Chapter Eight
Declan
Itaught Avena to dance before I asked her to help me remember how I’d gotten there. It seemed like a fair trade.
The radio had been sitting on the shelf above Grandpa’s desk, half-hidden behind a stack of fishing magazines.
I remembered the cracked brown case and the strip of duct tape holding the battery cover in place.
Grandpa hit it whenever the signal faded, hence the tape.
The memory was useful because the tuning needle refused to move until I slapped the side.
Avena stood beside the desk, watching me with the expression she usually reserved for my least defensible decisions.
“You struck the machine.”
“I call it percussive maintenance.”
She cocked her head, her silver hair falling over one shoulder. “That is not maintenance.”
The radio crackled. I shot her a grin. “I have to disagree as it worked.”
A guitar pushed through the static, followed by a piano and a man singing about something he had lost. I didn’t recognize the song, but it somehow belonged in the cabin.
Low and rough around the edges, the kind of music Grandpa would have left playing while he cleaned fish or lost an argument with the woodstove.
Avena leaned closer to the speaker. “Where is the performer?”
“Not here.”
“Then this is a recording.”
“Or a broadcast.”
“From where?”
Looking at the frozen clock, the endless snow, and the radio that had no business receiving anything, I shrugged. “Good question.”
“Do you like it?” I asked.
“I have not determined its purpose.”
“That wasn’t the question, Avena.”
“The rhythm is inconsistent,” she said, after a long moment in which her violet eyes stayed fixed on mine.
“I think that means you like it.”
“I did not say that.”
“But you’re still listening.”
She glanced at the radio again. “I am gathering sufficient information.”
“Of course you are.”
“Do you have music where you come from?” I asked.
She paused before answering. “Yes.”
I waited. “That answer somehow had a door slam in the middle of it.”
“Music accompanies formal observances, historical remembrance, and coordinated movement.”
“What about driving with the windows down?”
“Why would the windows be down?”
“While you’re cooking?”
“Your attention should remain on the heated surface. And I don’t cook.”
Rubbing my three days’ worth of stubble, I decided to take a chance. “Sitting alone because a song understands something you don’t know how to say?”
“That function is not formally recognized,” she said.
“Doesn’t mean it isn’t useful.”
“No,” she said after a moment. Her voice was barely a whisper. “It does not.”
I held out my hand. Avena looked at it, then at me. The light under her skin went still. I lowered my hand before either of us had to mention what happened the last time we touched. “Right. Bad plan.”
“What were you attempting?”
“I was going to teach you to dance.”
“Dance.”
“Moving to music.”
“I understand the word.”
“You said water couldn’t do it. I thought you might need a demonstration.”
“Again, water cannot dance.”
“You’re never going to let me have that one, are you?”
“No.”
The answer came so quickly I laughed. Avena’s mouth curved up, and that decided it. I pushed Grandpa’s chair toward the wall and cleared a space between the desk and the hearth. “We don’t have to touch. Stand there.”
She came over slowly. “What is the objective?”
“There isn’t one.”
“Then how is success evaluated?”
“Whether you enjoy it, or not.”
Her eyebrows drew together. “That is subjective.”
“It is. Completely. You’re learning.”
Avena stared at her silvery boots.
“Look at me,” I said.
“I need to observe the placement of my feet,” she argued.
“Your feet aren’t going anywhere without you.”
Her eyes narrowed at me just a bit. “That observation contributes very little.”
“Still true. And your eyes aren’t on your feet now, are they?”
“Again,” she said.
“Stop counting.”
“The count maintains synchronization.”
“The music does that for you. You need to feel the music.” I swayed and turned to the chorus in demonstration.
“But the music changes.”
“That’s why you listen to it,” I said, doing a little salsa step to shake things up.
She bit her lip. “Your method lacks precision.”
“You’re dancing with the man who taught you pancakes. Your expectations for precision should be lower at this point.”
“You are leading,” she said.
“For now.”
“How is that authority assigned?”
“Usually somebody asks.”
