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She hands him the camera, then pulls him forward. The distance between the camera and the light seems to shrink, fold, faster than it should, and then they stand within the circle of light.
Sara crouches near the flickering candle. Lucy lies in a pool of blood nearby.
BECCA: Oh my God.
She rushes forward, dropping to her knees beside Lucy. She searches for the source of the blood and tries to stanch it with her hands.
BECCA: What happened? Sara?Sara.
Sara jerks, gaze snapping into focus.
SARA: I don’t know. She just collapsed.
BECCA: Where did all this blood come from?
SARA: I don’t know.
She stands, lifting the severed hand with her. The candle wax puddles in the cupped palm and spills along its creases. A liquid drop rolls free of the rest and falls to the ground.
SARA: We have to go. The candle won’t last.
BECCA: Do we leave her?
SARA: We don’t have a choice.
Becca straightens up. She looks down at her hands, frowns, and wipes her hands on her shirt.
BECCA: Do you hear that?
ANTHONY: Hear what?
BECCA: Nothing. It’s... it’s quiet.
She looks disturbed.
ANTHONY: Let’s just get out of here.
He hands the camera back to Becca.
29
THERE ARE THINGSI am not supposed to tell you.
There are things I don’t remember.
There are things I don’t know.
Sorting out one from the other is harder than you think. I’m not sure I’ve done it right. I’m not sure what the things are you need to know, and I’m not sure which things I’ve told you are true.
Because not everything you’ve been told can be true, can it?
This is true:
I don’t know how long I am gone, in those moments after Dahut takes hold of me. When I exist again, when I wake, I am in the dark—but it is not the darkness of the road. It is a maze. It is a house. It is a cage. I am running, chasing someone.Lucy, I think, but the name is as slippery as a dream.Dahut, I call, and laughter echoes back toward me.
The house unmakes and remakes itself, but there is an order to it. A will, a malice, an architect with a careful hand. Doors vanish behind walls. Corridors are carved where they should not be, false paths to fool my memory.
