Calla

“You,” The young man in front of us says to me. “I remember you.”

For one stupid second, my heart reacts as though this is romantic.

It isn’t.

It’s terrifying.

Finn moves closer to me. It’s a small adjustment, hardly noticeable, but I feel it. His shoulder brushes mine as he positions himself between me and the stranger without quite stepping in front of me.

“You remember her from earlier,” he says. “She pulled you out of the water.”

The man shakes his head.

Rain glistens in his hair and streaks down his face. He’s barefoot, wearing the black sweatpants Dad left for him and Finn’s faded shirt. The clothes make him look less like someone who washed out of the Pacific and more like someone who belongs here.

He doesn’t.

“No,” he says. “From before that.”

The words settle between us.

The foyer is dark behind me. The brass clock on the wall ticks with remarkable indifference.

I fold my arms against the cold. “You knew me before today?”

His eyes stay on mine. “I think so.”

“I don’t know you, though,” I say slowly. “Do you know me from school? Are you from Seattle?”

“No… I don’t know… I saw you.”

“Where?”

His expression tightens. He looks past me, toward the dark staircase, then out over the lawn as though the answer might be hiding somewhere nearby.

“I don’t know.”

Finn exhales sharply. “Convenient.”

“Finn.”

“What?” he asks. “A man with no memory walks up to our house in the middle of the night and tells my sister he knows her. I’m allowed to have follow-up questions.”

“He’s injured.”

“I’m still allowed.”

The stranger sways.

Only slightly, but I see it.

I reach for his arm before I think better of it. His skin is ice cold through the T-shirt, and the muscle beneath my hand goes rigid.

“You’re freezing. You shouldn’t be out here,” I say. “Come inside.”

Finn looks at me, brows lifted.

“What do you want me to do?” I ask him. “Leave him on the porch?”

“I’d like it noted that I have objections.”

“Noted.”

The stranger glances down at my hand on his arm.

Something changes in his face.

I let go.

“Come in,” I repeat.

He follows us into the house.

The kitchen is warmer than the foyer. The old windows are black mirrors at this hour, reflecting the three of us back at ourselves. Finn turns on the light above the stove instead of the chandelier. It throws a dull amber glow across the counters and leaves the corners of the room in shadow.

I point the stranger toward the table.

“Sit down. I’ll get something warm to drink.”

He does.

Finn remains standing.

I fill the kettle at the sink while the stranger watches me. I can feel it even with my back turned.

It isn’t the way men sometimes watch women when they want something from them. There’s no calculation in it. No appraisal. He studies me the way someone might study a familiar word written in an unfamiliar language.

“You said you saw me,” I say. “It could’ve been anywhere. What exactly do you remember?”

He rubs both hands over his face.

“Rain.”

Outside, rain ticks against the glass.

“That’s not very specific in the Pacific Northwest,” Finn says.

The stranger shakes his head. “It was dark. You were upset.”

“Was I talking?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who was I with?"

“I don’t know.”

The kettle begins to whistle on the stove.

I take three mugs from the cupboard. I make coffee for Finn because he’ll complain if I don’t, and tea for the stranger because it just feels like he needs something soothing like chamomile.

I set the mug in front of him.

His fingers close around it, absorbing the warmth.

“You were crying,” he says.

My hand stops halfway back to my own mug.

Finn straightens.

The stranger’s forehead creases with concentration. “I think you were crying.”

“I rarely cry,” I answer. “Why was I crying?”

“I don’t know.”

His gaze drops to the tea.

Finn looks at me.

I can almost hear the argument forming inside his head. I give him a tiny shake of mine.

Not now.

The stranger takes a cautious sip. His hands aren’t trembling anymore, but there’s a rawness to him that wasn’t there when he was unconscious. Earlier, he was a problem we could assess: pulse, respiration, temperature, pupil response. We could monitor him. Keep him warm. Wait for him to wake.

Consciousness has made him considerably more complicated.

“Why did you leave the carriage house?” I ask.

“I woke up, and I didn’t know where I was,” he says.

“So you walked outside barefoot?”

“Do I have shoes?” he asks genuinely.

Good point.

The stranger looks down at his mug. “There was someone outside.”

Finn’s head comes up.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Someone was watching me through the window.”

I glance at Finn. He glances back.

“That was me,” I say.

The stranger looks at me.

“I was outside earlier. I took a few photographs of you so I could run your face through an image search.”

“You photographed me while I was asleep?”

“You were a nameless man who washed out of the Pacific. I had to start somewhere.”

“You could’ve asked.”

“You were unconscious. And besides, you say you don’t remember anything. So what answers would you have?”

