In case they have a car and cut me off, I don’t go straight home. I veer off road to the bike path and then take an unmarked branch for the long, twisty hill through the woods: up, up, and more up.
The familiar effort of biking miles settles my nerves, makes what happened begin to fade.
But honestly, what was my mother thinking, naming me Sharona? Not a thought I am having for the first time. As if I didn’t stand out enough with my London accent and knowing the kind of stuff I should hide at school but too often forget to, like the crazy way quantum particles, the teeniest tiniest things in existence, can act like both waves and particles at the same time, and—my current favorite—how the structure of DNA, our genetic code, is what makes my hair dark and curly and Duncan such a jerk. And as if calling me Sharona wasn’t bad enough, Mum will tell anyone who’ll listen why I got the name from the song. How I was conceived in a field at the back of a Knack concert.
No matter how I try to get everyone to call me Shay, even my friends sometimes can’t resist Sharona. As soon as I’m eighteen—in a year, four months, and six days—I’m legally changing my name.
I stop near the top of the hill. The late-afternoon sun is starting to wane, to cool, and I need to go soon, but I always stop here.
That’s when I remember: the girl. The paper I’d shoved in my pocket.
It was here, almost a year ago, that I saw her. I was leaning against this same curved tree that is just the right angle to be a good backrest. My bike was next to me, like it is now.
Then something caught my eye: a moving spot, seen below me now and then through gaps in the trees. I probably only saw her as soon as I did because of the bright red of something she was wearing. Whoever she was, she was walking up the hill, and I frowned. This was my spot, picked precisely because of the crazy hill that no one wants to walk or bike up. Who was invading my space?
But as she got closer I could see she was just a kid, much younger than me. Maybe ten or eleven years old. Wearing jeans and a red hoodie, with thick, dark hair down her back. And there was something about her that drew the eye. She walked up the hill at a good pace, determinedly, without fuss or extra movement. Without looking around her. Without smiling.
When she got close, I called out, “Hello. Are you lost?”
She jumped violently, a wild look on her face as her eyes hunted for the source of the voice.
I stood up, waved. “It’s just me; don’t be scared. Are you lost?”
“No,” she said, composed again, and kept walking.
I shrugged and let her go. At first. But then I started to worry. This path leads to a quiet road, miles and miles from anywhere, and it’s a long walk back the way she came. Even if she turned around now, it’d probably be dark before she got there.
I got my bike, wheeled it, and followed behind her on foot. Ahead of me she stopped when she reached the road and looked both ways. Right led back to Killin—this was the way I generally went from here, flying down the hill on the tarmac. Left was miles to nowhere. She turned left. I remember thinking, She must be lost. If she won’t talk to me, I should call the police or something.
I tried again. “Hello? There’s nothing that way. Where are you going?”
No answer. I stopped, leaned my bike against a tree, took off my pack, and bent down to rummage around in it for my phone. My fingers closed around it just as a dark car came from the direction of Killin. It passed me, slowed, and stopped.
A man got out.
“There you are,” he said to the girl. “Come.”
She stopped in her tracks. He held out a hand; she walked toward him but didn’t take it. He opened the back door and she got in. The man got into the driver’s seat, and the car pulled away seconds later.
I remember I felt relieved. I didn’t want to call the police and have to talk to them and get involved. Mum and I were heading out the next morning for our summer away, backpacking in Europe, and I still had to pack. But I was uneasy too. It was weird, wasn’t it? That was a long walk for a kid that age, all on her own. The way he’d said, “There you are,” it was like she’d been misplaced. Or had run away. And if she’d really been lost, wouldn’t she have smiled or seemed happy when she’d been found?
But how many times would I have liked to run away from home at that age? Or even now. It wasn’t my business.
I biked home and forgot about it.
Until today.
I take the scrunched paper out of my pocket. It’s dusty, like it’s been hanging on that board forever. I smooth it out and draw in a sharp breath. It’s definitely her, but it is the words above her image that are making my stomach twist.
