"My liberty!" Chloe declares.
She's wearing a raven costume consisting of tights, a beak, and a lot of glitter. The bright light is on her, like the beam of a lighthouse that is frozen in time. Inside the beam, specks of dust, or snowflakes, or maybe ashes, are floating weightlessly in every direction. She can't see or hear anything else, except Rachel.
"Thy liberty?" Rachel echoes. She strikes the stage with the bottom of her staff. "Nay! This most of all I will not grant."
That's not the line, Chloe thinks.
"But thou assured my freedom, didn't thou?" she asks. "Thou wrote a letter, severing our bond."
"The letter… was a ruse… a test… a lie."
"A lie?"
"A ruse. A test. To see how it would feel to let you go. To see how thou react to being hurt. But now I, myself, have been imprisoned."
"How now? You wretch! Thyself? Impris'd? Who holds thee?"
"The same one who confined thee to the pine, from whence I freed thee not three years since. The witch, Sycorax."
"Psycho…what?"
"Sycorax, wench. The witch that killed your dad."
Chloe wakes with a gasp and lies there, sweaty, shivering, regretting something, as the stage light fades, and the room comes into focus. Steph is sleeping with her mouth open on the other bed. It's still dark, the red digits on the alarm clock read 4:36, and for a moment Chloe doesn't know where she is, what day it is, or even what year, if yesterday actually happened yet or if it's going to happen today, if any of it already happened, in fact, or if it's not going to happen for another five months.
At the same time, she's trying to make sure she doesn't forget the thing… The thing somebody said… When they were…
6:15, the clock says.
Nothing else has changed, except there's a glow around the edge of the heavy drapes, and the room is lighter. Light enough now to see the teal and gold theme, which is different from Harbor Inn's maroon and beige.
Dew Drop Inn, Seaside, Oregon.
Monday, May 13.
Monday, October 7, Max Caulfield writes in her diary. This will be the weirdest journal entry I will ever make.
Chloe lifts her arm and stares at the blue bracelet tied around her wrist.
Rachel, she thinks. Rachel in the dark room.
Whatever happened to Rachel was… not related to drugs. She was not kidnapped and murdered by Tommy. She was not kidnapped and murdered by Mark Jefferson and Nathan Prescott. What happened to her was something… weird. Supernatural.
She says this, articulates it, in her mind. She knows, fucked up as it is, it has to be true, both because they found not a single clue that would point to that goddamn Occam's Razor, and because if it's not true, then Rachel is dead and buried somewhere, and that… No. Fuck that.
And yet, despite this, despite all the other weird shit that's been happening, she still finds it hard to come to terms with. Fucking supernatural. On the plus side, Rachel is alive some place and, therefore, can be found and saved. On the minus, she's gotta be insane to believe that. Too bad Max isn't here to tell her how much change she has in her pockets.
She gets out of bed and takes a shower, which doesn't wash away doubts. When she comes out, Steph is still asleep, though her mouth is closed now.
I guess normal people need more than 3 hours of sleep, she thinks. Who knew?
She steps outside and lights a cigarette. The wind is crisp in her wet hair. The cigarette smoke is crisp in her lungs. Fog flows like cold cream down the slopes of the western hills. The sound of a distant horn wafts in from the sea.
The Indian is still parked by the dumpster, so Tommy didn't take this chance to disappear in the middle of the night. And since he didn't run, he's probably going to be starting work pretty soon. They better be away by then. Before they can run into him. Last night the goodbyes were awkward enough.
"So... good luck…" he'd said.
The memory of it makes her toss the cig and head back in. Steph doesn't wake up still. Chloe lies down on the bed, pulls out her phone and searches for "Ignis Corvusque book." Apparently, no such book exists. Even though she distinctly remembers seeing it in two different places three years ago.
She translates the words from Latin, separately. "Ignis" means fire. "Corvusque" doesn't return a meaning, but with a bit of sleuthing she finds "corvus," which is "raven." Suffix "que" means "and." So… "raven and fire." It sounds familiar, but what does it mean? Why is it important enough to produce not one, but two separate false memories? And why Latin?
Eventually, she can't be alone with it anymore, so she says, "Hey, Steph. You awake?"
Steph stirs and pushes herself up.
"Huh? What?" she asks, incredulous.
"Just thought you said something."
"No…" she groans, falling back down on her pillow.
"Well, might as well get up, or we'll miss the free breakfast."
"5 minutes…"
Chloe feels bad and lets her sleep. She goes to the cafeteria and grinds down a bowl of Skweekinax, then fills a foam plate with waffles, sausage and eggs, drowns all of it in syrup and take it back to the room, which gives Steph about 25 minutes instead of 5. Steph arises vaguely grateful. She brews coffee in the room coffee maker, showers while the carafe fills, then eats soggy, lukewarm, blindingly sweet food, while Chloe reveals to her the fruits of her morning labors.
"Raven and the fire," she repeats. "Wait, didn't Tommy's aunt mention something like that?"
"She did? I knew it sounded familiar, but hell if I remember who said what."
