“Maybe that’s what they were doing. You received treatments all the time. And the logs… we were tracking your progress….”
He clicked one final piece into place. “The four of us—our first memories are exactly the same. If the amnesia was a side effect of the treatments, there’s no way it would have cleaned us of everything up until the exact same moment in time.”
Wiped. I’d read the term in Sam’s file the previous night. I didn’t want to believe it, but more and more, it made sense.
“What does any of this have to do with me and my mother?”
He flipped the black light on again and it glowed between us. “I don’t know, but if your mother was connected to the Branch, then you are, too, and we need to figure out why.”
I sighed and rubbed at my eyes with the heels of my hands. I couldn’t take any more. I muttered something about being tired and crawled into bed. I just wanted to be alone to sort through my thoughts. Not that it would help. Sam raised a lot of good questions that I was too afraid to face. And it all hinged on the simple fact that the handwriting on the note left for him looked awfully similar to my mother’s. Maybe it really was a coincidence. Maybe we were blowing the connection way out of proportion.
I needed rest. Things would be clearer in the morning.
But I didn’t make it that far. Sam nudged me awake two hours later. “Hey,” he said. “Get up. I found something.”
11
I PROPPED MYSELF UP ON AN ELBOW. “What is it?”
A shred of moonlight shone across the foot of my bed. It was the only light in the room. I could barely make out Sam’s face as he stood over me.
“Come to the bathroom.”
I slid out from beneath the blanket, set my feet on the floor. It was just Sam and me in the room. “Where’s Cas?”
“He’s getting the others.”
I shuffled after Sam, and once we were inside the bathroom, he shut the door. The total darkness disoriented me. I didn’t like dark, small, enclosed spaces, and the bathroom was the size of a closet. I stumbled backward, ramming into the towel rack. “What is going on?”
The black light flicked on, weakly illuminating the strong edges of Sam’s face. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, sounding almost offended. He shoved the light into my hand, then tore off his T-shirt and tossed it onto the counter. “Put the light to the small of my back.”
I stood there motionless for far too long, looking from the light in my hand to Sam’s shirtless back, convinced that I was stuck in some sort of dream world.
I’d never been this close to Sam’s tattoo before. From the tops of the trees to the grass at the bottom, the tattoo covered a good portion of his back and arms. Whoever had done the work had shaded everything perfectly, catching the fine details and curling peels of the birch bark. There was only one mistake I could find: The trees’ shadows were all wrong. Their sizes and shapes didn’t match the trees they were attached to, and the two shadows at the left blended together, but the corresponding trees didn’t overlap.
I moved the light back and forth over the tattoo as Sam had instructed. “What exactly am I looking for?”
“Look in the grass.”
I bent down. “I don’t think I see—” Something shone in the hazy light and I sucked in a breath. The writing was tiny and faded, but it glowed like one of those neon necklaces every kid wears at a Fourth of July parade.
“How is that possible?” I said.
“It’s UV ink, tattooed into the skin on top of the visible tattoo. Read it,” Sam said. “Please.”
Over time, the lines had lost their clarity and the letters had blurred together, but I was able to make out the first word. “Rose. Rose something.”
I heard the room door open and the others’ voices rumbling outside the bathroom door. “Where is he?” Trev asked.
“Must be in the bathroom with Anna,” Cas answered.
A knock sounded on the door. “Anna? Sam?” Trev said. “You okay?”
“Give us a minute,” Sam replied. To me he said, “What else?”
“There are two more words.” I got in closer, readjusting the halo of light. “How did you even know to look for this?”
“The letter scars made me think of it. I would have known my body was the only thing I could take with me if the Branch wiped my memories. When I took the UV light to my back, I saw something, but couldn’t make it out.”
“Why didn’t you ask Cas to help you?”
He didn’t answer for a long time, and the stillness made me anxious. I felt like the walls were closing in on me. But I was here, with Sam. So close I could feel the heat of his body. As much as I wanted to escape the confined space, I didn’t want it to end, either.
