Calla
The darkroom makes everything feel like a secret.
Under the red safelight, Dare’s back emerges slowly from the paper.
First the slope of his shoulders. Then the long line of his spine. The pale scar curving over his ribs.
Finally, the raven.
Its wings stretch across the breadth of him, black feathers following the ripple of muscle beneath skin. Above it, just below the nape of his neck, the words appear.
LIVE FREE.
I rock the tray gently.
The photograph slides beneath the developer, and Dare becomes more solid with every pass of the chemicals.
Behind me, the cave page lies beneath clean blotting paper on the worktable. Four metal film canisters hold its corners flat while it dries.
I have already photographed it from every angle I can think of. Wide shots. Close-ups. The torn edge. The places where the pen pressed hard enough to furrow the paper. Every variation in Finn’s handwriting as the words lost their shape and slid into panic.
Serva me, servabo te.
Save me, and I’ll save you.
I don’t look at it now.
The timer sounds.
I lift the photograph with a pair of tongs and transfer it to the stop bath.
Dare’s tattoo disappears beneath the surface.
It is an odd thing to have on film.
Not the tattoo itself. I have photographed stranger things. In Seattle, I once spent two hours taking portraits of a woman who had the entire book of Revelation tattooed down both legs in lettering small enough to require a macro lens. She said it made airports interesting.
What bothers me is how accidental this photograph feels.
Dare had lifted his shirt so Dad could examine the scar along his ribs. I had been documenting the injuries we could still see, looking for details that might help us understand what had happened to him.
Then the raven appeared.
I took the picture before I had time to think about it.
Now I have a photograph of a man’s bare back hanging from a drying line in my darkroom.
Perfectly clinical. Very professional.
Not at all something Finn will use against me until one of us dies.
The door opens without a knock.
I turn so quickly that the tongs clatter into the tray.
Dad stands in the doorway.
“You know,” I say, “the lock exists for a reason.”
“You never use it.”
He steps inside and closes the door behind him.
Dad has already seen the photograph. He was standing three feet away when I took it. That does not stop me from moving slightly to block his view of the drying line.
His gaze travels over my shoulder.
“You developed them.”
“Yes.”
“How does the scar look?”
I reach past him and take one of the dry photographs from the line.
This one shows Dare in profile, his shirt lifted just enough to expose the pale mark sweeping over his left side.
I hand it to Dad.
“It looks old,” I say. “Older than the injuries from the beach.”
He studies it beneath the red light.
“It is.”
“Could it be surgical?”
“Possibly.”
“That clears everything up.”
“I try.”
“He looks a bit older than Finn and I. Like, maybe 27 or 28. What do you think?”
“Maybe. Want me to examine his teeth?”
“He’s not a horse, Dad.”
He hands the picture back to me.
“Your mother wants you to come upstairs.”
“Why?”
“Dinner.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“She made soup.”
I clip the photograph back onto the line.
“Finn and Dare aren’t home yet.”
“They’ll eat when they get back."
I glance at the clock. It is nearly eight.
They left hours ago. Astoria is not far enough away to justify Finn having control of another human being for this long.
“Did Finn text?”
“He told your mother they're on their way.”
He looks toward the worktable.
The shape beneath the blotting paper is unmistakable.
“Any change?”
“No.”
“Has it dried?”
“Nearly.”
“You should leave it alone overnight.”
“I am leaving it alone.”
“I would prefer you not spend all night in a room with chemical fumes and a page that is upsetting you.”
“It isn’t upsetting me.”
Dad gives me a look.
I remove my gloves.
“It is concerning me in a calm and methodical way.”
I switch off the enlarger.
Dad opens the door for me, and ordinary light spills into the room.
The cave page remains beneath the blotting paper.
Mom’s soup steams in the pot, and smells like fresh herbs.
She sits at the kitchen table wrapped in a cardigan while Dad portions it into bowls. According to her, she is perfectly capable of serving her own dinner. According to Dad, it’s the least he can do after she made the meal.
Their disagreement has entered the cold-war stage.
“I could have carried that,” Mom says.
