Our Last Echoes

by Kate Alice Marshall

  I took one last look behind me. The church was empty, silent and still.

  We are not alone, I thought, and was glad that in that moment that I could not fear.

  VIDEO EVIDENCE

  Recorded by Joy Novak

  AUGUST 14, 2003, TIME UNKNOWN*

  HARDCASTLE: There has to be an explanation for this. A rational—

  KAPOOR: You can sit around and figure out an explanation. I’m going back to the boat, and I’m getting out of here. Joy—

  NOVAK: Yeah. Sophie, we’re leaving.

  Her voice is tight with fear. Baker and Carreau are still looking upward in rank confusion.

  CARREAU: But that was Venus. Venus isn’t a meteor; it’s not meant to fall from the sky.

  NOVAK: Martin, can you help me get all of this back in the bag?

  KAPOOR: Don’t bother. We can come back for it later if we need to.

  HARDCASTLE: We don’t know that there’s anything to be afraid of.

  KAPOOR: And that is a risk that you are welcome to take for yourself, but there is a child here.

  CARREAU: It’s the sky. How do you escape the sky?

  KAPOOR: The moon was out when we set off. I remember seeing it. Maybe whatever’s happening is localized. Maybe there’s a goddamn good reason no one’s allowed out here at night.

  She grabs the camera, but doesn’t seem to remember to turn it off.

  KAPOOR: You’d better all come, because we’ve only got one boat.

  She leads the march. Their flashlights provide some visibility, the beams skittering over the ground. At the crest of the hill, Hardcastle calls a halt.

  HARDCASTLE: Vanya, slow down. We’re going to break our necks going downhill in the dark this fast.

  KAPOOR: The stars are winking out, Will.

  HARDCASTLE: It’s some kind of trick of the weather or—

  KAPOOR: The moon is missing and the stars are going out. A lifetime of scientific pursuit has taught me skepticism, but it has also taught me that the world is full of dangerous things, and we have only learned to explain about half of them. We’ll study it after everyone’s safe.

  BAKER: It’s beautiful.

  KAPOOR: Yes, the stars are falling like it’s the damn apocalypse, but it’s very sparkly, Carolyn.

  BAKER: Not that. The singing.

  The frantic activity around the makeshift camp suddenly halts as everyone freezes, listening. Novak kneels with one arm around Sophia, holding her close.

  CARREAU: What language is that?

  KAPOOR: I can’t tell. But I feel like I can almost understand it.

  They listen. To what, we cannot be certain; the microphone records only silence. Novak gasps.

  CARREAU: What is it?

  NOVAK: There’s someone down there. Down on the beach.

  Carreau steps toward the camera, and picks it up. For a few seconds it goes out of focus in the darkness, and then it snaps into night-vision mode, and he zooms in on the beach. Down below, a man stands stock-still on the shore, not far from the boat they’ve left moored to a huge driftwood log. His back is to them, his arms dangling inert at his sides.

  NOVAK: Who is it? Someone from the town?

  CARREAU: I can’t tell. It almost looks like—is that an army uniform?

  BAKER: Oh, shit, there’s more of them.

  The camera pans along the shore. At eerily precise intervals, people—men and women both—stand facing the sea, ringing the shore.

  CARREAU: What are they doing?

  SOPHIA: Momma, I don’t want to be here.

  NOVAK: I know, baby. We’re going home. Just be patient.

  Mist rises from the water, and swiftly gathers, hiding the strangers from view.

  NOVAK: Do we go down there?

  KAPOOR: I don’t know. I—

  In the mist, something shrieks.

  10

  IT WAS STRANGE to be in a place where twilight never gave way to night, only shuddered back into morning. The light through the blinds made me sleep fitfully, my dreams full of wheeling terns and Mikhail, lunging at me from out of the mist only to turn into Hardcastle and then transform into the creature from the church.

  I woke to sweat-soaked sheets despite the cold. On the mainland it had been in the sixties during the day, but on the island it was a good fifteen or twenty degrees cooler—something about microclimates and ocean currents.

