The Healing Note, Part 2

The 88 Club lived on the west wing of the Hotel, at the end of a hallway that felt just a shade too dark, as if night always started there an hour before anywhere else. Marissa pushed through the swing doors, balancing a tray heaped with strawberries, sliced mango, and cold cubes of watermelon. The light inside was instantly different—stage-bright, a constellation of filament bulbs suspended from the rafters, making the whole room buzz like a Saturday night even in the dead hush of late morning.

She set the tray at the bar, then glanced up at the stage. Laura was already there, each of her standing before one of two microphone stands set about four feet apart. Each of Laura’s bodies held both hands behind her back, rocking on the balls of her feet. Her hair fell like curtains, hiding the scars on her jaws, but the tension in her posture was unmistakable.

Marissa called out, “You want the water now, or later?” She kept her voice pitched just above the usual, in that “therapist’s office, but we’re pretending it’s not” way. She’d learned last week that Laura liked to be greeted first, or else she’d freeze up and spend the whole session on mute.

Laura said, in stereo, “Now is good.” Both of her smiled, but they were thin, effortful things, the kind you wore for polite company. Marissa poured two glasses and carried them up, her heels clicking softly on the worn wooden steps.

“Ready to run it again?” Marissa asked, keeping her tone light.

Both of Laura nodded hesitantly. In unison, she lifted her water glasses, took identical sips, and set them back down—left hands, right hands, not quite mirror images. The effect was surreal.

She stood facing the stage, the twin microphones at slightly different heights. One of her two selves fiddled with the taller microphone, trying to adjust it a little. Marissa’s piano sat on a small riser beside Laura, keys gleaming beneath a lacquer of fingerprints and dust.

Marissa slid onto the piano bench and flicked her fingers over the keys. A run of perfect arpeggios spilled out, warm and confident. Andy’s gift, the smoothness, the agility of her fingers. She could have loved him for that alone. “We’ll start with the verse,” she said, “then add the harmonies.” She paused. “You can do both parts if you want, or we can trade off.”

Laura said, “I’ll try both,” and smiled, tremulous but this time more genuine.

Marissa laughed, tension gone. “That’s the spirit.” She nodded to the one on the left. “You lead.”

They started: Marissa set the tempo, then the first Laura sang in a soft, steady voice, the second joining a beat later with a sharp soprano harmony. She was astonishingly good. The blend of her voices was otherworldly, too-perfect, the same but not quite, like light through cut glass.

As they finished the last bar of the song, Laura felt her own harmonies vibrating in her teeth, then echoing back at her from the far side of the stage. It was so much, too much, but it was also right. She liked the feeling of sound in her chest, the way it buzzed and trembled and filled the empty places.

She barely noticed when Marissa stopped playing, hands falling silent on the keys. The silence was thick, not awkward, just full. Marissa said, “You could go professional with that,” and there was no lie in her voice. Laura looked at her, surprised, and saw only honest admiration. It made her want to cry, and she wasn’t sure why.

She didn’t cry. She took a breath, reset, and let both bodies step away from the mics.

Marissa waited, then—deliberately—didn’t ask how Laura was doing. Instead she asked, “Ready for round two?”

Laura smiled, both of her, and said, “Let’s do it again.”

They were halfway through the second verse when the club’s door opened, letting in a slice of clean sun and a draft of corridor air. Andy came in, followed by Emily, who trailed him with a bass guitar slung across her body and a look of quiet awe at the stage.

Laura blinked. She was sure neither of them had been invited. The sight of Andy sent a jolt through her, like a cold current under a warm pool. He looked a little tired, but happy. He grinned up at the stage, then made a show of bowing to both Lauras at once.

Laura blushed, all four cheeks. She’d gotten used to her two bodies moving in sync, but not to the sensation of being looked at by Andy, not after so many days apart.

Andy said, “Hope we’re not crashing?”

Marissa turned on her piano bench, her professional calm instantly replaced by something like mischief. “Not at all. In fact, you’re right on time. I was just about to introduce our full ensemble.”

Laura opened her mouths, then closed them. “Ensemble?” she echoed.

Marissa nodded, all business. “I thought it’d be more fun with a band.” She looked at Emily. “Emily’s on bass. Andy, obviously, will be on guitar and vocals.”

Laura looked at Andy, and her heart did something odd. Not quite pain, not quite happiness—just a complicated twist, the sort that only made sense if you’d spent time believing you’d never be good for someone again, and now here they were.

Emily, noticing Laura’s discomfort, offered her a small, encouraging wave. “I’m, um, not that good, but I can follow along. I practiced with Marissa a little last night.”

Marissa smiled. “Emily’s great. Just a bit self-deprecating is all.”

