“It was the day we brought him back.”
Nobody moved.
Thomas stared at Mrs. Bell.
“What?”
Margaret's eyes remained fixed on the gold door.
“The date was changed.”
Morgan stepped closer.
“Changed how?”
“The newspapers. The search records. The Lantern Room ledger. Everything.”
“Grandma did that?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I don't know.”
Morgan closed her eyes.
“Of course.”
“I mean it, Morgan. I remember helping her, but I don't remember how we did it.”
Thomas looked pale.
“When did I disappear?”
Mrs. Bell finally looked at him.
“October fourth.”
Thomas stared.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I left the Lantern Room on the seventeenth.”
“No.”
“I remember it.”
“That's what we made you remember.”
Silence.
Thomas stepped backward.
Morgan watched his face.
Forty-eight years of certainty had just cracked beneath him.
“What happened on October fourth?” Morgan asked.
Mrs. Bell looked toward Thomas.
“He came into the Lantern Room.”
“Who?”
“Thomas.”
Thomas frowned.
“I worked there.”
“No. You didn't.”
He stared at her.
“What?”
“You were a mechanic.”
Morgan looked at Thomas.
“You remember working at the Lantern Room?”
“Yes.”
Mrs. Bell shook her head.
“You never did.”
Thomas looked genuinely frightened now.
“I remember the bar.”
“You drank there.”
“I remember closing.”
“You helped Richard close sometimes.”
“I remember Evelyn sitting at the end of the bar.”
“She did.”
“I remember serving her.”
“You didn't.”
Thomas pressed both hands against his temples.
“Stop.”
Mrs. Bell went quiet.
Morgan looked at the gold door.
THE FIRST LIE.
Not one false date.
An entire false history.
“Why?”
Mrs. Bell looked at her.
“Because he needed one.”
Thomas lowered his hands.
“What does that mean?”
Mrs. Bell swallowed.
“When we brought you back, you didn't remember anything.”
Richard spoke quietly.
“Nothing?”
Margaret shook her head.
“Not Bellweather. Not us. Not your family.”
Thomas stared.
“So you gave me memories.”
“Yes.”
“Whose?”
Margaret looked toward the door.
“I don't know.”
Morgan's stomach tightened.
Thomas laughed once.
There was nothing amused about it.
“You don't know whose life you put in my head?”
“We were trying to save you.”
“From what?”
“The rooms.”
“I was already out.”
“No.”
Mrs. Bell's voice cracked.
“You weren't.”
Thomas stopped.
Morgan looked between them.
“What came back?”
Mrs. Bell's eyes filled.
“We didn't know.”
Nobody spoke.
The gold door clicked.
Once.
The words disappeared.
New ones surfaced.
NOW YOU REMEMBER.
Thomas backed away.
“I am Thomas Mercer.”
Mrs. Bell looked at him.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Because I remember you before.”
“Before what?”
“Before the woods.”
Thomas' breathing quickened.
Richard moved toward him.
“Thomas.”
“Don't.”
Richard stopped.
Thomas looked at his own hands.
“If my memories aren't mine…”
“That doesn't mean you're not Thomas,” Morgan said.
He looked at her.
“You don't know that.”
“No.”
Morgan stepped closer.
“But neither does that door.”
Thomas glanced toward it.
Morgan continued.
“Everything in here has been trying to make us accept whatever explanation it puts in front of us.”
DC nodded.
“The alibis.”
Morgan looked at him.
“Exactly.”
Mrs. Bell frowned.
“What alibis?”
“Later.”
Morgan looked at the gold door.
“It tells us Thomas was the thirteenth room. Then it tells us Richard was left behind. Then DC gets claimed. Then suddenly the rooms want a trade.”
She shook her head.
“Every time we think we understand the rules, they change.”
Richard looked toward the door.
“Because we're getting closer.”
“To what?”
“The beginning.”
A lock appeared on the gold door.
Then another.
Then another.
Morgan watched them form down the edge.
She did not count.
DC noticed.
“Not counting?”
“Nope.”
“Good.”
The final lock clicked into place.
Thomas stared.
“It doesn't want us going through.”
Morgan reached into her pocket.
Two brass keys.
Her key.
Thomas'.
Neither looked large enough for the locks.
Then DC's watch ticked.
Morgan pulled it out.
The 13 remained at the top.
But the hands were moving.
Not around the face.
Toward the center.
Morgan frowned.
“What are you doing?”
DC looked over her shoulder.
“My watch?”
“Yes.”
“I'm innocent.”
The hands overlapped.
A tiny click sounded.
The back of the watch opened.
Morgan stared.
Inside was a key.
Tiny.
Gold.
DC blinked.
“I definitely didn't put that there.”
Morgan removed it carefully.
Richard stared.
“I've seen that key.”
“Where?”
Richard looked at the gold door.
“Evelyn had it.”
Morgan's stomach tightened.
“My grandmother?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“1978.”
Mrs. Bell stepped forward.
“No.”
Richard looked at her.
“You remember.”
Margaret stared at the key.