  I stared at the wall, the scenes from the day before playing through my head again. The creature, the hum. Rushing back to the shore and piling into the Katydid. It seemed like the mist had been chasing us. Liam and Abby and I had no chance to talk to each other—Dr. Kapoor sent Abby back to Mrs. Popova’s and assigned Lily and Kenny to teach me how to log the day’s data, and then to give me an overview of the various projects they were working on.

  By the time we were done it was late—and I could feel the backlash coming, the price I paid for feeding my fear to the void. Abby was now in the room Liam had occupied the night before, so I closed my own door and curled up on my bed to ride it out. I must have fallen asleep at some point because I didn’t remember anything else until morning, when I woke with my head throbbing and my lip bloody where I’d bitten down on it to keep from making any noise.

  A knock on the door gave me half a second’s warning before Abby opened it, leaning in. She was fully dressed, her messenger bag over one shoulder. “You’re late,” she informed me.

  I blinked groggily. “What time is . . . ?” I glanced at the clock and swore. The odd timelessness of the midnight sun had knocked my internal clock truly askew.

  “This whole thing does work a lot better if the boss lady likes you,” Abby said. “But you smell like dead fish and despair. Might want to hit the shower.”

  I made a rude gesture in her direction, scooped up my clothes, and bolted for the end of the hall. I rinsed the stale sweat from my skin and dried myself hastily, then braided my hair by touch as I hurried down the hall, Abby trailing.

  I wasn’t the only one, at least. I found Kenny in the kitchen, a piece of jam-slathered toast hanging from his mouth as he pulled his sweater on. “Mgrfing,” he said, then took the toast out. “Good morning. Nice of you to stay behind to walk with me.” He winked.

  “I’m so dead,” I groaned. Not a real internship, I reminded myself, but I thought of Dr. Kapoor’s stern gaze and hurried to lace up my boots.

  “It’s our lucky day. Lily messaged me. Dr. Kapoor’s been in her office with Dr. Hardcastle all morning. Hasn’t noticed we’re missing. If we hurry, we might survive another day!”

  “I’ll tag along, if that’s cool,” Abby said. Kenny bobbed his shoulders in a shrug that was less an answer than a refusal to take responsibility.

  We headed out the door together, pausing to lock up behind us. I caught a flash of my reflection in the window by the door, exhausted and tousle-haired. At least mirror-me looked as bad as real-me felt.

  Lily had taken the car the assistants shared, leaving us to hoof it along the gravel road. Mrs. Popova’s house was on the southwestern edge of the island. In fact, given the island’s hook, it was the farthest spot on the island from Belaya Skala. Which meant it was a long way from the LARC as well, and most of that uphill. I was sweating again by the time we hustled up the last stretch to the door.

  Lily met us at the door. “You’re in the clear,” she said, and high-fived Kenny and me as we went past. She gave Abby a quizzical look, but she swanned past without explanation.

  We shuffled into the break room, which was more of an overflow-storage room with a couple couches crammed in between the boxes. Liam was there, leaning against the counter by the coffee maker. He had his arms crossed, his body compressed with nervous energy, but when he saw me he relaxed a little. I didn’t think my arrival had ever inspired that reaction in someone.r />
  “Howdy,” he said.

  “Is that your attempt at an American accent?” I asked him.

  “Not convincing?”

  “I’d give it a solid C minus,” I told him.

  “That’s charitable,” Abby said. Liam winced theatrically.

  The banter was forced, but there was a desperate release in it, like we were all grabbing at something normal.

  Dr. Kapoor showed up twenty seconds later. “Morning,” she said, as if unwilling to append an adjective it hadn’t earned. She wasted no further time on pleasantries. “Today we are going to finish up yesterday’s interrupted work. Lily, you’ll be joining me for that. I think it’s best if we let our intern experience some variety, and the sample room requires some attention. Kenny, you can orient Ms. Hayes before you get started for the day.”

  I didn’t want to be stuck doing inventory and tidying—I wanted to go back to Belaya Skala. Lily caught my look and misread it. “It’s much cooler than it sounds,” she assured me.