Andy unslung his guitar case, flicked it open, and produced a sunburst Strat. He started tuning it by ear, hands moving with an easy rhythm, as if he did this every morning. “We can rehearse as much or as little as you want,” he said to Laura. “I just… thought it’d be cool. Like when we did those talent shows in your parents’ backyard.”

Laura remembered. She remembered him strumming wildly while she sang into a fake mic, both of them showing off for the neighbors. “I was terrible back then,” she said, grinning despite herself.

Andy matched her smile. “You were never terrible.”

They all took their places: Andy beside Marissa on a low platform, Emily on a stool, and Laura (both of her) standing by the twin mics. Marissa produced a clutch of sheet music and handed it out.

Laura scanned the title, then the lyrics. At first she couldn’t make sense of it—it was printed in a strange, blocky font, with the chords and melody line scribbled in blue at the top. The first verse was simple, but as she read on, the words grew sharper, more pointed. There was a line about a lighthouse, another about broken code, then one about being more than a dare or a challenge or a lost thing. Halfway down, Laura realized: it was about them. All of them. And it was written for her to sing.

The further she read, the more Laura felt like she was drowning. She didn’t know who wrote the lyrics (Marissa, probably), but she recognized the melodies. She remembered Marissa asking her to complete a song, days ago, when Laura had newly returned and had just been doubled. Was it this song, an early prototype? But it was too honest, and her voices trembled on the practice runs.

Andy noticed. He watched her, green eyes steady and kind, and said, “If it’s too much, we can stop. You don’t have to perform if you don’t want to.”

Both Lauras shook their heads. “No. I want to.” The words came out too forceful, and she winced.

Emily piped up, gently. “It’s a really good song,” she said. “You’ll sound amazing.”

Marissa, without looking up from the keys, said, “From the top, then?”

They played.

The first verse went smooth enough, Laura’s voices braided together like twine, supported by Marissa’s piano and Emily’s thumping root notes. Andy’s guitar drifted under the melody, subtle but sure. At the first chorus, Laura’s nerves kicked in: her left hand clutched the mic so tight she lost feeling in her fingers, her breathing went shallow, and she fumbled the first line.

She looked up, panicked. Andy smiled at her, warm and unhurried, and simply kept playing, covering her fumble with a soft backup vocal.

The next time, she got it. The chorus rang out, Laura’s voices swelling into the room. She could feel the sound resonating through her, through both bodies. It was electric, terrifying, and deeply sad.

The bridge hit, and Laura felt her throat close. There was a lyric about holding on, about never letting go even if you were only half a breath, and it landed too hard. She missed her cue, went silent, and stared at the page.

Marissa stopped playing, hands hovering over the keys. Andy gently lowered his guitar and said, “Let’s take five?”

Laura nodded, both of her, but didn’t move from the mics.

For a while, no one spoke. Emily went to the bar and poured herself a glass of water, then made herself busy tuning the bass. Marissa busied herself with sheet music, pretending not to see the tears threatening to spill down Laura’s cheeks.

Andy set his guitar down and walked up to the stage. He didn’t touch her—neither of her—but just stood there, close enough to speak soft.

“Is it the song?” he asked.

Laura shook her head. “No. I mean, yes, but not really. It’s just… a lot.”

Andy nodded, like he understood perfectly.

She said, “I didn’t know you were going to be here.” She tried to keep the edge out of her voice, but failed.

“I didn’t know what you were planning,” he admitted, “but Marissa asked. She thought you’d like it if we did it together. Like before.”

Laura tried to find anger in herself, or annoyance, but there was nothing except the ache. She wanted to sing with him. She wanted to be the version of herself who could stand on stage and not feel like she was stealing something from the other women, from the world. But she couldn’t.

Andy waited, let the silence build, then said: “You know, you don’t have to be perfect. You just have to be you.”

Laura laughed, short and bitter. “That’s the problem. I don’t know which me I’m supposed to be.”

She glanced at Marissa, who watched with careful, blank eyes. She looked at Emily, whose face was kind, but also hungry for approval. She looked at Andy, and found only love, and it made everything worse.

Andy said, “I love you, you know.”

It was simple, and it was true. Both of Laura’s bodies flinched, as if hit.

“I love you, too,” she said, and the words were so raw they didn’t sound like hers. “But I’m so afraid I’m going to hurt you again.”

Andy reached out, caught her hand, and held it. “I know,” he said. “But I’m not. We’re here. We made it.”

She stared at his hand—his real, living hand, so different from the memories—and for a moment she let herself want it.

Behind them, Emily pretended to fiddle with her tuning pegs, and Marissa looked down, deliberately busying herself with her phone.

Andy squeezed her hand, then let go, and stepped back.

“Let’s run it again,” he said to the others, and the whole band shuffled into position.

This time, when Laura sang, she sang for him.