His mouth closes.

Finn hides a smile behind his coffee.

“I was who you saw,” I continue firmly. “I was standing outside the window with my camera, and that’s why you think you know me.”

The stranger shakes his head.

“No.”

“How could you possibly know? You barely opened your eyes.”

“Because you had already been there."

A chill moves across my shoulders, as he pauses, swallows, then continues.

“I saw you with the camera.” His forehead creases as he tries to reconstruct it. “You stood there for a while. Then you left.”

“And afterward you saw someone else?”

He nods.

Finn leans forward. “How long afterward?”

“I don’t know. A few minutes. Maybe longer.”

“What did they look like?” I ask.

“They were standing beyond the glass. Farther back than you were.”

“A man or a woman?”

“I couldn’t tell.”

“Did you see their face?”

“No. When I sat up, they moved away.”

“Toward the house?” Finn asks.

“I don’t know. I went outside, but no one was there.”

The wind blows a wet branch against the kitchen window with a scrape.

I turn toward it before I can stop myself.

“There are trees all around the carriage house,” Finn says. “It could’ve been a branch. Or a shadow.”

“It wasn’t.”

“You’ve recently suffered a head injury.”

“I know what I saw.”

“That makes one of us.”

The stranger’s gaze hardens.

“Finn,” I say.

He looks at me innocently. “What?”

I bring my coffee to the table and sit across from the stranger. “Did you remember me before or after you saw this person?”

“Before.” He answers without hesitation. “I was dreaming about you when I woke up.”

“So it was a dream.”

“No.” His eyes stay on mine. “The dream was a memory.”

“You can’t know that.”

“But I do."

There is such certainty in the words that a chill runs along my arms.

I wrap both hands around my mug.

“All right,” I say. “Tell me everything you remember.”

He tries.

For the next hour, we take his mind apart piece by piece and find almost nothing inside it.

Rain. Darkness. My face.

He can’t remember where he lives, what he does, whether he has parents or siblings or someone waiting for him. He knows what coffee is. He knows Oregon is a state and the Pacific is an ocean. He knows the president’s name, the approximate year, and how to operate the phone Finn puts in front of him.

But he doesn’t recognize the face reflected in its black screen.

At some point, Finn makes another pot of coffee and interrogates the stranger further.

At some point after that, I put my head down on my folded arms.

I don’t mean to sleep.

I only close my eyes because they burn, and the stranger’s voice has gone quiet, and Finn is tapping something into his phone. The kitchen is warm. Rain is a steady pitter-pat, rhythmic and soothing.

Then a door closes somewhere in the house.

I jerk upright.

The stove clock reads 5:07 a.m.

My neck aches. One of my arms is numb, and someone has draped a blanket over my shoulders.

The kitchen is empty.

“Finn?”

Footsteps cross the foyer.

Dad appears in the doorway, buttoning the cuff of a clean white shirt. His hair is still damp from the shower,

and he has his glasses on instead of his contacts. He’s also wearing his ridiculous Yeti slippers, the ones with the fur and the claws.

He looks at me, then at the two abandoned mugs on the table.

“Where’s your brother?”

I sit up and rub the side of my face. “I don’t know. He was here.”

“Helpful.”

“The stranger was here too.”

Dad’s eyes sharpen. “He left the carriage house?”

“He came to the door a few hours ago. He said he remembered me.”

Dad goes very still.

“From the beach?”

“From before the beach.”

“What does that mean?”

“We have no idea. We spent a couple hours here in the kitchen, asking questions, talking… he can’t remember anything else.”

“Is it possible that you’ve met him and just don’t remember? Maybe at a party, or maybe he came into the coffee shop…”

He trails off because I’m shaking my head. “No. I would remember him.”

I would remember a face like that. The intensity of his eyes, as black as night. The cheekbones, the jawline, his stature.

Dad steps farther into the kitchen and touches the back of his fingers to my forehead.

I pull away. “I don’t have a fever.”

“You’re pale.”

“I’m always pale.”

“Not like this.”

“I’m tired.”

“Yes,” he says. “That’s generally what causes a person to sleep face-down on a kitchen table.”

I glance at the clock again.

Dad picks up Finn’s mug and examines the thin layer of coffee left at the bottom as though it might divine his location.

“I’ll find them,” he says.

“I’ll come with you.”

“No.”

“Dad.”

“Go upstairs, Calla.”

“I’m not going to sleep.”

“That isn’t a requirement. Lying down will suffice.”

He opens the door. Cold air curls around my ankles.

“Dad?”

He pauses.

“The stranger said someone was watching him through the carriage-house window. And last night, Finn thought he saw someone walking out by the chapel.”