  “Yeah, the sample room is boss,” Kenny agreed. He propped a hip against the back of the couch and folded his arms. “You’ll dig it.”

  “Are you . . . Is that you trying to talk like the youth these days?” Lily asked him. She shook her head in mock shame, and he blushed bright red.

  Dr. Kapoor wasn’t done. “I’ve contacted Mr. Nguyen, but he is unavailable to retrieve you,” she said, looking at Abby. “Dr. Hardcastle is trying to locate someone else who is able to fetch you. If he is unsuccessful, we will sacrifice the use of the Katydid to ferry you back tomorrow.”

  Abby just smiled. “That leaves me one more day to explore.”

  Dr. Kapoor’s jaw tensed. “This island is private property,” she said. “You are trespassing, and have been since you arrived. Not to mention the fact that if you were to wander off and hurt yourself, the Center could be held liable.”

  “Abby and I could help Sophia in the sample room,” Liam suggested.

  “I’d appreciate the company,” I added.

  “I don’t know about that,” Hardcastle said, striding into the room. My stomach dropped, and I took an involuntary step back.

  Run, that voice in the back of my head insisted.

  Hardcastle was smiling and I found myself staring at his perfect white teeth. “Vanya’s a stickler for procedure. Letting civilians rifle through our old junk? Could lead to pandemonium!” He chuckled. The sound of the ocean roared in my ears. “But seriously, the insurance folks would probably rather we stick to official LARC staff only. I’m at loose ends, though—I can help you out, Sophia.”

  I stared at him. It felt like a fist was wrapped around my throat. I couldn’t speak, and maybe that was for the best, because the only word in my mind was no, no, no—

  “It’s fine,” Dr. Kapoor said abruptly. “Might as well put our guests to productive use. You were just complaining about being behind on grant writing in any case.”

  “True,” Hardcastle said, sounding surprised. He was not used to playing bad cop, clearly.

  The tension in my chest eased enough for me to breathe. To fake a smile. “Cool,” I said. Too loud, too bright, but maybe they wouldn’t notice.

  “All right,” Dr. Kapoor said. “Kenny?”

  “Come, my ducklings,” Kenny said, summoning us with a wave of his hands. I forced myself to walk instead of sprinting to get out of the room. Away from Hardcastle.

  “Hey,” Liam said softly. He snagged my elbow, and we fell a few steps back behind Kenny and Abby. “I know I’m not supposed to ask if you’re okay. But. What was that with Will?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” I did my best to look mildly confused, but all I managed was a grimace.

  “You looked like you were ready to bail out through the nearest window. Or possibly go for his throat,” Liam said.

  “I barely know him,” I said. Not an answer. Not a lie.

  He hesitated, then glanced behind us as if worried he would be overheard. “I just . . . I don’t know about that guy. My mum—Shakespeare-mum, not bird-mum—doesn’t like him, and I’m not sure Dr. Kapoor does either, even though she’s worked with him for most of my life. Mum calls him a selfish creep. Dr. Kapoor once told me ‘reliable and trustworthy are not the same thing,’ and I had the odd feeling she was talking about him.”

  “Yikes,” I said casually, as if his words weren’t a dull knife digging at my insides.

  “So . . . I don’t know. Stay away from him, maybe.”

  “I can take care of myself, Liam,” I said.

  The look he gave me was almost sad. “Sure. Just a heads-up.”

  “Here we are,” Kenny declared. He’d led us to a nondescript door, fitted with a keypad. “The code’s 1975,” he said, punching in the numbers.

  “The year the LARC was founded,” I noted.

  “You did your homework,” he said with appreciation, and ushered us in.

  The room was exactly the same dimensions as Dr. Kapoor’s office, but so cramped with shelves and sets of drawers that there was almost no room to maneuver. Most of the floor space was taken up with waist-high drawer units. The back wall was floor-to-ceiling with glass cabinets, the shelves within stocked with stuffed and mounted specimens—birds, but also eggshells, drained and mounted on metal posts, feathers, feet, bones. Some of the taxidermy birds looked patchy, feathers worn away and flaking, revealing long-dead skin. And others—

  On the leftmost shelf rested a bird preserved in a pose of flight, wings outstretched—but two more withered wings sprouted from its shoulders. The bones were warped, the feathers malformed so that they clumped like damp paper.