Liesa stood in her studio, surrounded by the riot of her own unfinished work. The sunlight poured through the high windows, catching on glass jars full of brushes and spatters of pigment on the floor. The space was chaos: canvases in every stage of undress, coffee mugs with paint-mottled rims, and a skeleton wearing her old UIC hoodie and a dayglo pair of sunglasses. She’d given up trying to tidy. The mess was the point.

She worked barefoot, the cool wood grain sticky under the balls of her feet, hair shoved up in a messy bun that did nothing to keep the stray wisps from her eyes. She had two palettes balanced at the edge of the easel, one hand wielding a heavy hog bristle, the other using a thumb-worn piece of charcoal to sketch over yesterday’s lines. Her arms were crosshatched with blue and black, the insides of her forearms streaked in cadmium red where she’d wiped her brush. Every few minutes she’d step back, cross her arms, and scowl at the work in progress.

The painting was big: five feet tall, three across, dominating the room with its saturated ****. On the canvas, three bodies were tangled together in an impossible knot—two female, one more ambiguous, all muscle and curve and twisting motion. The figures struggled, reached, sometimes merged, sometimes pulled apart. The faces were unfinished, except one at the center, which was hers: not a self-portrait in the careful way, but in the fierce, hungry set of the jaw, the hint of a smile that didn’t care if you liked it or not.

Liesa liked working at this scale. You had to be bold. You couldn’t dither. There was no space for doubt.

She worked in flurries, her brain running a hundred miles ahead of her hand. Some days the images came easy, sliding out of her head like eels. Today was harder. She kept thinking about Andy—his crooked grin, the soft way he spoke her name—and then, suddenly, about Sam. The way Sam made her laugh, the way her hands felt on Liesa’s hips, how quickly they’d become a pair.

She mixed another batch of color, fingers flying. The painting changed, the blue shadows giving way to a creamy wash, the tension in the figures turning into something more tender, less about struggle and more about reach.

When she stepped back, she saw the old her in the top left corner: sharp, angular, almost ugly with need. But at the center, her own face was looser, softer, as if it was just remembering how to smile. She liked that.

A voice in her head—her mother’s, maybe—told her to rein it in. Don’t show too much. Don’t let them see. But the brush in her hand didn’t listen, it just kept making bigger and brighter moves.

Someone knocked, and she ignored it. She worked for another hour, adding layer after layer, until sweat trickled down her spine and her arm ached from the effort. At one point, she caught herself laughing out loud at nothing, just the absurd joy of having paint under her nails and sunlight on her shoulders and a future that didn’t feel like a trap.

When she finally stopped, she was breathless, flecks of pigment peppering her face and neck. She studied the painting, and for the first time in a long while, she didn’t want to throw it out the window.

She saw herself, and Andy, and Sam, all knotted together but not fighting anymore. There was a story here, and she was in the center of it, finally, no longer a side character in her own life.

She wiped her hands on her shorts, feeling the grainy texture, and grinned at the mess. Then she went to the big window, pulled it open as far as it would go, and let the fresh air in, the smell of ocean and possibility.

She wanted to show it to Sam, see the look on her face. Maybe she’d even invite Andy, if she could get the courage to ask.

Liesa let herself flop onto the threadbare sofa, staring up at the painting. She felt, for the first time in weeks, like she was exactly where she belonged.

Tomorrow she’d finish the piece. Today, she just wanted to sit in the sun and know that she was whole.

Chloe watched them all file through the doors, one after another, her own heart tap-dancing against her ribs. Riley led the way, boots silent on the polished tile, followed by Sam in a battered old hoodie and pajama pants, and then Myra, who seemed to be navigating the world with her cane and her empathic sight and her twitching fox ears set to maximum sensitivity. Norah brought up the rear, her heels echoing with every step, an extra three inches of attitude compensating for the hunch of her shoulders.

Chloe tried to play it cool, but she was so wired she could barely walk straight. She’d spent all morning getting the house ready, setting out the little touches for each room: the tangle of fleece blankets in the den for Riley, the new set of colored dice on the game table for Sam, the sound machine in Myra’s corner (pre-programmed to ocean, not static), and the decadent breakfast spread in the kitchen for Norah.

They weren’t all here yet, her family, such as it was. But this was a start.

She felt herself flush as Riley did a slow circuit of the foyer, running one hand along the old wooden banister and the other along the row of hooks by the door. “So this is it,” Riley said, voice soft, as if afraid the house might shatter under loud words.

Chloe nodded, then realized Riley probably wasn’t looking at her. “Yeah. This is it. Home of Held Tomorrows.” She winced at her own cheesiness, but Sam let out a low whistle.

“Holy crap, Chlo. This place is nuts. When did you even have time to do all this?”

Chloe grinned, warmth blooming in her chest. “Arabella said I could have whatever I wanted, so I just… asked for everything.” She shrugged, hoping they’d see it as a joke. “It was either this or a bouncy castle.”