"Yeah, she was listing the things from the native lore that she knew, which, to her, I guess, were, like, the absolute elementary basics, because she was listing those to show us how she didn't know anything about shaman stuff."
"And she said raven and the fire?"
"I'm pretty sure she did."
"Well, shit. I guess we're going back to Hamlet."
Fucking forsooth.
As they pack up and go out, they see Tommy loitering around in sight of the truck, pretending to maintain the grounds. Chloe doesn't suppress a sigh, as he spots them and saunters over.
"Listen, I just want to say I'm sorry I lied at first," he says.
"OK," Chloe says, taking hold of the door handle. She pulls the door open and climbs inside.
"Dad," Chloe asks, "did you ever lie to me? I don't mean telling me that ashtray I made for mom wasn't a piece of crap. I mean like, really lied to me about something that might hurt me to know?"
"What do you think?" William Price asks.
"I think you didn't. You didn't have to. You didn't right?"
"Ugh, I just don't know anymore. That's what makes it so horrible. James Amber, the perfect dad, and James Amber, the scheming asshole, would act exactly the same around Rachel."
"I suppose everyone lies about big things. I mean, the stuff mom doesn't know about me... So you probably lied, too."
"I just thought there was nothing to be done, you know?" Tommy Hill says. "And now…"
"And now what?" Chloe snaps, disoriented from the flashback, annoyed by not being able to place it, exactly.
"Now I see you and think maybe… something can be done. Could be done… Maybe… I should have done more."
"Considering you did fuck all," she replies, "yeah you should have done more."
Then she slams the door shut and starts the engine, staring straight ahead. Steph is still out there with him.
"If there's anything you need," he says.
"We're actually going back to see your aunt," Steph tells him. "We need to ask her about raven and the fire."
"Raven and the fire? Why?"
"That's what 'Ignis Corvusque' means, from Chloe's vision."
In the cabin of the truck, Chloe rolls her eyes and leans back against the seat.
"It may be a clue," Stephs goes on to say.
"You don't need to go all the way to Tally for that," Tommy says. "Every native kid knows that story."
"Meaning you know it?"
"At least the Tillamook version."
"Chloe, listen to this!"
Reluctantly, without looking at either of them, Chloe rolls down the window.
"I don't know how this is going to help, but basically the story goes like this. One day, the Raven looked to the East and saw a column of smoke rising to the sky. He wondered what it was and went to look, and he found a tribe of these strange people living on the other side of the mountains, and the people had fire, which he had never seen before. He wanted the fire for himself, so he kidnapped the daughter of the fire people's chief and hid her away in his forest. When the chief found out where his daughter was, and wanting her to return safely, he offered gold and precious stones as ransom, but the Raven demanded fire instead. This made the chief laugh, because fire was a very cheap thing to the fire people, so he gladly accepted. The daughter was released and the Raven got the fire, which he had all to himself this side of the mountains for a long time after that, until he, himself, was imprisoned and had to give the fire to the Tillamook for them to free him. And that's how the Tillamook got the fire."
He says the last sentence with a theatrical flourish.
"That's it?" Steph asks.
"That's the story. I mean, it goes into more detail about the kidnapping ploy and whatnot, but this is the gist of it. Like I said, I have no idea how it's supposed to help you."
"Who imprisoned the raven?" Chloe asks suddenly.
"Uh… the owl."
"Why?"
"Well, that goes back to the whole Thunderbird and the Whale thing."
"Wait, Thunderbird and the Whale?" Steph repeats. "We saw that somewhere. Chloe, wasn't that on Rachel's laptop?"
"Fucking great. It's the Fairy Tale Hour. Fine, tell us about the bird and the fish."
"I don't know any actual stories about them, but the main thing is: Thunderbird and the Whales are old enemies and are supposed to be constantly fighting for control of this land. Since before the first people came here. I guess I do know one story. It's about how Arcadia Bay was formed. Supposedly, during a battle, the Thunderbird picked up the Whale and dropped him from great height, which created the bay. The Whale survived, though, and they've been fighting ever since. Each one of them has an army of allies. So, the Raven is an ally of the Thunderbird, and the Owl is from the Whale camp. That's why they don't like each other."
"So what does that have to do with Rachel?"
"Beats the hell out of me. They're just stories. Some life allegory or something in them. A moral. A lesson."
There is a silence about a minute long.
"Let's go, Steph," Chloe finally says.
"Thank you," Steph says to the man.
Chloe waits for her to climb into the truck, switches into gear. Tommy is still there, outside her door, so before she lets go of the brake, she turns to him and asks, "How did the Tillamook free him?"
"Huh?"
"How did they free the raven? What did they do?"
"That I don't know," he says. "It wasn't in the story. Stormed the castle, maybe. Picked the cell lock."
"Does owl have a castle?"
"A nest? A hole in the tree? I don't know, Chloe. They aren't real."
"Is the dark room real?"
He looks away, shakes his head.
"I… I don't know. I don't know what they did."
Chloe lets the pedal go. The truck creaks and rolls away from Tommy Hill, before he wishes them another good luck or some shit.