“You did not.”
“Would you like to lead?”
“I would like to understand the responsibility before accepting it.”
Her expression was so serious I had to fight off my grin. “You decide where we go and try not to run me into the furniture.”
Her gaze moved toward the desk, the chair, and the edge of the stone hearth. “This space is poorly designed for the activity.”
“That’s why not hitting things is important.”
“Your response was delayed,” she said, and if I wasn’t mistaken, she was teasing.
“You ambushed me.”
“I led.” Her voice was perfectly modulated but the lights at her temples sparkled blue.
“You’re enjoying this too much.”
“I thought success was subjective in this place.”
I laughed. “Now you’re just using my own bad logic against me.”
We began again.
“There,” I said quietly. “That’s dancing.”
“We are repeating the same four movements.”
“Are you always this difficult when you’re having fun?”
“I have insufficient experience to establish a pattern,” she answered deadpan.
The radio chose that exact moment to snap with static. We both pulled back. The music returned, but the moment didn’t. Avena lowered her hands. I turned toward the radio and adjusted the dial, more for something to do than because the song needed it.
“Your grandfather taught you?” she asked.
“He did.”
“Was he proficient?”
“No idea. He was the only instructor I had.”
“Then you may be perpetuating significant errors.”
“Wouldn’t be the first family tradition.”
She studied me. “You intended to ask me something.”
I looked over my shoulder. “What makes you think that?”
“You have adjusted that functioning control three times.”
I let go of the dial. “You’re getting annoyingly good at reading me.”
“You are not difficult to read. Was I wrong?”
“I want to remember what happened before this place.”
The warmth in her expression disappeared. Not coldness. Attention. Possibly a hint of fear?
“You have tried to remember?”
“I’ve waited for memories to hit me. That’s different.”
“Very different.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “I know.”
“You ask very specific questions,” I said. “Sometimes too many of them.”
Her white teeth worried her lip. “That sounds like criticism.”
“I didn’t mean it as one. In fact, today, it’s a job offer.”
Her gaze moved over my face, clearly unsure what I was asking. “You want me to question you?”
“Yes, to help me get past what I already remember. To find out the why behind it.”
“I do not know whether that is safe.”
“Neither do I.”
The lights at her throat flashed gold before going invisible again. “That is not persuasive.”
“I’ve been told my methods lack precision.”
She didn’t smile. Light gathered faintly at her throat again, then faded.
“If your distress becomes severe, we must stop.”
“Agreed.”
“Immediately.”
“Avena—”
“Immediately.”
I nodded and held up my hands in submission. “Okay, immediately.”
She moved to the table and sat across from the chair I usually took for chess. The travel board still held our unfinished game. I started to clear it, but she stopped me.
“Leave it.”
“Why?”
“It belongs here. Familiar details may help maintain stability.”
I did as she said and sat. “You sound like you’ve done this before.”
“No, but I have been questioned before.”
Something in the way she said it made me want to ask by whom. And why. But I didn’t. We had become good at leaving certain doors closed.
Avena folded her hands on the table. “Do not begin with what you saw. Begin with what your body remembers.”
I looked toward the fire. “Wet.”
“Rain?”
“Yes. Running down the back of my collar.”
“Were you cold?”
“No.” I closed my eyes. “I’m too busy to be cold.”
“What were your hands doing?”
“Gloves,” I said. “Thin ones. So I could work.”
“Work on what?”
“A… connection.”
“Something electrical?”
“No. Neural.”
The word came without effort. My eyes opened in surprise.
Avena had gone completely still, her face blank.
“How do you know?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Then continue.”
“I’m inside a field shelter. There are cables on the floor. Equipment racks. Everything smells like wet nylon and hot circuitry.”
“Are you alone?”
“No.”
“Keller’s watching the signal.”
“What signal?”
Static tore across the radio behind me.
The cabin vanished.
Green lines raced across a dark display. The pattern folded over itself too quickly for ordinary interference. I leaned closer, rain dripping from my sleeve onto the controls. Keller said something. Not the old countdown. Something new.
