Chapter 7 - The Grandmother No One Remembered
“You have your grandmother’s eyes, Livvy.”
Daniel’s words remained in the room after the monitor went black.
I stared at my reflection in the dark glass.
My grandmother had died before I was born.
At least, that was what I had always been told.
My mother’s parents had supposedly been killed in a house fire when she was nineteen. There were no photographs of them in our home. No stories. No relatives who visited during holidays.
Whenever I asked about them, Helen changed the subject.
Now a man imprisoned beneath Hawthorne Mansion had looked directly at me and spoken as if he had known me all my life.
The timer continued.
04:41.
04:40.
04:39.
Helen turned away from the screen.
“We move now.”
I blocked the door.
“Who was my grandmother?”
“There is no time.”
“There are four minutes. Use them.”
“Olivia.”
“Daniel called me Livvy. He knew the name you used when I was a child. He said I have my grandmother’s eyes. Who was she?”
Helen glanced at the little girl.
The second Olivia stood beside Evelyn, still holding her hand.
My mother lowered her voice.
“Her name was Eleanor Vale.”
The surname struck like a physical blow.
“Vale?”
“Yes.”
“Silas Vale’s wife?”
“No.”
Helen looked toward the camera in the corner, then pulled the power cord from the wall.
“His sister.”
The room became painfully quiet.
Silas Vale was my mother’s uncle.
Which meant Rosewood had not selected my family by accident.
It had grown inside it.
“My grandmother was part of Rosewood?”
“She created the first version.”
Evelyn shook her head.
“That is not what Daniel told me.”
“Daniel was protected from the full truth.”
“Protected?” she said bitterly. “He spent twenty-two years beneath this house.”
Helen ignored her.
I stepped closer.
“What did Eleanor create?”
“A fertility treatment.”
“That became cloning?”
“No. That came later.”
“Then what was the original purpose?”
Helen looked at the little girl again.
“To save dying children.”
The answer was so unexpected that I almost laughed.
“By replacing them?”
“By preserving genetic material before terminal illness destroyed it.”
Owens struggled to breathe on the examination table.
Evelyn adjusted the bandage around his side while listening.
Helen continued.
“Eleanor believed that one day damaged organs could be regrown from a child’s own cells. She collected samples from patients whose families had exhausted every other option.”
“And Silas?”
“He believed waiting for future medicine was inefficient.”
“He created new children.”
“He created backups.”
The little girl frowned.
“What’s a backup?”
I crouched and took her hand.
“Something people make when they are afraid of losing the first thing.”
“Am I a backup?”
Helen closed her eyes.
I answered before she could.
“No. You are a person.”
The child studied my face, as though deciding whether to believe me.
The timer reached three minutes.
Vale’s voice came from a speaker hidden inside the ceiling.
“Eleanor would disagree.”
Helen raised the pistol.
“You cannot shoot a voice,” I told her.
“Silence is still useful.”
Vale laughed softly.
“Your mother always preferred destruction to explanation.”
“Release Chloe,” I said.
“Reach level four.”
“How?”
“The elevator at the end of the maternity corridor.”
Helen looked toward the door.
“That route is exposed.”
“Yes.”
“You placed guards there.”
“Yes.”
“Then you do not expect us to survive.”
“I expect one Olivia to survive.”
The monitor illuminated again.
Chloe sat at the small table, still coloring.
Beside her lay a stuffed rabbit I had never seen before.
A black rose had been stitched across its chest.
“Mommy,” she said to the camera, “Grandma says you’re coming.”
I looked at Helen.
She was beside me.
“Who is with Chloe?”
Vale answered.
“Eleanor.”
Helen staggered backward.
“That is impossible.”
The camera widened.
A woman sat beside Chloe.
She appeared to be in her late seventies. Her white hair was braided over one shoulder, and she wore a dark green dress with a high collar.
Her eyes were brown.
My eyes.
The woman smiled into the camera.
“Hello, Livvy.”
My entire body went cold.
Helen fired at the monitor.
The screen shattered.
The little girl screamed and covered her ears.
Owens tried to rise, but Evelyn forced him down.