“I know.”
“I’m not fragile.”
“I know.”
Dad places the bowl in front of her.
Mom looks at me. “He’s enjoying this.”
“He does seem unusually fulfilled.”
Dad puts a bowl in front of me. “Eat.”
The front door opens before I can object.
Finn’s voice carries through the house.
“We’re back. No one was arrested.”
Mom brightens. “They’re home.”
Finn appears in the kitchen doorway carrying two paper shopping bags. His hair is damp from the mist, and
his cheeks are pink from the cold.
Dare follows him with three more bags.
He is still wearing Dad’s shirt and Finn’s jeans, the cuffs rolled above his ankles. His borrowed jacket is draped over one arm.
“How much did you buy?” I ask.
“Far less than mom would have,” Finn says.
Mom peers at the bags. “Did you get a proper jacket? It’s summer, but the rain and the ocean breeze get chilly at night.”
“Yes,” Dare says.
“Boots?”
“Yes.”
“Enough shirts?”
Dare glances at Finn.
Finn sets the bags on the floor. “We should have stayed in town.”
“I bought everything on the list,” Dare assures her.
“You had a list?” I ask.
“Your mother sent it to Finn.”
Dare puts the remaining bags beside Finn’s.
“I should thank you,” he says to him. “You made a tedious necessity surprisingly tolerable.”
Finn stares at him.
“That was almost nice.”
“It was entirely nice.” Dare’s mouth curves, but he doesn’t rise to the bait.
Mom points toward the stove. “There’s soup.”
“Of course there is,” Finn says.
“There is also bread.”
“I take it back. This is an excellent homecoming.”
Dare looks toward Dad.
“What project can I start first? I’d like to begin tomorrow.”
Dad nods. “We’ll start with the north fence. Nothing too strenuous until you’re fully recovered.”
“I’m quite capable of—”
“You were unconscious on a beach this week,” Dad says.
Dare pauses.
“That does continue to undermine my position.”
“It does.”
“Then the fence will be fine.”
There is no resentment in his voice. If anything, he sounds relieved to have a task assigned.
He looks between Mom and Dad.
“Thank you. Again.”
“You don’t have to keep thanking us,” Mom says.
“I imagine I’ll stop eventually.”
She smiles.
Dare gathers his bags. “I’ll put these away and come back.”
“You can eat first,” Mom says.
“I’d rather change out of your husband’s shirt before I spill soup on it.”
“That is an excellent shirt,” Dad says.
Finn looks at the faded gray fabric. “Is it?”
“It was.”
Dare glances down at it. He picks up the last bag and turns toward the hall.
His gaze finds mine for the briefest moment.
“Successful expedition?” I ask.
“I believe so.”
Finn leans one shoulder against the doorway. “He rejected every shirt with a visible logo.”
“I don’t care to advertise companies that haven’t paid me.”
“That was his actual explanation.”
“It remains a sound one.”
I smile despite myself.
Dare returns it, quieter.
Then he leaves for the Carriage House.
I listen to the front door open and close.
Finn sits across from me and steals the piece of bread from beside my bowl.
“That was mine.”
“You weren’t eating it.”
Mom puts another piece on my plate before I can stab him.
“How was Astoria?” she asks.
“Wet.”
“Did Dare remember anything else?”
Finn tears the bread in half.
The question changes him so subtly I might have missed it if I hadn’t spent my entire life watching his face.
His shoulders remain loose. His expression remains bored.
Only his fingers stop moving.
“He recognized a motorcycle,” he says.
Dad sits down. “Recognized the model?”
“Triumph Bonneville. He knew the engine size from across the street and criticized the rider’s gear changes.”
“That sounds promising,” Mom says.
“He remembered having one. Or thinks he did.”
“What color?”
“Black.”
Dad considers this. “Specific knowledge can be useful. We can add it to what we give the sheriff.”
“He also remembered gloves,” Finn says. “Black leather. Worn at the left thumb.”
For the first time since he came home, there is light behind his eyes.
Whatever happened in town, Dare pulled him out of himself for a few hours.
