Our Last Echoes Read online

  My eye caught against a shape jutting up from the waves.

  It was a man standing in the water. He was up to his thighs in cold surf, facing away from me. He wore an old-fashioned army jacket that flapped in the wind. He stood canted to one side, like he had a bad leg, with his arms dangling into the water. His head hung forward.

  That water had to be freezing. What was he doing? I stood rooted for a moment, torn between concern and caution. I drew forward haltingly. That buzzing in my bones was almost an ache. I licked my lips, wanting to call out, but afraid to. “Hello?” I managed at last, still far away, lifting my voice above the crash of the surf.

  His shoulders jerked back. His head snapped up. He started to turn.

  I knew immediately I’d made a mistake. I scrambled backward, a yell lodged in my chest, desperately wanting to steal back that word, to stop him from turning, because I was sure, in a way that I could not explain or defend, that I did not want him to turn.

  Rough hands seized my arm and yanked me around, and now I did yell. A huge man loomed over me, his hand gripping the meat of my upper arm. His face was half-hidden behind a huge gray beard, an orange knit cap jammed down over his blunt forehead.

  “You,” he growled, brow knit. “What are you doing out here?” His voice was thick with a Russian accent. He smelled of damp, salty sea spray and stale cigarette smoke. Drops of moisture jeweled the bristles of his beard. A half-healed blister balanced at the edge of his bottom lip. One of his eyes was almost entirely white, the skin around it ropy with a starburst of scarring.

  “I—I—” I stammered. Fear surged through me, and my breath caught in my throat.

  But fear wasn’t useful. Not now. I shoved it away—not just repressing it, but flinging it away from me, into the void—the other place that was always waiting. It bled away in a rush, and I gave a small shudder of relief.

  “Get your hand off my arm,” I said, cold and flat.

  He peered at me through his good eye. “Do you know me?” he asked.

  “No,” I said, bewildered.

  He let go abruptly and took a half step back. I just stared at him. I wasn’t afraid, and there would be a price for that later, but for now I needed the calm. The empty. I did know him, though—didn’t I? It was like I remembered him from a dream. Or maybe a nightmare. “What were you looking at?” he asked, brusque and demanding.

  “I saw—” I twisted back toward the water. The man was gone. In his place was a tree that must have been uprooted on some other shore and dragged here by the tides, blackened by the water and pitching as the waves rolled it. Out in the distance, Mr. Nguyen’s boat continued its steady retreat. Not vanished at all. The tree—I’d seen the tree, and somehow I’d thought it was a man.

  The explanation leapt into my mind, comfortable and reassuring and false. I swallowed. No. I knew what I’d seen.

  “Hey,” someone called.

  The speaker was a young man—I blinked in surprise. I hadn’t expected to find anyone my age here, but he was eighteen or nineteen at the most, with black, tousled hair and a lip ring. His skin was light brown, his frame borderline scrawny; he wore a T-shirt printed with a caffeine molecule over a long-sleeved shirt. He loped up the road and slowed as he approached, the slight laboring of his breath suggesting he’d run a fair distance. When he spoke, it was with a British accent. I didn’t know enough to tell what kind, but it made him sound a lot more refined than he looked in this state.

  “Everything okay here?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said, tearing my eyes away from the ocean. If I said anything about a man in the water, they’d think I was delusional.

  “You’re all right?” the boy pressed, looking between me and the big man, who still stood closer to me than I liked. “I heard a shout.”

  “I’m fine.” True enough, with my fear neatly excised. But that glassy calm made people nervous, and the young man’s eyes were uncertain as he looked me up and down. I forced myself not to glance over my shoulder. Not to wonder if someone was behind me. “It was just a misunderstanding.”

  The big man’s eyes tracked out past me, at the driftwood tree, and he gave me a narrow look. “You two, you should get inside. The mist is coming. It’s very dangerous.”

  “Yeah, we’ll do that,” the boy said. The big man muttered something under his breath and walked past us, heading down the road. The boy waited for him to get a good distance away before he turned to me. “You’re the intern, then. Sophia Hayes.”

