Freddie whispered, “I remember now. It was so dark.”
“And Winter was there,” said Laura.
“Yes,” said Freddie. “He was there.” He turned. And it was her brother’s hazel eyes looking into hers. Exhausted, sad, with horror lurking in the back of them. But he was there. “I’ll go where you want, Laura,” he said. “As long as you can. But I’m still a traitor. I’m still a coward and a murderer.”
Laura held his hand and said nothing.
Faland was watching them. Had been that whole time. “Really?” he said. “I open the secrets of my hotel to you and this is how you answer? Go back out there and live with it?” He was stalking across the room. Freddie and Laura both stood very still. “But didn’t you scream for your mother to run, that night in my hotel, Laura? I heard you. You want to rememberthisfor the rest of your life?” His hand was on the knob of another door. He flung it open.
· · ·
It was their parents’ bedroom, in Halifax, full of broken glass. Their mother in the middle of it, lying in her own blood. The room was filling with smoke, sparks falling outside. Their mother was trying to cry, but her tear ducts were gone.
Freddie went perfectly still.
And Laura darted forward, into the memory, and knelt beside her. All she could think was that she finally had a second chance. Back in the heart of her own nightmares, she could do it over again.And again. And again, until she got it right. Until she saved her mother.
But someone was pulling her away. She didn’t want to go. But the arms held her, and she found herself sobbing against her brother’s chest. His arms were tight around her. They were together in the memory, in the burnt living room in Veith Street.
“When?” he whispered, into her hair.
Her voice was almost unrecognizable. “In December. Mother and Father are dead. The house is gone. Everything’s gone.”
Freddie was silent. They held each other, shivering. How do you go on from the end of everything? She didn’t have an answer, and neither did he. They were frozen by it, at a standstill. In the doubt-filled darkness, Faland’s voice came and wrapped around them again. “You don’t have to go on. You don’t have to remember.”
He was right, Laura thought. He’d pour them wine, if they asked. He’d play his fiddle. They wouldn’t need anything else. She could see the truth of that in her brother’s haunted eyes. They could both just stop. A look of triumph came into Faland’s face.
But then Freddie said, “I couldn’t leave, for myself,” his voice thin as a thread. “But Laura can’t stay here. Laura—she has to help people. Do you hear me, Laura? I won’t let you stay here.”
Freddie’s words made Laura think of Jones. Jones who did still believe in the future. Perhaps there was something beyond all this, something she couldn’t see.
“I won’t leave without you,” she said.
“I don’t know how to get out,” Freddie whispered. “I don’t even know how to try.”
Stop trying doors,Laura thought. The doors weren’t the way out.Falandwas.She felt in her pocket. She had matches, from lighting the Bunsen burner in the sterilization room. She glanced up. Crossed the room. Faland was leaning on a table, watching her carefully. She struck a match and held it poised. “Let us out,” said Laura, “or I’ll set the place on fire.”
He looked unimpressed.
The match was pitiful; it was burning her fingers. Laura stepped closer to him. Closer still. He looked impatient. Then she threw the match. It arced, and his eyes followed it.
As they did, she lunged forward and snatched his violin, raised it, poised to smash. “Now,” she said.
He went very still.
“You can’t escape,” he said. “Even if I let you out. There is nowhere for you to escape to. Don’t you understand? What future can you expect, out there? In the wreck of the world? Haven’t you even seen all the ways you are ruined?”
She didn’t answer. She was afraid to; she might find herself agreeing. Instead she clutched the violin by the neck and started to whip it down.
“Stop!” he snapped.
She waited.
“You think this is a victory? It will only end in ashes.”
Laura said nothing. Finally, unwillingly, his head turned. She followed his gaze, and where there had been only wall, she saw another door.
“With my malediction,” said Faland. It was almost gentle.
