By the third occurrence of September eighteenth, Ethan Cole had begun to understand that repetition did not produce familiarity so much as a more sophisticated variety of uneasiness.
The morning sunlight entered his bedroom through precisely the same narrow division between the curtains, illuminating the same neglected textbooks, mechanical fragments, and abandoned articles of clothing that had occupied their respective positions during the previous two awakenings. His alarm clock displayed 7:13 before proceeding through its impossible succession of unrelated hours, and from the kitchen below came his mother’s familiar warning that breakfast was becoming cold. Nothing within the room had altered, yet Ethan himself had awakened profoundly changed by experiences the remainder of Evermore had apparently been compelled to surrender.
For several moments, he remained beneath the blankets, contemplating the peculiar cruelty of remembering.
Somewhere downstairs, his mother was preparing for a meeting she had already attended twice. Noah would soon leave his house without recollection of the conversations they had shared, the discoveries they had made, or the midnight catastrophe they had witnessed together. Mrs. Whitaker would once again enter the cafeteria carrying her precarious collection of papers, and Mr. Aldridge would eventually stand before a classroom of unsuspecting students and discuss chemical catalysts without the slightest awareness that time itself had behaved more unpredictably than any experiment conducted within his laboratory.
Only Ethan remembered.
The isolation of that realization settled upon him with greater severity than it had the previous morning. Until now, he had been too occupied by astonishment to consider the consequences of his peculiar immunity. If September eighteenth continued indefinitely, then every friendship, conversation, discovery, and shared experience would become temporary. Noah might accompany him through an entire day, witness impossible phenomena, and finally accept the truth of Evermore’s predicament, only to awaken the following morning restored to ignorance. His mother might believe him, help him, even remember the missing person in the family photograph, and midnight would nevertheless take those accomplishments from her.
Ethan would retain the memories.
Everyone else would become a stranger to them.
The thought was sufficiently unpleasant that he abandoned it.
He reached toward his backpack and removed the spiral notebook.
Every page remained blank.
The disappearance of his written observations had not surprised him, although disappointment accompanied the confirmation. He turned the pages slowly, examining them for some overlooked remnant of ink, but midnight had restored the notebook as completely as it had restored the town.
Then Ethan remembered his hand.
He looked at his palm.
The words were still there.
BENEATH LIBRARY.
The ink had faded considerably during the night—or whatever passed for night when time returned a person to the morning from which he had begun—but the letters remained legible.
Ethan examined them with mounting curiosity.
The newspaper had disappeared.
The notebook had been erased.
The alterations he had deliberately made throughout the previous day had been undone.
Yet two words written upon his skin had survived.
Why?
He could imagine no satisfactory explanation. Perhaps objects returned to their previous condition while people did not. That possibility would explain Ethan’s memories and the surviving ink, although it raised considerably more questions than it answered. If his body existed outside the restoration affecting Evermore, why did his clothing return to its original condition? Why did exhaustion disappear? Why had he awakened in bed rather than remaining within the town square?
Ethan rubbed his thumb across the fading message.
The ink remained.
Whatever rules governed the repetition of September eighteenth, he understood almost none of them.
Clara understood more.
That alone was sufficient reason to find her.
Ethan dressed, placed the useless notebook inside his backpack, and descended toward the kitchen.
His mother stood beside the counter.
Coffee in one hand.
Earring in the other.
“Toast.”
Ethan almost smiled.
Rachel noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re staring at me.”
“I’m looking at you.”
“There’s a difference?”
Ethan pulled out a chair.
The conversation had returned to its original progression.
His mother fastened her earring and examined him.
“Did you sleep?”
“Apparently.”
“That sounds reassuring.”
Ethan reached toward the toast.
He already knew what would happen if he questioned her about the date. He knew what she would say about the photograph, where she believed it had been taken, and how quickly concern would enter her expression if he insisted that September eighteenth had occurred before.
Repeating the conversation would accomplish nothing.
Instead, Ethan studied her.
Rachel noticed almost immediately.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I was wondering something.”
“That expression usually precedes an expensive request.”
“Do you remember anyone named Lily?”
The question emerged before Ethan consciously decided to ask it.
His mother became motionless.
Ethan felt his heartbeat accelerate.
For one extraordinary instant, Rachel’s expression emptied of recognition, confusion, and irritation. Something else appeared in their place.