Finally he said, “I’m not in the mood for Cas’s sarcasm right now.” He exhaled loudly. “Besides, I had to send him for the others.”
“I think the last word is Ohio,” I said, wishing the tingling crawling up my spine would dissipate. “The middle one…” I tried to assemble the word letter by letter, hoping to put as much of it together as I could, like a crossword puzzle. “C. E. M or N, maybe. A? T. E. K… no, R. Y.” I ran the letters over in my head, mouthing them as I scanned the word again. CEMATERY.
“The A is an E,” Sam said.
“Cemetery. Rose Cemetery, Ohio.”
Sam snatched up his T-shirt, bumping into me as he did. His eyes met mine in the weak light. “Sorry.”
I pushed the hair from my face. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”
“Thank you. For doing this.” He took the black light from my hands and clicked it off, plunging us back into darkness.
“You can always come to me for help.” As soon as the words left my lips, I grimaced. It sounded so lame and pathetic. Please need me, Sam.
When he answered, his voice came out husky. “What I said yesterday, outside the drugstore—”
“You don’t have to explain.”
“I know, but I need you—”
“Sam?” Trev cut him off and Sam shifted away. He tore open the door, meeting Trev face-to-face. Someone had turned on the desk lamp and its light spilled into the bathroom, washing away the dark and the intimacy it had created.
“Did you find something?” Trev asked, his eyes locking on mine. A blush spread across my cheeks.
Sam tugged his T-shirt over his head. “Yes. Pack up. We’re leaving.”
“Where the hell are we going now?” Nick snapped. “And why in the middle of the night?”
Sam put the flannel back on and unrolled the sleeves. “I’m not going to sit here until dawn so you can sleep. I’ve been waiting too long for this. Now get your stuff and let’s go.”
Sam met us at the Jeep after checking out. He handed Cas two beat-up flashlights.
Cas pressed the button on one of them and a circle of light shone on the dashboard. “What are these for?”
“We’re going to a cemetery.” Sam pulled out of the parking lot.
“And where is this cemetery?” Cas asked.
“Rose Cemetery in Lancaster, Ohio. I had the hotel clerk look it up.”
For the next three hours we traveled in total silence. I leaned my head against the window, closed my eyes, and fell asleep. When the car stopped again, I grumbled at the soreness in my neck. In addition to the scant two hours of sleep in the hotel, I had been cramped in a vehicle for almost a full day.
“What exactly are we looking for?” Trev asked from behind me.
I looked out the Jeep’s window at the darkened cemetery, muddled silhouettes rising here and there.
“I don’t know.” Sam rested his forearms at the top of the steering wheel. “Let’s start by checking the headstones.”
“Dude,” Cas said, “that’s going to take forever.”
“If we split up, it’ll only take an hour or two.”
The others sounded doubtful, but at that point, we didn’t really have a choice. Years before, when Sam had planted the UV tattoo clue, it would have been something he knew he’d be able to figure out. So if the answer was here, we’d find it.
We climbed from the vehicle, following the gravel road into the cemetery. Though I knew it was only my mind playing tricks on me, the cemetery felt creepier than the world outside it and I couldn’t shake the goose bumps rising along my skin.
“Nick, head to the far back,” Sam said. “Trev opposite him. Cas to the right. I’ll take the left. And Anna…”
“I’ll stick here to the middle, if you want.”
“Cas, give Anna one of the flashlights.”
I gladly took the offering.
The others dispersed and silently I cursed myself for wanting to appear strong and useful. Now I was stuck alone in the middle of a cemetery at four AM.
I went to the end of a row of gravesites. Marble statues rose up from the jagged line of headstones, their pale forms seeming to glow against the darkness. I passed an angel with a cascade of marble hair falling over her shoulders. Her eyes were two blank orbs, but it still felt like she watched me.
A shiver raced down my back and I folded my arms around myself, stifling it. I read the names on the headstones as I passed, and the sentiments printed beneath.
BEVERLY BROKLE. 1934–1994. BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER.
STUART CHIMMER. 1962–1999. YOU WILL BE MISSED.