Calista, age 11. Missing.
She’s missing? I feel sick. I lower myself down to sit on the ground and read the rest of it. She’s been missing since last June 29: almost a year ago. She was wearing—I swallow, hard—a red hoodie and jeans when last seen, just miles from here.
Oh my God.
When exactly did I see her? Was it before or after she went missing? I think, really hard, but can’t come up with a date. I know it was around then—we break early for summer in Scotland. Mum and I had left the week after school finished, but I can’t remember what day.
She couldn’t have been missing yet, could she? Because we’d have heard about it if we’d still been at home. It would have been all over the news.
Underneath her photo are these words: If you think you’ve seen Calista, or have any information about her disappearance at all, no matter how minor it may seem, please call this number. We love her and want her back.
CHAPTER 3
SUBJECT 369X
SHETLAND INSTITUTE, SCOTLAND
Time Zero: 30 hours
THERE IS PAIN, like no other pain before. It sears not just flesh but every thought and feeling from my mind, leaving only one word behind: Callie, Callie, Callie. Naming myself to try to hold on to who I am, but all I am is pain. Flames eat my skin, my lungs, every soft part of me.
And then, abruptly, the pain stops. The flames carry on, and I’m above myself now. I see my body and the chair. The fire must be so hot; even my bones burn. Soon they are rendered to ash along with the rest of me.
Am I dead?
I must be. Right?
I stand in fire and feel no pain. Living things can’t do that. I hold out a hand, and I can see it—it soothes my eyes, cool darkness in the midst of an inferno. I look down: my legs are there, dark and whole.
After a time the flames stop. Shimmers of heat fade away, and the brightness of the walls fades.
I explore the walls, every inch, the floor and ceiling too, but there is no way out of this place. I lie on the floor and stare at the ceiling; then, bored, I lie on the ceiling and stare at the floor. Gravity doesn’t seem to apply to whatever I am now. But if I were a ghost, I could sail through the walls, couldn’t I? And get out of here. But no matter how I push, I can’t get through. The walls are of metal, many feet thick.
CHAPTER 4
SHAY
KILLIN, SCOTLAND
Time Zero: 29 hours
“I’M HOME,” I YELL, kick off my shoes, and start for the stairs, breathing hard. No phone on me today; I’d pedaled home as fast as I could.
Mum comes into the hall. “So I see. Have you been forgetting the milk again?”
“Uh, not exactly,” I say, not wanting to get into a long explanation when something else can’t wait.
“Honestly, Sharona, for someone who is supposed to be so smart, I don’t know what is in that head of yours sometimes.”
“Shay. Please, call me Shay.”
She rolls her eyes, laughs, then looks at me more closely. “Is something wrong?”
For all that she drives me crazy, Mum is good at that kind of stuff. Like the hippie throwback that she is, she’s standing there in some sort of long skirt. Her dark hair is curly like mine, but where mine is cropped at my shoulders, hers hangs down to her waist, and there are long strings of beads around her n
eck. She’s one to talk about forgetting things; half the time she’d forget to eat if I didn’t remind her. But she notices the important stuff.
“Yes. Something’s very wrong.”
“Is it those boys bothering you again?”
“No. Well, not really. It’s this.” I pull the crumpled paper out of my pocket. She smooths it out, reads it. Looks back at me with a question in her eyes.
“I saw her; I saw this girl. I have to call them.”
“Tell me.” So I tell her the whole story, everything, while she draws me into the kitchen and makes a special herbal tea that is supposed to be good for nerves. It tastes pretty strong.
“Are you sure it was this girl? That was a long time ago: were you paying attention? Are you really sure?”
“Yes.”
“This isn’t one of those crazy stories your friend Iona reports on her blog, is it, Shay?” she says hesitantly. “You’re not getting confused between one of them and this, are you?”