Pain.
Then it vanished.
“Who?”
Ethan stared at her.
“Lily.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You hesitated.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You did.”
Rachel collected her coffee mug.
“Is she someone from school?”
“I don’t know.”
His mother frowned.
“You’re asking me whether I remember someone, but you don’t know who she is?”
Ethan looked toward the refrigerator.
The photograph remained there.
The unexplained space waited between him and his mother.
“Forget it.”
“That seems like a strange request considering the conversation.”
Ethan scarcely heard her.
He had remembered the name during the first morning, although so much had happened afterward that he had neglected to investigate it. The recollection had been fragmentary: a child’s laughter, an inexplicable sense of absence, and one name emerging from somewhere inaccessible.
Lily.
His mother claimed not to know anyone by that name.
Yet she had reacted.
Ethan was certain of it.
“Mom?”
Rachel was gathering her handbag.
“Yes?”
“If you forgot someone important, do you think you would know?”
She stopped.
The question appeared to trouble her.
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“Suppose you couldn’t remember a person. Would some part of you still recognize that something was missing?”
Rachel looked toward the photograph.
The movement was so subtle Ethan might not have noticed it during an ordinary morning.
This was no longer an ordinary morning.
“I think,” she said carefully, “that people sometimes recognize an absence before they understand what caused it.”
Ethan said nothing.
His mother smiled, although sadness lingered unexpectedly within the expression.
“That was considerably more philosophical than I intended before eight o’clock.”
She kissed his forehead.
“I love you.”
“Love you too.”
Rachel left.
Ethan remained in the kitchen.
He looked at the photograph.
“Lily,” he whispered.
The name felt familiar.
Not because he remembered the person to whom it belonged.
Because he had forgotten her.
Noah arrived at 7:52.
Ethan had already positioned himself beside the sidewalk.
“You look terrible.”
“I know.”
Noah stopped.
“That was disappointingly easy.”
“You were going to mention a raccoon.”
His friend’s expression changed.
“How did you know that?”
Ethan began walking.
Noah followed.
“You have approximately ten seconds to explain before I become offended by whatever practical joke this is.”
“Today has happened before.”
Noah sighed.
“Of course it has.”
“Twice.”
“That improves nothing.”
“Yesterday, I predicted that a delivery truck would nearly strike the bicycle outside Peterson’s Pharmacy.”
“Did you?”
“You believed me after that.”
“I’m beginning to question yesterday’s judgment.”
“In approximately thirty seconds, the truck will appear.”
Noah looked toward the intersection.
Ethan continued.
“Afterward, I’ll show you a message written on my hand that survived midnight, explain that the day resets whenever the clock reaches twelve, and tell you about a girl named Clara Vale who disappeared seventy-three years ago.”
Noah stared at him.
“You’ve rehearsed this.”
“Unfortunately.”
The blue delivery truck appeared.
Its right tire struck the curb.
The vehicle stopped inches from the bicycle.
Noah became silent.
Ethan raised his hand.
BENEATH LIBRARY.
Noah read the words.
“You wrote that?”
“I think Clara did.”
“Who is Clara?”
Ethan exhaled.
This was going to become exhausting.
Evermore Public Library occupied one of the oldest surviving buildings in town, an enormous structure of dark brick, narrow windows, and decorative stonework constructed during an era when architects apparently believed that obtaining a book should require entering something resembling a cathedral.
Ethan and Noah arrived shortly before eight-thirty.
The building had not yet opened.
Noah stood upon the front steps and examined the locked entrance.
“This is encouraging.”
“There has to be another way inside.”
“There usually is. Unfortunately, those entrances are commonly associated with criminal trespassing.”
“Yesterday you wanted the mystery to be supernatural.”
“Yesterday, according to you, I made several questionable decisions.”
Ethan walked around the building.
Noah followed with reluctant curiosity.
“What exactly are we looking for?”
“Something beneath the library.”
“That description lacks precision.”
“It’s everything Clara told me.”
“Did she mention stairs?”
“No.”
“A door?”
“No.”
“A conveniently labeled entrance?”
“No.”
“Your mysterious seventy-three-year-old girl is remarkably unhelpful.”
They reached the rear of the building.
A narrow delivery entrance stood beside several refuse containers.
Locked.
Ethan examined the windows.
