The laughter endured for several seconds after the subterranean mechanism had fallen silent, reverberating through the concealed passageways beneath Evermore Public Library with such peculiar resonance that Ethan found himself incapable of determining whether the sound originated beyond the sealed door, somewhere within the labyrinthine corridors, or exclusively inside his own unsettled consciousness. It possessed none of the warmth ordinarily associated with amusement. Instead, there was something exhausted and almost sorrowful within it, as though whoever had laughed had witnessed the same calamity so many times that terror itself had become monotonous.
Clara seized Ethan’s wrist.
“We have to leave.”
Her urgency permitted no argument, although Ethan nevertheless glanced toward the enormous wooden door whose inscription had begun the sequence of inexplicable events. The warning remained carved across its surface.
DO NOT OPEN UNTIL YOU REMEMBER WHY YOU CLOSED IT.
Nothing within the corridor appeared to have changed, yet Ethan sensed an alteration with an instinctive certainty that rendered visible evidence unnecessary. The air itself seemed heavier, burdened by the awakening of some ancient mechanism whose existence he had apparently known, feared, and deliberately concealed from himself.
“The man laughing,” Ethan said as Clara pulled him toward the main chamber. “Who was he?”
“I don’t know.”
“You recognized the sound.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You stopped the moment you heard it.”
“Most people stop when laughter begins emerging from behind sealed underground doors.”
Under different circumstances, Noah might have appreciated the remark. Instead, he followed closely behind them, repeatedly glancing over his shoulder as though expecting the door to open.
“You said the machine knows Ethan remembers,” Noah said. “What precisely does that mean?”
Clara continued walking.
“I don’t know.”
Noah looked toward Ethan. “I understand your frustration now.”
“Clara.”
She stopped.
Ethan had grown accustomed to her evasions, but something had changed after he spoke the name Tomorrow Engine. Her reluctance no longer resembled uncertainty. She was frightened, and although Ethan understood sufficiently little about their circumstances to recognize that fear was reasonable, Clara’s particular terror suggested knowledge she had not yet disclosed.
“You told me that I warned you never to let me remember the machine.”
“Yes.”
“Then you know something about it.”
“I know what you told me.”
“What did I tell you?”
Clara looked toward the passage behind them.
“You said the Tomorrow Engine was responsible for everything.”
The answer silenced him.
Noah moved closer.
“Everything meaning the repeating day?”
“Yes.”
“The disappearing buildings?”
“Yes.”
“The forgotten people?”
Clara hesitated.
“I think so.”
Ethan studied her expression.
“And you waited until now to mention this?”
“I was trying to prevent you from remembering.”
“Why?”
“Because you asked me to.”
“A version of me I don’t remember being.”
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t mean you should obey him.”
Clara’s expression hardened.
“You trusted him.”
“I am him.”
“No.”
The immediacy of her response surprised Ethan.
Clara lowered her voice.
“You look like him. You possess his memories somewhere inside you, and sometimes you make the same decisions. But I have known hundreds of versions of Ethan Cole, and none of you are precisely the same.”
Ethan stared at her.
“You said thousands of cycles.”
“I did.”
“But hundreds of versions of me.”
Clara closed her eyes.
Noah spoke before Ethan could continue.
“That sounds like an important distinction.”
“It is.”
“Then explain it.”
Clara looked between them before finally surrendering.
“You don’t always begin remembering on the same cycle.”
Ethan frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“Sometimes you remain unaware for decades.”
The word struck him with unexpected force.
“Decades?”
“You wake every morning believing September eighteenth has arrived for the first time. You attend school, return home, go to sleep, and forget everything when the day begins again.”
Ethan imagined the repetition with growing horror. Thousands of identical mornings experienced without recognition, each one disappearing from his memory before another began.
“And then?”
“Eventually, something changes. You notice the clocks. You remember an event before it happens. You see me. Once that begins, you start retaining memories between cycles.”
“Like now.”
“Yes.”
“How long does it last?”
Clara looked away.
“Until you forget again.”
The corridor seemed colder.
“What causes that?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve seen it happen.”
“Many times.”
“Then what happens?”
