Unremembered (Unremembered #1)(9)

We begin to move. People disappear out the window. Old faces are replaced with new ones. And yet they share one commonality: they’re all watching me.

We turn a corner and that’s when I see his face.

The boy who came into my room. The same thick sable hair. The same intense maple eyes. And, as my gaze meets his, the same soft, crooked smile.

Am I hallucinating again?

Or is he real?

A strange burning sensation begins between my eyes. Growing warmer by the second. Like a blazing spotlight pointed right above the bridge of my nose. I wince and touch my hand to my skin. It feels normal. Cold even.

But the longer I stare at him, the hotter my forehead grows. It’s like a fire. A fever. But it’s not violent. It’s . . .

Calming.

Almost peaceful.

As though suddenly sixteen years of a forgotten life no longer matter. Nothing does.

I eye the door handle. Rest my fingers gingerly on the shiny silver latch. But then I hear Kiyana’s voice in my head – media hungry . . . impostors . . . desperate for attention – and the fever breaks its hold over me.

He’s nothing, I tell myself.

His smile means nothing.

My hand falls back on to my lap. With effort, I manage to tear my eyes away from him. And as soon as I do, my forehead returns to normal.

I clutch the locket and squeeze, the metal clasp digging into my skin.

We keep moving. The people keep changing before my eyes. As we pick up speed, there are fewer and fewer, until they all disappear completely.





7


HOME


The Carlsons tell me they live in an old ranch house that was built in the early 1900s. According to them, the small town of Wells Creek used to be run by farmers, but in the last fifty years it’s been taken over by city refugees longing for space and quiet.

I’m told it will take three hours to get there. The Carlsons ride in the back seat with me while someone named Lance operates the vehicle. Heather calls it a car.

I like the way it moves. Smooth with occasional bumps that Scott says are due to insufficiencies in the California state budget. I nod as though this makes sense to me, even though it doesn’t.

The inside is very pleasing. Black leather that feels soft and silky against my fingertips. Buttons that make things move like the ones next to my hospital bed. I ask Heather and Scott if this car belongs to them and they seem to find amusement in my question.

‘Don’t we wish!’ Scott replies. ‘The airline sent it. I suppose it’s the least they can do.’

‘Why is that?’ I ask.

He rubs his hands on the knees of his pants. ‘Well, some people are saying it was negligence on their part. The fact that your name wasn’t on the manifest. Although to be honest, it was probably just a computer glitch. Happens all the time.’

‘Scott works in computers,’ Heather clarifies, touching her husband’s leg.

‘What’s a computer?’

Scott smiles. ‘Oh right. Basically it’s a device or a machine that processes data and performs operations. But you can pretty much programme them to do anything you want these days.’

‘Really?’

‘For the most part,’ he says with pride. ‘Computers are quickly surpassing human intelligence.’

I find this statement odd. ‘How do you programme a computer to be smarter than you?’

‘You programme it to think for itself and then eventually it evolves and becomes smarter than you. Computers can absorb information faster and with much higher efficiency than a human being.’

‘If they’re smarter than you,’ I begin pensively, ‘aren’t you afraid they’ll eventually destroy you?’

They both laugh. ‘You should get a job in Hollywood,’ Scott says. ‘But no. It doesn’t quite work like that. Only in the movies. You see, computers may be smarter than humans but they don’t react like humans. They don’t feel emotions like greed and envy and anger. Those are the kinds of emotions that might lead someone to want to destroy.’

I nod and turn to look out the window, just managing to see Heather and Scott exchange a glance out of the corner of my eye.



We arrive at the house and I immediately understand what they mean about the quiet. Their quaint home is nestled into the side of a hill and surrounded by hundreds of towering trees that almost completely hide it from view. I notice the rope swing from the photograph they showed me, hanging from a branch of one of the larger trees. Scott tells me he built it for his son, Cody, when he was younger, although he hardly ever uses it any more.

Heather points towards a leaf-covered trail that disappears over the edge of a small knoll. She tells me it leads to the creek. ‘That’s where Wells Creek gets its name,’ she informs me. ‘It runs through most of the town. Cody and his friends used to like to race home-made sailing boats in it.’

My bedroom is on the second floor of the house. It’s decorated in white and soft blues. There’s a bed in the centre, a small table in the corner, a dresser and a chair that rocks when you sit in it. There’s also a door to a bathroom that you can walk through to another bedroom.

‘Cody is at summer camp,’ Heather tells me, gesturing towards the half-ajar door at the other end of the bathroom. ‘Science camp.’

I lean forward to peer inside and catch sight of a desk covered in several pieces of unidentified circuitry.