“You’re not considering breaking one.”
“No.”
“You looked at them with criminal intent.”
“I was thinking.”
“You're thinking face and criminal intent face are apparently identical.”
Ethan ignored him.
Something about the rear wall attracted his attention.
An architectural irregularity.
He stepped backward.
“What?”
“The windows.”
Noah looked upward.
“They continue being windows.”
“There are four on the second floor.”
“Yes.”
“Three on the first.”
Noah considered this.
“So?”
“The building is symmetrical.”
Understanding appeared gradually upon his friend’s face.
“There should be another room.”
“Exactly.”
They walked along the wall.
The missing window should have occupied the section immediately beside the delivery entrance.
Instead, there was only brick.
Ethan approached.
The masonry appeared considerably newer than the surrounding construction.
“Someone covered it.”
Noah touched the wall.
“Or renovated the building.”
“Why would Clara send me here?”
“You’re assuming she sent you to this specific wall.”
Ethan looked toward the ground.
A metal ventilation grate occupied the foundation.
He crouched.
The grate was partially detached.
Noah observed him.
“No.”
Ethan pulled it aside.
“Absolutely not.”
Behind the grate was a narrow passage.
“You don’t have to come.”
“That is manipulative.”
“It wasn’t intended to be.”
“That makes it worse.”
Ethan entered.
Noah muttered something unpleasant before following.
The passage extended farther than either of them anticipated.
They crawled through darkness for several minutes before the ventilation shaft widened sufficiently for them to stand. Ethan activated the flashlight on his phone.
A corridor stretched ahead.
The walls were constructed from stone considerably older than the library above them.
Noah examined the passage.
“This was not built for ventilation.”
“No.”
“What is it?”
Ethan directed the light forward.
“I suppose we’re going to find out.”
The corridor descended gradually.
Dust covered the floor, although Ethan noticed something peculiar almost immediately.
Footprints.
Hundreds of them.
He crouched.
Noah looked over his shoulder.
“What?”
“Someone has been here.”
“Recently?”
“I can’t tell.”
Ethan illuminated the ground.
Some footprints appeared ancient, their outlines softened beneath accumulated dust. Others were clearer.
One set looked fresh.
They followed them.
The passage eventually terminated before a wooden door.
Ethan stopped.
Something had been carved into its surface.
ETHAN COLE
Noah read the name.
“That’s unfortunate.”
Ethan approached.
Beneath his name was another inscription.
IF YOU DON’T REMEMBER, ENTER ALONE.
Noah folded his arms.
“I object.”
“I assumed you would.”
“You are not entering an underground room bearing your name and an ominous instruction written by an unknown person.”
“The handwriting is mine.”
Noah became quiet.
Ethan touched the carving.
The formation of the letters was unmistakable.
His handwriting.
Again.
He reached toward the handle.
Noah seized his wrist.
“Ethan.”
“I have to know.”
“No, you want to know. Those are different things.”
“Clara sent me here.”
“And yesterday, apparently, she told you that revealing too much causes you to disappear.”
Ethan looked at him.
“You believe me?”
Noah released his wrist.
“I watched a truck do exactly what you predicted, found a message on your hand that you claim survived a repeating day, and followed you into an underground corridor beneath a public library where your name is carved into a door.”
He glanced around.
“I am rapidly exhausting alternative explanations.”
Ethan almost smiled.
Then something moved behind the door.
Both of them became still.
A voice emerged from the other side.
“You brought Noah.”
Ethan recognized Clara immediately.
He opened the door.
The chamber beyond was enormous.
Ethan entered slowly.
His flashlight became unnecessary.
Hundreds of candles illuminated the underground room, although no smoke accumulated against the ceiling and none of the flames appeared to consume their wicks.
Bookshelves occupied the walls.
Maps covered several tables.
Photographs, newspaper clippings, notebooks, and mechanical diagrams had been arranged throughout the chamber with obsessive precision.
Clara stood in the center.
She looked at Noah.
Then at Ethan.
“You weren’t supposed to bring him yet.”
Ethan closed the door.
“I’m becoming tired of hearing that I’m doing everything at the wrong time.”
Clara’s expression remained serious.
“You don’t understand.”
“Then explain it.”
“I can’t.”
“That answer is becoming equally exhausting.”
Noah stepped forward.