Clara’s expression became distant.
“You remember more. You investigate. You leave messages. Sometimes you discover things you never found during previous attempts. Eventually, you become convinced you understand how to stop the repetition.”
“And?”
“You fail.”
Ethan looked toward the thousands of inscriptions covering the distant chamber walls.
IF YOU FIND THIS, YOU FAILED AGAIN.
“What happens after I fail?”
“You wake up without remembering anything.”
The answer settled upon him with an almost physical weight.
“So everything I’m doing now has happened before.”
“Not exactly.”
“But close enough.”
Clara said nothing.
Ethan turned away.
For the first time, he understood the genuine significance of the chamber. Those messages were not merely warnings from previous cycles. They were remnants of entire lives he had experienced and lost. He had apparently spent years, perhaps lifetimes measured in repetitions rather than ordinary chronology, investigating Evermore’s imprisonment, and every accomplishment had eventually disappeared from his consciousness.
Noah placed one hand upon Ethan’s shoulder.
“You’re remembering faster this time.”
Ethan glanced toward him.
“What?”
“Clara said you sometimes take hundreds of cycles to find this chamber.”
Clara looked at Noah.
“You found it in three.”
Ethan considered the surviving words upon his palm.
Something was different.
Whether that difference represented hope or danger remained impossible to determine.
Behind them, the hidden mechanism produced another metallic click.
Clara immediately resumed walking.
“We need to leave before the library opens.”
Noah checked his phone.
“It opened twenty minutes ago.”
Clara stopped.
“That’s impossible.”
“Apparently time continues when people spend excessive amounts of it arguing underground.”
“No. We entered before eight-thirty.”
“It’s 9:17.”
Clara stared at the phone.
Ethan removed his own.
9:17.
“How long were we down here?” he asked.
“Perhaps forty minutes.”
Noah shook his head. “Closer to an hour.”
Clara looked toward the corridor.
“No.”
“What is it?” Ethan asked.
“Time moves differently near the door.”
“You knew that?”
“I suspected.”
“That distinction is becoming less reassuring.”
They returned to the main chamber.
Ethan immediately noticed something wrong.
The maps.
The oldest map of Evermore, which Clara had spread across the central table, had changed.
“Clara.”
She followed his attention.
The color disappeared from her face.
“What?”
Noah approached.
Ethan pointed toward the eastern section.
“Holloway District.”
The neighborhood remained visible.
Clara exhaled.
“No. Look beside it.”
A large area immediately north of Holloway had become empty.
No roads.
No buildings.
No identifying label.
Only undeveloped forest.
Clara hurried toward the surrounding shelves and began searching through rolled documents.
“What was there?” Ethan asked.
“I don’t remember.”
“You showed us this map less than an hour ago.”
“I know.”
“You said you remember places disappearing.”
“I do.”
“Then what was there?”
Clara pulled another map from the shelf, unrolled it, and froze.
The same area was empty.
“No.”
She searched for another.
Then another.
Every map displayed the same vacant territory.
Noah watched her.
“If the place disappeared, wouldn’t the maps reset too?”
“Not here.”
“You said this chamber changes.”
“Not this quickly.”
Ethan approached the empty section.
Something about its shape disturbed him.
The roads surrounding it ended abruptly, suggesting that they had once continued into whatever occupied the missing territory.
“How large was it?”
Clara stared at the map.
“I don’t know.”
“A neighborhood?”
“Possibly.”
“A park?”
“I said I don’t know.”
Her frustration echoed through the chamber.
Ethan remained silent.
Clara placed both hands against the table and lowered her head.
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize.”
“Yes, I do.”
Ethan remembered her saying precisely the same thing earlier.
This time, however, he understood the emotion beneath it.
Clara was forgetting.
Not gradually.
Not after thousands of cycles.
Now.
“The machine,” Ethan said.
She looked toward him.
“It started after I remembered the Tomorrow Engine.”
Clara’s expression tightened.
Noah approached the table.
“The message said the engine knows he remembers.”
Ethan looked toward the blank section of the map.
“Maybe it’s responding.”
“To what?” Noah asked.
“To me.”