The relief that moves through me is too large for the evidence supporting it.
Mom asks him another question about the motorcycle, and Finn answers without withdrawing. He tells us
about Dare’s hand closing around an invisible throttle and the way he described the vibration in the grips.
I watch him while he speaks.
His color is better. He is making eye contact. His knee is not bouncing beneath the table.
The Finn who left this morning looked as if he had spent the night arguing with himself.
The one sitting across from me is tired but present.
The front door opens again twenty minutes later.
Footsteps cross the hall. Dare appears in the kitchen doorway.
Everything in me goes quiet.
The charcoal sweater fits close across his shoulders and lies flat at his waist. Dark jeans fall properly over black boots instead of stopping somewhere above them. Dare’s hair is still damp from a shower, pushed back from his face in loose, dark waves.
The clothes are simple.
That is the problem.
Nothing distracts from him.
He pauses just inside the doorway.
His gaze drops to his clothes, then returns to us with an uncertainty I have not seen from him before.
“Will this do?”
No one answers.
I realize everyone is waiting for me.
Or perhaps that is paranoia.
“They fit,” I say.
Brilliant.
Years of college. Thousands of books. An entire human vocabulary available to me.
They fit.
Finn slowly turns his head in my direction.
“A glowing endorsement,” he says. “She’s overcome.”
“Shut up.”
Dare looks at me, and amusement warms his eyes without sharpening them.
“I’ll take it.”
Mom rescues me by standing up.
Dad immediately reaches for her arm.
“I am walking to the stove, Phillip.”
“I can bring the soup.”
Dare steps forward.
“Please sit. I can manage a bowl of soup.”
Mom gives Dad a triumphant look, as if Dare’s intervention proves something.
Dare serves himself and takes the empty chair beside me.
I become very interested in the carrots in my bowl.
His sleeve brushes my arm as he reaches for the bread.
The contact is barely there.
My body notices anyway.
“You chose the sweater,” I say.
He looks down at it. “I did. Where I come from, we call it a jumper.”
“It suits you.”
The words escape before I can stop them.
Across the table, Finn makes a small choking sound.
I kick him beneath the table.
His knee jerks upward and strikes the underside with a thud.
Mom startles. “What happened?”
“Finn’s legs are too long,” I say.
Dare’s mouth twitches.
Finn rubs his knee. “Calla’s concern for me is touching.”
Dare tears a piece of bread.
“Thank you,” he says to me.
He doesn’t tease. He doesn’t make me regret saying it. He accepts the compliment as gently as he offered Finn his gratitude.
Dad asks him about the fence, and the conversation shifts.
I eat my soup and do not look at Dare again for nearly a full minute.
It's a personal record.
By half past nine, the rain pelts the windows.
Dad and Mom decide to retire early to read. Mom kisses the top of Finn’s head as she passes him and squeezes my shoulder.
“Don’t stay up too late,” she says. “Tell Mack I look forward to seeing her in the morning.”
“She won’t be here until ten. ”
Finn watches them leave, then looks at me.
Dare sits in the armchair near the fire with one ankle resting over the opposite knee. He has been reading the same page of Rebecca for several minutes.
“You can ask,” I tell him.
His eyes lift from the book. “Ask what?”
“Whatever you’ve been trying not to ask.”
“I wasn’t aware I’d been so transparent.”
“You’ve turned one page since dinner.”
He closes the book around one finger.
“I wondered about the photographs.”
Finn looks between us. “Which photographs?”
“In particular, the one Calla took of my back.”
Finn’s face changes with terrible, immediate delight.
I point at him. “Don’t.”
Dare glances between us.
“It was documentation,” I say.
“I didn’t object.”
“I was photographing your injuries.”
Finn folds his arms. “And bravely continued when confronted with his lack of shirt.”
“The scar may be relevant.”
“So might his shoulder blades.”
“Finn.”
“What? I support thorough investigations.”
Dare looks down, hiding a smile.
I stand.
“I developed the photograph because Dad wanted a better look at the scar.”
“Of course,” Finn says.
“Do you want to see it?” I ask Dare.
