Theories of Rain

On a winter night, I saw her at the train station that took me from the city to my suburban town. She had seen me first. She was beside the railroad tracks, and I was on the bench, and when she recognized me, she walked up to me and asked, “Remember me?”

At the time, I didn’t. But then she talked about the past and the adventures we had in our hometown, and soon her presence quickly embarrassed me, and my ears turned cold red. As she talked more, it became clear to me who she was, but since it was so long ago, and I was much younger, I would not have recognized her had she not talked to me.

“You helped me a lot in those times,” she said. “I have to thank you.”

“It was no problem. I didn’t mean to.”

“But you did! I never would have known he was my original. I regret doing what I did to all those poor creatures.”

As she talked, the story of what had happened a long time ago gradually surfaced in my memory. I noticed the lady’s silver-white hair and piercing violet eyes, the two signs that had given it away. They were why I had to talk to her in the first place.

“Hey kid, no staring.”

She ruffled my hair without my permission. “Hey!” She laughed. She would always think of me as a kid, and I had to be fine with that.

#

They started appearing the summer I turned eleven.

In those days, I was an explorer. I had two friends, Jacob and Marley, and the three of us formed a team that would explore the area around town every day after school. We grabbed pencils and sheets of paper, and we would map out the surrounding area of the town and make progress on it every week. Other kids packed their backpacks with baseball gloves and snacks, we would pack ours with radios and flashlights.

We were experts of our town. We explored the farmlands east and west of the town, the water tower near the outskirts, the town hall, and every neighbourhood. It took some time to get permission from our parents to explore the forest in the north, but once we did that, we explored it too. There was a trail that followed a stream into the forest, and that was where we started. We theorized that if we ever got lost, we could always follow this stream back to town. If our compasses didn’t work and we accidentally followed it north instead of south, the worst that could happen was that we would find new territory north, realize our mistake, and switch directions to go home. It was a foolproof plan that made sure we would never get lost.

The day we got lost, the plan failed.

It was a strange day, and I’ll never forget it. It started when I made sure we were following the stream south. Our compasses were in working condition, and I recognized the trees we had seen before. But eventually, something odd happened when the path we followed no longer looked familiar, and the stream did not lead us home.

“Callie, you idiot!” said Jacob.

“Hold on, we were definitely headed south,” I said, looking at the map we worked on in my hands. “This can’t be a mistake.”

“Wait, guys,” said Marley. “Did you see that?”

“What?” I said. “Are you going crazy? I didn’t see anything.”

“Stop it. You’re scaring me.”

Marley told us he had seen a strange creature, a mix between a salamander and a cat the size of a canoe. Later, we would see them everywhere, and we gave them a name: whiskerwals.

We did find our way back home that day, but when we did, no time had passed since we had gotten lost. We expected to be home just in time for dinner, but we came much too early.

“Oh,” said Mom, confused as I opened the door. “Was it too hot outside? Didn’t you just leave?”

The following week, whiskerwals and other strange creatures would appear around town. Naturally, because we spent the most time in the forest they originated, we saw them all first. It was a golden age of discovery for the three of us. We felt like scientists, recording them all as best we could in our notebooks, capturing some for a few minutes to take sketches, study their behaviours, and experiment on what they ate, where they hid, and where they came from.

We had originally kept it a secret so the three of us could research them until we were content enough to show our discoveries to the world of adults. But, eventually, the first whiskerwal would slither by a lady’s car and make her scream, or a toad with dragon wings would hop by the lawn of someone watering their grass and make them think twice about what they saw.

The town recognized these strange things going on and the police and the local university professors got involved. That was when my, Jacob’s, and Marley’s fun ended.

#

That was the middle of summer. For the rest of the summer, I made an oath to solve the mysteries of our town. I made it my mission to figure out the reasons they were happening. 

One day, while I was at a café working on my latest sketch of a whiskerwal in my notebook, I was on a single-chair sofa near the waiting line, and a man in the line happened to see what I was drawing.

“That’s an interesting creature. You’re good at art,” he said.

When I looked up at him, I noticed he had silver hair and purple eyes. 

