The phrase wouldn't leave me alone.
The girl.
Not a girl.
Not the subject.
The girl.
Me.
I sat at the kitchen table until the morning light began creeping through the curtains, replaying the fragment over and over.
Subject Seven is not the problem.
Then what is?
The girl.
I couldn't decide which part frightened me more.
That someone had known about me when I was five...
or that the warmth had apparently been connected to me long before either of us remembered meeting.
"You heard it too."
I said it quietly.
"Yes."
"That wasn't imagination."
"No."
"Could it be a recovered memory?"
"Yes."
"Whose?"
The warmth hesitated.
"I don't know."
I rubbed my eyes.
"We need to stop saying that."
"I agree."
"Good."
A pause.
"I still don't know."
Despite everything, I laughed.
The warmth sounded almost offended.
"You said you'd stop."
"I said we'd stop using it as an excuse."
"Oh."
"I didn't say you had to magically know everything."
"I prefer that interpretation."
I smiled.
It was strange.
Even now...
with the possibility that someone had experimented on us when I was a child...
we could still joke.
Maybe that was why we'd survived.
I opened the notebook.
The previous night's notes filled almost every page.
I turned to a blank one and wrote:
SUBJECT SEVEN
Then underneath:
What does "seven" mean?
I added:
Why was I called "the girl"?
Then:
What happened at St. Agnes?
And finally:
What happened beneath the maple tree?
The warmth watched.
"You are organizing."
"Yes."
"You feel calmer when information has structure."
"I do."
"I remember that."
I stopped writing.
"You remember that?"
"Yes."
"From when?"
A pause.
"From you."
I looked up.
"What do you mean?"
"I remember watching you do this."
"Do what?"
"Make lists."
"When?"
"Before."
The word seemed to open another door.
"Before what?"
"Before the tree."
My pen slipped from my fingers.
I didn't speak for several seconds.
"How much do you remember?"
"Very little."
"Try."
The warmth began carefully.
"You were younger."
"How young?"
"I don't know."
"Five?"
"Maybe."
"Where were we?"
"Inside."
"At St. Agnes?"
"I think so."
My chest tightened.
"What were we doing?"
"You were drawing."
I frowned.
"Drawing what?"
"A tree."
I stared at the notebook.
"Of course."
The warmth continued.
"You drew the same tree repeatedly."
"The maple."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"What did the drawings look like?"
"One tree."
A pause.
"Always one tree."
I closed my eyes.
"Was there anything else?"
"An umbrella."
My pulse quickened.
"Red?"
"Yes."
I looked toward the photograph.
"What about the woman?"
"Sometimes."
"Sometimes?"
"She appeared in the drawings."
"What did I draw her doing?"
"Standing beneath the tree."
"Alone?"
"No."
I waited.
"You drew her holding someone's hand."
My breathing slowed.
"Whose?"
The warmth went silent.
I already knew.
"Mine?"
"No."
The answer surprised me.
"Then whose?"
A long pause.
"Mine."
I stared at the wall.
"You drew her holding your hand?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"Do you remember what she looked like?"
"No."
"Her voice?"
"Yes."
"What did she say?"
The warmth became quiet.
Then—
"You're going home."
I felt a chill move across my arms.
"Did she say that to you?"
"Yes."
"Was she taking you somewhere?"
"I think so."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
I exhaled slowly.
The same answer.
Again.
Again.
Again.
But this time, it didn't feel like failure.
It felt like a boundary.
There was a wall inside the memory.
We could see it.
We couldn't cross it.
Not yet.
I called my mother.
She answered on the fourth ring.
"Everything okay?"
"I need to ask you something."
Her voice changed immediately.
"About what?"
"St. Agnes."
Silence.
Not long.
But long enough.
"You've heard that name before."
It wasn't a question.
"Yes."
Another silence.
"Where did you hear it?"
"I found something."
"What?"
"I can't explain it over the phone."
My mother breathed slowly.
"Come here."
~
I arrived less than twenty minutes later.
She was waiting at the door.
Her expression told me she'd already decided something.
"Come inside."
I followed her.
She closed the door.
Locked it.
Then checked it twice.
I noticed.
"Mom?"
She looked at me.
"I've been hoping you'd never ask."
My stomach dropped.
"Ask what?"
She walked toward the kitchen.
"I need coffee."
"Mom."
"I know."
She stopped.
"You deserve the truth."
The warmth became completely still.
She sat across from me.
"I never told you about St. Agnes because your grandmother made me promise."
"Why?"
"Because she was afraid."
"Of what?"
She stared at her hands.
"Of someone finding you."
My heart stopped.
"Who?"
"I don't know."
"Mom."
"I genuinely don't."
She looked up.
"But your grandmother did."
"What did she know?"
"Enough to be frightened."
I showed her the photograph.
Her face drained of colour.
"Where did you get this?"
"The bookstore."