Riley snorted, then moved on, the rest of them trailing in her wake like a pod of very skeptical dolphins. They poked their heads into the kitchen—Norah’s jaw dropped at the sight of the stocked fridge and the new coffee bar, complete with imported beans—and then through the library (Sam’s eyes went big at the wall of graphic novels) and the game room. Myra was the last to enter each room, her tail flicking with every new sensory detail.

Finally, Chloe led them to the far end of the main hall, where the sunroom spilled light over the carpet and a big window overlooked the fruit trees outside. “I thought we could hang out in here for a while,” Chloe said. “If you want.”

Riley slumped into a beanbag, her whole body deflating at once. “God, yes.” She looked so tired Chloe wanted to tuck a blanket around her and never let go. Instead, she just hovered, trying not to stare.

Norah gravitated to the kitchen, rummaging until she found a mug and filled it with espresso so strong it made Chloe’s eyes water from two rooms away. Sam zeroed in on the board games, her hands flying across the boxes as she inventoried the stash.

Chloe turned to Myra, who stood perfectly still, her head cocked as if listening to the bones of the house. “Are you okay?” Chloe whispered.

Myra’s tail twitched, and she smiled, a little crooked. “It’s beautiful here, Chloe. It’s like… it’s like the house has its own emotions. I wish you could see.”

Chloe nodded, relieved, then said, “There’s a… a sensory room, just for you, if you want to try it.” She blushed, wishing she could disappear.

Myra’s smile grew. “I would like that.”

They made their way down the hallway, past the nursery and the double doors to the great hall, and found the sensory room. Chloe opened the door, and immediately the faint scent of orange blossom spilled into the hall. Inside, the floor was covered with thick mats and low beanbags, the walls hung with acoustic panels in soothing blue. There was a wall of shoji screens filtering the sunlight, and a sound machine on a low table.

Myra stepped inside, then stopped dead. “There’s a weird door in the wall,” she said, tail bristling.

Chloe blinked. “A door?” She glanced at the far side of the room. There, plain as day, was a second door—elegant dark wood, flush with the wall, and utterly unremarkable except that it hadn’t existed yesterday.

Myra approached it, running her fingers over the seam. “Where does this lead?” she asked.

Chloe shook her head, then realized Myra couldn’t see the gesture. “I… I didn’t put it there.” She shivered, goosebumps prickling her arms. “I swear.”

Myra tilted her head, as if considering whether to believe her. Then she shrugged, the movement as delicate as a cat’s. “Should we open it?” She held out her cane, ready to tap the doorknob.

Sam poked her head in, holding a box of caramel corn. “What’s up?”

“Myra found a secret door,” Chloe said, unable to keep the excitement (and the nerves) out of her voice.

Sam handed the popcorn to Myra, who accepted it with a little bow, then squared her shoulders. “I’ll open it.”

Riley appeared behind them, eyes dark with curiosity. “Wait.” She stepped up, nudging Sam aside, then unwound a thick cord of her own hair and used it to pull the handle, holding the others a safe distance back.

The door swung open with a sigh.

On the other side was a hallway. A long one, lined with black stone, veined with gold. The air was damp and warm, and from the far end came the unmistakable trickle of water.

Myra sniffed, her face going soft with recognition. “It’s the House of Quiet Waters,” she whispered, as if the words might wake something.

Chloe’s mouth dropped open. “What?”

Sam peeked around the door, eyes wide. “That’s not possible. Is it?” She looked at Chloe. “You sure you didn’t—?”

Chloe shook her head, heart thudding. “No. I swear. I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t even know about it.”

Norah appeared in the doorway, mug cradled in both hands. “Somebody explain to me why there’s a Japanese bathhouse in your sensory room?”

Riley didn’t say anything. She just stared down the black stone corridor, eyes narrowed, as if measuring the distance.

Myra took a step forward, tail swishing. “It’s the real one. My Sanctuary.” Her voice was so certain no one questioned it.

Chloe hesitated, then stepped inside, feeling the strangeness tingle up her spine. The air in the corridor was different—not just wetter, but thicker, heavier. The further they walked, the more Chloe felt the hush. It was a silence that hummed in her teeth, and she saw the way it affected Myra, the way she moved more freely, her whole body relaxing as she entered.

They followed Myra down the hall, and there Myra stood, eyes closed, face turned to the ceiling. She was smiling.

Chloe watched, amazed. “You’re happy,” she whispered, not meaning to say it out loud.

Myra turned, and her smile was pure sunlight. “Yes. This is where I feel happiest.” She ran her fingers over the gold seams in the floor, then turned back to Chloe. “Thank you.”

Chloe blinked, overwhelmed. “You’re welcome, but… I didn’t do this.” She looked at the others, seeking confirmation.

Sam shrugged, but her eyes were thoughtful. “Maybe the house just knows what people need,” she said. “Or maybe it’s a glitch.”