That sobers him.
“Yes. I can’t see it all that well in the bathroom mirror.”
I lead him downstairs before Finn can volunteer to chaperone.
Dare follows me into the darkroom.
When I switch on the red light, he stops just inside the door.
Photographs hang from clips above the sink. The cave. The stream. Mom. The folded paper boat.
And him.
I take the picture from the line and hand it to him.
For several seconds, Dare says nothing.
He studies the scar first.
Then the raven.
The tattoo is so large it should provoke some reaction. Recognition. Distaste. Surprise. Something.
His face gives me nothing.
“Does it feel familiar?” I ask.
“No.”
“The words? Do they mean anything to you?”
His thumb moves near the edge of the image without touching the inked letters.
“Live free,” he says.
“Not very British.”
One corner of his mouth lifts.
“We do have freedom in Britain.”
“I meant the tattoo. It feels American.”
“Perhaps I suffered a regrettable period abroad.”
There is no bite in the joke. Only a soft attempt to keep the silence from becoming too heavy.
“You like motorcycles,” I say. “You have a tattoo about freedom. Maybe you were in a gang.”
“A promising development.”
“A criminal gang.”
“Less promising.”
I lean against the counter.
“You don’t look surprised by it.”
“I don’t know the correct way to look at evidence of a decision I can’t remember making.”
The humor leaves his voice.
He turns the photograph slightly beneath the red light.
“It must have mattered to me.”
“To the person you were.”
His gaze rises to mine.
“Am I not still that person?”
“I don’t know.”
The answer sounds cruel once it is in the room.
“I don’t mean—”
“No.” His voice remains gentle. “Neither do I.”
He looks back at the photograph.
“I have his body. His instincts, apparently. His taste in motorcycles and rather dramatic body art.”
“Maybe that’s enough to start.”
“Would it be enough for you?”
I think of waking without Finn’s face in my mind. Without Mom’s laugh or Dad’s steady hands. Without Mack.
Without the cliffs and the beach and every photograph I have ever taken.
“No.”
Dare nods.
“Nor me.”
I look at the tattoo again.
“Dad thinks the scar is old.”
“So I’ve survived at least one serious injury before.”
“That’s one interpretation.”
“What’s the other?”
“That you’re very bad at avoiding them.”
His laugh is quiet and real.
The sound does something warm and inconvenient to my belly.
He studies the photograph one last time and offers it back to me.
“You may keep it.”
“How generous.”
“For medical purposes.”
“Obviously.”
I take the picture. Our fingers touch at the edge.
Neither of us moves immediately.
Dare’s eyes hold mine.
The darkroom feels smaller than it did a minute ago.
His gaze lowers.
Not to my mouth.
But close enough.
The doorbell sounds from the front door upstairs.
I pull my hand away.
Dare looks toward the ceiling.
“That’s Mack,” I say.
The words come out breathless.
I hate that.
I clip the photograph onto the line with more force than necessary and leave the darkroom without checking whether he follows.
Mack knocks twice more before I reach the door.
Then she holds down the bell.
I yank it open.
She stands beneath the porch light in a black raincoat, enormous sunglasses pushed into her hair despite the fact that it is night. One hand grips the handle of a battered green suitcase. The other holds a cardboard box against her hip.
Her shirt says MANEATER in cracked white letters.
“Your house is impossible to find in the dark,” she says.
I throw my arms around her.
The box tilts dangerously between us.
“Careful,” Mack says into my hair. “This contains valuable cultural debris.”
I hold her tighter.
She smells like Seattle.
For one disorienting second, homesickness hits me so hard I cannot tell which place I’m missing.
Mack’s grip changes.
The joke goes out of it.
“Hey,” she says softly.
“I’m fine.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“You were going to.”
“I was going to say your ribs are crushing my box.”
I let her go.
She looks at my face for one beat too long. Then her gaze moves over my shoulder.
Finn stands at the far end of the hall.
Everything in him stills. Mack goes still too.
It lasts no more than a second.
Maybe less.
Then Finn smiles.