The possibility remained unanswered.
A distant sound emerged from above them.
Footsteps.
Someone had entered the library.
Clara quickly rolled the maps.
“You need to leave.”
Ethan looked toward the concealed passage.
“I’m not finished.”
“You are for today.”
“Clara—”
“If the engine has begun accelerating the erasures, standing here asking questions won’t stop it.”
“Then what will?”
She hesitated.
“Find what disappeared.”
Ethan looked toward the map.
“You don’t remember what it was.”
“No.”
“Then how are we supposed to find it?”
Clara rolled the final document and returned it to the shelf.
“People forget differently.”
“What does that mean?”
“Most residents forget completely. Others retain fragments. Emotions. Habits. Sometimes they continue traveling to places that no longer exist.”
Ethan thought of his mother looking at the empty space within the photograph.
“You think someone might remember the missing area.”
“Not consciously.”
“But enough to lead us there.”
Clara nodded.
Noah examined the map.
“Where do we start?”
Ethan looked toward the blank territory.
A road extended toward its southern boundary.
He recognized the name.
“Mercer Street.”
Noah frowned.
“What about it?”
“My bus used to travel along Mercer Street when I was younger.”
“Mine too.”
Ethan pointed toward the map.
“Where did it go?”
Noah opened his mouth.
Nothing emerged.
He frowned.
“I don’t remember.”
“Neither do I.”
Clara approached.
“That’s where you start.”
They emerged from behind the library shortly after 9:30.
Ethan had expected the return of sunlight, traffic, and ordinary activity to provide relief after the oppressive atmosphere of the underground chamber. Instead, Evermore seemed less trustworthy than before. Every building appeared temporary. Every street suggested the possibility of another forgotten destination. The pedestrians moving around them might have once possessed neighbors, friends, or relatives whose existence had been removed so completely that grief itself had become inexplicable.
Noah remained unusually quiet.
Ethan glanced toward him.
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m trying to remember Mercer Street.”
“Anything?”
“No.”
They walked toward school.
After several moments, Noah stopped.
“I remember a bridge.”
Ethan turned.
“What?”
“A bridge.”
“On Mercer Street?”
“I think so.”
Ethan searched his own memories.
Something emerged.
A school bus.
Rain against the windows.
A bridge crossing a narrow river.
“What was on the other side?”
Noah closed his eyes.
“I don’t know.”
Ethan remembered more.
Children standing in the aisle despite the driver repeatedly ordering them to sit.
The bus turning.
A building.
Something tall.
Red brick.
Then nothing.
“I remember going there.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Noah looked toward him.
“That sentence is becoming the official motto of this mystery.”
Ethan almost smiled.
Then he noticed the woman.
She stood on the opposite side of the street, holding two cups of coffee.
Nothing about her appearance was remarkable except the expression upon her face.
She was crying.
Ethan watched as she looked toward the empty forest beyond Mercer Street.
One cup remained in her hand.
The other extended slightly forward, as though she expected someone to take it.
“Do you see her?”
Noah followed his gaze.
“Yes.”
They crossed the street.
The woman did not notice them until Ethan spoke.
“Excuse me.”
She turned.
Her eyes were red.
“I’m sorry,” Ethan continued. “Are you all right?”
The woman looked confused.
“Yes.”
“You’re crying.”
She touched her face.
Surprise appeared within her expression.
“I am.”
Noah glanced toward the second cup.
“Who is that for?”
The woman looked down.
For several seconds, she seemed incapable of answering.
“I don’t know.”
Ethan felt a chill.
“Why did you buy two?”
“I always buy two.”
“For whom?”
“I don’t know.”
She stared toward the forest.
“I come here every morning.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
The repetition of the answer no longer sounded humorous.
Ethan looked toward Mercer Street.
“Did there used to be something beyond those trees?”
The woman followed his gaze.
“No.”
Her answer arrived immediately.
Too immediately.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
“Then why do you come here?”
She looked at him.
Something within her expression collapsed.
“I don’t know.”
The second coffee slipped from her hand.
It struck the pavement.
The lid separated.
Coffee spread across the sidewalk.