Norah grunted. “If this is a glitch, it’s the best one I’ve seen.”

Riley said nothing. She just touched the wall, then turned and walked back the way they’d come, as if she’d seen enough.

They followed her, a little awed, a little uneasy. When they returned to the sensory room, Riley walked straight through to the den and shut herself in. The others settled in the kitchen, but Chloe was restless.

She slipped after Riley, finding the den door closed but not locked. She knocked, then opened it a crack. “Hey,” she said.

Riley sat on the floor, leaning against the couch. Her head was tipped back, and her eyes were closed. She looked more tired than ever, but there was a peace to her expression Chloe hadn’t seen before.

Chloe hesitated. “Are you okay?”

Riley smiled, slow and soft. “Yeah. It’s just…” She waved a hand. “A lot.”

Chloe stepped in, sitting beside her. She didn’t say anything, just waited.

There was a pause. Then Riley, still looking at the ceiling, said, “You know there’s another door in here, right?”

Chloe blinked. “What?”

Riley gestured behind her, toward a stretch of wallpaper near the window. There, if you looked close, was a faint vertical seam—barely more than a suggestion.

Chloe got up, went to it, and pressed her palm flat. It moved, swinging open into a new space.

On the other side was the start of a dirt path. Sun filtered through tangled branches, and the air was thick with the smell of green and river mud.

Chloe’s heart stuttered. “The Walk of Remembrance,” she whispered.

Riley looked at her, one eyebrow raised. “I think your house is connecting everyone’s Sanctuaries together. Whether you want it to or not.”

Chloe stared at the new door, then at Riley. “Why would it do that?”

Riley smiled, the tiredness softening to something ****. “Maybe because that’s what families do,” she said. “Even the ones that start out weird.”

Chloe sat back down, her thoughts spinning. She felt a little scared, but also… proud. Maybe this was what she’d been working for, all along: a place that could hold every version of a person, and every story, no matter how strange.

She glanced at Riley, who had drifted off, head tipped back, hair fanned out behind her like a red-black halo. In sleep, she looked almost weightless.

Chloe let the hush settle over her, and for once, it didn’t feel empty at all.

The Sky Archive always made Emi feel a little off-balance, like she’d taken one too many antihistamines and lost the thread of gravity. She climbed the spiral stairs, one hand on the rail for reassurance, and felt the old flutter of nerves as she stepped onto the glass landing. The whole place looked like it had been pieced together from the bones of greenhouses and spaceships and a library that never learned to stop growing. Books and scrolls hung in midair, sometimes spiraling slowly from one shelf to another before settling, always in some new arrangement.

Claire was waiting for her at a sunlit reading desk, notebook open, cat tail curled around the leg of her chair. She looked up as Emi approached, the expression behind her glasses sharp but, this morning, almost eager.

Thanks for coming, Claire wrote in her notebook, then turned it so Emi could read.

Emi blinked, then smiled. “Mildred said you wanted to talk. About the diary, I think?”

Claire nodded, then patted the chair beside her. Emi sat, careful not to bump anything that looked important, and glanced around. “It’s bigger than I remember,” she said, “or maybe I’m just more awake this time.”

Claire nodded again, then wrote, It grows on you. She tapped the notebook, then continued, Do you remember the journal you found, last time you visited?

Emi nodded. “Kind of? I remember it was in a weird language.”

Provençal, Claire wrote, underlining it twice. But I’ve translated a lot. Do you want to know what it says?

Emi hesitated. Part of her wanted to run. Another part—the one that kept her awake at night, filling sketchbooks with impossible faces and inked-over obsessions—needed to know. “Yes,” she said. “Please.”

Claire didn’t answer right away. She uncapped a fountain pen, the kind with a nib so sharp it looked like it could draw blood, and wrote with deliberate slowness:

Can I ask you a weird side question first? You said your Dad was French. Why is your last name Korean?

Emi felt a twinge of embarrassment, her own French side suddenly heavy on her tongue. “My dad’s last name was—well, it’s embarrassing.” She made a face. “It sounds like a slur.”

Claire set down the pen, eyes keen behind her glasses. She scribbled:

Do I remember correctly that it was Connard?

Emi blinked, then giggled in spite of herself. “Yeah, that’s why they gave me Mom’s name. Dad said it would be easier at school.” She grinned, then looked at Claire, suddenly wary. “You’re not going to psychoanalyze that, are you?”

Claire’s lips quirked; she shook her head, then wrote, Not my department. Next line: Do you know where the name Connard comes from?

Emi shrugged, all six hands splaying in a little fireworks of helplessness. “Not a clue. I always figured it was just… what it sounded like. You know, a guy who’s kind of an asshole.” She laughed, but her ears went pink. “Why?”