Dad had promised for the last few years that we’d visit my mother’s grave in Indiana as soon as he was able to take a break from the lab. I’d never really counted on the vacation; I knew it wouldn’t happen. But now I wondered if the grave even existed.
If my mother was alive, why did she leave me? Did she not want me? I wished I could call my dad and confront him. I wanted answers.
Once I’d reached the end of the first row, I started down the second, running my flashlight over everything, looking for something that didn’t quite fit. I read a few odd engravings. Like Michael Tenner, whose headstone read, I KILLED THE CAT. SORRY, LOVE. And Laura Basker’s headstone, which read, DON’T CRY FOR ME. THERE IS NO LAUNDRY IN HEAVEN!
I didn’t think Sam’s planted clue would be about laundry, but I made a mental note of the odd headstones anyway. By the time I’d reached the back part of my section, I hadn’t found anything that stood out, and I’d counted a total of eight gravesites with the name Samuel on the headstones.
I caught sight of Cas off to the right, his shoulders hunched as he inspected a big monument with a cross rising from the top. I shut off the flashlight and stuck it in my pocket, sauntering over to meet him.
“Did you find anything?”
“Zilch.” He stepped back from the monument and ran his hands through his blond hair, leaving it in unkempt spikes. “This seems pretty useless, doesn’t it? Don’t tell Sammy, but I think this is a dead end. Pun intended.”
I smirked. “Yeah, but it took a while to figure out the UV-light clue. We’ve only been at this for an hour or so.”
Cas raised his eyebrows. “And you want to hang out in a cemetery for eight hours? I don’t. I want a damn pizza.”
“Aren’t you mildly curious to see what this all means?”
He picked up a twig tangled in the weeds and twirled it around. “I don’t know. Who cares who I was before? Maybe I was a country club snob with one of these”—he held up the stick—“shoved up his ass.”
I snorted. “I doubt that. Sam seems to think this is important.”
“Maybe.” Cas looked up as footsteps scuffed through the leaves behind us.
“You find anything?” Nick said.
“I found a twig.”
“No, dumbass, did you find anything important?”
He clicked one final piece into place. “The four of us—our first memories are exactly the same. If the amnesia was a side effect of the treatments, there’s no way it would have cleaned us of everything up until the exact same moment in time.”
Wiped. I’d read the term in Sam’s file the previous night. I didn’t want to believe it, but more and more, it made sense.
“What does any of this have to do with me and my mother?”
He flipped the black light on again and it glowed between us. “I don’t know, but if your mother was connected to the Branch, then you are, too, and we need to figure out why.”
I sighed and rubbed at my eyes with the heels of my hands. I couldn’t take any more. I muttered something about being tired and crawled into bed. I just wanted to be alone to sort through my thoughts. Not that it would help. Sam raised a lot of good questions that I was too afraid to face. And it all hinged on the simple fact that the handwriting on the note left for him looked awfully similar to my mother’s. Maybe it really was a coincidence. Maybe we were blowing the connection way out of proportion.
I needed rest. Things would be clearer in the morning.
But I didn’t make it that far. Sam nudged me awake two hours later. “Hey,” he said. “Get up. I found something.”
11
I PROPPED MYSELF UP ON AN ELBOW. “What is it?”
A shred of moonlight shone across the foot of my bed. It was the only light in the room. I could barely make out Sam’s face as he stood over me.
“Come to the bathroom.”
I slid out from beneath the blanket, set my feet on the floor. It was just Sam and me in the room. “Where’s Cas?”
“He’s getting the others.”
I shuffled after Sam, and once we were inside the bathroom, he shut the door. The total darkness disoriented me. I didn’t like dark, small, enclosed spaces, and the bathroom was the size of a closet. I stumbled backward, ramming into the towel rack. “What is going on?”
The black light flicked on, weakly illuminating the strong edges of Sam’s face. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, sounding almost offended. He shoved the light into my hand, then tore off his T-shirt and tossed it onto the counter. “Put the light to the small of my back.”