  And on the next shelf, there was a chick still covered in gray down, frozen with its head tilted back, begging for food. But instead of one gaping beak, it had two, a small white one set inside the other, oddly soft-looking, like a mushroom cap.

  Farther down the row, a juvenile tern perched on a driftwood branch, head cocked to the side—an eyeless head, feathers flowing seamlessly over a skull that showed no hint of even empty sockets.

  “Holy crap,” Abby said eloquently. Liam appeared more amused by our stunned looks than shocked, so I assumed he’d seen the birds before.

  “Let me introduce you to our mutants,” Kenny said cheerfully. “The red-throated tern has a very high rate of mutation. Mostly birds like these die in the shell or in their first few days, but a few of them, as you can see, persist.”

  “What . . .” I cleared my throat. I was a scientist, I reminded myself. Or an aspiring one, at least. Eager and intrigued. “What causes it?”

  “We don’t know. That’s part of what we’re studying,” Kenny said. “My specialty is genetics. I’m trying to figure out what predisposes this species to mutation.”

  “What’s the practical application of that?” I asked. The more I focused on the questions, the further away the encroaching fear felt. I could almost breathe normally without thinking about every breath. “Do you think it could have uses for medicine or . . . ?”

  “The practical application is knowing something we didn’t know yesterday. You should worry about the practical application of interns and wayward teens.”

  “‘Wayward.’ Good word. Better than ‘nosy,’” Abby noted.

  I chuckled, the sound laying uneasily over the disquiet that still buzzed in my bones. “Okay. What are we doing?”

  “This place has been a dumping ground for decades. Anything damaged or worn out should be set aside—Dr. Kapoor will decide what should be saved or repaired and what should be thrown out; you just want to collect it all in one place. Which means you need a place to collect it, so . . .” He waved a hand at the tops of the drawers, which were cluttered with everything from IKEA instruction booklets to a jar of pennies to a full set of moose antlers.

  “Oh, boy,” I said. Liam whistled in agreement.
r />   “Most of the drawers are labeled, but what’s in them usually doesn’t match. So, uh, I guess the goal is that you get everything where it belongs, and anything that doesn’t have a place is set aside neatly.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Good luck?”

  “You know those fairy tales where a princess has to, like, sort every grain of rice and wheat by daybreak?” I asked. “This is that, but with mutant bird bones.”

  “Well, I don’t have a band of forest creatures to help you, so Liam and Abby will have to do,” Kenny replied. “Now I really need to get back to, you know . . .”

  “Actual science?” I asked.

  “Exactly,” he said without an ounce of shame, and waved farewell. He closed the door behind him, leaving the three of us alone in a room of malformed, long-dead terns.

  “Just so we’re clear, this”—Abby gestured at the taxidermy birds—“is not a natural phenomenon. Right?”

  “You’re the expert,” I replied. I peered at the cases of warped forms and suppressed a shudder.

  “An expert in what, exactly?” Liam asked, his voice dangerously quiet. It was a quiet that could mutate as wildly as the birds—into panic, into revulsion, or into sheer disbelief. His face was calm, but I’d seen that calm before. Kyle Farley, ninth grade. New kid in town, didn’t know the rumors. He held my hand at the movies.

  Then he saw something reflected in the window beside us as we walked, and he went still like that. Quiet, like that.

  I never did find out what he’d seen. He never spoke to me again.

  “Don’t,” Abby said.

  “Don’t what?” Liam demanded.

  “Don’t ask,” she replied. “You don’t want to know.”

  “I think I deserve an answer.” He was trying to sound tough, but his voice wavered, betraying his uncertainty.

  “What you do or don’t deserve isn’t really my problem,” Abby replied, the corner of her mouth hooking upward, a smile so small it meant its opposite.

  “Abby,” I said, intervening. “He was there yesterday. He saw.”