Dad studies me for a moment.

Then he looks beyond me, toward the dark pane over the sink.

“I’ll look around.”

He says it calmly, which does nothing to calm me.

The door shuts behind him.

I carry the blanket upstairs.

The house is silent again. Mom’s bedroom door is closed, and the studio at the end of the hall is finally dark.

She must have gone to bed shortly before Dad came downstairs. When she paints, time ceases to exist for her.

My bedroom is cold.

The window is still open a few inches, exactly as I left it. The sheer curtains flutter in the damp breeze. I cross the room to close it.

That’s when I see the bottle cap.

It sits in the center of the windowsill.

Rainier.

A red R over a white mountain, the metal edges bent and darkened with rust.

For several seconds, I only stare.

It’s exactly like the one Edgar brought me a couple nights ago.

I put it in the Miscellaneous box yesterday morning.

And now it is sitting outside my second-story window.

I push the glass higher and lean out.

The roof slopes steeply beneath me, slick and black in the gray predawn light. There is no porch below the

window. No trellis. No tree close enough for anyone to climb.

I pick up the cap.

It’s wet and cold against my palm.

Maybe I brought it upstairs last night. Maybe I set it near the open window and the wind carried it outside.

Except I didn’t.

I look toward the ground.

Two stories below, the flower bed lies dark and undisturbed.

No ladder.

No footprints.

I close and lock the window.

Then I stand there with the cap in my hand, trying to decide which option is more disturbing:

That mine somehow got out of the box.

Or that someone found another one exactly like it and left it outside my window.

I set the cap on my nightstand and lie down fully dressed.

Every time I close my eyes, I see the stranger watching me across the kitchen table, his eyes so, so dark.

You.

I do not sleep.

At eight, I give up pretending.

I tug the miscellaneous box out of the stack by my door and open it. I sort through an old art gallery ticket,

one of Finn’s hospital bracelets, favorite poems… and then...

There it is. The dented cap.

For a moment, relief loosens something inside my chest.

I didn’t carry it upstairs. It didn’t move on its own. The bottle cap on my nightstand is simply another Rainier cap.

There must be millions of them.

I place the two side by side on my palm.

Same red R. Same white mountain. Same brown rust feathering around the crimped edges. Same dent on the side.

But the one Edgar gave me has a tiny puncture beside the mountain, probably made by his beak.

The other one doesn’t.

They aren’t the same cap.

I put both caps into the box and return it to the closet.

The house smells like bacon when I go downstairs.

I follow the sound of pans into the kitchen and find Dad at the stove, wearing an apron over his shirt and

scrambling eggs with more concentration than the task requires.

“Did you sleep?” he asks without turning around.

“Yes.”

“Liar.”

“Did you find Finn?”

“On the beach.”

“With him?”

Dad nods toward the table.

The stranger is sitting in the chair nearest the window. He’s showered, and someone has found him dry clothes—dark jeans and one of Finn’s black sweaters, though the sleeves are a little short.

Finn sits across from him with his phone, a notebook, and three objects arranged between them: the silver

ring, a smooth black stone, and a piece of green sea glass.

“Our haul,” Finn says.

I look at the table. “You found three things?”

“We found approximately nine thousand rocks. These were the finalists.”

“We thought something might trigger a memory,” Dad says.

“Did it?”

The stranger shakes his head.

His attention settles on me again.

I’m suddenly aware of the two bottle caps upstairs.

“What?” Finn asks.

“Nothing.”

His eyes narrow. Twins recognize lies the way dogs recognize fear.

Dad carries a plate of toast to the table. “Your mother will be down later. She was up painting until this morning.”

“Did she go for a walk last night?” I ask. “Maybe that’s who they saw.”

Dad glances at me. “Not that I know of.”

“It wasn’t mom that I saw,” Finn says. “I was with her when I first saw something moving through the trees.”

“There’s a logical explanation,” Dad says calmly, as he sets a pitcher of orange juice on the table. “There always is.”

“Do remember that someone crawled out of the ocean yesterday,” I say, as I take the chair beside him.

“Yes, and we’ll sort that out,” he answers. Then he divides the eggs among four plates, adds bacon and toast, and sits at the head of the table. For a few minutes, everyone focuses on eating. The normality of it feels staged. Four plates. Four forks. Butter in the little blue dish Mom made when we were children.

And a man with no name wearing my brother’s sweater.

“What happens now?” the stranger asks.

Dad lowers his coffee. “You need to be evaluated again. Memory loss after a head injury isn’t something we ignore because you’re capable of walking on a beach.”

