I couldn't speak.
My mother's words remained suspended between us.
Your grandmother believed you weren't sick.
Something had been put inside you.
They called it Subject Seven.
And now the warmth had given me the final piece.
I didn't escape alone.
You saved me.
You did.
I looked down at my hands.
They were mine.
At least, they had always felt like mine.
But suddenly I couldn't stop wondering how much of my childhood belonged entirely to me.
How much had been shared.
How much had been buried.
And how much had been deliberately taken away.
"Mom."
She looked at me.
"Do you remember anything else?"
She shook her head.
"I've tried not to."
"Please."
"I was afraid."
"I know."
"No." She swallowed. "You don't understand. Your grandmother made me promise."
"Promise what?"
"That I would never tell you about St. Agnes unless you remembered on your own."
"Why?"
"Because she said they might still be watching."
The warmth stirred.
"Who?"
My mother looked toward the window.
"I don't know."
"Mom."
"I don't."
Her voice cracked.
"But your grandmother believed the people who ran that place hadn't simply disappeared."
A cold sensation moved through me.
"What happened to St. Agnes?"
"Officially?"
She laughed bitterly.
"It closed."
"When?"
"Not long after you disappeared."
I stared at her.
"Convenient."
"Very."
She stood and walked to another cabinet.
This time, she removed an old metal box.
I'd seen it before.
Years ago.
I had assumed it contained jewelry.
She placed it on the table.
"I never opened this."
I frowned.
"You just said you've tried not to remember."
"I haven't."
She slid the box toward me.
"Your grandmother gave it to me after she died."
I stared at the rusted latch.
"Why?"
"She said it belonged to you."
My heart began beating faster.
"Why didn't you give it to me?"
"Because I was terrified of what was inside."
I opened it.
Inside were papers.
Photographs.
A hospital bracelet.
And a child's drawing.
I lifted the drawing first.
A tree.
A red umbrella.
Two figures beneath it.
One was a little girl.
The other was a dark shape with no face.
I turned it over.
My grandmother's handwriting covered the back.
She remembers him before she remembers herself.
I frowned.
"Who is him?"
The warmth became extremely quiet.
"I don't know."
I looked at the drawing again.
The faceless figure stood beside the girl.
Not holding her hand.
Standing between her...
and something beyond the tree.
Something I had drawn as a mass of black lines.
"What did I think this was?"
My mother shook her head.
"You wouldn't tell us."
"Did I talk about it?"
"Constantly."
"What did I say?"
She closed her eyes.
"You called him the man behind the door."
The warmth recoiled.
I felt it immediately.
"Mom..."
"What?"
"Did I ever say his name?"
She hesitated.
"No."
"Did I say what he wanted?"
"No."
"Did I say why I was afraid?"
She nodded.
"Once."
My throat tightened.
"What did I say?"
My mother looked directly at me.
"You said..."
Her voice became barely audible.
"He wants her back."
The warmth went completely still.
I felt something shift inside my chest.
Not pain.
Recognition.
A memory surfaced.
A hallway.
White walls.
A door.
A little girl's hand in mine.
And the woman's voice.
"Don't look behind you."
I remembered running.
Not toward the maple tree.
Away from something.
Something following us.
Footsteps.
Heavy.
Fast.
A man's voice.
"Stop!"
The woman pulled me forward.
"Keep going!"
I was crying.
The warmth was terrified.
And yet...
I wasn't.
Not then.
Because I was holding someone's hand.
Someone smaller than me.
Someone who was crying harder than I was.
Someone I had been trying to protect.
I opened my eyes.
"She wasn't protecting me."
My mother stared at me.
"What?"
"The woman."
I looked at the drawing.
"She wasn't protecting me from them."
The warmth spoke.
"She was protecting me."
I swallowed.
"And I was protecting her."
My mother looked confused.
"Who?"
I pointed at the faceless figure.
"This."
The memory returned.
Not completely.
But enough.
I was five.
Standing in a white hallway.
The woman was kneeling in front of me.
She was crying.
She placed both hands on my shoulders.
"Listen to me."
I nodded.
"You have to take her with you."
I looked behind her.
Someone was approaching.
The man.
I could hear his footsteps.
"I can't."
The woman shook her head.
"You can."
"She's scared."
"I know."
"She doesn't know how."
"Then teach her."
I looked down.