It answered us.
My hand moved to the cutoff switch.
“Kill the link,” I said.
“Captain?”
“Now. That isn’t noise. It’s a handshake.”
I opened my mouth but no sound came out.
“Declan.”
Avena’s voice reached me from a long way off.
“Declan, look at me.”
The white glare fractured. Her face appeared above it, pale and sharp with alarm.
“You are here in the cabin,” she said. “You are at the table. There is a fire behind you. The chessboard is between us.”
Avena stood on the other side. She had come close enough that her knees almost touched mine, but her hands remained at her sides.
“I’m here,” I said. “I’m here.”
“You stopped responding.”
My mouth was dry. “How long was I gone?”
“I cannot measure it.”
“Right.” I let out a breath that might have been a laugh in a less frightened man. “Stupid question.”
“No, not a stupid question.”
“We agreed to stop,” she said.
“We did stop,” I confirmed.
“Only after your distress became severe,” she argued.
“It moved very fast.”
“That does not make it better.”
“I’m okay,” I said.
“You do not know that.”
“Neither do you.”
“That is the problem.”
“It wasn’t only a memory.”
Avena returned to the table but didn’t sit. “Explain.”
“The rain was. The equipment. The signal. All of those felt like they’d already happened.” I touched the base of my skull. Nothing hurt there now. “Part of it felt current.”
“You were unable to move. I called your name several times.”
“I was lying somewhere. Something was breathing for me—or helping me breathe.”
Her lights flickered.
“A remembered medical procedure could produce the same sensations,” she said.
“Maybe.”
“You do not believe that.”
“No.”
The answer sat between us.
“You called the signal a handshake,” she said. “What did that mean?”
I searched the dark radio as if the words might still be inside it. “A system doesn’t connect just because another one talks. It sends a request. Something on the other end answers in the right language. They recognize each other and open a path.”
“You believed another system had answered yours.”
“I knew it had.” The certainty frightened me more than the missing details. I stood and began pacing the small space. “The pattern wasn’t random. It was waiting for us to speak first.”
“And when you attempted to end the connection?”
“It stayed open.”
“I don’t remember what happened to the others,” I said.
“Not remembering is not the same as abandoning them,” she said, somehow clearly divining one of my biggest distress before I'd even put words to it.
“No. But it leaves plenty of room to wonder.” I rubbed the back of my neck, again trying to dispel the uneasy feeling that remained there. “I think my body is somewhere else.”
Avena’s gaze didn’t leave mine. “That is one possible explanation.”
“I think something is keeping it there.”
“Why?” she asked.
“That’s the part I need to remember.”
She turned toward the dark radio. I could see her measuring the danger, looking for rules she could trust. I expected her to tell me we were done with the whole idea.
Instead, she said, “Not this way again.”
“You have a better one?”
“I will develop one.” She nodded as if confirming something to herself.
The knot in my shoulders finally let go. “So, you’ll continue to help?”
“I am only giving a conditional agreement to continue after appropriate safeguards are established.”
“I feel like there's a yes in there somewhere.” I gave her a small smile, my panic slowly dissipating.
Her eyes narrowed at me but then some of the strain left her mouth. “You hear only the portions you prefer.”
“Another family tradition.”
She glanced at the radio. “The music may not be an appropriate safeguard.”
“Probably not.”
“It produced a measurable change in your recall.”
“It also got you to dance.”
“Those outcomes should be evaluated separately.”
“I know which one I’m calling a success.”
The cabin shuddered.
“You have to go,” I said.
“Yes.”
She raised her palm toward me.
I raised mine.
“Next time,” she said, “we begin with safeguards.”
“Next time,” I agreed.
Her light passed through my hands. For a moment, her palms shone against mine without touching.
Then she was gone.
I stood alone beside the chessboard while the fire recovered and the windows filled with snow. The cabin felt unchanged. I didn’t.
For the first time, I didn’t wonder whether I was dreaming.
I wondered who needed me not to wake up.