“Was that her?” I demanded.
Helen stared at the ruined monitor.
“My mother died thirty-three years ago.”
“Apparently death is flexible in this family.”
“I saw her body.”
“So did I.”
The words silenced her.
I had seen Helen’s coffin.
My father had identified her.
Rosewood knew how to manufacture death.
Evelyn moved toward the broken screen.
“Eleanor was older than that when I met her.”
“How much older?” I asked.
“At least sixty.”
“That was more than thirty years ago.”
Helen looked ill.
Vale’s voice returned through another speaker.
“Your arithmetic remains excellent, Evelyn.”
“What did you do to her?” Helen shouted.
“Exactly what she asked.”
“Eleanor would never agree to preservation.”
“She designed it.”
“She designed cellular storage.”
“She improved.”
The timer reached two minutes.
A red light appeared above the clinic door.
Helen checked the hallway.
“We have to leave.”
Owens caught my wrist.
“I can’t walk.”
“You won’t have to.”
I opened a supply cabinet and found a folded transport chair.
Evelyn helped me secure him in it.
The little girl stayed close.
“What about the sleeping children?” she asked.
I looked at Helen.
“We are not leaving thirty-one children here.”
“We cannot reach them now.”
“We know where they are.”
“We know what she claims she saw.”
The child pulled away from me.
“I don’t lie.”
Helen’s face softened.
“I did not mean that.”
“Yes, you did.”
She stepped behind Evelyn.
The rejection hurt Helen more than she wanted us to see.
The timer reached one minute.
We moved into the corridor.
At the far end, a green arrow illuminated above a pair of elevator doors.
Too easy.
Vale wanted us to follow.
Helen led with the pistol. Evelyn pushed Owens while I held the little girl’s hand.
We passed rooms filled with abandoned cribs and rusted monitors.
One door stood open.
Inside, hundreds of children’s drawings covered the walls.
Most showed houses, trees and families holding hands.
Every father had Marcus’s face.
I stopped.
The girl tugged my hand.
“We can’t stay.”
I took one drawing from the wall.
A woman with silver hair stood beside a tall man. Two identical girls held their hands. A smaller child with yellow hair stood apart.
Above the family, written in a child’s uneven handwriting, were five names.
Mommy Helen.
Daddy Gabriel.
Olivia Awake.
Olivia Outside.
Baby Chloe.
I stared at it.
“Who drew this?”
The girl looked down.
“I did.”
“Who is Gabriel?”
“Daddy.”
“Marcus?”
She nodded.
“When did he tell you Chloe’s name?”
“Before she was born.”
My grip tightened around the paper.
Marcus had claimed he learned about Rosewood after Chloe’s birth.
The drawing proved he had visited Hawthorne earlier.
Perhaps years earlier.
“What did he tell you about me?”
“That you were keeping my place safe.”
A painful pressure formed beneath my ribs.
“He said I was living your life?”
She nodded.
“But he said it wasn’t your fault.”
Helen called from the elevator.
“Olivia.”
I folded the drawing and put it into my dress pocket.
We reached the doors as the timer hit zero.
Nothing happened.
No gas.
No gunfire.
Only the soft chime of the elevator.
The doors opened.
Inside stood Marcus.
He was no longer restrained.
Blood covered his collar, and one eye was swollen, but he held a pistol in his right hand.
Helen raised hers.
He aimed at her.
The little girl released me and ran toward him.
“Daddy!”
Marcus’s face broke.
He dropped the pistol before she reached him and fell to his knees.
She wrapped her arms around his neck.
He held her tightly.
For one moment, he looked like the father I knew.
Then I remembered the drawing.
Before Chloe was born.
“You lied to me,” I said.
Marcus looked up.
“Yes.”
“How long have you known she existed?”
He held the girl against him.
“Eight years.”
Evelyn gasped.
Helen’s pistol remained pointed at his head.
“You visited this place while sleeping beside my daughter.”
“I was trying to get her out.”
“For eight years?”
“I needed access, money and names.”
“You had all three.”
“I had Vale watching every move I made.”
I stepped into the elevator.