The woman stared at it with profound sorrow.
Then she walked away.
Ethan and Noah remained motionless.
“People forget differently,” Noah murmured.
Ethan watched the woman disappear around the corner.
“She remembered someone.”
“No. She remembered buying them coffee.”
“That’s almost worse.”
They looked toward the forest.
Mercer Street continued for approximately two hundred yards before ending abruptly against the trees.
Ethan knew, with the peculiar certainty that had accompanied so many inexplicable experiences, that the road had not always ended there.
“Come on.”
Noah looked at him.
“We’re going into the forest?”
“Yes.”
“We’re already missing half the school day.”
“Time stopped yesterday.”
“That isn’t an excuse recognized by the attendance office.”
Ethan began walking.
Noah followed.
The pavement ended without warning.
There was no barrier.
No sign.
No evidence that the road had ever continued farther.
Only trees.
Ethan entered the forest.
The undergrowth became increasingly dense as they proceeded, although fragments of memory guided him with an instinctive familiarity he did not entirely understand.
Left beside the enormous oak.
Down the slope.
Across the shallow stream.
Noah noticed.
“You know where you’re going.”
“So do you.”
“I absolutely do not.”
“Then why haven’t you asked me to stop?”
Noah became quiet.
They continued.
Several minutes later, they discovered the bridge.
It was narrow, constructed from stone, and almost entirely concealed beneath vegetation.
Noah stared.
“I remember this.”
“So do I.”
They crossed.
Beyond the bridge, the forest thickened.
Ethan stopped.
Something was wrong.
The trees were too young.
“What?”
“These trees.”
Noah looked around.
“What about them?”
“If this area has always been forest, they should be older.”
Understanding appeared within his expression.
The trees surrounding them could not have been more than several years old.
Yet according to everyone in Evermore, nothing had ever existed here.
Ethan continued.
The ground rose.
They reached the top of the hill.
Then both stopped.
Before them stood the remains of a staircase.
Nothing else.
Twelve concrete steps ascended toward empty air.
No building.
No foundation.
No walls.
Only stairs.
Noah approached cautiously.
“What was here?”
Ethan looked around.
Fragments entered his memory.
A red brick building.
Children laughing.
A bell.
His mother holding his hand.
Then the memory disappeared.
“I don’t know.”
Noah climbed the first step.
Ethan followed.
At the top, something had been carved into the concrete.
A name.
EVERMORE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Noah stared.
“That’s impossible.”
Ethan touched the letters.
“We went here.”
“No. We attended Roosevelt Elementary.”
“Did we?”
Noah opened his mouth.
His certainty faltered.
Ethan looked beyond the staircase.
More fragments appeared.
A playground.
A basketball court.
Rows of windows.
Children.
Then one memory became clearer.
A little girl in a red sweater ran toward him.
“Ethan!”
He turned.
For one instant, he saw her face.
Then agony exploded behind his eyes.
Ethan collapsed.
He awakened with Noah kneeling beside him.
“Ethan.”
He opened his eyes.
“What happened?”
“You passed out.”
Ethan sat upright.
The staircase remained.
The forest remained.
But something else had appeared.
A photograph lay upon the top step.
Ethan reached for it.
The image showed dozens of children standing before Evermore Elementary School.
He recognized himself.
Noah stood beside him.
And between them was the girl in the red sweater.
Her face had been scratched away.
On the back of the photograph, someone had written four words.
YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO FORGET.
Noah read the message.
“Is that you're handwriting?”
Ethan examined it.
“No.”
“Clara’s?”
“No.”
“Then whose?”
A branch broke somewhere within the forest.
Both of them turned.
A figure stood among the trees.
Tall.
Thin.
Wearing a dark coat.
The same man Ethan had seen during his vision of 1953.
Elias Cole.
Ethan rose.
The man did not move.
“Who are you?”
Elias tilted his head.
Then, from somewhere impossibly distant, a clock began ringing.
The figure disappeared.
Noah stared at the empty trees.
“You saw him too?”
“Yes.”
“Who was he?”
Ethan looked at the photograph in his hands.
“My great-grandfather.”
Noah’s expression changed.