  Sophia Hayes. I’m Sophia Hayes. I’d practiced it in front of a mirror until it felt natural. One of many lies I’d have to tell. “Yeah,” I said. Empty of fear, I could tilt my lips in a faint smile. “How’d you guess?”

  “It’s not exactly a huge deductive leap,” he said, smiling back. It made his lip ring click against his teeth. “I’m Liam. Liam Kapoor. My mother’s your evil overlord.” Liam stepped forward with his hand outstretched and I took it. His skin was cool, his palm lightly callused. The motion pulled his sleeve up at his wrist, baring the edge of a bandage taped down over the back of his arm.

  “You mean Dr. Kapoor?” I asked. She was one of the two senior staff members who ran the LARC, and the one who’d hired me.

  “That’s the one. I’m spending the summer out here with her as punishment for a few minor transgressions.”

  “Poor you,” I said. I wondered if those transgressions had anything to do with the bandage. “That guy . . .”

  “Mikhail? He’s the caretaker. Or groundskeeper. Or something,” Liam said. “Wanders around the island with a shovel, glaring at people. He’s not what I’d call friendly, but I’ve never seen him accost anyone like that.”

  “I think he just—wasn’t sure who I was,” I suggested.

  “There’s a way of saying hello without coming off like a total creeper, and that wasn’t it,” Liam said, eyeing me with an uncertain look. Like he was wondering if he needed to be more forceful, more comforting, or something else entirely. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m totally sure. Completely sure. Absolutely—”

  “Got it,” he said with a laugh. I crafted a smile, false and crooked.

  “Although I am exhausted,” I confessed. It wasn’t a lie—I’d been traveling for more than thirty-six hours, crammed on planes, jostled on buses, and pitched around in Mr. Nguyen’s little boat. “Dr. Kapoor’s instructions said to head down the road until I reached Mrs. Popova’s house.”

  “You’re on the right track. Dr. Kapoor’s place is right up there.” He pointed in the direction he had come from. “I was out for a walk when I heard you. Mikhail’s place is by the water nearer the LARC, and Mrs. Popova’s is straight that way, at the eastern end of the island. Come on, I’ll walk you there.”

  I nodded. I didn’t look at the water, at the tree, at Mr. Nguyen retreating. I kept my eyes fixed on the gravel road, and on the sky ahead, where a dozen birds wheeled and cried.

  I’d done my research before I came here. I knew my mother wasn’t the first to disappear from Bitter Rock. There was the Krachka. Landontown. And, in 1943, there was a tiny army outpost. Thirteen men, an airstrip, and a few planes.

  Like my mother, they had come to Bitter Rock.

  Like my mother, they had vanished.

  I kept my eyes on the road, and I wondered—what if they weren’t gone at all?

  EXHIBIT B

  Post on Akrou & Bone video game fan forum

  “Off Topic: Urban Legends & Paranormal Activity” sub-forum

  JUNE 3, 2016

  My grandpa was in the air force during World War II. He always said that the scariest story he had wasn’t from his days dodging German Messerschmitts over Europe, but on our own home turf. Early in the war, he was stationed at an airstrip on a tiny Alaskan island. They dubbed it “Fort Bird Shit.” It was a boring assignment. The Japanese threat was fart
her west, so the biggest problem they had to deal with was the salt water in the air corroding the metal on the planes.

  Some weird things happened, but nothing that couldn’t be chalked up to men being drunk, bored, and isolated. Seeing people who weren’t there, hearing weird noises, that sort of thing. One man insisted that someone was speaking Russian to him whenever he started drifting off to sleep. Then one day my grandpa gets the job of taking the ranking officer back to the mainland. There was a thick mist that night. They headed back the next day—and everyone was gone. Everyone.

  Whatever happened, it was just after dinner, because the dishes were being washed. They were abandoned in the tubs. Some boots and rifles were missing, but not all of them, which meant that some of the men were barefoot and unarmed. One of the planes was crashed in a ditch, like someone had tried to take off. A wall nearby was riddled with bullet holes.

