that Dr. Kapoor has a random shell collection,” I said. He snorted in amused agreement. She hadn’t been surprised to see me—the echo-me—in the house. She’d been annoyed, but not surprised. “She lets my echo stay there. She must. Which means those things belong to my echo.”
Including the deer, carved so carefully. One of Mikhail’s. If he’d given it to her, it meant he knew too. He didn’t recognize me when I arrived because he knew me as a child. He recognized me because he knew her. He hadn’t told me everything.
I straightened up. Salt water dripped from my fingertips, and I felt nothing. All my fear and anger and grief were on some other shore. Maybe I wasn’t human. But maybe it was better not to be.
“I know what we need to do next,” I said, and started back toward the road.
VIDEO EVIDENCE
Recorded by Joy Novak
AUGUST 14, 2003, TIME UNKNOWN
The camera turns on in night mode. The exterior light is not on, but a flashlight lying on the floor provides some minimal illumination. The camera rests at floor level as well, underneath the wire frame of a bed. It shifts slightly, scraping against the concrete floor.
SOPHIA: Shh.*
Someone enters the room. A man’s boots pass in front of the camera. One foot drags slightly.
CARREAU: Sophie? It’s okay. You know me. I’m your friend. I want to help. Please.
The camera turns, shifting so that both girls are visible. Sophia and her echo—whichever is which—lie on their stomachs beneath the bed, holding each other’s hands tightly. The Sophia who was holding the camera puts a finger to her lips and shakes her head. The Sophia farther from the camera bites her lip and presses a hand over her mouth, as if trying not to whimper.
CARREAU: Sophie. Sophie. Sososososososo—
His foot taps rapidly, the nervous drumming of a rabbit against the dusty ground.
CARREAU: Sloppy work.
He walks out of the room. In the distance, muffled, come three rapid gunshots and screaming.
Approximately five minutes pass with the camera on the ground beneath the bed, the two girls, holding each other’s hands, breathing in ragged, staggered rhythm. The shouting has stopped. Footsteps sound in the hall outside; Joy enters, recognizable by the bright blue laces on her boots.
NOVAK: Sophie?
The girls clamber out, one after the other.
SOPHIA: We got scared.
SOPHIA [2]: We hided.
NOVAK: It’s okay now.
The lie is a flimsy one, and even the girls seem to know it.
SOPHIA: What happened?
NOVAK: Um. Carolyn, she was . . . sick. She had to go away.
SOPHIA: She tried to hurt me. I have a ouch.
She holds out her arm for the requisite kiss. Novak rolls up the girl’s sleeve. The imprint of fingers is visible on Sophia’s skin. Novak, struggling to maintain an unworried smile, plants a kiss on the girl’s arm.
NOVAK: Okay, kiddos. Come with me. Everything’s going to be okay.
She puts force behind the words, as if her determination will make it true. Together, each girl holding one of Novak’s hands, they walk through the hallway and into the control room. The camera dangles by its strap from Sophia’s hand. It captures a few frames of the door, closed, and of the wide pool of blood on the concrete floor in the hallway.
In the control room, Hardcastle and Kapoor sit in dilapidated chairs. Martin leans against a table. He smiles at the Sophias and taps a finger to his lips; no one else appears to notice.
HARDCASTLE: You found them. Good.
NOVAK: If anyone tries to touch either one of them—
HARDCASTLE: You’ve made yourself clear.
KAPOOR: No one’s doing anything until we figure out which one of them is which.
Novak looks down and notices the camera. She takes it from Sophia and positions it.
KAPOOR: Carolyn seemed to, I don’t know, glitch out or something.
NOVAK: What about the other one?
She sounds queasy.
KAPOOR: The other . . . the one outside.
NOVAK: If this was the copy, the one out there was the real Carolyn. But you said that she attacked you.
KAPOOR: She did. She came out of nowhere, screaming at us.
NOVAK: What was she screaming?
KAPOOR: She . . . I don’t remember. She was asking something. Where something was.
HARDCASTLE: Where did you take them.
His voice is monotone, his gaze distant. He shakes his head a little, eyes focusing.
HARDCASTLE: That was it, wasn’t it? She was asking where we took them. Took who, though? And how did she end up near here?
KAPOOR: We were heading for the beach. I remember that. And we weren’t gone that long.