“How do you know?”
Ethan turned the photograph over again.
Beneath the first message, another sentence had appeared.
ASK ELIAS WHY HE ERASED THE SCHOOL.
Ethan stared at the words.
When he looked back toward the forest, the staircase had disappeared.
The disappearance of the staircase occurred without spectacle, disturbance, or any of the violent distortions Ethan had begun associating with Evermore’s deteriorating relationship with reality. One moment, the weathered concrete structure remained beneath his feet, providing the final surviving evidence that an entire elementary school had once occupied the forest; the next, Ethan and Noah stood upon uneven ground surrounded by vegetation, with no indication that the staircase, the school, or the generations of children who had presumably passed through its corridors had ever existed.
Only the photograph remained.
Ethan examined it again, half expecting the image to disappear as well, yet the deteriorated picture persisted between his fingers. The children stood in several imperfect rows before the redbrick school, some smiling obediently toward the camera while others glanced at their classmates with the easily distracted expressions of children impatient for the photograph to conclude. Ethan recognized himself near the center. Noah stood beside him, considerably younger but immediately identifiable.
Between them remained the girl whose face had been violently scratched away.
The inscription upon the reverse had not changed.
YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO FORGET.
Beneath it:
ASK ELIAS WHY HE ERASED THE SCHOOL.
Noah read the message for the third time before looking toward the empty place where the staircase had stood.
“I’m becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the number of people who apparently know more about your life than you do.”
Ethan continued studying the handwriting.
“It isn’t mine.”
“You mentioned that.”
“It isn’t Clara’s either.”
“You mentioned that as well.”
“I’m thinking.”
“I recognize the expression.”
Ethan glanced toward him.
“Do you?”
“Unfortunately.”
Under ordinary circumstances, the exchange might have encouraged a smile, but Ethan found himself incapable of amusement. The photograph had survived the disappearance of the staircase, just as the words upon his palm had survived midnight. Until recently, nothing had escaped Evermore’s restoration except memory, and even memory had proven unreliable. Now objects were persisting where they should have vanished, messages were appearing from unidentified sources, and the mysterious mechanism beneath the library had apparently awakened years—or perhaps thousands of cycles—before Clara expected it to.
Something was changing.
The more Ethan remembered, the less predictable Evermore became.
He returned the photograph to his backpack with deliberate care.
“We need to find Clara.”
Noah looked toward the forest surrounding them.
“I assume you remember the way back.”
Ethan turned toward the direction from which they had arrived.
The bridge was gone.
He became motionless.
Noah followed his attention.
“Ethan?”
“There was a bridge.”
“I remember.”
“It isn’t there.”
Noah’s expression darkened.
“That seems problematic.”
They descended the hill and reached the shallow stream they had crossed earlier. The water remained, although the ancient stone bridge had disappeared so completely that even the foundations were absent. Vegetation occupied the banks, undisturbed and mature, as though no structure had ever interrupted the landscape.
Ethan approached the water.
“Things are disappearing while we’re standing here.”
“Clara said that happened at midnight.”
“She said the process was accelerating.”
“I was hoping that was one of those statements people make before discovering they were unnecessarily pessimistic.”
Ethan stepped across several exposed stones and reached the opposite bank.
Noah followed.
“What happens if the town keeps losing things before midnight?”
“I don’t know.”
“That answer continues becoming less charming.”
They proceeded through the forest, relying upon memories that became increasingly uncertain. Ethan remembered turning beside an enormous oak, yet when they reached the place where the tree should have stood, they discovered only an open clearing. Noah remembered passing a rusted fence, although neither could locate it.
After approximately twenty minutes, they emerged from the forest.
Mercer Street was gone.
Ethan stopped.
A residential neighborhood extended before them.
Houses occupied both sides of a narrow road Ethan had never seen. Children played upon a lawn. A man washed his automobile in a driveway. An elderly woman retrieved mail from a box beside the pavement.
Noah stood beside Ethan in astonishment.
“Where are we?”
“I don’t know.”
“This was Mercer Street.”
“I know.”
“No, I mean five minutes ago.”
“I know what you meant.”