It is not the sharp little grin he gives me when he is about to be unbearable. It is not the polite expression he uses with strangers.
It is open. Relieved. He's clearly homesick, too.
Mack puts down the box.
Finn crosses the hall, and she walks directly into his arms.
He lifts her clear off the floor.
She laughs against his shoulder.
“You absolute menace,” he says.
“Put me down.”
“You drove here willingly. That suggests impaired judgment.”
“You missed me.”
“I missed Cheeto.”
“Liar.”
He sets her down, but she keeps one hand at the back of his neck. His arms remain around her waist half a heartbeat longer than necessary.
Mack looks up at him.
Something passes between them.
Familiarity. The kind formed by late nights, shared apartments, bad decisions, and three years of being enmeshed into one another’s lives.
Then Finn releases her.
Dare stands near the sitting-room door.
His attention rests on them with a stillness I recognize.
He is watching.
Mack turns and sees him.
Her eyebrows climb.
She looks at me.
Then at Dare.
Then at me again.
Oh, no.
“Mack,” I say, before her face can complete the sentence her mouth has not yet begun. “This is Dare.”
“The man from the beach.”
“In the flesh,” Dare says.
His voice is courteous, his expression composed.
Mack walks toward him and holds out her hand.
“MacKenzie. Mack, unless I’m in trouble.”
Dare takes it.
“Dare. Until I remember my surname.”
Her smile widens.
“You’re British.”
“Apparently.”
“And you’re staying here?”
“In the Carriage House.”
Mack’s gaze flicks toward me again.
Finn sees it.
“Don’t encourage her,” I tell him.
“I haven’t said anything.”
“No one in this family needs to.”
Mack releases Dare’s hand.
“Well,” she says. “This trip has already exceeded expectations.”
Mom calls down from upstairs.
“Mack?”
Mack looks toward the staircase.
“Laura?”
Mom appears at the landing in her robe.
Mack abandons the suitcase and runs up the stairs.
Mom meets her halfway.
“Hi, sweetheart.”
Mack folds herself into Mom’s arms.
Dad reaches them a moment later and puts one hand against Mack’s back.
Watching her with my family loosens something inside me.
Seattle has always felt like the life I chose. This house is the life that chose me.
Mack belongs to both.
Finn picks up her suitcase.
I reach for the box, but he gets there first.
“What is this?” he asks.
“Things the two of you left at my apartment.”
His hands tighten around the cardboard.
I notice because I am looking at him.
Dare notices because Dare seems to notice everything.
“I didn’t leave that much,” Finn says.
“You left enough.”
“What’s in it?”
“Shirts- one of yours, two of Calla’s. Books, mostly Calla’s. Chargers, mostly yours.”
Mack looks down from the stairs.
“And your Christmas journal.”
“The journal,” he says.
“The obscenely expensive one I gave you as a gift and you never used.”
“I used it.”
“You wrote on one page.”
“That qualifies.”
I take the box from him before he can object.
“I’ll carry it up.”
“No.” His answer is immediate.
Everyone looks at him.
He adjusts his grip on Mack’s suitcase.
“I’ll take it. Apparently, most of it is mine.”
I hand it back.
His fingers close around the sides.
For a moment, he seems to be listening to something none of us can hear.
Then he looks at Mack.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
The words are ordinary.
The silence beneath them is not.
Dare watches Finn carry the box upstairs.
Mack waits until my bedroom door closes before turning to face me.
“Explain.”
I drop backward onto the bed.
“It has been a long week.”
“I’m not asking about the week.”
“Then be more specific.”
She unzips her suitcase.
“The beautiful British man living in your Carriage House.”
“Mack.”
She lifts both hands.
“I’m listening.”
I tell her everything.
Not everything.
I tell her about the beach. The missing clothes. The head injury and the fingerprints and the complete
absence of a name beyond the one he remembered. I talk again about the paper boat and the paper with
Finn’s writing.
Mack’s gaze moves toward the wall separating my room from Finn’s.
“Has anything else happened?”
I hesitate.
She sees it.
“Calla.”
“He’s been strange.”
“Strange how?”