“It’s a whiskerwal,” I said, halfway between proud and cocky for knowing much more about something than a grownup like him.

“Is that what you call it?”

“Yeah. Their fur is usually white, but sometimes it has brown and black splotches. They have a head like a cat. They have four legs and a tail, sharp like a lizard’s. Their tail is narrow but strong. I haven’t tested it yet, but I think it’s strong enough to shake a car if it slams it into it. Oh, and you find them in the woods! I saw them myself.” As soon as I finished, I realized I said too much.

“Really? That’s fascinating. You could become a good biologist one day if you share your research.”

When he got his coffee, I watched him zip up his forest green jacket, grip the drink, and leave through the door.

#

This is why when I first saw the lady, who was in the forest with us when we were exploring one day, I thought she was a clone.

“There’s a person over there,” whispered Marley. We were behind a tree at the edge of a ditch into a lower level of the forest floor. The lady was at the bottom of the ditch, holding a hunting rifle, hiding behind a tree as if there was something she feared up ahead. Her back was to us. Her silver hair was tied up, and a visor rested on her forehead. She was much older, around university age, perhaps twenty-two. With a small discussion, the three of us concluded the obvious. She was a hunter, and she was out for the mysterious creatures in the forest.

“I don’t want her to hurt the whiskerwals,” said Marley. “Or the toadspringers. Or the gelatinfangs.”

“What do you want us to do, Marley?” said Jacob. “Got any bright ideas?”

We didn’t dare go near her that day. We continued to see her on our expeditions to the forest, and we always avoided her, thinking she was dangerous, or that she had business we should not interfere with.

But one day, she found us.

“Why are you kids out here, shouldn’t you be in school?”

Her voice made us hide our maps and our notebooks quickly. She had snuck up behind us, and we had not known she was there.

“Why are you hunting these poor creatures?” asked Marley first.

“That’s none of your business.”

“Same with us here,” said Jacob, glaring at her.

“Excuse me, lady,” I said. Her piercing violet eyes locked onto me. “Are you a clone?”

“What are you even talking about?”

“I saw a man once that looked exactly like you. Exactly. Listen, I don’t know if you’ll believe me, but I’m sure you’re his clone.”

“Hey kid, stop eating the glowing mushrooms in these woods. If you saw a man that looked like me, you probably saw my brother. We live together in this town.”

I wanted to argue, but the conversation quickly moved on to Jacob and Marley asking her other questions, and her only telling us to go home. Because she was a scary grownup, we eventually folded and followed her. We didn’t go into the forest for the rest of the week.

Later, we learned her name was Rain, and she was killing these creatures for money. Rain believed that the memory of children could not be trusted, but even as a child, I knew that their perceptiveness should never be underestimated.

#

Our curiosity got the best of us on the next Saturday we were all free. We would not let the lady take the territory we had claimed and explored ourselves. Especially the area she hunted. It was a portion of the forest that was not blocked to the public by the police and the university investigators. It had a smaller density of mysterious creatures than the area locked by the police, but every so often they would appear there, and that allowed the three of us to continue our research. But this lady was trying to keep us out of her hunting grounds, and we wouldn’t let that happen.

It was mostly Marley who had issues with the lady. Marley loved animals, and mysterious or not, the odd appearances of the creatures in the woods made no difference. He wanted to protect them, and so he hated the lady.

Jacob and I were indifferent, although we did not particularly like the lady, either. We wished that she was gone, too.

We kept exploring the woods. At first, Rain kept mostly to herself, ignoring us. Once we started making constant appearances, giving her the sign that we would not stop coming, she decided to confront us.

“What’s your problem?” she asked us.

“Stop hurting the animals!” cried Marley.

Jacob pulled him back and put an arm in front of him. “Don’t listen to Marley. We just want to share the woods, that’s all. We want to explore and research the animals. You can continue doing what you’re doing, and we won’t bother you. As long as you don’t bother us.”

“That’s not true!” said Marley.

She rested her rifle on her hip. I noticed she was looking at me. “You three are studying those whiskerwals, aren’t you?” I noticed she used a name we created.