They turned toward the forest.
It had disappeared.
Behind them stood another row of houses.
Ethan felt the first genuine emergence of panic.
“This isn’t possible.”
Noah looked toward him.
“I thought we had agreed to stop using that sentence.”
A woman walking a dog approached along the sidewalk. Ethan stepped toward her.
“Excuse me.”
She stopped.
“Yes?”
“Where are we?”
The woman regarded him suspiciously.
“Willow Avenue.”
“Where is Mercer Street?”
Her expression remained blank.
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“It’s near the library.”
“The library is six blocks east.”
“What’s beyond this neighborhood?”
“More houses.”
“No forest?”
“No.”
Ethan looked toward Noah.
The woman continued walking.
For several moments, neither spoke.
Then Noah removed his phone.
“We need to check the map.”
The digital map displayed their location.
Willow Avenue.
Mercer Street did not exist.
Neither did the forest.
Ethan opened the search function and entered Evermore Elementary School.
One result appeared.
Roosevelt Elementary School.
Nothing else.
He searched Holloway District.
No results.
“Ethan.”
Noah’s voice had changed.
Ethan looked toward him.
“What?”
“Your hand.”
The message had disappeared.
BENEATH LIBRARY was gone.
Ethan stared at his palm.
“The ink survived midnight.”
“And now it didn’t.”
“The photograph.”
He opened his backpack.
The photograph remained.
Relief lasted only until he examined it.
The school had vanished from the background.
The children now stood before an empty field.
Ethan turned the picture over.
The messages remained.
YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO FORGET.
ASK ELIAS WHY HE ERASED THE SCHOOL.
Noah studied the altered photograph.
“Whatever is writing those messages wants us to remember.”
“Or wants us to believe something.”
“About Elias?”
Ethan thought of the tall figure standing among the trees.
“My great-grandfather supposedly died in 1953.”
“So did Clara.”
“She didn’t die.”
“Which means Elias might not have either.”
Ethan closed the backpack.
“We need to return to the library.”
They arrived shortly before noon.
The building remained reassuringly unchanged, although Ethan had begun distrusting appearances sufficiently that reassurance itself seemed premature. Students should have been attending classes, and Ethan knew that his mother would eventually receive notification of his absence, but ordinary consequences had become increasingly irrelevant within a day destined either to repeat or collapse entirely.
They entered through the front doors.
The librarian glanced up from the circulation desk.
“Can I help you?”
Ethan hesitated.
He had expected to return through the concealed passage.
“Is there a basement?”
The librarian smiled.
“Storage rooms.”
“Anything beneath them?”
Her expression changed.
“Beneath them?”
“Old tunnels, perhaps.”
“No.”
“Are you certain?”
Noah quietly intervened.
“My friend is working on a local history project.”
Ethan looked toward him.
Noah continued without hesitation.
“Architectural development. Historic foundations. Municipal infrastructure.”
The librarian appeared unconvinced.
“For school?”
“Independent educational enrichment.”
Ethan almost admired the confidence with which Noah lied.
The librarian pointed toward a staircase.
“The historical archives are upstairs.”
“Thank you.”
They walked away.
“Independent educational enrichment?” Ethan murmured.
“I panicked elegantly.”
They reached the rear corridor.
Ethan stopped.
The delivery entrance was gone.
“What?”
“This isn’t right.”
Noah looked around.
“What isn’t?”
“The door.”
“What door?”
Ethan stared at him.
“The delivery entrance.”
Noah frowned.
“I don’t remember one.”
“You crawled through the ventilation passage beside it.”
Recognition failed to appear.
“I remember entering the chamber.”
“How?”
Noah opened his mouth.
Nothing emerged.
Ethan felt the panic return.
“You’re forgetting.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I remember Clara. I remember the maps.”
“How did we get there?”
Noah pressed both hands against his forehead.
“I don’t know.”
“Do you remember the door with my name?”
“Yes.”
“The passage?”
“I think so.”
“The ventilation grate?”
Noah looked frightened.
“No.”
Ethan examined the wall.
The entrance had been erased.
The chamber beneath the library still existed—he hoped—but the path leading toward it had disappeared from Noah’s memory.
