The Woman Who Wore My Face

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Woman Who Wore My Face

“Welcome back, Doctor Vale.”

The words continued to echo in my head long after the machine went silent.

Doctor.

Vale.

Me.

I stared at my hands, waiting for them to become someone else’s. Waiting for the blood I remembered to appear beneath my fingernails. Waiting for the woman I had been before I woke in that stone room to crawl out of my skin and explain what kind of monster I had become.

Nothing happened.

My hands remained clean.

That somehow made everything worse.

“Don’t touch me.”

Adrian had been reaching for my shoulder. He stopped immediately, his fingers hovering between us before he slowly lowered his hand.

“Elena—”

“I told you not to call me that.”

Pain crossed his face.

“Your name is Elena.”

“No.” I swallowed. “That was the name of the woman who built a machine to bring the dead back to life. The woman who chose you over Silas. The woman who apparently decided that death was a problem she could solve by making everyone suffer forever.”

My voice broke on the last word.

Adrian said nothing.

I hated him for that.

I hated that he didn’t argue, didn’t tell me I was wrong, didn’t offer some convenient explanation that would allow me to keep believing I was a victim.

He simply stood there, looking at me as though he had watched this exact moment happen a hundred times.

Perhaps he had.

“How many times?” I asked.

His brow furrowed.

“How many times have I remembered?”

He looked towards the black device on the dressing table.

“Enough.”

“That’s not a number.”

“No.”

“Then give me one.”

His silence stretched between us.

“Thirty-seven,” he finally said.

The room seemed to shrink.

“Thirty-seven times?”

“Thirty-seven recorded restorations.”

“And the unrecorded ones?”

Adrian’s eyes lifted to mine.

I laughed without humour.

“Oh, there are unrecorded ones.”

He looked away.

I wanted to hit him. I wanted to scream until the walls cracked. I wanted to take his face between my hands and demand that he tell me everything, because some horrible part of me still believed that if he explained it carefully enough, I might understand.

Instead, I backed away from him.

“Stay away from me.”

“Elena, you need to understand—”

“I need to understand nothing from you.”

The door behind us opened.

Silas stood in the doorway, holding a small glass bottle. His expression had changed since the machine had called me Doctor Vale. He no longer looked like a frightened young man who had been trapped in a wardrobe.

He looked tired.

Old in a way that had nothing to do with his face.

“She’s remembered,” he said.

Adrian nodded.

“Some of it.”

Silas looked at me.

“Then we have less time than I thought.”

I wiped my cheeks angrily.

“Less time for what?”

He held up the bottle.

“For you to decide whether you want the rest of your memories back.”

I stared at the clear liquid inside.

“What is it?”

“Something that will help you remember.”

Adrian moved between us.

“No.”

Silas’s expression hardened.

“You don’t get to make that decision for her.”

“I know what those memories will do to her.”

“And I know what happens if she doesn’t recover them.”

They stared at each other with the kind of hatred that suggested they had been having the same argument for decades.

Perhaps centuries.

I stepped between them.

“Enough.”

Both men fell silent.

I held out my hand to Silas.

“Give it to me.”

He hesitated.

“Once you take it, you can’t choose what you see.”

“I haven’t been able to choose anything since I woke up.”

His fingers brushed mine as he handed me the bottle.

For a moment, he looked at me with an expression so painfully tender that I almost asked him what I had meant to him.

Then he stepped away.

I pulled out the stopper.

The liquid smelled of roses.

I drank.

The room disappeared.

I was twenty-three when I first met Adrian Vale.

It was raining.

Not the gentle sort of rain that made people hurry beneath shop awnings and complain about their hair. It was the violent, relentless kind that turned the streets into rivers and made the sky look as though it had been torn open.

I stood beneath the broken roof of an abandoned railway station, clutching a leather satchel against my chest.

Inside it were three notebooks, a silver pocket watch, and a letter from a man who had been dead for six months.

The letter contained only one sentence.

If you want to know why your sister died, find Adrian Vale.

I had spent four months searching for him.

