Chapter 3 - The Blue Room

Saint Agnes Children’s Home had been abandoned for eleven years, but the blue paint in the basement had survived.

It had faded to the color of old winter sky.

Ava stood in the doorway with rain dripping from her jacket and felt seven years old again.

“There,” she said.

Holloway looked past her.

The room contained broken shelves, stacked folding chairs, and a piano with two missing keys.

“You remember this place?”

“Pieces.”

“Ethan brought you here often?”

“Three times that I remember.”

The coin pulsed against her palm.

Ava crossed to the piano.

Holloway watched her.

“What are you hearing?”

“Not hearing.”

“What, then?”

“I don’t have a word for it.”

She pressed middle C.

The note was badly out of tune.

The coin grew warm.

Ava pressed the key two notes higher.

Nothing.

Then another.

Warmth sharpened.

She played a sequence without knowing how she knew it.

Seven notes.

The battered piano answered with a childlike melody.

A latch clicked inside the wall.

Holloway stared at her.

“You played that as a child?”

“I don’t know.”

A section of baseboard beside the piano had released.

Ava knelt and pulled it free.

Inside was a narrow metal box.

No lock.

Only the seven-ring symbol.

Holloway crouched beside her.

“Do not use the coin until we know what that opens.”

She gave him a flat look.

“Your caution arrived twenty-four years late.”

“That doesn’t make it useless.”

Ava touched the coin to the symbol.

The box opened.

Inside were seven envelopes.

Six were marked with numbers.

The seventh said AVA.

Her hands began to shake.

Holloway noticed and sat back instead of reaching for her.

“Take your time.”

“I’ve had three years since he died.”

“That isn’t the same thing.”

Ava opened the envelope.

A single sheet of paper lay inside.

Kiddo,

If you found this, Ruth either kept her promise or outlived all of us out of spite. Both are possible.

Ava laughed through a sudden ache in her throat.

“That sounds like him.”

Holloway’s expression softened.

She kept reading.

You are going to want one answer: Who am I?

I can’t give you that answer because nobody gets to give it to you.

Nadia gave you life. Claire gave you a mother’s love. I got lucky enough to be your dad. Vale gave you a number, and if I did anything right, I taught you that men like him don’t get to name what you are.

The coin remembers patterns. It may show you things that feel like memory. Some will be yours. Some may belong to the system that was trained around you. Do not trust every image. Trust what can be checked.

Ava stopped.

Holloway leaned closer.

“What?”

“He knew this would happen.”

“He knew what the keys could do.”

She read on.

Find Ruth before you find the others.

Do not gather the seven keys in one place.

And if Marcus is with you, make him buy you coffee. He still owes me twelve dollars.

Holloway looked offended.

“It was eight.”

Ava laughed again.

This time the laugh broke halfway through.

She folded the letter carefully.

The other six envelopes contained names and cities.

JONAH REED — BALTIMORE

CELIA WARD — PHILADELPHIA

ELIAS VALE — BOSTON

LEAH MERCER — ALBANY

NOAH BELL — CHICAGO

MIRIAM STONE — PORTLAND

Holloway read the third name twice.

“Elias Vale.”

Ava looked at him.

“Related?”

“Adrian Vale had a son.”

“A child in his own program?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re saying that a lot.”

“I’m discovering how much Ethan kept from me.”

A floorboard creaked upstairs.

Ava froze.

Holloway’s hand moved beneath his coat.

Another sound.

Slow footsteps.

Then a woman’s voice called down the stairwell.

“If you shoot me, Marcus Holloway, I will haunt your wife and tell her where you hide the cigars.”

Holloway went still.

“Ruth?”

A small woman appeared at the top of the basement stairs.

She was perhaps eighty, wrapped in a brown raincoat, with a cane in one hand and a flashlight in the other.

Her white hair was cut short.

She looked directly at Ava.

“Oh,” she said.

Ava stood.

Ruth’s mouth trembled.

“You have Claire’s stubborn chin.”

Ava swallowed.

“You knew my mother?”

“Both of them.”

The words struck harder than Ava expected.

Ruth descended slowly.

Holloway moved to help her.

She slapped his hand with the cane.

“I survived the Sisters of Mercy in 1961. I can manage stairs.”

He stepped back.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Ruth reached Ava and touched her cheek.

“You were so little.”

Ava’s eyes burned.

“What was my name?”

Ruth studied her.

“Mara.”

The coin warmed.

Ava closed her eyes.

“Who named me?”

“Nadia.”

“Why did Ethan call me Ava?”

“Because Nadia asked him to.”

