw. “It’s okay to feel this,” he whispered. “Don’t push it away.”
He was right. I’d been stepping outside myself. Managing the moment from a remove, the way I always did. “I’ll try,” I promised, and let my emotions rush in.
* * *
We lay together for a long time, fully clothed and without having ventured too far past simple kissing. The narrow confines of the bed made for a kind of default intimacy that was pleasant, though, his arms around me, my head nestled against his chest. We talked, but not about Bitter Rock or the mist. He told me about his mother—Dr. Kapoor’s ex.
He said that at first people always thought they were strikingly similar. They were both women, both academics, both dedicated to their research and their fields, and both always seemed to be smarter than anyone else in the room. But spend any real time with them and it became obvious that they were actually complete opposites. He called his British mother ethereal and romantic, and I could imagine how odd that would be against the sharp practicality of Dr. Kapoor.
“She always seems a million miles away,” Liam said. “And Dr. Kapoor is more, like, intensely present. Like she redirects gravity with the sheer force of her personality.”
Our Last Echoes Page 18