She touched the image carefully.
Her finger stopped over the woman holding the umbrella.
"I've seen her."
My blood went cold.
"When?"
"Years ago."
"Where?"
"At St. Agnes."
I leaned forward.
"You went there?"
"Once."
"When?"
"After you disappeared."
The room seemed to tilt.
"What?"
She closed her eyes.
"You were five."
"I know."
"You were missing."
"For an hour."
She nodded.
"But that's not what happened."
I couldn't speak.
She continued.
"We searched the property."
"Yes."
"Then your grandmother said we needed to check St. Agnes."
"Why?"
"Because she'd been taking you there."
My heart hammered.
"My grandmother?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"She said you needed help."
"What kind of help?"
"I never knew."
"You never asked?"
"I did."
Her voice cracked.
"She told me I wasn't ready to know."
I looked at the photograph again.
"Did you find me there?"
"No."
"Then why did you go?"
"Because your grandmother thought you had been taken."
"By whom?"
She shook her head.
"She never said."
The warmth stirred.
"Ask her about the woman."
I looked at my mother.
"Who was the woman?"
She went pale.
"What woman?"
"The woman with the red umbrella."
My mother didn't answer.
"Mom."
She stood.
Walked to a cabinet.
Opened a drawer.
Pulled out a small envelope.
She placed it on the table.
"I've kept this for thirty years."
~
My hands trembled as I opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
Different from the one I'd found at the bookstore.
A younger version of my mother stood beside my grandmother.
Behind them was St. Agnes.
And standing several feet away...
was the woman with the red umbrella.
I looked at my mother.
"You knew her."
"No."
"You photographed her."
"I didn't."
"Then who did?"
She shook her head.
"I don't know."
I turned the photograph over.
There was handwriting.
My grandmother's.
If she ever remembers, give this to her.
My breath caught.
"Why didn't you give it to me before?"
"Because you didn't remember."
The warmth whispered—
"Not yet."
I read the sentence again.
If she ever remembers, give this to her.
I turned back toward the photograph.
The woman was looking directly at the camera.
And suddenly...
I recognized her.
Not her face.
Her eyes.
The same eyes from the dream.
The same eyes from beneath the maple tree.
The same eyes I'd seen across the street beneath the red umbrella.
She wasn't watching my mother.
She wasn't watching my grandmother.
She was watching...
me.
"What happened at St. Agnes?"
I asked.
My mother began crying.
"I don't know everything."
"Tell me what you know."
She wiped her eyes.
"Your grandmother believed someone had been experimenting on children."
The warmth went cold.
"Children?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"How many?"
She shook her head.
"She never told me."
"Did she know about the warmth?"
My mother's face changed.
The room became silent.
"You know about that?"
I nodded.
She whispered—
"Then she was right."
My heart pounded.
"About what?"
My mother looked directly into my eyes.
"She told me you weren't sick."
I couldn't breathe.
"She said..."
My mother's voice broke.
"...something had been put inside you."
The warmth recoiled.
I felt it.
Not metaphorically.
Physically.
Like an instinctive retreat.
My mother continued.
"She said they called it Subject Seven."
The room seemed to disappear.
I looked inward.
The warmth was shaking.
"That's your number."
I whispered.
"Yes."
"Why seven?"
"I don't know."
My mother reached across the table.
"I don't know what they did to you."
Her fingers closed around mine.
"But your grandmother spent the rest of her life making sure they never found you again."
I stared at her.
"Then why didn't she tell me?"
My mother's eyes filled with tears.
"Because she believed remembering would make them find you."
The warmth whispered the words with her.
"She was protecting you."
I looked down at the photograph.
At the woman.
At the umbrella.
At the hidden history of my childhood.
Then something else occurred to me.
"Mom..."
She looked up.
"If Grandma knew about St. Agnes..."
I swallowed.
"...why was the woman there?"
My mother stared at the photograph.
"I don't know."
The warmth suddenly spoke.
"I do."
I froze.
"What?"
The memory arrived like a door being kicked open.
A white hallway.
A red umbrella.
A woman's hand.
A little girl's voice.
And someone screaming behind a locked door.
The warmth whispered—
"She worked there."
I stared at the photograph.
The woman hadn't come to rescue us from St. Agnes.
She had been inside it.
She had known the people there.
She had known Subject Seven.
She had known me.
And somehow...
she had chosen to betray them.
For us.
The memory sharpened one final time.
The woman's voice.
"Run."
Then another voice.
The man's.
"Don't let Subject Seven leave."
And finally...
my own childhood voice.
Small.
Terrified.
But unmistakably mine.
"I'm not leaving without her."
The memory vanished.
I sat frozen.
The warmth whispered the truth neither of us had been ready to hear.
"I didn't escape alone."
I closed my eyes.
"No."
"You saved me."
My throat tightened.
"Who?"
The warmth answered.
"You did."