  They never found out what happened. The official report said a storm killed everyone, but Grandpa insisted the night was calm. Not even a breeze. Just fog.

  I would say he was pulling my leg, but I have to be honest—my grandpa didn’t have a sense of humor. At all. And when he told me the story, he seemed terrified. Whatever happened, he was still scared seventy years later.

  2

  LIAM GAVE ME an amused look as we started off toward Mrs. Popova’s. “So you must really love birds,” he said.

  “I guess,” I replied, then cursed myself silently. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to give myself away before I ever stepped foot in the LARC. And then I’d get sent home without finding out anything about my mother.

  “Is there another reason you’d want to fly out to the edge of the world for an entire summer? Because if you came for the nightlife, you are going to be deeply disappointed,” he said, his tone teasing. “And according to Dr. Kapoor, you were extremely persistent. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who could wear her down before.”

  “‘Persistent’ is one word for it,” I said. My teachers tended to go with “stubborn.” My last foster mother had preferred “goddamn pigheaded.” I’d been emailing Dr. Kapoor for months, trying to convince her to let me work for the LARC over the summer. Nobody just visited Bitter Rock. I needed a reason to be here. But I couldn’t tell Liam any of that, and he was still looking at me like he was waiting for an explanation. “So you call your mom Dr. Kapoor?”

  “Since I was five,” he said. “She’s never seen fit to correct me.”

  “Should I check in with her? Before I turn in?” I asked.

  “She and Dr. Hardcastle are over on Belaya Skala doing their science . . . stuff,” he said, waving a hand vaguely. “Dr. Kapoor meant to be back to greet ‘our wayward intern,’ but then we heard the storm warning, and we assumed you’d be delayed.” He raised an eyebrow, like it was a downright supernatural phenomenon that had ushered me here in defiance of bad weather.

  “I talked Mr. Nguyen into it,” I said with a half shrug.

  “That would be why I’m staring at you. Mr. Nguyen’s from the mainland. And nobody from the mainland comes out here if they can avoid it when there isn’t a storm.” He looked like he was going to say something more, but then the radio at his belt crackled to life.

  “Liam?” it was a woman’s voice, distorted by static.

  Liam held up a finger to ask me to wait as he replied. “Here.”

  “That storm’s staying offshore, but the mist’s coming in quick. Where are you?”

  “Walking toward Mrs. Popova’s. The intern got here. Sophia.”

  I wasn’t sure if I should say hello, but the voice continued without giving me the chance. “Get yourselves back to Mrs. Popova’s and stay there. I don’t want you to get caught out in the mist trying to get back to the house on your own.”

  “What about you?”

  “We’ll be fine. I’ll see you in the morning.” There was a finality to the clipped words.

  “You heard the boss lady. Mist’s coming,” he said. “Best hurry.”

  “What’s the big deal?” I asked. “Can’t you just walk home?”

  “Nobody goes out in the mist. There are so many sharp drops and rocky hills around here, even just walking around when the mist is up is dangerous. Driving is worse, given the quality of the roads. Driving in the mist in the dark is suicidal.”

  “It doesn’t get dark this time of year,” I pointed out.

  “Then we may yet survive our journey,” he told me, mock-dramatic. I chuckled, amusement cracking through my tension for a moment, at least.

  I was actually relieved that I’d beaten Dr. Kapoor back to Bitter Rock. My exchanges with her had all been over email, but even in text you could feel her glaring at you. I had to keep fooling her into thinking I was just a bird-obsessed teenager trying to “get some real-world experience.” I’d already slipped up with Liam. I had to be more careful.

  We trudged down the gravelly, pockmarked road, the only one that wound along the length of Bitter Rock’s main landmass. There were no trees on the island, but the rocks and hills hid our destination from view until we were almost on top of it. “This is it,” Liam said as we approached. In another setting, the cottage-style house might have looked cute, but the salt had stripped its paint until what was left hung in tattered strips from gaunt gray boards, and the roof shingles were patchy. Not even the floral curtains in the windows could rescue it from looking on the brink of ruin. “The Bitter Rock Chalet, aka Mrs. Popova’s house. Everyone from the LARC stays here. Except Dr. Kapoor, who has her own house, and Dr. Hardcastle, who claims to have a cot in his office but I’m pretty sure sleeps upside down in the closet like a vampire.”