I had found no address, no surviving relatives, and no photograph that wasn’t at least twenty years old.

Then, at precisely nine seventeen on a Thursday evening, a stranger walked into the station and said my name.

“Elena Moreau.”

I turned.

The man standing beneath the broken archway wore a black coat, a white shirt, and an expression of profound disappointment.

“You’re late,” he said.

I stared at him.

“Do I know you?”

“No.”

“Then perhaps you should introduce yourself before criticising my punctuality.”

His mouth twitched.

“Adrian Vale.”

I forgot about the rain.

For four months, I had imagined him as an old man with blood on his hands. A murderer. A fraud. A grieving relative who had somehow escaped the consequences of whatever had killed my sister.

I had not imagined him looking like that.

He was infuriatingly handsome, with dark hair damp from the rain and eyes that seemed to notice every lie a person had ever told.

I hated him immediately.

“Did you know my sister?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Did you kill her?”

He paused.

“No.”

“Did you know she was going to die?”

Something flickered behind his eyes.

“Yes.”

I slapped him.

The sound echoed through the station.

Adrian turned his head slowly, then looked back at me.

“Feel better?”

“No.”

“Good. We can proceed.”

I should have walked away.

Instead, I followed him into the rain.

The memory changed.

I was standing in a laboratory.

The walls were white, the lights painfully bright. A woman in a black coat stood beside a glass chamber, studying a row of monitors.

Adrian was beside me.

His hand rested against the small of my back.

“You don’t have to do this,” he whispered.

I looked at the chamber.

Inside it lay a girl who looked exactly like me.

Her eyes were closed. Her chest rose and fell beneath a thin white sheet.

My own face.

My own body.

A second version of myself.

I should have been horrified.

Instead, I felt a strange, terrible relief.

“She can be brought back,” I whispered.

Adrian’s hand tightened against my back.

“No.”

I turned towards him.

“You said you would help me.”

“I said I’d help you find out what happened to your sister.”

“This is what happened to her.”

His expression changed.

The woman in the black coat turned from the monitors.

“Doctor Moreau,” she said. “We’re ready.”

I stepped towards the chamber.

Adrian caught my hand.

“Please.”

I looked at him.

For the first time since meeting him, he appeared frightened.

Not of the woman.

Not of the laboratory.

Of me.

“Don’t make me choose,” he whispered.

I pulled my hand free.

“You don’t have to choose anything.”

Then I entered the chamber.

The glass closed behind me.

And Adrian began to scream.

I woke on the floor.

The bottle had fallen from my hand and shattered beside my knee.

I was gasping, my fingers pressed against my mouth.

Adrian knelt in front of me.

“Elena.”

I recoiled.

He stopped.

“Don’t come closer.”

He obeyed.

Tears blurred my vision.

“My sister.”

Silas crouched beside the broken glass.

“What did you see?”

I could barely speak.

“My sister was the first girl in the chamber.”

Silas’s expression changed.

Adrian closed his eyes.

I looked between them.

“You knew.”

Neither answered.

“You both knew.”

Silas sat back on his heels.

“Your sister’s name was Isabelle.”

The name opened something inside me.

A girl running through a field.

A laugh in the dark.

A hand reaching for mine.

A small silver ring hanging from a chain around her neck.

And a promise.

If one of us dies, the other will find a way to bring her back.

I pressed both hands against my temples.

“No.”

The memories kept coming.

Isabelle standing beneath a blood-red moon.

Isabelle lying on a metal table.

Isabelle opening her eyes.

Isabelle screaming as the machine began to burn.

I looked at Adrian.

“What happened to her?”

He swallowed.

“The first experiment failed.”

“Failed?”

“She came back without her memories. She didn’t recognise you. She didn’t recognise anyone.”

“Then what?”

His silence was unbearable.

“Adrian.”

“She died again.”

I shook my head.

“No.”

“We tried to save her.”

“Who is we?”

He looked at the black device.

“You. Me. Silas. The woman who ran the laboratory.”

I stared at him.

“And how many times did you try?”