“All of them!” said Marley. “They’re so fascinating!”

“Listen, it’s a deal. Stay out of my way, and you can do whatever you want in this forest. But I get to shoot as many whiskerwals as I want, and I don’t want a word from any of you. Deal?”

“Deal,” said Jacob.

For the next few weeks, we did just that.

Eventually, Rain learned how useful our research was and began asking us questions about the forest. We helped her, for a price of course. We didn’t want any money, and she said she didn’t have any, so Marley thought of the idea of her paying for our information by not killing any creatures for definite lengths of time. Our map of the forest would cost about one day of no hunting. If she wanted to know what we figured out about the temporal anomaly near the stream, it would be about two days of no hunting. If she wanted to know the specific times of day the creatures would appear, or the favourite glowing mushroom each species liked to eat, each small piece of information would cost six hours of no hunting.

She agreed to this system. We got closer to her in this way. In time, there were no more hostilities between us and her. Sometimes she felt like an older sister to us, and she made us laugh. Sometimes it was us who would make her laugh so hard she would be out of breath. It was mostly Jacob who was able to do that. Jacob can sometimes be funny.

I didn’t think of her as an older sister though, because any time I thought of her I blushed. I resorted to not thinking about her, but sometimes I couldn’t help it at school. I spent the most time with her out of the three of us. Sometimes Jacob and Marley wanted to go to a different area to search for the creatures, or they wanted to finish mapping out an area that we didn’t do a good job on, and I would stay behind with her. They were fine with it, and they would go off on their own, and Rain and I would chat. She would show me how she used her rifle to take down a vainwyrm, a creature the size of a car that looked like a two-legged whale with feathers all over its body.

“You’re not like the other two,” she said. “You’re more observant.”

“Why do you think so?”

“Well, when we first met, you asked if I was a clone.”

“I still think so. That man at the café I was at, he was like you, but older. I’m so sure of it. I see the resemblance every time I talk to you.”

“He can’t be my clone. Aren’t you forgetting one crucial detail? He’s a man. I’m a girl.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

During that talk, that was when I learned that Rain was fiercely loyal to this man she called her brother. So much that she’d do anything for him. I could tell that her loyalty to this man had something to do with why she was out here hunting these creatures. I didn’t know what it was exactly, but I had sworn to solve the mysteries of this town, and I decided that Rain was one of them too. Arguably the biggest one of all. Later that night, I drew a graphical representation of all the mysterious anomalies in the town in my notebook. The odd creatures, the temporal shifts, the trees having faces for a few seconds, the snow patches on the ground while we were in the middle of summer, and more. In the centre, in big capital letters, I wrote: RAIN.

#

I had been preparing for the day as soon as it’d come, so it wasn’t too much of a surprise for me when it did, and I wasn’t that embarrassed. They interrogated me like hawks locked on their prey.

“You like her,” said Marley.

“I don’t.”

“You do. You used to care a lot about the animals in the woods too, but now, not that much anymore.”

“Well, who cares if you do,” said Jacob. “You’re the closest to her. I think you know what this means Callie. Right, Marley?”

“What does it mean?” I asked.

“We want you to get more information from her.” Marley was excited. “Ask her what the connection is with her brother and why she’s out here hunting the animals. I’ve analyzed the population of whiskerwals recently, and I believe they’re going down. You can even look at this graph I made in my notebook that shows it.” He opened it to show us. “We have to do something about her.”

“What do you want me to do?” I said.

“The plan is simple,” said Jacob. “We’ve told her a lot of things about our research on this forest. But there’s one thing we’ve all agreed to keep secret, right?”

“Wait.”

“Callie, she would want to know about the Abyss,” said Marley. “It’s the one thing we don’t know anything about. It’s too dangerous to explore. You’re the only one who’s made a page on it in your notebook. If you show it to her, you can use it to bargain for why she’s here in the forest.”

“And,” said Jacob, “who knows? Maybe she’ll get curious about it and enter it herself. That’ll solve our main problem of getting rid of her, no?”

Marley smacked him on the head. “You idiot!”

“I can’t do this,” I said.

“Of course, stupid! Jacob just had to open his big mouth like he always does!”

