Page 197 of Every Almost

"No," Charlie whimpered.

Katie looked at Charlie as soon as she spoke and took a step back. Charlie felt her face tighten in a grimace.

"Kit," her voice broke around the name. "It's me."

Then Katie's expression softened, and for one bright, stupid second, Charlie thought it meant recognition.

Katie smiled at her with terrible kindness. "I'm sorry. Do I know you?"

The room went silent.

No engine hum, no fluorescent buzz, no ship, no lab, no stars. Charlie reached for the one name that belonged to the deepest connection between them.

"Kit-Kat," she whispered.

Katie's face changed, but it still wasn't recognition. Charlie saw pity on her sister's face, as if she'd mistaken Charlie for someone she'd lost.

Then Charlie noticed the phone receiver in Katie's hands had become the PERS fragment, glowing with all the wrong light.

Charlie pleaded, but she didn't know what her request entailed. "I came back."

Katie looked down at the fragment, then at Charlie's face. "You shouldn't have," she said gently.

Then the light erupted. Charlie reached for her sister and watched as her hand passed through empty air.

Katie was ninety when the light took her.

Charlie wokewith Katie's voice in the room, echoing.

For a moment, she didn't know where she was. Her body woke before the rest of her. Her heart was pounding and her fingers were twisted so tightly around the bracelet that Helen's knots had pressed their pattern deep into her palm. She took a few moments, held still, and waited for the dream to separate from the room she found herself in.

It never did.

The Emberkind hummed around her, low and even. Something like that would usually help Charlie, to be quiet among the engines. But tonight, the hum provided a home for the dream to live. Katie's face appeared behind her eyes everytime she closed them, every time she blinked. Katie at ninety, white-haired, with the kind smile of a stranger. Do I know you?

Charlie threw the blanket back from her legs, swung around, and put both feet on the floor.

"Okay," she whispered, her heart hammering in her chest.

She didn't even bother to turn on the light. She reached into the small closet, pulling out the first overshirt she could grab to wear over the shorts and tank top she had slept in.

She missed one sleeve twice.

The room was uncomfortably small, a problem beyond the ship's capabilities. Her skin felt too close, her ribs too narrow, and her pulse way too loud in her ears.

She needed out.

Exiting her room, she found the corridor was dimmed for night cycle, empty enough that she could hear the small shift of air when she stepped through her door. The floor was cool under her bare feet, subtly alive with the ship's vibrations. It should have grounded her, but then it was the lab floor, the workbench, and the damn phone swinging from its cord.

She started walking.

She arrived at the junction toward the galley, slowing down as she approached. For a moment, she smelled Borran's kitchen, or perhaps she only imagined she did. The smell of yeast and warm bread. The sight of the counter, the stools, and Borran setting plates of food in front of her without asking.

She turned left before the thought could finish.

Charlie kept walking until a viewport stopped her. The stars beyond the glass stared back at her, indifferent and numerous. She walked up to the cold surface and put one hand against it.

It was real.