“Of course not!”
“I just had to make sure. I believe you.”
“What day did we go away last year?”
She frowns, thinking. Then she rummages in a bottom drawer and holds up last year’s calendar. She opens it, and…her face falls. “It was the thirtieth of June.”
“So the day I saw her was the twenty-ninth—the day it says she went missing.”
“Do you want me to call them?”
I shake my head. “No. I’ll do it.”
She gets the phone and holds it out.
I dial the number, hands shaking a little. If only I had called the police that day; if that car had been a minute later, I would have. But was it even after she went missing that I saw her? Maybe that man I saw was her dad. Maybe she went missing later that day, and nothing I could have done would have changed anything.
It rings—once, twice, three times, four times. I look at Mum, shake my head. Finally it picks up.
“Hello. Sorry we can’t answer just now, please leave a message at the beep.” A warm male voice and a posh English accent, with a touch of something foreign.
“It’s a machine,” I hiss to Mum, wondering what to say.
Beep.
“Uh, hi. I saw this flyer in a shop. About a girl named Calista. And—”
“Hello, hello? This is Kai Tanzer. I’m Calista’s brother. Do you know where she is?” His voice is the one from the machine; his words come out in a rush, full of hope. Without even knowing who he is or anything about him, I hate to crush that hope.
“No, I’m sorry. I don’t know where she is. But I saw her.”
“Where? When?”
“It wasn’t recently. I just found your flyer today, but it was on the twenty-ninth of June last year that I saw her, the day it says she went missing.” A flyer that was pinned to a shop board I must have walked past a hundred times since then and not noticed. “It was late afternoon. She was walking and got into a car with a man. I thought it was her father.” Did I? Did I really, or am I just covering for the fear that if I had questioned what was going on, I could have stopped something happening to her?
“Oh. I see.” There is pain in his voice. “She was missing in the morning, so this was after. Do you remember what he looked like?”
“I think so.”
“Where are you?”
“Just outside Killin, in Stirlingshire. Scotland.” I give him our address, tell him the single-track road to follow, explain the hill and our lane, with the signpost to Addy’s Folly.
“Wait. Right there. I’m coming to talk to you. Don’t go anywhere—do you promise?”
“I’ll be here.”
“It’ll take me about two, maybe two and a half hours to get there. What’s your name?”
“Shay.”
The line cuts off.
CHAPTER 5
SUBJECT 369X
SHETLAND INSTITUTE
Time Zero: 28 hours
TIME TICKS SLOWLY BY.
Finally something moves. A door starts to open on one of the walls, and I shrink into a corner of the room. Suited figures come in.
They ignore me, and after a while I come out of my corner. I wave my hands in front of one of their faces; no reaction.
They have instruments and are testing the ash on the floor, taking little scoops and putting it in some sensor. They seem happy, and out comes a broom. That’s a little low tech. They sweep what is left of my body into a pile and then pull in a silver piece of equipment, attach a nozzle, and then…oh. It’s a fancy vacuum cleaner. They vacuum me up.
Just like that. Gone.
They take the bag out of the vacuum cleaner and write “Subject 369X” on the bag.
And now I’m angry. So angry.
“It’s Callie!” I shout.
They stop, uneasy. Look at each other, then shrug and continue to gather up their equipment. They start out the door with me close behind. I don’t want to get trapped in this empty place.
Their reaction said that they could hear me, at least a little. Whatever I am now, my mask is gone—I can talk, and it’s been so long since I’ve had a voice that finding it makes me happy.
I can sing! I begin a song one of the nurses sometimes sang when I was in bed, sick, and one of the techs starts to whistle along in time.
CHAPTER 6
SHAY
KILLIN, SCOTLAND
Time Zero: 27 hours
“ARE YOU SURE you don’t want me to stay?” Mum says, and hovers uncertainly by the door.
“No, as I’ve told you the other ninety-nine times you asked me: go. I’ll be fine.”