“She wore it around her neck.”
Morgan looked at the tiny gold key in her palm.
“Why was it inside DC's watch?”
Nobody answered.
DC sighed.
“I'd like to formally request that the supernatural stop storing things in my belongings.”
Morgan glanced at him.
“Request denied.”
“I figured.”
She approached the door.
Thomas caught her shoulder.
“Morgan.”
“What?”
“Those locks.”
“I see them.”
“You have one key.”
“Yes.”
“Maybe that's the point.”
Morgan looked at him.
He continued.
“Maybe we're not supposed to open all of them.”
She looked back at the locks.
Different shapes.
Different sizes.
One tiny gold lock sat near the center.
Morgan smiled faintly.
“Look at you being useful.”
Thomas did not smile.
Morgan inserted the gold key.
It turned.
One lock opened.
Every other lock disappeared.
DC stared.
“That was suspiciously easy.”
“Nothing about this has been easy.”
The gold door opened.
Darkness waited beyond it.
Not a corridor.
Not another room.
Trees.
Morgan stepped through.
Cold night air touched her face.
DC followed.
Then Thomas.
Richard.
Mrs. Bell.
The gold door remained standing behind them without a wall.
Beyond it was the small white room they'd just left.
Morgan looked ahead.
Bellweather Orchard.
But not as it existed now.
The trees were smaller.
The barn looked newer.
An old truck sat beside the fence.
Morgan recognized the style from photographs.
“1978.”
Mrs. Bell whispered the year.
Morgan looked at her.
“You recognize this?”
“Yes.”
Lights glowed through the orchard.
Lanterns.
People moved between the trees.
Morgan counted them without meaning to.
She stopped herself before finishing.
“Nope.”
DC looked at her.
“What?”
“Almost counted.”
“Please don't.”
“Wasn't planning to.”
They moved closer.
The figures couldn't see them.
Memories.
Or something pretending to be memories.
Morgan recognized Evelyn first.
Young.
Her grandmother couldn't have been much older than Morgan was now.
Mrs. Bell stood beside her.
Richard.
Others from the search photograph.
And Thomas.
Morgan stopped.
Thomas stood beside her now.
But another Thomas was twenty feet away beneath the apple tree.
Young.
Alive.
Arguing with Evelyn.
Thomas stared at himself.
“I don't remember this.”
Mrs. Bell whispered, “You shouldn't.”
Morgan looked at her.
“What?”
“This was after we found him.”
The memory continued.
Young Thomas held something.
A wooden marker.
Morgan moved closer.
The symbol carved into it was familiar.
A door.
Evelyn reached for it.
Thomas pulled it away.
They couldn't hear the conversation.
Then the scene shifted.
Sound rushed in.
“You don't understand what you brought back.”
Young Thomas' voice.
Evelyn stared at him.
“We brought you back.”
“No.”
Thomas looked toward the woods.
“You opened the room.”
Richard stepped forward.
“We opened a door.”
“You opened a place.”
Morgan looked at the Thomas standing beside her.
He stared at the memory.
Young Evelyn grabbed his arm.
“You were inside.”
“I was.”
“Then what are you saying?”
Young Thomas looked at her.
“There was something else in there.”
The memory flickered.
For half a second, young Thomas disappeared.
Someone else stood in his place.
Morgan couldn't see the face.
Then Thomas returned.
Mrs. Bell gasped.
Morgan looked at her.
“You saw that?”
“Yes.”
Good.
Not just Morgan.
Young Thomas continued.
“It couldn't leave because nobody remembered it.”
Evelyn frowned.
“Remembered what?”
“I don't know.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Because it told me.”
Richard stepped closer.
“And you believed it?”
“No.”
Young Thomas looked terrified.
“But it knew things.”
“What things?”
“Our names.”
The orchard went silent.
“It knew Bellweather.”
Thomas looked toward the trees.
“It knew things that hadn't happened yet.”
Morgan's skin prickled.
Young Evelyn lowered her voice.
“What did it tell you?”
Thomas looked directly toward where Morgan stood.
Impossible.
He shouldn't be able to see her.
Morgan stopped.
Young Thomas stared at her.
Then said:
“Morgan.”
DC grabbed her arm.
The memory froze.
Every person in the orchard stopped moving.
Morgan stared at young Thomas.
“No.”
The Thomas beside her whispered, “I knew your name.”
“Before I was born.”
“Yes.”
The frozen memory cracked.
Not physically.
The entire scene fractured like glass.
Then reassembled.
Same orchard.
Same people.
Different positions.
Young Thomas was gone.
Evelyn stood beside the old apple tree.
Crying.
Richard held a shovel.
Mrs. Bell held the wooden box.
Morgan looked around.
“Where's Thomas?”
Thomas beside her didn't answer.
Young Evelyn knelt.
She placed something beneath the tree.
A brass key.
Morgan's key.
MORGAN.
Morgan reached instinctively toward her pocket.
Still there.
Evelyn covered the key with soil.
Mrs. Bell spoke from inside the memory.