“You can see me?”
Clara looked at him.
“Yes.”
“Good. I appreciate being acknowledged by mysterious dead people.”
“I’m not dead.”
Noah glanced toward Ethan.
“This continues improving.”
Ethan approached Clara.
“You told me to come here.”
“I told you to come tomorrow.”
“There is no tomorrow.”
A strange expression crossed her face.
“You remembered.”
“You said it yesterday.”
“No.” Clara shook her head. “You remembered the wording.”
“What difference does that make?”
“More than you understand.”
Ethan’s frustration intensified.
“Then help me understand.”
Clara looked toward the surrounding walls.
Only then did Ethan notice the writing.
Messages covered the stone.
Hundreds of them.
Perhaps thousands.
Some had been written with ink.
Others with chalk.
Several had been carved directly into the stone.
Ethan approached the nearest wall.
DON’T OPEN THE RED DOOR.
Another message appeared beneath it.
CLARA REMEMBERS.
Farther along:
NOAH MUST NOT GO TO THE TOWER ALONE.
Ethan’s heartbeat accelerated.
He continued reading.
THE CLOCKMAKER LIED.
Beneath it, written in different ink:
NO. YOU LIED.
Another:
LILY IS REAL.
Ethan stopped.
The name seemed to rise from the wall.
He turned toward Clara.
“Who is Lily?”
Her expression became unreadable.
“You’re not ready.”
“Stop saying things like that.”
“I’m trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
Clara looked directly at him.
“From yourself.”
Silence settled across the chamber.
Ethan turned back toward the wall.
The messages continued.
Thousands of warnings, instructions, contradictions, and desperate observations accumulated across decades of repetition.
All of them were written in Ethan’s handwriting.
He walked farther.
Noah followed.
“Ethan.”
“I see it.”
At the end of the chamber stood an enormous section of stone almost entirely devoid of writing.
Only one message occupied its center.
The letters had been carved so deeply that whoever created them must have worked with extraordinary determination.
Ethan approached.
His flashlight trembled slightly.
He recognized the handwriting.
He recognized the desperation within it.
And although he possessed no memory of ever standing within this chamber before, Ethan understood with terrible certainty that he had written the message himself.
IF YOU FIND THIS, YOU FAILED AGAIN.
Ethan stared at the words.
Behind him, Clara spoke quietly.
“You wanted to know how many times you’ve been here.”
Ethan turned.
She looked older than seventeen.
Not physically.
In every way that mattered.
“How many?” he asked.
Clara’s gaze moved toward the thousands of messages covering the walls.
“I stopped counting your failures a long time ago.”
Ethan continued regarding the deeply incised message as though sufficient concentration might compel the stone to relinquish some concealed explanation for its existence. The words themselves were uncomplicated, yet their implications extended far beyond anything Clara had revealed. Failure presupposed an objective, and repetition suggested that he had pursued that objective on innumerable occasions, always unsuccessfully. More troubling still was the unmistakable desperation with which the inscription had been created. Whoever Ethan had been when he carved those words into the wall had evidently believed that another version of himself would eventually stand before them, deprived of memory and condemned to begin the investigation again.
Noah approached the inscription with considerably greater caution than he ordinarily demonstrated toward anything.
“When you say you stopped counting his failures,” he said, directing the question toward Clara, “approximately how far beyond a thousand are we talking?”
Clara remained beside the central table, her expression guarded. “I don’t know.”
“You must have some idea.”
“I don’t.”
Noah glanced toward Ethan. “She has an irritating habit of answering questions without providing information.”
“I noticed.”
Clara’s eyes narrowed. “You were considerably less difficult before.”
Noah appeared genuinely offended. “Before what?”
“Before you started remembering enough to become suspicious of everything.”
“I don’t remember anything.”
“I wasn’t talking about this version of you.”
The chamber became silent.
Noah looked toward Ethan, although Ethan could offer no clarification. The casual manner in which Clara distinguished between present and previous versions of them remained deeply unsettling. Ethan had spent the morning struggling to accept that he had experienced September eighteenth three times. Clara spoke as though there had been so many variations of Ethan and Noah that individual cycles had become indistinguishable.
Ethan returned his attention to the walls.
“How long have I been doing this?”
Clara did not answer.
He turned toward her.
“I asked you a question.”
“I heard you.”