He couldn’t answer.

I understood.

“Oh, God.”

I covered my mouth.

“How many times did my sister die?”

Silas looked at the floor.

“Eleven.”

The number was so small.

So neat.

Eleven attempts. Eleven deaths. Eleven times someone had decided that grief was a problem they could solve by refusing to accept it.

I wanted to throw up.

“And the other girls?” I asked.

Silas looked at Adrian.

Adrian’s face was pale.

“Those came later,” he said.

“Because you couldn’t bring Isabelle back.”

“Because you wouldn’t stop trying.”

The words struck me harder than a slap.

I stared at him.

“You’re blaming me?”

“No.” His voice cracked. “I’m telling you what happened.”

“You watched me do this?”

“Yes.”

“You helped me?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’re just as guilty.”

“I know.”

He said it so quietly that my anger faltered.

For one second, I saw the boy from the photograph—the one kneeling beside my body, begging me to wake up.

Then I remembered the woman in the black coat.

The needle.

The machine.

The way Adrian had screamed when I entered the chamber.

“Why did you let me go inside?” I whispered.

He looked at me with wet eyes.

“Because you told me you would never forgive me if I stopped you.”

I had no answer.

There was no version of this story in which I was innocent.

And yet, the thought that Adrian had watched me destroy myself without knowing how to save me hurt in a way I couldn’t explain.

I hated that I still wanted to comfort him.

I hated that he looked as though he needed it.

Silas stood.

“We need to leave.”

I wiped my face.

“Where?”

“Somewhere the system can’t hear us.”

Adrian rose slowly.

“There’s nowhere it can’t hear us.”

Silas gave him a cold look.

“You’re welcome to stay here and wait for it to erase her again.”

Adrian didn’t respond.

I stood between them, shaking.

“Stop talking about me as though I’m not here.”

Silas looked at me.

“You’re right.”

He held out his hand.

“Come with me.”

I stared at his palm.

Then at Adrian.

Adrian didn’t reach for me. He didn’t tell me to stay. He didn’t even look angry.

He looked terrified that I might choose someone else.

And I realised, with a strange ache in my chest, that I wanted to know what would happen if I did.

I took Silas’s hand.

Adrian’s expression barely changed.

But something in his eyes broke.

I looked away before it could break something in me, too.

Silas led me through a narrow passage behind the bedroom.

We passed three locked doors, a staircase that seemed to descend farther than the building could possibly allow, and a room filled with clocks that all showed different times.

None of them ticked.

At the end of the corridor was a small office.

Silas locked the door behind us.

“Sit.”

I remained standing.

“Tell me about Isabelle.”

He leaned against the desk.

“She was your older sister. She raised you after your parents died.”

“I remember her.”

The words came out before I could stop them.

Silas’s expression softened.

“What do you remember?”

I closed my eyes.

“Her hands. She used to braid my hair. She sang when she was frightened, even though she couldn’t carry a tune.”

A small smile crossed his face.

“That sounds like her.”

“She promised she would never leave me.”

My throat tightened.

“And I promised I’d bring her back.”

Silas nodded.

“You kept that promise.”

“Did I?”

His expression changed.

“Elena—”

“Don’t soften it. I need to know what happened.”

He looked towards the locked door.

“After the eleventh attempt, the woman in the black coat shut the project down. She said Isabelle’s body could no longer sustain another transfer.”

“What is a transfer?”

Silas hesitated.

“Your memories. Your consciousness. Whatever makes you you. The machine was supposed to preserve it and place it into a living body.”

I stared at him.

“You’re saying the girls in those chambers were bodies for my sister?”

“Initially.”

“And later?”

He looked at me.

“Later, you started using them for Adrian.”

My stomach dropped.

“Why?”

Silas’s voice grew quieter.

“Because he died.”

The room went still.

I could hear the blood pounding in my ears.

“How?”

“On October 19, 1897, the night you pushed that girl into the well, Adrian was killed trying to save you.”

I shook my head.

“That doesn’t make sense. The photograph—”

“The photograph was taken hours before he died.”