“Quiet. Distracted. He disappeared into the greenhouse last night and wouldn’t tell me why. He barely slept.
Today he seems better, but—”
“But?”
“I don’t know. Something in my belly… feels wrong. He feels wrong. I can’t explain it.”
Mack’s face has lost all trace of teasing.
“What did he say?”
“Nothing useful.”
“Did you ask?”
“Repeatedly.”
“And?”
“You know Finn. If he doesn’t want you inside his head, he turns every question into a joke until you regret asking in the first place.”
Mack looks down at her hands.
“Yes,” she says. “I know.”
Something in her voice makes me study her.
“You sound worried.”
“I am worried.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re worried. ”
It is a reasonable answer.
It does not feel like the entire one.
“Has he been talking to you?”
Her eyes meet mine.
“We text.”
“About this?”
“Not really. But he told me he wasn’t sleeping well.”
“Why would he tell you he isn’t sleeping and not tell me?”
Mack picks at a loose thread on her sleeve.
“Because I’m three hours away. It’s easier to tell someone things when they can’t immediately come into your room and stare at you.”
“I don’t stare.”
She looks at me.
“I assess.”
Mack bumps her shoulder against mine.
“I’ll talk to him.”
“He won’t tell you anything.”
“He tells me more than you think.”
The words land strangely.
Before I can examine them, she stands and resumes unpacking.
“So,” she says, “Dare.”
“No.”
“I haven’t asked anything.”
“You don’t have to. Your eyebrows have.”
“He looks at you.”
“He looks at everyone.”
“Not like that.”
“You have been in the same room with him for less than an hour.”
“And yet I still have eyes.”
I pull one of her pillows into my lap.
“He doesn’t know who he is.”
“I gathered that from the amnesia.”
“He could be married.”
Mack pauses.
“He isn’t wearing a wedding ring.”
“He washed up without shoes. A missing ring proves nothing.”
“He could have a girlfriend,” she says.
“Or children. A family. People who believe he’s dead.”
“And you’re thinking about all of this because?”
“Because someone should.”
Mack sits on the edge of the bed again.
“Cal.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
Mack blinks.
Then smiles.
“You like him.”
“I don’t know him.”
“That has rarely prevented anyone.”
“It should.”
Her expression softens.
I throw a pillow at her.
She catches it against her chest.
“Violence,” she says. “A sure sign of emotional stability.”
“You’ve been here forty minutes, and I already regret hugging you.”
“No, you don’t.”
Mack drops the pillow and lies beside me.
For a while, neither of us speaks.
Rain whispers against the windows. Across the hall, a floorboard creaks in Finn’s room.
Mack’s eyes open.
I turn my head toward her.
“You heard that?”
“It’s a floorboard.”
“You looked.”
“So did you.”
“He’s probably unpacking the box.”
“Probably.”
I study her profile in the dim light.
“What happened between you two?”
Her face remains still.
“What do you mean?”
“In Seattle. Before we left.”
“Nothing happened.”
“That was very fast.”
“Because it’s a simple answer.”
I wait.
Mack has always been better at silence than Finn.
Eventually, she exhales.
“He was having a hard time with the move.”
“He wanted to come home.”
“Wanting to come home and knowing what to do once you arrive are different things.”
Dare said something similar to him today.
Why has everyone else noticed this and I didn’t?
I turn onto my back.
“I feel like I’m missing something.”
Mack reaches for my hand beneath the blanket.
“We all are.”
I close my eyes.
“I’m glad you came.”
“So am I.”
Across the hall, another floorboard creaks.
Mack’s hand tightens around mine. A few minutes later, her breathing deepens.
Mine does not.
Rain pelts the glass in soft, uneven bursts.
I think of the cave page lying beneath blotting paper in the darkroom.
Of Dare looking at the raven on his back as though it belonged to a stranger.
Of Finn holding the box from Seattle.
Everything is normal, but also the exact opposite of normal.
From the Estate
Recovered materials, private records, and curiosities from the episode
Recovered Artifacts
Objects recovered and documented in this Storyworld
(Click an artifact to examine)