“You told me you found out after Chloe was born.”
“I found out who you were after Chloe was born.”
“But you knew about her.”
“Yes.”
“Did you marry me because she looked like me?”
Marcus closed his eyes.
“At first.”
The honesty hurt worse than another lie.
The little girl looked between us.
“Why is Mommy angry?”
I could not answer.
Marcus stood slowly.
“She has every right to be.”
Helen moved closer.
“Where is Thomas?”
“Level four.”
“Daniel?”
“Same wing.”
“Chloe?”
“Observation room beside the theater.”
“Eleanor?”
Marcus’s expression changed.
“You saw her?”
“Yes.”
“That wasn’t Eleanor.”
Vale’s voice emerged from the elevator speaker.
“Marcus, you disappoint me.”
Marcus fired into the ceiling speaker.
The elevator doors closed.
The car began descending.
The display showed no floor numbers.
Only letters.
M.
R.
V.
Then 4.
Helen kept the gun trained on Marcus.
“How did you escape?”
“He let me.”
“Why?”
“To make you distrust me.”
“That did not require effort,” I said.
Marcus looked at me.
“I deserve that.”
“You deserve more.”
“Yes.”
The elevator continued downward.
Owens’s breathing became weaker.
Evelyn checked his pulse.
“He needs blood.”
Marcus looked at the medical label attached to the chair.
“O negative.”
“How do you know?”
“I read his field tag.”
The little girl raised her hand.
“I’m O negative.”
Everyone turned toward her.
Marcus shook his head.
“No.”
“He’ll die,” she said.
“You’re too small.”
“The doctors take my blood all the time.”
Helen’s expression darkened.
“How often?”
The child shrugged.
“When the sleepers get sick.”
The elevator stopped.
The doors remained closed.
A tray slid from the wall.
On it rested a blood collection kit.
Vale’s voice filled the elevator.
“An excellent opportunity for Olivia to demonstrate her purpose.”
Marcus kicked the tray across the floor.
“No one touches her.”
The little girl looked at Owens.
His eyes fluttered.
“Daddy, he saved Liv.”
Marcus stared at me.
“Is that true?”
“He tried.”
The child climbed onto the bench and rolled up her sleeve.
“I want to help.”
Evelyn knelt beside her.
“You do not have to prove that you deserve to be here.”
“I know.”
She looked at Owens.
“I just don’t want him to stop breathing.”
Helen turned away.
I saw tears in her eyes.
Rosewood had raised the girl as property.
Yet she had shown more humanity than any adult in the building.
Evelyn found a sterile line in the kit and took only the minimum amount she believed Owens could safely receive.
Marcus held the child’s other hand.
I watched them together.
He knew how she feared needles.
He distracted her by tapping a rhythm against her fingers.
It was the same rhythm he used with Chloe during vaccinations.
This was not their first time together.
Afterward, the child leaned against him.
He kissed the top of her head.
I hated him for making the gesture look natural.
The elevator moved again.
“Tell me everything,” I said.
Marcus looked at the floor.
“Vale ordered me to marry you because he believed Helen had hidden a key inside your genetic sequence.”
“A key to what?”
“The Rosewood core.”
“The memory card reacted to it.”
“The card contains only half the access code. The other half requires a living match from Eleanor’s line.”
“Which Olivia?”
“That was the problem. You both match different sections.”
Helen lowered the pistol slightly.
“Replacement incomplete.”
Marcus nodded.
“Vale could never determine which child carried the full sequence because Helen altered the records.”
“I did not alter them,” Helen said.
“Then Eleanor did.”
The elevator stopped at level four.
Before the doors opened, Marcus retrieved his pistol.
“There will be guards.”
“How many?” Helen asked.
“None.”
“That concerns me more.”
The doors separated.
A circular chamber waited beyond them.
Five glass corridors extended from the center like spokes of a wheel.
At the end of one corridor, my father remained strapped to the chair.
At the end of another, Daniel sat in his wheelchair.
A third contained Chloe.
She saw me through the glass and ran toward the door.
“Mommy!”
I rushed forward.
The glass did not open.