Perhaps from Evermore itself.
“Come on.”
“Where?”
“Upstairs.”
“The archives?”
“Clara said people retain fragments.”
“What are you looking for?”
“Anything the town forgot.”
The historical archives occupied a narrow room on the second floor, where filing cabinets, shelves, and antiquated microfilm machines preserved more than a century of Evermore’s municipal history. Ethan approached the librarian stationed behind the desk.
“I need newspapers from 1953.”
“Specific dates?”
“October seventeenth and eighteenth.”
The librarian examined him.
“Clock tower fire?”
“Yes.”
“You’re the third person this month researching it.”
Ethan became attentive.
“Who were the others?”
“I’m afraid I can’t provide information about patrons.”
“Were they students?”
“I said I can’t provide information.”
Ethan thanked her and joined Noah beside the microfilm machine.
“Someone else is investigating.”
“Clara?”
“She wouldn’t need archives.”
“Elias?”
“Maybe.”
They loaded the appropriate film.
The October 18 edition appeared.
LOCAL GIRL MISSING AFTER CLOCK TOWER DISASTER.
Clara’s photograph remained.
Elias Cole’s name appeared within the article.
Ethan continued reading.
Then he noticed something.
“There.”
Noah leaned closer.
Near the bottom:
The fire began shortly before midnight during an experimental demonstration conducted by local engineer Dr. Elias Cole. Several witnesses reported unusual electrical disturbances throughout Evermore during the preceding week.
“Experimental demonstration,” Noah read.
“The Tomorrow Engine.”
“Possibly.”
Ethan advanced to the next page.
An article discussed damage to nearby businesses.
Another described the search for Clara.
Then he found a smaller report.
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CLOSED FOLLOWING UNEXPLAINED INCIDENT
Ethan became motionless.
The article was dated October 16, 1953.
One day before the clock tower fire.
He read aloud.
“Students and faculty at Evermore Elementary School were evacuated yesterday afternoon following an unexplained incident during which every clock within the building stopped simultaneously at 11:57.”
Noah looked toward him.
“The first reset happened before the fire.”
Ethan remembered the inscription beneath the library.
“That’s what the wall said.”
He continued reading.
Several students reported temporary memory loss. One teacher claimed that a classroom disappeared for approximately three minutes before returning, although authorities attributed the account to confusion.
Ethan advanced farther.
The remainder of the article had been removed.
Not damaged.
Removed.
A rectangular section had been deliberately cut from the film before it was archived.
“Someone didn’t want this preserved.”
Noah pointed toward the screen.
“Look at the photograph.”
A small image accompanied the article.
Ethan enlarged it.
Several people stood outside Evermore Elementary School.
The principal.
Two police officers.
Elias Cole.
And a girl wearing a red sweater.
Ethan stopped breathing.
“Lily.”
Noah looked toward him.
“You recognize her?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said her name.”
“I know.”
Ethan moved closer to the screen.
The photograph was grainy.
The girl’s features were difficult to distinguish.
Nevertheless, the same certainty returned.
“Who is she?”
Noah asked quietly.
Ethan could not answer.
The archive room lights extinguished.
Darkness surrounded them.
Someone moved behind Ethan.
He turned.
The lights returned.
A man stood at the opposite end of the room.
Elias.
Unlike the figure within the forest, he appeared completely substantial.
Tall and thin, with silver hair and deeply lined features, he regarded Ethan with an expression that combined exhaustion and disappointment.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
Ethan rose.
“You’re Elias Cole.”
The man glanced toward Noah.
“Not yet.”
Noah looked confused.
“What does that mean?”
Elias returned his attention to Ethan.
“You remembered the Engine.”
“Yes.”
“Then we have less time than I hoped.”
“Why did you erase the school?”
Elias’s expression changed.
“Who told you that?”
Ethan removed the photograph.
“This did.”
Elias stared at the messages.
For the first time, genuine fear entered his face.
“Where did you find that?”
“The forest.”
“There is no forest.”
“There was this morning.”
Elias approached.
“Give me the photograph.”
“No.”
“Ethan.”