“Then answer it.”
Clara walked toward one of the tables and began rearranging several papers whose organization appeared perfectly adequate. The gesture was transparently evasive.
“You measure time differently than I do.”
“That sounds like another way of refusing to answer.”
“It’s the only truthful answer I can give you.”
Ethan followed her.
“Try.”
Clara stopped moving.
“For you, this is the third September eighteenth you remember.”
“Yes.”
“For Noah, it is the first.”
Noah raised one hand. “Unfortunately.”
Clara ignored him.
“For me, there hasn’t been a September nineteenth in seventy-three years.”
The words settled heavily throughout the chamber.
Ethan had already known Clara disappeared in 1953, yet knowledge obtained from an old newspaper possessed none of the emotional significance of hearing her describe the intervening decades. Seventy-three years was longer than his mother had been alive, longer than his father had been alive, and longer than most of the buildings he passed every morning had existed in their present forms.
Yet Clara remained seventeen.
“How is that possible?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve been trapped here for seventy-three years and never discovered why?”
“Do you imagine I haven’t tried?”
Her response possessed sufficient sharpness to silence him.
Clara looked away.
The anger disappeared almost immediately, replaced by something quieter.
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize.”
“Yes, I do.” She rested both hands against the table. “You ask the same questions every time, and I forget that, for you, they are new.”
Ethan considered the thousands of inscriptions.
“Do I always find this place?”
“No.”
“How often?”
“Sometimes it takes you several cycles. Sometimes several hundred.”
“And this time?”
“You found it on your third remembered day.”
“Is that unusual?”
Clara gave him a long, searching look.
“Very.”
The answer produced no satisfaction.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You say that frequently.”
“Because you keep asking questions whose answers I don’t possess.”
“Then tell me something you do know.”
Clara looked toward the chamber walls.
“I know that Evermore resets at midnight. I know that almost everyone loses every memory acquired during the previous cycle. I know that with each repetition, something disappears from the town, although the process has accelerated considerably since you began remembering again. I know the clock tower is connected to whatever is happening, and I know that somewhere beneath Evermore there is a mechanism your ancestor created seventy-three years ago.”
“Elias Cole.”
Clara became still.
“You found him already?”
“Only his name.”
“How?”
“The newspaper beneath the tower.”
“I told you I didn’t leave that.”
“I remember.”
“You shouldn’t have found information about Elias this early.”
Ethan exhaled impatiently. “Again with this early.”
Clara looked genuinely troubled.
“You don’t understand. Things are happening differently.”
“Isn’t that good?”
“No.”
The immediacy of her answer surprised him.
“Why not?”
“Because repetition is predictable. Predictability is the only advantage we have.”
Ethan gestured toward the inscriptions surrounding them. “Judging from the walls, predictability hasn’t accomplished much.”
Pain crossed Clara’s expression.
He regretted the remark immediately.
“That was unfair.”
“It was accurate.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“Yes, Ethan. It was.”
She walked toward the far side of the chamber, where an enormous map of Evermore covered the wall.
Ethan and Noah followed.
At first, Ethan noticed nothing extraordinary. The familiar arrangement of streets, neighborhoods, and municipal buildings appeared with meticulous detail. Then he observed several roads extending beyond places where he knew the town ended.
“What are those?”
Clara looked at the map.
“Places that disappeared.”
Ethan approached.
An entire neighborhood occupied the eastern edge of Evermore.
HOLLOWAY DISTRICT.
“I’ve never heard of this.”
“I know.”
“How can an entire neighborhood disappear?”
“The same way a person disappears from a photograph.”
Ethan thought of Lily.
Noah examined another section.
“There’s supposed to be a train station?”
“There was.”
“Evermore never had a train station.”
Clara looked toward him.
“You used to catch the train there every morning.”
Noah laughed uncertainly.
“I think I would remember regularly boarding a nonexistent train.”
“You don’t.”
The humor disappeared from his expression.
Ethan studied the map more carefully.
“How much has been erased?”
Clara moved toward a cabinet and removed several rolled documents.
She placed the first map across the table.
“This is Evermore now.”
A second map followed.
“This is Evermore approximately three thousand cycles ago.”
The town was nearly twice as large.
Clara opened another.
“This was Evermore before the repetitions began.”
Ethan stared.