I stood there motionless for far too long, looking from the light in my hand to Sam’s shirtless back, convinced that I was stuck in some sort of dream world.
I’d never been this close to Sam’s tattoo before. From the tops of the trees to the grass at the bottom, the tattoo covered a good portion of his back and arms. Whoever had done the work had shaded everything perfectly, catching the fine details and curling peels of the birch bark. There was only one mistake I could find: The trees’ shadows were all wrong. Their sizes and shapes didn’t match the trees they were attached to, and the two shadows at the left blended together, but the corresponding trees didn’t overlap.
I moved the light back and forth over the tattoo as Sam had instructed. “What exactly am I looking for?”
“Look in the grass.”
I bent down. “I don’t think I see—” Something shone in the hazy light and I sucked in a breath. The writing was tiny and faded, but it glowed like one of those neon necklaces every kid wears at a Fourth of July parade.
“How is that possible?” I said.
“It’s UV ink, tattooed into the skin on top of the visible tattoo. Read it,” Sam said. “Please.”
Over time, the lines had lost their clarity and the letters had blurred together, but I was able to make out the first word. “Rose. Rose something.”
I heard the room door open and the others’ voices rumbling outside the bathroom door. “Where is he?” Trev asked.
“Must be in the bathroom with Anna,” Cas answered.
A knock sounded on the door. “Anna? Sam?” Trev said. “You okay?”
“Give us a minute,” Sam replied. To me he said, “What else?”
“There are two more words.” I got in closer, readjusting the halo of light. “How did you even know to look for this?”
“The letter scars made me think of it. I would have known my body was the only thing I could take with me if the Branch wiped my memories. When I took the UV light to my back, I saw something, but couldn’t make it out.”
“Why didn’t you ask Cas to help you?”
He didn’t answer for a long time, and the stillness made me anxious. I felt like the walls were closing in on me. But I was here, with Sam. So close I could feel the heat of his body. As much as I wanted to escape the confined space, I didn’t want it to end, either.
Finally he said, “I’m not in the mood for Cas’s sarcasm right now.” He exhaled loudly. “Besides, I had to send him for the others.”
“I think the last word is Ohio,” I said, wishing the tingling crawling up my spine would dissipate. “The middle one…” I tried to assemble the word letter by letter, hoping to put as much of it together as I could, like a crossword puzzle. “C. E. M or N, maybe. A? T. E. K… no, R. Y.” I ran the letters over in my head, mouthing them as I scanned the word again. CEMATERY.
“The A is an E,” Sam said.
“Cemetery. Rose Cemetery, Ohio.”
Sam snatched up his T-shirt, bumping into me as he did. His eyes met mine in the weak light. “Sorry.”
I pushed the hair from my face. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”
“Thank you. For doing this.” He took the black light from my hands and clicked it off, plunging us back into darkness.
“You can always come to me for help.” As soon as the words left my lips, I grimaced. It sounded so lame and pathetic. Please need me, Sam.
When he answered, his voice came out husky. “What I said yesterday, outside the drugstore—”
“You don’t have to explain.”
“I know, but I need you—”
“Sam?” Trev cut him off and Sam shifted away. He tore open the door, meeting Trev face-to-face. Someone had turned on the desk lamp and its light spilled into the bathroom, washing away the dark and the intimacy it had created.
“Did you find something?” Trev asked, his eyes locking on mine. A blush spread across my cheeks.
Sam tugged his T-shirt over his head. “Yes. Pack up. We’re leaving.”
“Where the hell are we going now?” Nick snapped. “And why in the middle of the night?”
Sam put the flannel back on and unrolled the sleeves. “I’m not going to sit here until dawn so you can sleep. I’ve been waiting too long for this. Now get your stuff and let’s go.”
Sam met us at the Jeep after checking out. He handed Cas two beat-up flashlights.
Cas pressed the button on one of them and a circle of light shone on the dashboard. “What are these for?”
“We’re going to a cemetery.” Sam pulled out of the parking lot.
“And where is this cemetery?” Cas asked.
“Rose Cemetery in Lancaster, Ohio. I had the hotel clerk look it up.”
