did, with a ginormous tower next to it. It took me ages to find the power button, and then five full minutes for it to sputter to life. But it was connected to the internet, and once it woke up, it was functional enough.
No, the computer wasn’t the problem. The problem was that I had no fucking idea what to do now that I did have access to the internet. Where did I even start?
I typed Birch Bay, Maine into the search bar and pulled up the town’s bureau of tourism page. All the images of the town were adorable and highly picturesque. If I hadn’t, you know, been beaten up, dropped in the ocean, and lost my memory, it might have been a nice place to take a vacation.
What had Holden said about his house? That it was just up the coast? I clicked over to a map and found the main road leading north out of Birch Bay, my eyes alert for turn-offs or the outlines of buildings.
But there was nothing. There was another scallop-shaped bay north of something called Lighthouse Point, but there was no evidence of any houses, or anything at all, until you got to the next town, a good twenty miles north.
Apparently, Holden was rich enough to wipe his residence off the map. Or maybe you didn’t have to be rich to do that, just secretive. Either way, the mystery around him deepened.
I knew I was supposed to be figuring out who I was, not Holden, but that turned out to be just as much of a failure as learning more about my location. I spent the morning scouring the internet, took a break for lunch—more yogurt and some blackberries I found in the fridge—then went back to it. But no matter how many newspapers I read, how many sites I checked, there was nothing useful.
What if I were a criminal, and that was why? People who were breaking the law wouldn’t want to broadcast their activities. Or maybe I was some kind of CIA spy in deep cover, and my handlers didn’t want to admit I existed. Maybe I was a super-soldier, and my entire identity had been wiped.
You’d make a pretty shitty super-soldier, running from noises in the dark, whispered that voice again, and I had to admit it was right.
Either funding for the program had run out and I hadn’t had any doses of super-soldier serum recently, or I was just a plain old scaredy-cat. Unfortunately, one of those scenarios seemed way likelier than the other.
The muscles that had begun to unknot themselves in the shower were cramping up after so long sitting in one position, and even though it was only two p.m., I could feel myself starting to get tired. Maybe because all I’d had to eat in the past twenty-four hours was yogurt and fruit. Either way, I decided I was done for the day.
Holden had said to knock if I needed anything. I wasn’t sure I did, precisely, but I also didn’t know where the south-west wing of the house was. I hadn’t exactly paid attention to the direction of the sun all day. I decided to go exploring.
The house, I soon realized, was massive. Maybe I should have guessed that, given that it had a fancy name and all. You weren’t going to call a split-level house in the suburbs ‘Edgecliffe Manor,’ but it was even bigger than I’d originally thought. Hallways led into more hallways, splitting and multiplying and turning back on themselves until I was thoroughly confused.
I found a second kitchen on the third floor, at least three turrets that looked like they came straight out of a horror movie, a creepy old nursery that couldn’t have been used since Victorian times, and an actual billiards room, like the kind in the board game Clue. Who had one of those? I’d need to keep my eyes out for lead pipes and candlesticks.
I could see the ocean outside the windows in the billiards room, undulating slightly through the warped old glass. It was steel gray, and it looked hungry. I turned away, rubbing my hands over my arms. It couldn’t hurt me as long as I stayed in here.
In a far corner of the house—maybe somewhere in the north, but I swear cardinal directions didn’t seem to apply in this place—I found a library, and God, what a library it was.
The room was huge and full of books, but the vast majority of them weren’t