“And the boy in the memory?”

“Adrian.”

I sat down heavily.

“He was seventeen.”

“Yes.”

“And he died?”

“Yes.”

I stared at the floor.

“What happened after that?”

Silas looked at me for a long time.

“You refused to accept it.”

The office seemed to grow colder.

“You told everyone that death was temporary. You said the machine could restore him if we had a strong enough memory to anchor him.”

I looked at my hands.

“And did it work?”

Silas didn’t answer.

“Did it?”

“Yes.”

Relief came so quickly that I almost cried.

Then I noticed his expression.

“What did it cost?”

Silas’s eyes filled with tears.

“Every time you brought him back, someone else had to die.”

I stopped breathing.

“No.”

“The first time, it was a stranger. The second time, a prisoner. Later, you started using the girls who volunteered for the experiments.”

“Volunteered?”

His mouth tightened.

“Some did. Some didn’t know what they were agreeing to.”

I pressed my hands against my stomach.

“And Isabelle?”

Silas looked away.

“Her death was the first one you couldn’t undo.”

The room blurred.

I had spent my entire life believing that love was the opposite of death.

Now I understood what I had done.

I had turned love into an excuse to keep killing.

I rose so quickly the chair toppled behind me.

“I need air.”

Silas didn’t stop me.

I unlocked the door and stumbled into the corridor.

Adrian was waiting outside.

He stood with his back against the wall, his hands clasped in front of him.

He looked as though he had been there the entire time.

I tried to pass him.

“Elena.”

I stopped.

“Please,” he said. “Just give me one minute.”

I turned towards him.

“Why?”

He looked startled.

“Because I need to explain.”

“You’ve had a hundred and twenty-nine years to explain.”

He flinched.

I regretted the words immediately.

That made me angrier.

“Did you know about the girls?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know I was killing them?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever try to stop me?”

His silence answered before he did.

“I tried.”

“How?”

“I begged you. I threatened you. I destroyed the machine twice.”

I stared at him.

“And I rebuilt it.”

“Yes.”

I laughed bitterly.

“So what makes you any better than me?”

“Nothing.”

He stepped closer, then stopped when he saw me tense.

“I’m not asking you to forgive me.”

“Good.”

“I’m asking you to believe that I never wanted this for you.”

I looked at his face.

For a moment, I saw the boy in the rain-soaked station. The man who had once made me laugh. The husband who had loved me enough to remember the smallest, most ridiculous things about me.

Then I remembered the bodies.

The girls.

The eleven deaths of my sister.

The machine.

I shook my head.

“I don’t know who you are.”

His voice was barely audible.

“Neither do I anymore.”

Something about the honesty of that answer hurt more than any lie he could have told.

I looked down.

He was holding something.

A small silver chain.

At the end hung a ring.

My ring.

The one I had worn in the photograph beneath the blood-red moon.

“Where did you get that?”

“You gave it to me.”

“When?”

“Before the first reset.”

He held it out.

I didn’t take it.

“Why are you giving it to me now?”

“Because I think you should decide whether it still belongs to you.”

I stared at the ring.

A memory flickered.

My hands around his face.

His forehead pressed against mine.

My voice whispering, If you ever forget me, I’ll find you.

I reached for the chain.

Our fingers touched.

The contact was brief, barely a second, but something passed between us—an old tenderness, a grief neither of us knew how to name.

Adrian’s eyes lifted to mine.

I wanted to kiss him.

The realisation was so sudden that I stepped back as if I had been burned.

He noticed.

Of course he noticed.

But he didn’t smile. He didn’t take advantage of the moment. He simply closed his fingers around the empty space where my hand had been and looked away.

“I’ll leave you alone,” he said.

He turned to go.

“Adrian.”

He stopped.

I didn’t know what I wanted to say.

That I hated him?

That I missed him?

That I wished I could remember loving him without remembering all the terrible things we had done?

In the end, I said nothing.

He nodded as though my silence had answered him.

Then he walked away.