For the next three hours we traveled in total silence. I leaned my head against the window, closed my eyes, and fell asleep. When the car stopped again, I grumbled at the soreness in my neck. In addition to the scant two hours of sleep in the hotel, I had been cramped in a vehicle for almost a full day.
“What exactly are we looking for?” Trev asked from behind me.
I looked out the Jeep’s window at the darkened cemetery, muddled silhouettes rising here and there.
“I don’t know.” Sam rested his forearms at the top of the steering wheel. “Let’s start by checking the headstones.”
“Dude,” Cas said, “that’s going to take forever.”
“If we split up, it’ll only take an hour or two.”
The others sounded doubtful, but at that point, we didn’t really have a choice. Years before, when Sam had planted the UV tattoo clue, it would have been something he knew he’d be able to figure out. So if the answer was here, we’d find it.
We climbed from the vehicle, following the gravel road into the cemetery. Though I knew it was only my mind playing tricks on me, the cemetery felt creepier than the world outside it and I couldn’t shake the goose bumps rising along my skin.
“Nick, head to the far back,” Sam said. “Trev opposite him. Cas to the right. I’ll take the left. And Anna…”
“I’ll stick here to the middle, if you want.”
“Cas, give Anna one of the flashlights.”
I gladly took the offering.
The others dispersed and silently I cursed myself for wanting to appear strong and useful. Now I was stuck alone in the middle of a cemetery at four AM.
I went to the end of a row of gravesites. Marble statues rose up from the jagged line of headstones, their pale forms seeming to glow against the darkness. I passed an angel with a cascade of marble hair falling over her shoulders. Her eyes were two blank orbs, but it still felt like she watched me.
A shiver raced down my back and I folded my arms around myself, stifling it. I read the names on the headstones as I passed, and the sentiments printed beneath.
BEVERLY BROKLE. 1934–1994. BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER.
STUART CHIMMER. 1962–1999. YOU WILL BE MISSED.
Dad had promised for the last few years that we’d visit my mother’s grave in Indiana as soon as he was able to take a break from the lab. I’d never really counted on the vacation; I knew it wouldn’t happen. But now I wondered if the grave even existed.
If my mother was alive, why did she leave me? Did she not want me? I wished I could call my dad and confront him. I wanted answers.
Once I’d reached the end of the first row, I started down the second, running my flashlight over everything, looking for something that didn’t quite fit. I read a few odd engravings. Like Michael Tenner, whose headstone read, I KILLED THE CAT. SORRY, LOVE. And Laura Basker’s headstone, which read, DON’T CRY FOR ME. THERE IS NO LAUNDRY IN HEAVEN!
I didn’t think Sam’s planted clue would be about laundry, but I made a mental note of the odd headstones anyway. By the time I’d reached the back part of my section, I hadn’t found anything that stood out, and I’d counted a total of eight gravesites with the name Samuel on the headstones.
I caught sight of Cas off to the right, his shoulders hunched as he inspected a big monument with a cross rising from the top. I shut off the flashlight and stuck it in my pocket, sauntering over to meet him.
“Did you find anything?”
“Zilch.” He stepped back from the monument and ran his hands through his blond hair, leaving it in unkempt spikes. “This seems pretty useless, doesn’t it? Don’t tell Sammy, but I think this is a dead end. Pun intended.”
I smirked. “Yeah, but it took a while to figure out the UV-light clue. We’ve only been at this for an hour or so.”
Cas raised his eyebrows. “And you want to hang out in a cemetery for eight hours? I don’t. I want a damn pizza.”
“Aren’t you mildly curious to see what this all means?”
He picked up a twig tangled in the weeds and twirled it around. “I don’t know. Who cares who I was before? Maybe I was a country club snob with one of these”—he held up the stick—“shoved up his ass.”
I snorted. “I doubt that. Sam seems to think this is important.”
“Maybe.” Cas looked up as footsteps scuffed through the leaves behind us.
“You find anything?” Nick said.
“I found a twig.”
“No, dumbass, did you find anything important?”