The original town extended far beyond the boundaries he recognized. Entire neighborhoods, parks, roads, businesses, and municipal structures occupied spaces that were now empty forests or fields.
Noah slowly lowered himself into a chair.
“People lived in all these places?”
“Yes.”
“Where did they go?”
Clara hesitated.
“Nobody knows.”
Ethan looked toward her.
“You remember them?”
“Some.”
“What do you mean, some?”
“My memories disappear too.”
The revelation surprised him.
“I thought you remembered everything.”
“So did I.”
Clara touched the oldest map.
“Then one morning, I found this chamber and realized there were messages I didn’t remember writing, people mentioned in my notes whose faces meant nothing to me, and places on these maps I could no longer recall visiting.”
Ethan looked around the chamber differently.
“Some of these messages are yours?”
“Yes.”
“Which ones?”
“I don’t remember.”
The answer disturbed him more profoundly than he anticipated.
The chamber was not merely a collection of evidence.
It was a cemetery of forgotten memories.
Every inscription represented knowledge someone had considered sufficiently important to preserve, yet much of its meaning had disappeared along with the people who created it.
Noah approached one of the walls.
“Why doesn’t the writing reset?”
Clara looked toward him.
“What?”
“Ethan’s notebook disappeared. The newspaper disappeared. Changes to the town disappear. Why does this room survive?”
For the first time since they entered, Clara seemed impressed.
“That question took you considerably longer last time.”
Noah smiled. “I’m apparently improving.”
“We don’t know.”
Ethan examined the stone.
“Maybe this place exists outside the reset.”
“Partially,” Clara replied.
“What does partially mean?”
“It means the chamber changes, but not completely. Some messages vanish. Others appear. Objects occasionally survive.”
Ethan looked toward his hand.
“The ink.”
Clara noticed the fading words.
“You carried something through?”
“Two words.”
Her astonishment returned.
“How?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
Clara seized his hand and examined the inscription.
The sudden contact startled Ethan.
For an instant, neither of them moved.
Clara released him almost immediately.
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
She looked away with an awkwardness Ethan found unexpected.
Noah observed both of them.
Ethan ignored him.
Clara returned her attention to the message.
“This has never happened before.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“You said you forget things.”
The objection appeared to irritate her, although she could not dispute it.
“Then I’m as certain as I can be.”
Ethan studied his palm.
“Maybe I’m changing.”
Clara’s expression became serious.
“You always change.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“I know.”
She walked toward the oldest section of the chamber.
“Come with me.”
The passage Clara revealed had been concealed behind an enormous bookcase.
Together, they entered a narrower corridor where the walls descended farther beneath the library. The air became colder as they proceeded, and Ethan noticed that the inscriptions gradually became less comprehensible.
Some were equations.
Others consisted of diagrams depicting gears, clocks, and complicated mechanical structures.
One message had been repeated dozens of times.
MIDNIGHT IS NOT THE BEGINNING.
Farther along:
THE FIRST RESET HAPPENED BEFORE THE FIRE.
Ethan stopped.
“Clara.”
She continued walking.
“Clara.”
Reluctantly, she turned.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were there.”
“At the fire?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t remember everything.”
“You remember entering the tower?”
Clara’s expression became distant.
“Fragments.”
“What fragments?”
She hesitated.
“A staircase. Smoke. Someone shouting.”
“Elias?”
“I don’t know.”
“What happened afterward?”
“I woke up.”
“Where?”
Clara looked toward him.
“In my bedroom.”
Ethan became motionless.
“On September eighteenth?”
“Yes.”
“The morning after the fire.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know the day had repeated?”
“No. Not immediately.”
“When did you realize?”
Clara resumed walking.
“When I saw myself reported missing in the newspaper.”
Ethan followed.
“What happened to your family?”
Her pace slowed.
“They forgot me.”
The simplicity of the answer made it considerably more painful.
“Completely?”
“My mother remembered for a while. She would look at my bedroom and cry without understanding why. My father kept setting an extra plate at dinner.”
Clara’s voice remained controlled, yet Ethan sensed the effort required to maintain it.
“After several hundred cycles, they stopped doing that.”
“What happened to them?”
“I don’t know.”
Ethan said nothing.
“Eventually, their house disappeared. Then the street. Afterward, I couldn’t remember my father’s voice.”
