Chapter 15 - The Fifth Place at the Table
Spring came late to northern Wisconsin.
By April, the lake ice had cracked into silver plates and the first green shoots appeared near the cabin steps. Mariana could walk short distances with a cane. Gabriel had begun online classes. Victoria painted the walls of her room pale yellow because she said gray belonged to St. Orison.
Alex rented a small house nearby rather than moving into the cabin.
He came every morning at eight and left whenever Mariana asked. Some days she invited him to dinner. Some days she did not. He learned that rebuilding trust did not move in a straight line.
Eleanor remained in federal custody.
She pleaded guilty to financial conspiracy and obstruction but contested the kidnapping charges. Through her attorney, she offered full cooperation against Triune.
Mariana refused every request to visit her.
Gabriel visited once.
He returned quiet and placed a sealed envelope in the fireplace without opening it.
Victoria visited twice.
She returned from the second meeting carrying the silver bracelet Eleanor had worn for thirty years.
“She says it belonged to her mother,” Victoria explained. “She wants me to decide whether to keep it.”
“Will you?” Mariana asked.
“I have not decided.”
That answer pleased Mariana more than either yes or no.
Samuel continued tracing the missing Triune members. Clara joined his team as a records analyst. Daniel became head of a new security unit tasked not with protecting Mercer property, but with locating children whose identities had been erased.
For a while, life became almost ordinary.
Then, on Gabriel and Victoria’s sixteenth birthday, a package arrived at the cabin.
There was no postage and no delivery record.
Inside lay a polished cedar music box identical to the one destroyed in the apartment fire.
Mariana’s brass key opened it.
The melody played perfectly.
Beneath the false bottom was a flash drive and a photograph.
The photograph showed five children standing in front of St. Orison House fifteen years earlier.
Two were infants in nurses’ arms.
One was Clara at approximately twelve.
One was a small boy Alex did not recognize.
The fifth child stood partly behind James Mercer.
Only half his face was visible.
He looked older than Gabriel by perhaps two years.
On the back, someone had written:
The twins were never the beginning.
Samuel examined the flash drive in an isolated computer.
It contained a single video file.
The date stamp was from three days after James Mercer’s official death.
They gathered around the screen: Alex, Mariana, Gabriel, Victoria, Clara, Daniel, and Samuel.
The video opened on a room with white walls.
Eleanor sat at a table wearing prison clothing.
But the federal facility confirmed she had not recorded any video.
The Eleanor on screen looked younger by at least ten years.
She spoke directly to the camera.
“If Alexander is watching this, then James has failed to keep the family divided. That means Triune will activate the origin subject.”
She placed a file on the table.
PXM-0001.
“The first child was created before Alex met Mariana. James used material taken from Alex during a surgery when he was eighteen. The maternal donor was never named.”
Alex gripped the back of a chair.
The small boy in the photograph.
A child biologically connected to him before Gabriel and Victoria were born.
The recording continued.
“James called him Peter. Triune called him the proof. I believed Peter died in the plane crash arranged to hide James. I was wrong.”
The image distorted.
A man stepped into frame behind Eleanor.
He wore the uniform of a federal corrections officer.
His face remained outside the light.
“He has lived under many names,” Eleanor said. “One of them brought him close to the family.”
The man placed his hand on her shoulder.
A ring glinted on his finger.
Daniel suddenly stood.
Everyone looked at him.
He wore the same ring.
A plain silver band engraved inside with three lines in a circle.
Daniel stared at his hand as if seeing it for the first time.
“My father gave me this,” he said.
Samuel moved subtly toward the locked cabinet where his weapon was stored.
Daniel stepped back.
“I did not know.”
Gabriel’s breathing changed.
“He is telling the truth,” he whispered.
The video froze on the shadowed man.
A final line appeared on the screen.
THE ORIGIN SUBJECT DOES NOT KNOW WHAT HE IS UNTIL THE FAMILY IS COMPLETE.
Then every phone in the cabin rang at once.
Alex answered his.
A woman spoke.
“Mr. Mercer, this is Waupun Federal Correctional Institution. Eleanor Mercer disappeared from her cell twelve minutes ago.”
Across the room, the cedar music box clicked.
A second compartment opened beneath the first.
Inside was a fresh photograph taken that morning.
It showed Eleanor standing beside the cabin’s dining table.
Five places had been set.
At the fifth place sat a man whose face had been cut from the photograph.
May you like
Written beneath it were the words:
Your first son is coming home.