They fought for the rest of the day. But all wasn’t lost for them, though. That night, I thought about Rain and her loyalty to her supposed brother. I wondered about my own loyalty, and I realized that it didn’t lie with a much older mysterious girl I met this summer, but with the two best buddies I’ve ever had since grade two.

The next day, I agreed to their plan.

#

The Abyss was a tunnel in a cave we found at the far reaches of the forest. The forest was huge, and we didn’t go past a certain distance, but it was one of the furthest things we ever found. At the end of the tunnel, we found a portal as black as night, with small dots like a starry sky, floating and humming gently, undisturbed. Since it was the most mysterious thing we found, we were wise enough to know not to try entering it. We speculated many things about it. That this was the source of the creatures, or that it was at least connected to the anomalies around town in some way. We only saw it once, so I wasn’t even sure if it was still there. But I told all this to Rain. She showed little interest in it, but I knew her well enough at this point to see that inside, she was curious about it.

She kept her end of the bargain. She told me the story about why she was here.

“My family was poor,” she said. “We didn’t have much money or food growing up. One day, it became a huge problem. I got sick with a disease that trapped me in my bed for months. In those times, my brother took care of me. He was always by my side. I don’t remember what happened to our parents, or maybe I do, but I’m not going to tell you, because you’re just a kid. But soon, they were gone from our lives, and it was just me and him. 

“I depended on him. He brought me food, and water, washed me, and even told me stories to entertain me or massaged my legs when they were aching. I wondered how he got his money to support us. He told me he worked a job with long hours. But I had never heard of this job. One day, I learned that he had robbed someone. Non-violently. My brother would never do that. But he stole someone’s purse and took everything from the wallet. I didn’t know what else he was lying about. But you must understand Callie, this didn’t make me trust him any less. It did the opposite, I learned that he’d do anything for me, and to this day I haven’t forgotten that. He taught me the importance of family before anything else. I’ve recovered fully from my sickness now. But now my brother is in some trouble and needs some money to get out. I owe so much to him. So I had to do something.

“There is this man my brother used to work for. He’s part of a rich elite. He has a wife who loves designer clothes made with materials from rare, exotic animals. When he discovered this town’s mysterious creatures, and when I learned that he would pay anyone who could hunt them down and bring them their hides, I knew this was my chance to repay my brother.

“So, here I am. You’re seeing me here now because I need that money. My brother helped me when I needed it most. I need to return the favour.”

It was quite the story.

There was still one problem with it, and I told her.

“What is it?”

“He’s not your brother.”

“Oh boy. Not this again.”

“He’s you. You don’t owe him anything. I think maybe you’re just helping yourself.”

“You’re not making any sense, kid.”

Her eyes spotted a whiskerwal. She pulled me down behind a log and set up her rifle on it. While she was busy, I took the opportunity to twirl a small strand of her silver hair around my finger. I waited for her to take a shot at the whiskerwal. When she did, I yanked a piece of her hair. I waited for her to notice.

“I think I got it,” she said, still looking at the forest.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

#

The grownup investigation group found the Abyss before Rain could.

She told me she was interested enough to check it out, but that decision was closed off when the police finally blockaded the area of the forest Rain, my friends, and I hunted in and explored. Rain was frustrated about it. The last time I saw her, she kept making grumbling noises and was not in the mood to talk. 

“I’m going to think of something,” she said.

Now that the forest was off-limits for all of us, we could no longer research the animals. I discussed this with my friends. We had completed all our main projects anyway. I scratched off the list of questions in my notebook one by one. If it was unsolved, I put an asterisk on it. The last thing I didn’t scratch off was Rain’s name.

I decided she was the final mystery I had to solve. I knew my friends wouldn’t help me, so I had to do it alone.

I rode my bike to the local university. Since I knew there were so many smart scientists there, I thought it was a good idea to ask them about Rain.

I entered the campus and searched for a professor. I eventually found one. I don’t even remember what I did, but somehow, I was able to get a chat with one.