“What if she comes back?”
Evelyn wiped her face.
“She can't.”
“You don't know that.”
“I'll make sure.”
“Evelyn.”
Her grandmother stood.
“If Bellweather remembers Thomas disappeared on October fourth, it remembers what happened afterward.”
Richard looked toward the woods.
“And if it remembers what happened afterward…”
“It remembers her.”
Morgan's stomach tightened.
Mrs. Bell whispered:
“Who?”
Evelyn looked at her.
Even in 1978, Margaret had already begun forgetting.
Evelyn's face crumpled.
She reached into her coat.
A photograph.
Two little girls.
Morgan stopped breathing.
One wore purple.
One wore yellow.
DC whispered, “That's impossible.”
Morgan couldn't answer.
The photograph shouldn't exist.
Morgan hadn't been born.
Kiara hadn't been born.
Yet Evelyn held a photograph of them in 1978.
Young Margaret stared at it.
“Who are they?”
Evelyn looked toward the woods.
“Not yet.”
Morgan felt cold.
Richard spoke.
“What does that mean?”
Evelyn turned the photograph over.
Morgan moved closer.
Words were written across the back.
MORGAN BENNETT
KIARA WALKER
And beneath them:
OCTOBER 17, 2005
DC stared.
“They knew.”
“No,” Thomas whispered.
Morgan looked at him.
“What?”
Thomas' face had gone white.
“They didn't know.”
He pointed toward the photograph.
“They remembered.”
Morgan stared.
“Something that hadn't happened yet?”
“Yes.”
The memory shifted again.
Evelyn stood alone now.
Night.
The apple tree.
The photograph in one hand.
The gold key around her neck.
She dug beneath the tree.
Morgan watched her grandmother bury the brass key.
Then Evelyn spoke to someone Morgan couldn't see.
“I'll do it.”
Silence.
Evelyn's jaw tightened.
“But you leave the girls alone.”
Morgan's heart pounded.
A voice came from the woods.
Not male.
Not female.
Not young.
Not old.
“There must always be thirteen.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
“Then take the day.”
Morgan frowned.
DC looked at her.
“The day?”
The voice answered.
“Which one?”
Evelyn opened her eyes.
“October seventeenth.”
The orchard changed.
Wind tore through the trees.
Leaves lifted from the ground.
Lanterns went dark.
Every carved marker in Mrs. Bell's box began shaking.
Evelyn held her ground.
“Take the date. Take what happened. Take every record of it.”
The voice whispered:
“And the name?”
Evelyn looked toward the buried key.
“No.”
The trees groaned.
“A date is not enough.”
Evelyn's eyes filled.
“Then take Thomas.”
The Thomas beside Morgan recoiled.
Mrs. Bell covered her mouth.
Richard whispered, “Evelyn.”
The memory continued.
The voice seemed almost pleased.
“Thomas Mercer?”
Evelyn shook her head.
“No.”
Morgan stared.
What?
Evelyn looked toward the darkness.
“Take the Thomas we brought back.”
Silence.
Then laughter moved through the orchard.
The voice asked:
“And the other?”
Evelyn's face tightened.
“You told me he was gone.”
The laughter stopped.
Evelyn stared into the darkness.
“You said there was nothing left to bring back.”
Thomas' face collapsed.
“No.”
Mrs. Bell began crying.
Richard stared at Evelyn's memory.
Morgan's stomach turned.
There had been two.
Thomas had been right about the rooms copying people.
Only it had happened before Richard.
Long before.
The voice asked:
“And what will Bellweather remember?”
Evelyn answered.
“That Thomas Mercer disappeared October seventeenth.”
Morgan finally understood.
The false date.
The false Lantern Room memories.
The rewritten history.
Not to hide Thomas' disappearance.
To hide his return.
The orchard vanished.
Darkness swallowed everything.
Then words appeared in front of them.
White against black.
THOMAS MERCER DISAPPEARED OCTOBER 4, 1978.
Another line.
THOMAS MERCER RETURNED OCTOBER 17, 1978.
Then:
ONE THOMAS LEFT THE ROOMS.
Thomas stared.
Morgan reached toward him.
He stepped away.
“No.”
“Thomas.”
“No.”
The final sentence appeared.
THE WRONG ONE CAME HOME.
Nobody spoke.
Then somewhere in the darkness came a man's voice.
Weak.
Older.
Angry.
“Evelyn promised she would come back for me.”
Thomas closed his eyes.
Richard turned toward the sound.
Mrs. Bell whispered:
“Thomas?”
The voice answered from somewhere beyond the dark.
“Not him.”
A light appeared.
Far ahead.
A doorway.
Inside stood a man who looked to be around fifty.
Older than the Thomas beside her, certainly, but nowhere near old enough for the years that had passed.
Morgan recognized his face anyway.
Thomas Mercer.
The Thomas beside her stared at him.
The old man stared back.
And Morgan realized the rooms had just given them the cruelest question yet.
Not which Thomas was real.
Which Thomas was allowed to come home?