“I feel fine,” the stranger answers. “It’s strange. I feel perfectly fine.”

“I wouldn’t say remembering someone you’ve never is perfectly fine.”

“I have met her.”

Finn sets down his fork. “She says you haven’t.”

“I didn’t say she remembers me.”

The room goes quiet.

I meet his gaze. “That’s because I don’t.”

“I know.”

Something in his face shifts. Frustration, perhaps. Or hurt.

“You said I was crying,” I remind him. “Was there anything else?”

He looks down at his plate.

“Don’t force it,” Dad says. “Memory sometimes returns in fragments. Pushing too hard can make you fill the gaps with details that aren’t real.”

“I know what I saw.”

“You know what you believe you saw.”

The stranger’s grip tightens around his fork.

Finn notices. So do I.

"I know it sounds like complete bollocks, but it's true. She's the only thing that feels familiar to me."

“What did she call you?” Finn asks.

The stranger looks at him.

“In your memory,” Finn says. “If Calla knew you, she must have called you something.”

“I don’t remember.”

“Try.”

“Finn,” Dad warns.

But the stranger closes his eyes.

The kitchen grows unnaturally still around him. Even the gulls outside seem to fall quiet.

His breathing changes.

His lips part.

“Dare.”

The word is so soft I almost don’t hear it.

“What?” I ask.

His eyes open.

For the first time since we found him, there is certainty in them.

“Dare,” he says again. “You called me Dare.”

Finn leans back in his chair. “That’s either a name or a child's game."

The stranger looks at me.

“It’s my name.”

“Dare?” Dad asks.

He nods slowly. “It’s short for something.”

“What?” I ask.

He presses the heel of his hand against his forehead. “I know that it’s short for something. I just can’t remember…”

“Don’t push,” Dad says.

“I know it.”

His face tightens with the effort.

Then he looks up.

“Adair.”

The name drops into the center of the table.

“Adair,” I repeat.

The stranger—Dare—looks at me as though hearing it in my voice confirms something inside him.

“Yes. That’s it.”

“What’s your last name?” Finn asks.

The certainty disappears.

Dare looks down at the unfamiliar clothes covering his body, at the silver ring on the table, at the empty space where a whole life should be.

“I don’t know.”

“But you know Calla.”

His eyes return to mine.

“Yes.”

Finn pushes away from the table.

Dad says his name, but Finn is already carrying his plate to the sink.

Outside, something black passes across the kitchen window.

A wing.

A shadow.

Gone before I can be certain it was ever there.

Calla and Finn, walking to cove with flashlights .png

By ten, the rain has started again.

It taps softly against my bedroom window while I unpack the last of my clothes. I put sweaters into drawers and hang dresses in the closet, trying not to look at the Miscellaneous box on the upper shelf.

The two bottle caps are inside it.

That is where they are staying until I can think about them without feeling watched.

I’m wrestling a fitted sheet onto the mattress when Mom screams.

The sound tears through the wall and my heart lodges somewhere on the ceiling.

I drop the sheet and run.

I charge through her half-open bedroom door so hard it bangs against the wall.

Mom is tangled in the blankets, fighting something that isn’t there. Her hands claw at the sheets. Her hair is damp around her face, and her eyes are open but unseeing.

“No,” she gasps. “No, no—”

“Mom.”

She jerks away when I reach for her.

“It’s me.” I sit on the edge of the bed. “Mom, look at me.”

Her gaze moves over my face without finding it.

“Calla.”

“I’m here.”

“Finn—”

“He’s downstairs.” Probably.

The answer doesn’t reach her.

“Where is he?” She tries to push herself upright. “Calla, where’s Finn?”

“He’s safe. We’re both safe.”

Footsteps pound up the stairs.

Dad appears in the doorway, his face drained of color.

“She was dreaming,” I tell him.

His expression changes. Recognition.

“I’ll get some water,” he says.

He closes the door behind him.

Mom’s hand sweeps frantically across the nightstand, knocking a book onto the floor.

“My reading glasses.”

I pick them up before she sends those flying too. “They’re right here.”

“I forgot them.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I had to go back.”

Her voice has changed. It sounds younger somehow.

“Go back where?”

She stares at the glasses in my hand.

“I don’t know.”

I place them carefully on her face.

The effect is immediate. Her eyes focus on mine, and the panic in them breaks apart.

“Oh,” she whispers.

“Hi.”

She looks around the room as though she doesn’t recognize it. Then she looks down at the blankets twisted

around her legs.

“I was dreaming.”

A tremulous breath leaves her. It isn’t quite a laugh.

