Blue.
Not I. Not J. Yes, K. One flick.
Tara is exhausted, but Shannon is pressing, and Tara won’t quit on her. She’s answered every question Shannon has thrown at her so far, and she’s surprised at how the task is sharpening her memory, bringing images back with clarity and vividness. The growing paranoia she’d felt with Oltamu has more precision now, and she remembers a specific question he’d asked, about whether everyone took the same route from dinner to the auditorium. She’d thought he was worried about being on time, but a man worried about his destination didn’t keep looking over his shoulder. He was worried about what was behind him, which meant that the place he’d come from might matter, and she remembers this name and is trying to spell it out, quite literally, for Shannon.
Red? No. Two flicks.
“Yellow?” Shannon asks, and then interrupts herself, a feat only Shannon could achieve. “Hang on, we don’t need to waste your time. It’s E, isn’t it? It’s Black Lake?”
Tara gives one relieved upward flick of the eyes. You win Double Jeopardy! Tara thinks, and she wants to laugh hysterically. She’s never been so tired in her life. All she’s doing is moving her eyes, and yet it drains her more than any marathon ever has.
“He came from Black Lake,” Shannon repeats, and now she has her phone out, tapping into it, probably searching for the town. “Black Lake, New York? Or there’s…a ghost town in Idaho. I hope he didn’t come from there. Was it New York?”
Tara doesn’t know, so she doesn’t move her eyes. Shannon waits, then says, “Do you even know where it was?”
Two fatigued flicks.
“Okay.” Shannon lowers the phone. “Did he take any other pictures?”
One flick.
“Of you?”
Two flicks.
“Someone else.”
Tara hesitates, then looks upward.
“We’re going to have to spell, aren’t we?”
One flick.
And so they spell.
Yellow—H. Green—O. Red—B.
“Hobbs?” Shannon guesses.
Two flicks, more angry than exhausted now; just let her finish.
“Red?”
No. Finally, they get there. Green—O.
“Hobo?” Shannon says, voice heavy with disbelief. “He took pictures of a hobo?”
She looks at Tara as if she’s crazy, as if this is the first clear misfiring of memory, and Tara wants nothing more than the power to reach out and strangle her. Her thumb twitches against her palm, but Shannon doesn’t notice, because Shannon is watching only her eyes. This is the only window out. For now. Tara has to stay calm, stay patient, and keep working at it. It’s 1804 London Street all over again—Tara trapped inside, Shannon waiting to rescue her from the outside, and the two of them working to widen the gap in the steel doors that separate them.
“A hobo,” Shannon says, taking a breath. “Can you explain more than that?”
One flick.
“Spell it. Red line?”
One flick.
“A?”
Thank goodness, yes, it’s finally the first column and first letter. A is a common letter, isn’t it? How in the hell is Tara never drawing an A in this thing? She’s got two of them in her own damned name!
“Red line?” Shannon asks, and again, this is a yes, but Tara has to go all the way to the end of the row now to get to end of word, and halfway through she realizes that she didn’t need the stupid A anyhow—stick to nouns and verbs, damn it!
So over they begin, but good news—it’s red again! Not A, not B, not C, but D, D for Damn it, I want my voice back.
Green—O. Yellow—G. Thankfully, Shannon doesn’t make her indicate end of word again, but guesses. “A dog? That’s not what you mean. Tell me that’s not what you mean?”
If I could kick you, Tara thinks, you’d have bruises for weeks. What in the hell am I supposed to do with that phrasing? “A dog? That’s not what you mean. Tell me that’s not what you mean?” How do you answer that with a yes or a no?
So she doesn’t answer. She waits. She’s swell at waiting. She’s becoming the best there ever was in the game of waiting, a natural, a pure talent.
Shannon gathers herself, finally understanding that her typical flurry of speech is not the way to go about this, and says, “Did Oltamu really take pictures of a dog named Hobo?”
She says it in the tone of voice in which you might ask someone to tell you the details of her alien abduction. Tara gives her one flick of the eyes, a flick with attitude.
Yes, it was a dog named Hobo, and kiss my sweet ass if you think I’m crazy.