Claire leaned forward, eyes bright with excitement, and scribbled in the notebook: It might derive from the medieval name Conhard. She tapped the page twice, underlining the last word, then angled the book so Emi could see. The knight in the diary was Jaufre de Conhard.

It landed with a thud. Emi’s smile flickered, then grew uncertain. “Wait, seriously? That was… my ancestor?”

Claire shrugged, palms up, then wrote, It makes sense. Both the name, and that the diary was in your section of Unlived Lives. That’s how this place works.

Emi blinked. She looked around the Archive, at the shelves that were never quite still, the books that seemed to rotate in and out of reality like dancers swapping partners. “That’s so weird. So, is it really my life, or someone else’s? Does it even matter?”

Claire uncapped her pen again, wrote, Maybe both. She hesitated, then added, The version in the diary never found what he was searching for. He married a woman from Provence, and had a child. His modern-day descendant, who compiled the family history in the back of the diary, is Emilie Connard.

It took Emi a beat to realize why the name was familiar. “That’s… basically my name. Just Frenchified.” She gave a little nervous giggle. “So in this other life, I would have been a brunette with a baguette, instead of…” She glanced at her arms, then, with a mock-dramatic sweep, “…whatever this is.”

Claire nodded, as if she was only partly buying the joke. She wrote, That’s the version that didn’t happen. In the real timeline, Jaufre found what he was looking for. Or rather, he found her.

Emi felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck. She leaned in, curiosity overwhelming her discomfort. “Who was she?” Emi’s middle hands fidgeted with her sleeve, an old habit from a hundred nervous mornings before school.

Claire wrote, Anne. Dusky-skinned. Beautiful, wild, and nothing like anyone he’d met before. They never married, which was scandalous, but she gave him a son before she vanished. Jaufre raised the boy as his own. The rest of his family line traces back to that child.

Emi let that percolate for a minute. “So in real life, I’m descended from a guy who slept with a mysterious hottie, then got dumped?”

Claire snorted, the tiniest puff of air, and nodded. She wrote, You could say that. She hesitated, as if weighing whether to keep going, then wrote, I got the real diary, with Arabella’s help. She found it for me. I'm almost finished with the translation, then I will give it to you, if you'd like. It says Anne used to leave Jaufre little gifts—clay statuettes.

Claire 8900 BP - 1000 BP = 7900 BP

Emi’s stomach dropped. She remembered, with perfect clarity, the shelf above her grandfather’s bed. The ancient figures—smooth, anonymous, hands pressed to their chests—baked from some reddish-brown clay. He never let anyone touch them. Sometimes he’d pray, just a few whispered words, never in French, never in Korean. “Wait,” Emi said, her breath catching. “What did the figurines look like?”

Claire nodded, like she’d expected the question. She reached into her canvas bag and produced a sketchbook, flipping to a page she’d prepared in advance. On it was a meticulous drawing, probably done in the last hour—an upright clay figure, stylized, breasts and hips exaggerated, arms at the sides.

Emi’s breath froze. “That’s—my grandfather had a statue just like that. Like, exactly. My Mom said it was an old family thing, and that it was just for luck. Are you telling me it’s from the Middle Ages?”

Claire nodded, then underlined a line from the diary entry she’d translated: He believed Anne was a spirit or minor goddess. He was almost excommunicated for this belief, and only narrowly avoided it by burying the statuettes. His son found them, dug them out, and started the tradition. The figurines were her way of saying she was still with him, and his descendants, even after she left.

A weird tingling sensation ran through all of Emi’s hands at once. The trembling wasn’t just physical, though—something was unraveling in the space behind her breastbone, a thread wound tight and held there for years, now yanked hard by a single word: Anna.

She stared at the sketch Claire had set on the table, its charcoal lines precise and ancient at the same time. The figure’s arms were pressed to the sides, not a gesture of submission but of patience, maybe even anticipation. On impulse, Emi reached out and ran one trembling fingertip along the outline, as if the ink could settle whatever was fizzing inside her. “So I’m…” The words got stuck in her throat, enough so that her first attempt came out in a voice that sounded like it belonged to someone else. “So I’m the product of… what, a divine booty call?”

Claire’s eyebrows shot up; she almost laughed, then caught herself. She wrote, Not exactly. But you are descended from Anne. Which is the French version of Anna. And we do happen to know an Anna who is dusky-skinned, possibly a goddess, and might have taken a surprising interest in you.

There was a beat of silence. Then, like a slide clicking into place, everything snapped into sharper focus: Anna, the dusky-skinned goddess who called Arabella ‘sister,’ the one who’d shown up at the hotel with a presence that seemed to bend the laws of physics around her. Anna, who, despite knowing Emi for only a handful of days, had always looked at her like a proud parent at a school play—an odd warmth tinged with the burden of impossible expectations.