I showed him all my research on the forest. I explained every anomaly we solved. Some of them were fully solved, and some were half-solved. The temporal shifts near the stream were part of an invisible border of the forest that switched around space and time for humans, but not the strange animals. We tested this by throwing a toadspringer through it, luring it with food back to us, and timing its return, which yielded normal results. But when we tried it with Marley, he would come back ten minutes later, even when he said he stepped back through the barrier the instant he crossed it.

The creatures only ate glowing mushrooms because it was the only food they recognized from their world. At least, that was our prevailing theory. The mushrooms grew around the forest trees and were mostly cerulean in colour. But the creatures would eat anything you’d give them if they learned to trust it. 

The snow patches were a thermal anomaly. They formed because entropy was reversed in the areas they appeared, and we tested this by throwing an apple into one and watching it freeze. For the longest time, we didn’t know what caused them, until we learned the whiskerwals caused them when they spoke with the trees with faces. They would create some mysterious covenant with each other, and soon the thermal anomaly would start in their immediate area.

“Young man,” said the professor, his eyes wide. “I don’t know what to say. This is astounding research.”

He reached the page with my graphical chart of mysteries. When he saw Rain’s name in the centre, uncrossed, he asked, “What’s this?”

“I need your help with something,” I said. I put Rain’s strand of hair, in a small plastic bag, on the table. “Do you think you can analyze DNA?”

#

I theorized that in the world they came from, whiskerwals lived in the snow.

In no time, the forest was filled with snow. It was the middle of August, but it looked like the end of December. Whiskerwal kittens played in the snow, their mothers rubbing their cheeks against theirs. The trees used their power to make sure the snow never melted, but when investigators looked at them, they would turn their faces away and go back to looking normal.

I was no longer interested in the forest. I hadn’t yet solved its every mystery, but now it was up to the grownup investigators. The only one left I was still interested in was Rain.

The professor helped me. In exchange for all the research I gave them on the forest, they analyzed every letter of Rain’s genome and put it on a USB drive. They gave the drive to me.

When I gave the drive to Rain, she was not happy.

“What is this?”

“It’s your genome,” I said. “If you take it to an ancestry test centre, along with your brother’s, you can see if they’re the same.”

“Are you crazy?”

It took some convincing, but eventually, I made her promise to do it.

#

What happened a week later was the scariest day of my life.

In the middle of the night, while I was asleep in my room, Rain had climbed up to knock on my window. Soon, she was dragging me along somewhere, both of us running and hiding from any lights. I was still in my PJs.

“What’s going on?” I demanded.

“Listen,” she said as she looked around to see if anyone was listening. “I know there’s been strange creatures appearing in this town. Temporal and thermal anomalies, too. Lots of weird things. But listen when I say, I think there’s something else really, really mysterious going on. Something worse than everything we’ve seen so far.”

She explained what had happened once I gave her the USB drive with her genome.

The first thing she did was bring it to her brother. When he looked at it, he was stunned. His eyes were full of fear, and he wouldn’t answer any of her questions. They had a big fight, and once she knew it was useless, she left the house. 

Strange things began to happen once she did. First, a toadspringer came and shot its tongue at her hand, snatching the USB drive. She ran after it and caught it, killing it and retrieving the drive.

When she went into town, a police officer stopped her and asked if she had any contraband. She had never been stopped by a cop before, so she was suspicious. When the cop told her to open the hand which held her USB drive, she ran.

Lights from the street lamps started to follow her, and she felt she was being hunted. When she tried passing the edge of town, the same temporal anomaly from the forest occurred, and she arrived back at the town. They had never appeared outside of the forest before.

“Something is trying to keep us in,” she said. “Or maybe just me. Everything in this world is trying to take this drive as if it’s evidence of something. You must help me, Callie. I know you’re just a kid, but it’s because of that, I trust you. I can’t ask anyone in town for help. I think they’re going to report me.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I want to help. But what do you want me to do?”

“You know the truth. I think everyone in this town does but me. Tell me what is going on.”

“I know as much as you, I swear.”

We had a small fight, but once she learned I was telling the truth, she stopped us before we got too loud.

“Then help me with Plan B. Help me get to the Abyss.”