There was someone beside me.
A little girl.
Not me.
The realization hit with such force that I almost doubled over.
I had been remembering myself incorrectly.
The child beneath the maple tree wasn't alone.
I had been looking at the wrong child.
The girl in the photograph...
the girl I thought was me...
wasn't me.
I opened my eyes.
My mother was staring at me.
"What did you remember?"
I couldn't answer immediately.
The warmth whispered inside me.
"I wasn't the girl."
I shook my head.
"What?"
"I wasn't the girl."
My mother looked frightened.
"What are you saying?"
I pushed the photograph toward her.
"Look at it."
She did.
"That's you."
"No."
I pointed toward the child.
"That's her."
My mother frowned.
"Then who are you?"
I looked at the photograph.
At the second figure.
At the space just outside the frame.
And suddenly...
I remembered.
I had been standing behind the camera.
No.
Not behind it.
Beside the woman.
Watching.
Waiting.
Holding something.
A red umbrella.
The child beneath the tree had been the one I'd been protecting.
The warmth wasn't inside me because I was the experiment.
It was inside me because I had been the only one capable of carrying it away.
My mother whispered—
"Then who were you?"
The warmth answered before I could.
"Subject Seven."
I stared at the drawing.
The designation suddenly made sense.
Seven wasn't the number of the girl.
It wasn't a number assigned to me.
It was the number assigned to the thing they had placed inside me.
The memory.
The consciousness.
The warmth.
Whatever it truly was.
I had carried Subject Seven out of St. Agnes.
But why?
Because I had chosen to.
The metal box contained one final photograph.
I picked it up.
This one was newer.
Much newer.
The photograph showed an empty room.
A chair.
A table.
A child's drawing taped to the wall.
And written across the bottom...
TRANSFER COMPLETE.
My stomach turned.
On the back was a date.
Three years before my grandmother died.
I stared at it.
"Mom."
She looked over.
"What?"
"This photograph was taken years after St. Agnes closed."
Her face went pale.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
The warmth spoke.
"They didn't stop."
I looked at the photograph again.
The empty room.
The drawing.
The words.
TRANSFER COMPLETE.
"They moved."
"Yes."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
I closed my eyes.
The answer came from somewhere deeper.
Not memory.
Instinct.
"Somewhere nearby."
The warmth stirred.
"Why?"
I opened my eyes.
"Because they were still looking for Subject Seven."
My mother reached across the table.
"You need to stop."
I looked at her.
"Stop what?"
"Searching."
"Why?"
"Because if your grandmother was right..."
She struggled to continue.
"...then finding the truth could put you in danger."
I looked at the drawing.
At the red umbrella.
At the faceless man.
Then at the photograph of the woman.
"I've spent my entire life running from something I couldn't remember."
I closed the metal box.
"I'm done running."
The warmth remained silent.
I knew what it was thinking.
Not fear.
Concern.
"You don't have to do this alone."
The warmth finally spoke.
"I know."
~
I looked toward the window.
Outside, the afternoon light had begun to fade.
For the first time, I understood why the woman had left the seventh note.
Why she'd led me toward St. Agnes.
Why she'd shown herself only in fragments.
She hadn't wanted me to find her.
She wanted me to remember what happened to her.
And perhaps...
what happened to the girl.
I stood.
"Mom, I need to ask one more thing."
"What?"
"Where did Grandma think the girl went?"
My mother froze.
Then slowly...
she looked toward the metal box.
"There was a note."
"Where?"
"I thought it was meaningless."
She opened the box again.
Removed a folded piece of paper.
She handed it to me.
I unfolded it.
My grandmother's handwriting appeared.
Only one sentence.
The girl was never lost.
My breath caught.
Beneath it was an address.
I recognized the street immediately.
My heart stopped.
It was less than twenty minutes from my apartment.
The warmth whispered—
"She's here."
I stared at the address.
"Who?"
The warmth answered with absolute certainty.
"The girl."
I looked at my mother.
She was crying now.
"Who is she?"
The warmth went silent.
Because suddenly...
I remembered the answer.
Not her name.
Not yet.
But her face.
A little girl beneath a red umbrella.
A child I had carried away from St. Agnes.
A child I'd spent my entire life believing was me.
And somewhere in the city...
that child had grown up.
She had been waiting.
And she had finally sent me a way to find her.