  “I think vampires sleep in coffins,” I said.

  “He might have one of those in one of the storage rooms, actually,” Liam said. “The only people who ever come here are LARC researchers or really, really dedicated bird-watchers. The only place to stay is Mrs. Popova’s. So it doesn’t need a sign or anything.”

  The front door opened, and a sprig of a woman, gray-haired and with glasses that took up half her face, stepped out and crossed her arms. Her tan cardigan hung to her knees, emphasizing her thin build. Her face was creased and wrinkled, her skin light brown and decorated with liver spots. “Liam Kapoor,” she declared as we approached. “What are you doing out with the mist coming in?”

  “Fetching lost interns,” Liam said. “I’m thinking of starting a collection. Mrs. Popova, Sophia. Sophia, this is Mrs. Popova.”

  “I knew a Sophie once,” she said. There was something odd in her voice—almost grief and almost anger. Sophie—I hadn’t gone by that since I was little, and there was something unsettling about hearing it now.

  “It’s a pretty common name,” I replied. In the top fifty the year I was born, a fact I had confirmed before deciding to keep my first name for this deception. It was too hard to train myself to react properly to a fake one.

  “Wait, you mean the girl in the boat?” Liam said, sounding startled.

  “Who’s the girl in the boat?” I asked.

  “It’s nothing,” Mrs. Popova said with a sigh.

  “It’s sort of like a ghost story,” Liam said.

  “And not a pleasant one,” Mrs. Popova added, in a tone that precluded any further discussion. She waved both of us toward the house, eyeing the mist with more wariness than I thought was warranted. “Best get inside quickly, before this gets any worse. I’ll make cocoa.”

  I followed Mrs. Popova inside. A ghost story. The girl in the boat. So the memories haunting me had a name.

  A clatter of voices greeted us in the entryway. By the time I’d stripped off my shoes, I’d sorted them into two speakers, one male and one female.

  Mrs. Popova ushered me farther in. The kitchen was a mix of weathered practicality and grandma flourishes, much like the exterior. A rifle sat propped against the back door; every cup and kettle
had a lace doily to rest on.

  Two people sat at the kitchen table. The first was a tiny white woman, a brunette with hair that stuck up in a way that made her look perpetually surprised. Even indoors she wore a puffy blue coat that seemed on the verge of swallowing her up and digesting her. The man, who had East Asian features, was short and solidly built, the sides of his head shaved and the rest of his hair swept back in a startled swoop.

  “Hey, you found the fledgling,” the man said. He had a Midwestern accent that charmed me instantly.

  “Is the queen back in her castle?” the woman asked. Her chirpy voice held hidden barbs.

  “She’s up at the LARC by now,” Liam said. “She said they’d stay there for the night, and I’m stuck with you lot.”

  “Poor thing.” The woman tutted, and laughed.

  “I’m making cocoa for anyone who wants it,” Mrs. Popova declared. “And tell the poor girl your names.”

  “Kenny Lee,” the guy said. “We had a bet going on whether you’d show up, you know. Figured it was even odds you were a prank.”

  “I’m Lily,” the woman said.

  “Lily Clark, right?” I asked.

  “That’s right.” She stuck out her hand and I had to step up to take it. Her skin was startlingly cold, her handshake firm enough you knew she’d practiced it. “How’d you know?”

  “Your pictures are all up on the website.” Except for Liam’s; he’d surprised me. And I didn’t like surprises, not right now.

  “We have a website?” Kenny asked. “Why didn’t I know about that?”

  “Because Will had me put it together without telling Dr. Kapoor. Something about dragging her kicking and screaming into the modern era,” Lily said.

  “What picture did you use?” Kenny asked suspiciously.

  “Just one I grabbed from Facebook,” Lily said.

  “They’re nice photos,” I supplied.