Emi tried to remember her first encounter with Anna in the hotel. It had been at the first beach party, everyone already a little drunk and a lot overwhelmed. Anna had floated in, all wild hair and predatory grace, scattering attention like confetti. Emi remembered asking her if she was a goddess, and Anna deflecting the question, although Emi didn’t remember the exact words she’d used. She remembered the look, however: a look like being picked for a team she didn’t know she was trying out for. The rest of that evening had been a blur, but that moment had burned itself into Emi’s memory, even if she’d never had a good explanation for it. Now she did. Anna had been checking up on her bloodline.

Emi’s memory slid sideways, back to childhood: her grandfather’s room, the way he’d touch the little clay figures on the shelf before bed, sometimes bowing his head in what looked like prayer. She remembered asking her mother about them, being told they were just “old things” from the Connard side of the family, a relic of some forgotten ancestor. She suddenly remembered, too, the recurring dream that she never quite seemed to remember when awake—standing on the coast at dusk, with someone dark and beautiful standing nearby, calling Emi’s name.

Across the table, Claire was watching her closely, something like empathy in her angular features. Emi wondered if she saw her own brand of weirdness reflected back at her.

“Oh my God,” Emi whispered, half to herself, half to the archive that seemed to be holding its breath around her. “That’s why she’s always showing up. She’s been watching me this whole time.”

Claire nodded, then wrote, I don't know if you were always meant to be here. But I think Anna has always been looking out for you.

The line landed with a gravity that was almost physical. Emi looked down at her arms, at the pale skin stretched thin over blue veins, the scattering of freckles, the two tiny scars on the back of her wrist from a long-ago playground incident. All those years she’d felt like a grafted branch on her own family tree—a hybrid, a transplant, a story that didn’t quite fit into the outline her parents and teachers and friends had written for her. Now, abruptly, she was the punchline to a joke that started in the Middle Ages and ended in her skin.

She remembered her grandfather’s funeral, the way her father had quietly collected the clay statues when no one else was looking, but her mother had secretly pocketed one. That night, Emi had found her in the kitchen, sitting in the dark, the figurine cradled in her palm. Her mother had looked up, then shook her head with a little laugh. “He always said I was a stubborn woman. Like the one who started it all.” Her mother had always been close to her father’s side of the family, despite the cultural differences. She’d never explained what that meant, and Emi had never pressed. Now, she wished she had.

“What do I do with this?” Emi asked, voice shaking. The question wasn’t rhetorical. She genuinely didn’t know how to rearrange her life around this new knowledge.

Claire’s answer was gentle, but underlined three times for emphasis: Whatever you want.

Something about the way she wrote it made Emi want to cry.

They sat with the silence for a while, the only sounds the creak of the glass building and the low hum of the wind outside. Books and scrolls drifted lazily from shelf to shelf, sometimes rotating midair before nestling into new spaces. It was calming, in a way, to watch the archive reshuffle itself, as if the universe was reminding her that stories could always be retold.

Emi looked up at Claire, her throat suddenly tight. “Are you sure? That’s really what the diary says?” She didn’t trust her voice not to shake, but it was already too late for pride.

Claire nodded, her face a study in careful seriousness, and slid a dog-eared printout across the desk. The translation was annotated in the margins with neat, tiny cat-ear doodles and question marks, a contrast to the solemnity of the matter at hand.

Emi scanned the opening lines, reading the words of the long-dead knight who had been her ancestor:

Anne is the night, and the moon, and the curve of the river at dusk. I am not enough for her, but she loves me anyway. She sends me her heart, shaped in clay. I will keep it safe.

She read the line three more times, then let her eyes drift closed. It felt as if something inside her had been gently, but irreversibly, upended. For so long, she’d been obsessed with the idea of being a missing piece, a half-formed story. Suddenly she was not just a part of the narrative, but the reason it had survived. She wondered if she should be proud, or terrified.

“So,” Emi said, blinking hard, trying to clear the sting from her eyes. “Does this make me, like, part goddess?”

The light in the Banquet Hall was softer than usual, gold pooled thick over the white linen, catching on the glassware and silver and the glinting little accents in the women’s hair and ears. All around the room, voices lapped and receded, each table its own small island of story, but the current always returned to the same place: to Andy at the center, and the wild, chaotic orbit of the women he loved.

Samson Drei sat at Andy’s feet, a blue-and-white wedge of pure happiness. His nose twitched with every passing plate, eyes wide with the kind of adoration Andy’s childhood dog had only ever reserved for fresh laundry and spilled hot dogs. Andy had saved him a bit of roast, and the corgi gnawed at it with grave concentration, stopping only to look up at Andy and telegraph a gratitude so cosmic it bordered on spiritual. The moment the bone was gone, Samson stood, shook himself with an audible whap of loose skin, and began a stately lap of the table.