I watched until he disappeared around the corner.

Only then did I realise I was crying again.

⸻

Silas found me ten minutes later.

He carried a small folder and a look of grim determination.

“We have a problem.”

I wiped my cheeks.

“Of course we do.”

He placed the folder in my hands.

Inside were photographs.

Dozens of them.

Girls with different hair, different clothes, different expressions.

Every one of them had my face.

Some looked frightened. Some looked angry. One was laughing.

I turned the pages slowly.

At the back was a photograph of a girl with short dark hair and a scar beneath her left eye.

She was holding a knife.

Behind her stood Adrian.

He was smiling.

I stared at the image.

“This is another version of me?”

Silas nodded.

“Iteration Six.”

“What happened to her?”

He looked away.

“She escaped.”

A strange chill moved through me.

“Escaped where?”

“Outside.”

I stared at him.

“Outside this building?”

“Outside the system.”

I looked back at the photograph.

The girl had written something across the bottom in black ink.

IF YOU ARE READING THIS, DON’T TRUST THE MAN WHO REMEMBERS.

I lifted my eyes.

“Silas, who is she?”

He hesitated.

Then he said, “The last girl who remembered everything.”

My fingers tightened around the photograph.

“What happened to her?”

Silas’s face turned pale.

“She found out how to end the resets.”

“How?”

He reached into the folder and pulled out one final photograph.

It showed a laboratory in ruins.

The walls were covered in black ash. Broken glass lay scattered across the floor.

In the centre of the room stood a woman in a white dress.

Her back was turned to the camera.

Her hair fell to her waist.

And around her neck was a silver chain.

My silver chain.

I turned the photograph over.

On the back, in my own handwriting, were four words.

I DIDN’T KILL HER.

My breath caught.

“Who didn’t I kill?”

Silas looked at me.

“Your sister.”

I shook my head.

“You told me she died eleven times.”

“She did.”

“Then what does this mean?”

Silas’s eyes filled with tears.

“It means that on the twelfth attempt, the machine worked.”

I stared at him.

“Isabelle came back?”

“Yes.”

“Then where is she?”

Silas didn’t answer.

He didn’t need to.

A sound came from the corridor behind us.

Footsteps.

Slow. Deliberate.

A woman began humming.

A tune I remembered from childhood.

The song Isabelle used to sing whenever she was frightened.

Silas went completely still.

I turned towards the door.

The humming stopped.

Then a woman’s voice spoke from the other side.

“Elena?”

My knees nearly gave way.

Silas whispered, “Don’t open it.”

I stared at the door.

A hand knocked gently against the wood.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Then the voice spoke again.

“Little sister, I’ve been looking for you.”

Tears blurred my vision.

I knew that voice.

I knew it better than my own.

For a hundred and twenty-nine years, I had believed I had failed to save her.

For a hundred and twenty-nine years, I had been trying to bring her back.

And now she was standing outside the door.

Alive.

I reached for the handle.

Silas caught my wrist.

“Listen to me,” he whispered. “Whatever happens, remember one thing.”

I looked at him.

“What?”

His face was white with fear.

“Your sister died in 1897.”

The handle began to turn.

Silas’s grip tightened.

“And the woman outside that door,” he whispered, “is the reason every single one of those girls has your face.”

The door opened.

A woman stood in the corridor.

She wore a white dress and a silver chain.

Her hair was longer than I remembered, and a thin scar ran from her temple to her jaw.

But her eyes were the same.

My sister’s eyes.

She looked at me.

Then she smiled.

“Oh, Elena,” she whispered. “You’ve grown up.”

I couldn’t move.

She reached out and brushed a tear from my cheek.

Her fingers were warm.

Real.

“I missed you.”

A sob tore out of me.

I threw my arms around her.

She held me tightly, stroking my hair the way she had when I was a child.

For one beautiful, impossible moment, the world stopped hurting.

Then she leaned close to my ear.

And whispered the words that destroyed everything.

“Now tell me, little sister.”

Her arms tightened around me.

“Which one of us did you bury in the well?”