“Chloe, step back.”
“Grandma gave me a bunny.”
The black rose stared from the toy’s chest.
Marcus examined the locking panel.
“It’s wired to the theater.”
The fourth corridor led to an operating room.
Inside stood the elderly woman from the monitor.
Eleanor.
Or someone wearing her face.
The fifth corridor was dark.
Thirty-one narrow lights glowed along the floor.
The sleeping children.
Vale stood in the center of the chamber.
He wore a white medical coat now.
His hands were empty.
“Welcome,” he said.
Helen raised her pistol.
Vale did not flinch.
“If you shoot me, every corridor seals.”
Marcus aimed at him from the opposite side.
“Open Chloe’s door.”
“Soon.”
My father shouted through the glass.
“Do not give him the girls!”
Daniel lifted his head.
“Silas,” he said weakly. “This ends tonight.”
Vale smiled at him.
“You have said that for twenty-two years.”
Evelyn walked toward Daniel’s corridor.
He pressed one hand against the glass.
She placed hers opposite it.
“Evie.”
Her face crumpled.
“You’re real.”
“I tried to find you.”
“You disappeared.”
“Helen took Marcus.”
Marcus looked toward Daniel.
“Am I your son?”
Daniel’s eyes filled with tears.
“No.”
The word echoed through the chamber.
Marcus went still.
Vale smiled.
“I told you Daniel was an implanted memory.”
Daniel struck the glass with his fist.
“You told him nothing.”
Marcus stepped closer.
“Then who are my parents?”
Daniel looked not at Helen or Evelyn.
He looked toward the operating room.
Toward Eleanor.
“She is your mother.”
The elderly woman smiled through the glass.
Marcus stared at her.
“That woman is old enough to be my grandmother.”
“She is,” Daniel said.
No one moved.
Vale’s smile disappeared.
Daniel continued.
“Marcus was not born.”
Helen whispered, “Daniel, stop.”
“He was grown from Eleanor’s preserved cells and Gabriel’s line.”
“Who is Gabriel?” I asked.
Daniel looked at me.
“Your father.”
Thomas shouted through the glass.
“I am her father!”
“I did not say you weren’t.”
Vale pressed a button on the console.
Daniel’s wheelchair restraints tightened.
He gasped in pain.
“That is enough.”
The little girl clung to Marcus.
“Daddy?”
Marcus appeared unable to hear her.
I turned toward Vale.
“Open the doors.”
“First, we complete the selection.”
The screens above each corridor illuminated.
Thomas.
Daniel.
Chloe.
Eleanor.
The sleeping children.
Beneath them appeared two spaces for handprints.
One labeled DAUGHTER A.
The other DAUGHTER B.
Vale looked at me and the child.
“Together, you can open every door.”
“Then why make us choose?”
“Because only one of you can leave with the complete Rosewood inheritance.”
“I don’t want it.”
“You do not know what it is.”
“I know enough.”
“No, Olivia.”
Eleanor spoke from inside the operating room.
Her voice was gentle.
Familiar.
“You do not.”
She stepped closer to the glass.
“The inheritance is not money.”
“What is it?”
“The legal identity of every child Rosewood ever replaced.”
Helen lowered her pistol.
Vale watched her carefully.
Eleanor continued.
“With the inheritance, you can return stolen lives to thousands of families.”
“And without it?”
Vale answered.
“Those records disappear forever.”
I looked toward the dark corridor.
Thirty-one lights.
Thirty-one children beneath one mansion.
How many others existed elsewhere?
“What happens to the Olivia who isn’t selected?”
Vale smiled.
“She becomes the final replacement.”
The child took my hand.
“Replacement for who?”
The door behind Eleanor opened.
A hospital bed rolled into the operating room.
A woman lay beneath a white sheet.
She had my face.
Not the face of a nine-year-old.
My adult face.
The same brown hair.
The same features.
Even the same pale blue dress I had worn to Chloe’s party.
Her eyes opened.
She looked through the glass at me.
Then she smiled.
“Hello, Livvy.”
May you like
Vale spread his hands.
“There were never only two daughters.”