“You’ll call if—”
“If what? He’s an ax murderer? I’m not sure it’d work if I said, ‘Excuse me, could you please put your ax down while I call my mother?’” She gives me a look. “It’ll be fine. You’ve got his name and number, right? Go.”
She leans over, kisses the top of my forehead. And walks out the door.
Part of me wants to call her back, but I quash it down. Sixteen—not far from seventeen—is far too old to want to hide behind my mother. Why am I so nervous?
I sigh and flop on the sofa, leaning against Ramsay, my giant plush polar bear. “Be honest, at least to yourself, Shay.” I say the words out loud in the quiet house, and the sound of my own voice makes me jump. What has me wound up is that when he hears the whole story, all that I saw, all that I didn’t do, he might think it’s my fault, that I could have saved his sister from whatever has happened to her.
Maybe there is a little voice inside me that thinks the same thing. A chance meeting with a stranger almost a year ago wouldn’t normally have stayed with me—there’d have been no reason to give it enough attention to remember it. That’s the real reason I remember her so clearly: it felt wrong, didn’t it? And I did nothing.
Time ticks slowly past. Finally there is a distant rumble outside, and I get up, pull the curtain aside to look. The sun is just about to dip behind the mountain when a motorcycle rounds the corner. For a second the big bike and rider, dressed in black, are outlined in a bright halo from the sun. Then all is darkness.
I open the front door just as he’s pulling off his helmet. He runs his fingers through his hair to pull it away from his eyes.
“Shay?” he says. “I’m Kai.” He takes off his gloves and holds out a hand; he takes mine, and holds it in his. His eyes are locked on mine—intense, wanting, needing something from me—and I can’t look away. Hazel eyes, with gold around the pupils blending to green.
I blink and let go. “Come in,” I say, and step inside. He follows. “Would you like a cup of tea, or—”
“No. No, Shay. Tell me what you saw. Please.” There is tension and anguish in his voice. His sister, his little sister, has been missing for almost a year. How must that feel? I have to tell him exactly what happened, not try to cover for myself in any way.
“Of course. I’m sorry.”
He follows me in, and I point him to a chair and sit on the sofa
. He pauses, unzips his bike jacket, and takes it off. He’s tall, with wide shoulders. Sun-streaked hair that is somewhere between blond and light brown. Probably a year or two older than me, and what my friend Iona would call pure dead gorgeous. He sits down and faces me, quiet and still. Waiting for me to speak.
“Okay. I’d been biking in the woods, and there’s a place I always stop. It was late in the afternoon. I know it was the twenty-ninth of June, because we went away for the summer the next day. Otherwise I’m sure I’d have heard she was missing.”
He nods, his eyes intent.
“I could see someone walking up the path below. A girl. She had jeans on and a red hoodie. It’s a steep ride and a long walk from town, and I almost never see anybody up there. So I was watching her get closer, wondering who it was.”
He reaches into his pocket, takes out a photo. “And you think it was my sister, our Calista?” He holds it out to me.
I take it in my hand. It’s a different photo from the one on the flyer, but there’s no doubt: the long dark hair, those blue eyes, a faint quizzical look. I nod. “It’s her. I’m sure of it.”
“Even after all this time?”
“Yes.” I hesitate, not really wanting to go there, but needing to at the same time. “It’s kind of this thing I can do. If I’m paying attention, my memory is photographic. I remember stuff.”
“All right; go on. And then?”
So I tell him the rest. How she said no when I asked if she was lost, and I followed her. How a car stopped on the road and a man got out, and she got into the car.
“Describe him to me.”
“He looked ordinary. Sorry, I know that isn’t helpful. Short hair, a bit balding. Average height. Maybe forty-something. If I think about it for a while, I might come up with more detail.”
He frowns. Shakes his head a little.
“I’m so sorry. I wish I’d made her talk to me, or called the police, or done something. Anything.”
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