“How do you know me?”
The older man closed his eyes.
“I have always known you.”
“You died seventy-three years ago.”
“So did Clara.”
Ethan felt the implication immediately.
“Where is she?”
“Exactly where she has always been.”
“Beneath the library?”
Elias opened his eyes.
“You found the chamber.”
“Yes.”
“And the door?”
“Yes.”
“Did you open it?”
“No.”
Relief appeared within his expression.
“I remembered the Tomorrow Engine.”
The relief vanished.
Elias stepped backward.
“Then it has already begun.”
“What has?”
“The correction.”
Noah approached.
“What correction?”
Elias looked toward him with something resembling sorrow.
“You were never supposed to survive this long.”
Noah became motionless.
Ethan stepped between them.
“What does that mean?”
Elias looked toward the clock.
11:57.
Every light in the archive room flickered.
The newspaper article changed.
The photograph of Evermore Elementary School disappeared.
Then the entire article vanished.
Ethan turned toward Elias.
“Tell me what’s happening.”
“I can’t.”
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
“Because every answer changes what happens next.”
“Then give me one answer.”
Elias looked at him.
Ethan continued.
“Did you build the Tomorrow Engine?”
“Yes.”
“Did it cause the resets?”
“Yes.”
“Did I activate it?”
Elias remained silent.
Ethan felt his stomach tighten.
“Did I?”
The clock began ticking backward.
Elias looked toward the exit.
“We have to leave.”
“No.”
“Ethan.”
“Answer me.”
The archive room trembled.
Books fell from shelves.
Noah seized the table.
Elias stared at Ethan.
Then he spoke.
“You didn’t activate the Tomorrow Engine.”
Ethan felt an unexpected relief.
Elias continued.
“You rebuilt it.”
The room became silent.
Ethan stared at him.
“What?”
“The machine beneath Evermore was destroyed seventy-three years ago.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“No,” Elias replied. “It doesn’t.”
“Then how is it operating?”
Elias looked toward him with profound weariness.
“Because you found what remained of it.”
“When?”
“Seventy-three years from now.”
Ethan could not speak.
Noah appeared equally incapable of understanding.
Elias continued.
“You rebuilt the Tomorrow Engine in the future.”
The clock stopped.
“And then you sent it into the past.”
A tremendous sound erupted beneath the library.
The floor fractured.
Ethan fell backward.
Noah shouted.
The archive room disappeared.
For one impossible instant, Ethan saw Evermore from above.
Thousands of versions of the town occupied the same landscape.
Streets intersected with streets that no longer existed.
Buildings appeared and vanished.
People moved through one another without recognition.
At the center stood the clock tower.
Beneath it, something enormous was awakening.
Then Ethan saw himself.
Not seventeen.
Older.
Standing before the Tomorrow Engine.
His hands were covered in blood.
A little girl in a red sweater lay motionless behind him.
Older Ethan looked directly toward him.
Across seventy-three years, thousands of repetitions, and innumerable forgotten versions of himself, their eyes met.
The older Ethan spoke.
“Don’t believe Elias.”
The vision vanished.
Ethan returned to the archive room.
Noah lay beside him.
Elias was gone.
The floor remained undamaged.
The clock displayed 12:03.
Ethan stared at it.
No clock in Evermore had advanced beyond midnight since the repetitions began.
“Noah.”
His friend slowly sat upright.
“What?”
Ethan pointed.
Noah looked toward the clock.
12:04.
Neither spoke.
Then the archive door opened.
The librarian entered.
“What are you boys doing here?”
Ethan stood.
“What time is it?”
She looked confused.
“Just after noon.”
“What day?”
“September eighteenth.”
Ethan looked toward Noah.
The day had not ended.
The reset had not occurred.
Yet the clock continued advancing.
Something had changed.
Ethan opened his backpack and removed the photograph.
The children remained within the empty field.
The messages remained upon the reverse.
But a third sentence had appeared beneath them.
THE NEXT THING EVERMORE FORGETS WILL BE NOAH.
Ethan read the words twice.
Then he looked toward his best friend.
Noah was standing directly beside him.
For the moment.