Clara stopped walking.
“I remember that I loved them. I remember that they loved me. Sometimes that has to be enough.”
Ethan thought of the empty space in the photograph.
Of his mother’s momentary pain when he mentioned Lily.
Perhaps forgetting did not eliminate grief.
Perhaps it merely removed the explanation for it.
“I’m sorry.”
Clara looked toward him.
“You’ve said that before.”
Ethan almost responded, then noticed the faint amusement within her expression.
“Was that a joke?”
“Possibly.”
“I wasn’t aware you made those.”
“You’ve forgotten most of them.”
Despite himself, Ethan smiled.
The moment passed quickly, but something between them had changed.
Clara continued toward the end of the corridor.
An enormous wooden door stood there.
Unlike the entrance to the chamber, this door possessed no handle.
Only an inscription.
Ethan approached.
DO NOT OPEN UNTIL YOU REMEMBER WHY YOU CLOSED IT.
The handwriting belonged to him.
“What’s behind it?”
Clara remained several feet away.
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve never opened it?”
“I tried.”
“What happened?”
“You stopped me.”
Ethan looked toward her.
“When?”
“Thousands of cycles ago.”
“Why?”
“You wouldn’t explain.”
Noah examined the door.
“Your previous selves are becoming increasingly irritating.”
Ethan ignored him.
He touched the wood.
A violent memory entered his mind.
Not gradually.
Not incompletely.
One instant, Ethan stood beneath the library.
The next, he was somewhere else.
A little girl ran ahead of him through summer grass.
She wore a red sweater despite the warmth.
“Wait for me!” Ethan called.
She turned.
Her face was indistinct.
“Catch me!”
The memory changed.
A hospital corridor.
His mother crying.
His father standing with both hands pressed against his face.
The memory changed again.
Ethan stood before an enormous machine.
Clocks covered the walls.
Someone screamed behind him.
“Don’t turn it on!”
Ethan reached toward a metal lever.
The memory vanished.
He collapsed.
“Ethan!”
Noah’s voice reached him first.
He opened his eyes.
Clara knelt beside him.
“What happened?”
Ethan struggled upright.
“I remembered something.”
Clara became completely still.
“What?”
“A girl.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“What else?”
“A hospital.”
Clara looked frightened.
“And?”
“A machine.”
The fear within her expression intensified.
“What machine?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ethan, think.”
“I’m trying.”
He closed his eyes.
Clocks.
Thousands of them.
An enormous mechanism.
His hand upon the lever.
Someone shouting.
Then another fragment emerged.
A name.
Not Lily.
Something else.
Ethan opened his eyes.
“The Tomorrow Engine.”
Clara recoiled.
Noah stared.
“What is that?”
Ethan looked toward the sealed door.
“I don’t know.”
Clara stood.
“We need to leave.”
“Why?”
“Now.”
“You know what it is.”
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
Clara walked away.
Ethan followed.
“You recognized the name.”
“I said we need to leave.”
“Tell me what the Tomorrow Engine is.”
She turned upon him.
“I don’t know!”
Her voice echoed throughout the corridor.
For several moments, nobody spoke.
Clara lowered her voice.
“But I know you told me never to let you remember it.”
Ethan felt the meaning of those words settle within him.
“Why?”
“You said that if you remembered the machine, everything would begin again.”
A sound emerged from behind the sealed door.
A single mechanical click.
Then another.
The corridor trembled.
Dust descended from the ceiling.
Noah stepped backward.
“I strongly recommend listening to Clara.”
The mechanism behind the door began moving.
Gears turned.
Metal groaned.
Somewhere beneath their feet, an enormous clock started ticking.
Clara looked toward Ethan.
“What did you do?”
“I touched the door.”
“No.”
She stared at him with growing horror.
“You remembered.”
The ticking became louder.
Throughout the corridor, inscriptions began disappearing from the walls.
Ethan watched words vanish from the stone.
Warnings.
Names.
Memories.
All erased.
Then a new message appeared.
The letters carved themselves into the wall directly before them.
Ethan recognized his handwriting.
YOU FOUND THE ENGINE TOO SOON.
A second message appeared beneath it.
NOW IT KNOWS YOU REMEMBER.
The ticking stopped.
Silence descended.
Then, from somewhere impossibly deep beneath Evermore, a man began to laugh.