Ava opened her eyes.

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“It will.”

Ruth sat on an old folding chair.

“You told Ethan that if we found you, he finally lost the argument.”

Ruth smiled faintly.

“He argued that secrets could be buried forever. I told him secrets are seeds. Give them enough dark and they split concrete.”

Holloway muttered, “That also sounds like him.”

“It sounded like me first.”

Ava pulled another chair close.

“Tell me about the seven children.”

Ruth’s face changed.

“I helped move five.”

“Five?”

“You and Elias were handled separately.”

“Why?”

“You because Ethan refused to surrender you.”

“And Elias?”

“Because his father took him.”

Ava felt a chill.

“Adrian Vale kept one of the children.”

“His own son.”

“Was Elias born in the program?”

“Yes.”

“Were all of us?”

Ruth looked down.

“Not in the same way.”

Ava waited.

Ruth sighed.

“Some were children of researchers. Some were born to women recruited into experimental prenatal studies under false pretenses. Nadia discovered the pattern too late.”

“What about me?”

“Nadia volunteered for the earliest trial before she knew what the later phases would become.”

Ava’s stomach tightened.

“So I was planned.”

“You were wanted by your mother. Never confuse the two.”

Ava looked away.

Ruth reached for her hand.

“Nadia spent every day after your birth trying to get you out.”

“What happened to her?”

Ruth’s eyes filled.

“She stayed behind so Ethan could carry you through the service tunnel.”

Ava knew the answer before she asked.

“She died?”

“Yes.”

The basement became very quiet.

Holloway removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

Ava’s voice came out small.

“Did my father see it?”

“No. He heard the explosion.”

Ava gripped the coin.

A sound like distant singing moved through her mind.

A woman humming.

The same melody she had played on the piano.

Ruth saw her expression.

“You hear it, don’t you?”

Ava stared at her.

“You know?”

“Leah heard things too.”

“The girl I saw.”

Ruth frowned.

“What girl?”

Ava described the child in the vision.

Ruth’s face went pale.

“That was Leah.”

“How do you know?”

“She lived here for six months.”

“Where is she now?”

“Albany, if she stayed where Ethan put her.”

“Does she know what she is?”

Ruth’s eyes hardened.

“She knows what was done to her. That is not the same thing.”

Ava nodded slowly.

A car door slammed outside.

Then another.

Holloway stood.

“Did anyone follow you?”

Ruth snorted.

“I am eighty-two years old. People assume I am furniture.”

Ava listened.

Three sets of footsteps at the front entrance.

One at the rear.

“Four,” she whispered.

Holloway drew his weapon.

Ruth did not look frightened.

“Ethan said this might happen.”

“When?” Ava asked.

“Three years ago.”

Ava turned sharply.

“Before he died?”

Ruth looked at her.

“He came here after his funeral.”

The room seemed to lose all air.

Ava stood so quickly the chair fell backward.

“What did you say?”

Ruth’s face softened with pity.

“Your father was alive after you buried him.”

Ava’s pulse roared in her ears.

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“I gave him a car, cash, and the name of a man in West Virginia. He told me never to look for him.”

The front door crashed open upstairs.

Holloway moved toward the stairs.

Ruth grabbed Ava’s wrist.

“Under the piano bench.”

“What?”

“Ethan left you one more thing.”

Ava opened the bench.

Inside was a small cassette recorder and a key taped beneath it.

A paper tag was tied to the key.

BLACKWATER CABIN 6.

Holloway looked down from the stairs.

“Ava. Now.”

She shoved the recorder, key, envelopes, and letter into her jacket.

Ruth reached behind the folding chairs and pulled a lever.

A narrow section of wall swung inward.

Ava stared.

“How many secret doors does this place have?”

Ruth smiled.

“Catholics.”

Gunfire cracked upstairs.

Holloway fired once in return.

“Move!”

Ava helped Ruth into the passage.

They disappeared into darkness as boots thundered down the basement stairs.

Behind them, the piano played one broken note when a bullet struck it.

The coin in Ava’s pocket answered with a pulse.

And for the first time, the whisper inside it sounded unmistakably like Ethan.

Not yet, kiddo.

In the passage, Ava kept one hand over the pocket holding Ethan’s recorder.

The darkness smelled of dust and wet stone.

Ruth whispered behind her, “He expected you to be angry.”

Ava did not turn.

“He was right.”

“He also expected you to keep moving.”

“That does not make him right about everything.”

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“No,” Ruth said. “It only means he knew his daughter.”

Ava tightened her grip on the recorder and followed Holloway toward the thin line of night ahead.