First, he paused at Dawn’s knees, where the bunny-eared woman was engaged in a duel of napkin-folding with Emi, the latter surreptitiously using her extra appendages under the table. Dawn bent low, giggled, and scritched Samson behind the ears; the corgi’s tail thumped hard enough to rattle the water glasses. Emi was next—she gave him a bow, a solemn nod, and one of her six hands extended a single grape, which Samson accepted like an altar boy receiving communion. Then he was on to Claire, perched between Erin and Liesa, the cat-eared librarian half-lost in a running game of notebook tic-tac-toe with Liesa, but pausing to let the corgi sniff her palm, then lick it clean.

By the time Samson reached Myra, the fox-tailed doctor was already petting him, using just two fingers but with the kind of precise, needy affection that bespoke a childhood of no pets and no softness. He lingered on her, perhaps sensing something unique in the aurora of her presence; when she smiled, it looked like something that had to be coaxed out by hand, like honey from the bottom of a jar. Marissa was next; she barely glanced down from her conversation with Chloe, but her hand slid down to brush the dog’s back, slow and sure.

Riley, in her battered denim jacket, let the dog scramble up into her lap for a second, then deposited him back on the ground with a careful pat. Samson wagged his thanks, then completed the circuit by returning to Andy, who greeted him with a discreet piece of sausage and a whisper: “Good boy.” Samson settled in, back pressed firm against Andy’s ankle, an anchor in a sea of shifting allegiances.

Andy surveyed the table, trying to memorize everything at once. Dawn, ears perked, listening to Chloe tell a story about her mother and the time she tried to hide a litter of stray kittens in a hollowed-out mattress. Chloe, hands animated, her words tumbling over themselves, every few seconds checking to see if anyone was actually laughing. Norah, impeccably poised in a tailored blouse and sky-high heels, leaning in to debate with Marissa over the correct way to pronounce “tagine.” Erin, naked except for shoes and a defiant ponytail, glancing at Andy with a heat that set his skin tingling every time their eyes met; every so often she would catch his gaze and go instantly, helplessly slick, her nipples tightening and her cheeks going mint-green with arousal. And through it all, the constant cross-talk—questions, jokes, puns, the low thrum of a family that had not yet decided it was a family, but was well on its way to acting like one.

The food, as always, was impossible: grilled snapper, saffron rice studded with dates and nuts, salads so fresh the leaves still glistened. Chloe ate with both delicacy and hunger, alternating bites of her own meal with little morsels filched from Dawn’s plate. Liesa, who had started the evening with a glass of wine, was already tipsy enough that she was flirting in three languages at once, somehow landing every comment with equal parts charm and honest affection. Claire and Emi tag-teamed Andy with an elaborate question about which piece of myth or folklore he’d want to actually live through; the debate ended with Emi proposing, deadpan, “We should all go as a group to the next world. See if anyone notices us.”

At the far end of the table, Emily and Myra were engaged in a lively back-and-forth about the merits of different kinds of cheese, with Emily’s hair working overtime to keep her decency as she reached for the fondue pot. Myra, always precise, corrected her on a minor point about brie, then blushed as soon as she heard her own words. “Sorry, that was a little much,” she said, voice barely above the ambient noise. Emily just grinned, then offered her a chunk of bread, as if it were the most natural gesture in the world.

Laura’s two selves wore black tonight: one with hair in a single ponytail, the other loose and wild. She moved in perfect sync—reaching for glasses, taking bites at the same instant, even shifting in her chairs as one. Every so often, she would look at Marissa, and then just as quickly look away.

Andy felt the anticipation building even before the meal was half over. There was a rhythm to these evenings now—a way the energy pooled and grew, as if the hotel itself was waiting for the next surprise. At some point, Mildred swept through the Hall, refilling the pitchers with practiced grace.

As dessert made its way to the table—towering tiramisu for most, a bowl of fresh fruit for Norah—Marissa set down her fork, folded her napkin, and rose to stand. At once, the room went a shade quieter. Even the dog straightened up, ears pricked. Marissa’s voice, when she spoke, was a touch above her normal register: not loud, but meant for every corner of the hall.

“I know many of you have received my invitations already,” she began. There was a flutter of interest down the table: Riley leaned forward, Chloe’s lips parted in a silent “oh,” and one of the Lauras cocked her head, both eyebrows raised. “But I wanted to take a moment to ask, formally, if you would all join us tonight at The 88 Club.” She hesitated, as if weighing the words. “There’s something some of us have been working on for a little while. We’d like to share it with you. It’s nothing formal, but—” she let a genuine, if nervous, smile slip through “—I hope you’ll enjoy it. Please dress nicely.”

There was a tiny beat of silence, and then the table erupted with a dozen questions at once: What is it? Is there dancing? Chloe blurted, “Should we bring cheese?” and the whole end of the table collapsed into giggles.

Marissa just smiled, letting the anticipation do its work.