I pull the blankets away from her knees and straighten them. Her hands are still shaking, so I take them in mine.

“You’re here,” she says.

“In the flesh.”

“And Finn?”

“Also here. Probably eating something that belongs to me.”

Her fingers tighten around mine.

“It was the car dream.”

I don’t have to ask which one.

Mom has dreamed about the accident for years. Sometimes months pass without it. Sometimes she has it three nights in a row. It is always raining. She is always driving. Finn and I are always there.

None of us survive.

When we were younger, she would check on us afterward. I’d wake to find her standing in my doorway, watching my chest rise and fall. Once, when I was thirteen, I found her sitting on the floor between our bedrooms at four in the morning.

She stopped telling us about the dream after that.

“It was because of yesterday,” I say. “We told you about the semi, and your brain pulled the nightmare out of

storage.”

She doesn’t smile.

Dad returns carrying a glass of water. He passes it to me, then touches Mom’s shoulder.

“You all right?”

She nods. “It was just a dream.”

“I’ve got her,” I tell him.

His hand lingers for another moment before he lets go.

“I’ll be downstairs.”

He leaves the door partly open.

Mom takes several small sips, then rests the glass against her chest.

Her breathing gradually slows.

“You scared ten years off my life,” I say.

“You have plenty.”

“I’m twenty-three. I haven’t accumulated enough to spare.”

This time, she smiles. It’s faint, but it’s there.

I set the water on the nightstand and tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Without the wild panic in her

eyes, she looks exhausted. There are smudges of blue paint near her wrist and beneath one thumbnail.

“You stayed up too late,” I say.

“I wasn’t tired.” She leans back against the pillows. “I’m sorry.”

“For?”

“For scaring you.”

“You had a nightmare. It wasn’t a personal attack.”

Her gaze drifts toward the window.

“It was different this time.”

I follow her eyes, but there’s nothing outside except rain and trees.

“How?”

“I could hear something.”

“What?”

“Music.”

I look at her.

“There’s never been music before,” she says. “Not that I could hear.”

“Was it coming from the radio?”

She nods.

“What song?”

“I can’t remember.”

She closes her eyes.

For a moment, I think she is falling asleep. Then she begins to hum.

The melody is slow and familiar. Her voice trembles over it, finding only pieces. She hums another bar, then quietly sings the words she remembers.

I know the song.

“That’s There Is a Light That Never Goes Out.”

Her eyes open.

“Is it?”

“By the Smiths.”

“One’s of Finn’s bands.”

“Yes. He loves them.”

She takes off her glasses and rubs the bridge of her nose. “I don’t remember hearing it before.”

“Mom, Finn has been listening to them since high school. You’ve heard that song a hundred times over the years.”

“Probably.”

“So your brain held on to it and threw it into the dream.”

“Why?”

“Because brains are strange and spiteful.”

“Medical school is going to be so proud of you.”

She gives me another faint smile.

I take the glass from her and set it down.

“I told you what happened yesterday,” I say. “And I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry. That’s why you dreamed about the accident. You were already worried about us, and you were tired, and then you painted half the night.”

“I suppose.”

“Definitely.” I say it with enough confidence for both of us. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you about our near-miss. We’re fine, mom. I promise.”

Mom’s hand finds mine again. “I hate that dream.”

“I know.”

“I can never get to you in time.”

Her voice cracks on the final word.

I move closer and wrap my arms around her. She holds on tightly, her face pressed against my shoulder.

“You don’t have to get to me,” I say. “I’m right here. I’m safe, and so are you.”

For several seconds, neither of us moves.

When she finally releases me, some of the tension has gone out of her face.

“You should stay in bed a while,” I tell her.

“I’ve slept enough.”

“You slept for four hours after painting all night. Dad will kill me if I let you get up.”

She slides lower beneath the blankets. I pull them over her and retrieve the book she knocked onto the floor.

I lie beside her on top of the covers.

Mom closes her eyes, still holding my hand between us. Her thumb moves against my knuckles every few seconds, as though she’s checking that I remain solid.

Within minutes, her breathing becomes deep and even.

I stay longer than necessary.

When I’m certain she is asleep, I ease my hand out of hers and leave the door open a few inches.

My bedroom looks exactly as I left it.

The fitted sheet hangs half secured from the mattress. An open suitcase sits on the floor, and one of my

sweaters lies where I dropped it.

I pick it up.

Downstairs, a cabinet closes. Finn says something I can’t make out, and Dad answers. Their voices rise faintly through the floorboards.

Ordinary sounds. Safe sounds.

I fold the sweater and place it in the dresser.

There Is a Light That Never Goes Out.

My hands stop.