Page 83 of Our Last Echoes


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Recorded by Joy Novak

AUGUST 14, 2003, TIME UNKNOWN

Sophia—which one is, at this point, unclear—slips from her Novak’s hold and walks toward the kneeling figures. Joy grabs for her but doesn’t seem willing to move closer to her double. Sophia reaches out and presses her hands against the kneeling Joy’s cheeks.

SOPHIA: Mama? Wake up. Mama, talk.

She looks back.

SOPHIA: Why she doesn’t talk?

HARDCASTLE: They’re doubles. Those are our doubles; they’re not real.

KAPOOR: Don’t be obtuse, Will. This explains everything quite neatly, doesn’t it? Vanya and William did go down toward the beach. We’re the ones that came back. Carolyn—

NOVAK: She must have been replaced before we even got to the church. When we were separated in the mist.

KAPOOR: They tried to bring the real one here, but she got away somehow. And we found her. We killed her.

Her voice is almost clinical—almost. An edge of disgust seeps through.

NOVAK: No, you didn’t. I did.

KAPOOR: You didn’t know.

HARDCASTLE: IamWilliam Hardcastle. I’m me. I’m not some... doppelganger.

KAPOOR: That’s exactly what you are, Will.

NOVAK: How could we not know? I feel like Joy Novak. I don’t remember being anyone else.

Carreau giggles. They look at him sharply. He spreads his hands.

CARREAU: You should see yourfaces.

He laughs—laughs until he wheezes, bending over at the waist.

CARREAU: Caro arrow row oh, such a lovely echo we made of her, and then you put a bullet in its brain. But you were just the same!

HARDCASTLE: Jesus, Martin.

CARREAU: No, neither, I’m afraid.

He stops laughing abruptly and stands up straight. His head gives an avian tilt, and he clicks his teeth together three times rapidly.

CARREAU: We eat their memories, and for a time they seem like truth. But it doesn’t last, doesn’t last. We can’t hold on in the face of the song. And it’s so, so nice to surrender.

KAPOOR: Then you know what you are.

CARREAU: Oh, oh. Yes. You’ll know soon too. Now that you’ve done what was needed.

NOVAK: What was needed?

Carreau looks at the Sophias, his grin wide and fixed.

CARREAU: You brought them here. They wouldn’t have followed if you didn’t believe.

Novak moves now, grabbing both Sophias and pulling them away from Carreau.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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