Shannon sets the alphabet board down flat on her lap and stares at Tara as if she can’t decide what to ask next. Tara wants to hold her arms up in a giant V for victory. She has achieved the impossible—not in coming back from a coma, not even in proving she’s awake despite being paralyzed. This is a truly heroic feat: she has rendered Shannon Beckley speechless.
“You’re serious. Do you think the dog matters, or am I going on a wild…” She stops herself, holds a hand up, and walks her words back. Communication with Tara favors the short-winded, which doesn’t play to Shannon’s strengths.
“Do you think it matters that he took pictures of a dog?”
Tara doesn’t know, so she doesn’t answer.
“You’re not sure?” Shannon says, beginning to understand what a blank stare means.
One flick.
“Did he take any other pictures after the dog?”
Two flicks.
“Did he tell you anything about the phone?”
Tara wishes she could think of a way to communicate the odd camera and its unique grid, but she can’t. Or she doesn’t think she can, at least, but then Shannon does what only a sister could possibly do: she seems to slip inside Tara’s mind.
“Was it a real phone?”
Two flicks.
Dr. Pine enters almost soundlessly.
“Can’t you knock?” Shannon snaps, startled.
He takes a step forward, brow furrowed, hands clasped behind his back, as if he would have been content to remain a spectator.
“Pictures of a dog?” he says.
“That’s none of your business,” Shannon says. Still not trusting him. Tara understands this but she disagrees with it. Shannon hasn’t trusted many people in her life, having been burned too many times, but for all of Shannon’s force of personality and will, she doesn’t have the most intuitive reads on people. Extroverts are too busy projecting their opinions and personalities to intuit anything submerged about anyone in their audience, in Tara’s opinion. Tara, the introvert—and has there ever been a more undeniable introvert than the current model of Tara Beckley? She’s the literal embodiment of the concept now. She does not see herself as superior to her sister in most ways, but she is more intuitive. Tara doesn’t distrust Dr. Pine. The very tics that make Shannon nervous are the reasons Tara trusts him. He’s genuinely concerned about her, and he’s genuinely concerned about his ethical dilemma in this situation.
“Where’s your investigator?” Shannon asks.
“En route. I couldn’t speak to her, but she e-mailed from the plane. She’ll be landing soon and coming directly here.” He pauses. “Would you like to wait until she is here before you tell me what you’ve been asking Tara?”
“Yes.”
“Fair enough.” He paces, hands still behind his back. Outside the window, lightning strobes in dark clouds, and the wind throws raindrops at the glass like handfuls of pebbles.
“Your parents have gone to the hotel to take a short rest,” he says. “I didn’t object. If you wish to bring them back, though…”
“No,” Shannon says, firm, and Dr. Pine seems unsurprised. He looks at Tara, and this time she answers without needing to hear the question voiced. Two flicks: no, he does not need to summon her parents. Mom is an exhausted mess, and Rick will battle with Shannon. Tara needs to save her energy for the Department of Energy—ha! Why can’t anyone hear these jokes?—and whatever information this mysterious investigator will have. Tara wants to hear answers, and that will mean providing answers, a task that she now knows is utterly exhausting.
“You could call the local police,” Dr. Pine suggests. “But you haven’t done that yet. Why not?”
Shannon looks like she doesn’t want to answer, but she says, “I’m not sure. I guess because I haven’t had time to figure out what I would even tell them. And I’ve been instructed…I’ve been warned about trusting the wrong people.”
“Warned by whom?” Pine asks gently.
Shannon shakes her head and gives a little laugh. Dr. Pine seems to read it as frustration, but it’s more than that—Shannon is unsure of herself. Tara knows. Tara is just as curious as Dr. Pine, though. Where is Shannon’s information coming from?
“Who have you told about the Department of Energy investigator?” Shannon asks Dr. Pine.
“Just you.”
“Really?” Those dubious Doberman eyes fixed on him.
“Really.”
Shannon takes a breath and leans back. “All this for a phone,” she says softly. “What in the hell was on that phone?”
Even if they were using the alphabet board, Tara would have no answer for this one.
Outside, lightning strobes again, but it is dimmer, distant. The storm is clearing. Tara hopes she can take some confidence from the symbol, but she doesn’t believe that. There are too many things she doesn’t know, and most of them are happening outside of these walls.