“We see.”
“We see when others turn away.”
“We see.”
“We see the glory and the everlasting.”
“We see.”
“Ma’am?”
Clare started, turning toward the voice, the flight attendant’s face coming into focus. “What? What’s wrong?”
“I think you were dreaming,” the attendant said, a note of uncertainty in her voice as she straightened.
Clare glanced around, her mouth beyond dry. None of the other passengers were looking her way, but the turbulence had passed. How long had she been caught in the memory? “I’m sorry, was I talking out loud?” she asked, settling back into her seat.
“No. You were making some noises. I was worried you were having a seizure since your eyes were open.”
“Oh. I . . . I’m fine now. Thank you.”
“You’re sure? Can I bring you anything?”
She resisted the urge to ask for alcohol. She needed her head clear when the plane landed. “No, thank you.”
“Press the call button if you change your mind.” The attendant gave her a half smile and moved toward the back of the plane.
Clare sat unmoving. Two intrusive memories in one day. It had never happened before. And the power with which she’d been swept away both times was terrifying. It was like being abducted and not knowing you were gone until you’d been returned.
But what bothered her most of all was the detail in the memory she’d either forgotten or blocked out before. The date her father had mentioned—the twelfth.
There’d been no calendars in the refuge, no clocks, nothing to note the passing of time. Later she’d learned it was just another control tactic employed in certain cults. Take away a person’s sense of time and have them rely only on the leader’s direction and schedule. Regardless, she and the other children had been taught seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, and years. She knew her birthday, when Christmas was celebrated, and later learned of the national tragedy which had nearly overlapped the devastation at the Refuge.
9/11.
And yet she remembered her father saying “two days” on that morning he gathered them all together. The fire which consumed the Refuge happened late on September twelfth, which meant the morning her father had been speaking of “planes” and “towers” and an “act of evil” had been September tenth—a day before it happened.
Her head began to shake without her meaning to. A flaw in her memory, it had to be. He must’ve said one day, or maybe her mind was inserting details that didn’t belong, skewing the timeframe somehow. There was no way her father could have known about the attacks. It was impossible.
Taking deep, cleansing breaths, she looked out the window, hoping to see the ground or at least a suggestion of sunlight, but there were only the welded gray layers of clouds beyond the wing.
Chapter Twelve
She rented a car at the Minneapolis terminal and left the city heading northbound as the day slid toward evening.
The reality of being back in the state where she was born kept trying to enshroud her. Knowing with each passing minute and mile she grew closer to the place she’d barely escaped did nothing to calm her. Instead she focused on the changing landscape, how the sprawl of the city was gradually nudged back by suburbs, which in turn ceded to rolling fields hemmed by swaths of trees. She counted different colored cars, keeping mental track of the numbers. She noted each mile marker. Tallied letters in the names of each smaller and smaller town she passed through until there was nothing but wild stretches of woodland to either side of the car.
The desolate beauty of Minnesota’s early fall wasn’t lost on her, but it carried too many memories to fully appreciate any autumnal colors. Even the good recollections were tainted with heartache. No question about it, her life belonged to the northwest now. There’d been nothing for her here when she’d left all those years ago.
It was nearly nine p.m. when her headlights illuminated the city limits sign for Sheen. She wasn’t surprised to see the population had grown only marginally since her departure nearly two decades ago. It was primarily a tourist town with enough big box stores on its outskirts to feign the illusion of progress while the corpse of a paper mill decayed at its center.
Clare navigated through the narrow streets, tasting the tang of sour nostalgia. This was the very first town she’d ever witnessed, the first civilization outside the Refuge. Before moving away due to unending attention surrounding the cult, she’d never taken to the low buildings or cobbled side streets. To her it was a façade of something far more sinister, as if the town was simply another cult painted over with a gentrifying coat of humanity.
It took two wrong turns down avenues before discovering the former hospital had been shuttered sometime in the intervening years, replaced by a new facility on the western edge of town. She pulled the rental into a space before the building’s main entrance, eyeing the sheriff’s cruiser in the next spot over. She’d called Hughes after landing and he’d suggested meeting here to start. They would need to collect DNA through a cheek swab to eliminate the possibility she was related in any way to the woman claiming to be Shanna. This was of course completely voluntary, Hughes assured her. She was in no way bound legally to assist in the investigation. Right, she thought, gathering her things from the car and stepping out. Tell me there’s a woman claiming to be my long-deceased sister, but I can sit it out if I want to. She huffed a laugh and headed for the entrance.
At the later hour none of the reception cubicles were staffed, only a worn-looking woman behind a desk at the far end of the long hallway who directed her back through a set of double doors. Various exam rooms lay on the opposite side, many with their lights off. Beside a nurses’ station a middle-aged man sat on a bench, looking at his phone. His graying hair curled tightly to the top of his head and the set of his shoulders suggested a background in sports or weightlifting. As she approached he glanced up from his phone and stood.
“Dr. Murdock?”
“Yes, and please call me Clare,” she said, shaking hands with him.
“Then I’m Reggie. I can’t stand all the proper titles anyhow.” He studied her. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
“I’m sorry, no. Have we met?”
“Not really. I brought you a bottled water once. I was just a deputy back when everything happened, one of the first on the scene after the call came in.”
“I apologize, I wasn’t . . .”
He waved a hand. “No, not at all. I’m not sure we even exchanged any words. Glad to see you’re doing well.” He gazed at her for a long moment before motioning to follow him down a corridor. “You didn’t have to rush out today, but I’m very thankful you did. If we can establish the fact that this woman is of no relation to you, we can begin heading down other avenues of interest.”
“Has she said anything else since waking up?”
“Some. She’s asked for you several more times and also about her child.”
“She has a child?”
“Well, we’re not sure. It’s all wrapped up in her story, which is pretty . . . disturbing.”