“The Abyss? It’s guarded right now.”

“I know. And I think it’s for a good reason. It’s the only place we don’t know much about, and the town is very protective of it. My theory is that it’s an accidental hole out of this world.”

“Why do you want to go there?”

She looked at me incredulously. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m not from this world. I’m not sure any of us are. The creatures in the woods, too. I don’t know what this place is. But do you remember how my brother looked at me when I showed him the drive? That told me all I needed to know. I don’t know how, but maybe they duplicated his X chromosome to make me. I’m his cross-gendered clone.”

I needed a lot of time to take it in.

She took me to a secluded part of the woods. In a hidden ditch, there was a fully-grown whiskerwal with its neck tied to a tree with rope. It had a saddle strapped to its back. This was when I learned Rain had been preparing to escape for a while. Before, she didn’t know where she would go. But when I told her about the Abyss, she decided that was where she was going to go.

I refused at first.

“Please,” she said. “We need to get there fast. They’re searching for me. I’ve been practicing riding this whiskerwal for a while. It’s safe, I promise. This is the one thing they don’t expect.”

With enough convincing, I couldn’t refuse Rain. Once she succeeded, she untied the rope holding the whiskerwal. We managed to get both of us on it. 

We rode it through the woods. It was fast, and it obeyed Rain’s every command. This was where we learned that whiskerwals, although part of this world, were on our side. They didn’t seem to care about the investigators in the woods or try to steal Rain’s USB drive. Later, I learned it was because they were nostalgic for the world they came from. The deals they made with the trees with faces were conversations with cameras. They had been begging the scientists who controlled the experiment on Rain to bring snow to this world. The scientists had done so reluctantly.

The wind blew past us as we went through the forest. Some police officers spotted us and tried to stop us. 

“Hey! Get those two!”

They were all over the woods, probably on the search for us, but we outmaneuvered them. A big group blocked our path with ready stances, prepared to stop us. Our whiskerwal slithered in a zigzag pattern through the ground, making us dizzy. Rain yelled, “Yip!” and reined it forward. We were headed straight for the group of police.

We went straight through them and knocked them down like bowling pins. I heard them shouting, but we were already past them. It was fun, and I laughed. When Rain heard me laughing, she laughed too.

Soon, we arrived at the cave of the Abyss. A camp had been set up there by the investigators. There were white tents and lab computers on tables. 

We destroyed much of their equipment and ripped some tents on our way in. Our whiskerwal purred as its feet stomped on the electronic devices. The stationed scientists yelled at us, but they were also too slow. Some tried to tackle our whiskerwal, but it had the reflexes of a cat and dodged their attempts. They fell onto their equipment tables and Rain and I laughed.

Finally, we zoomed past them and entered the cave. We were headed straight into the Abyss.

“What will happen once we go through?” I asked. My voice sounded like an innocent child, half scared and half curious.

“I don’t know. But I had a blast with this town!”

“Me too!”

Our whiskerwal was running straight at the portal.

“Here we go!” Rain held me tight.

We crashed into the portal. It felt like slamming into a wave of liquid.

#

We had no memories of what happened once we entered the Abyss. We grew up apart from each other in the new world and led separate lives.

One day, I saw a whiskerwal on the street. It had stared at me with its calculating eyes. Then it left quickly. This was when I learned that what Rain said was true. The town we lived in was prepared for her, and I was the fake one here. I never saw what I believed to be a real cat again. Or a salamander, for that matter.

“My world was built for you,” I told her, back at the train station, where snow began to fall. “We lived in a town with so many anomalies. In the end, I think I was the anomaly. I was never supposed to fall for you. I was the one who ruined their experiment.”

“Well, why did you fall for me?” she asked. “You’ve solved every mystery, except this one. What’s your hypothesis?”

I paused to think about it. “They accounted for everything. Jacob was there to make you laugh, to test your humanity that way. Marley was there to give you conflict. I was supposed to be the smart one, to make you curious, I think. But even scientists make mistakes. They forgot that giving curiosity to a child breeds all sorts of complex emotions, emotions that sometimes interfere with logic.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, sometimes adults get too rational when they’re older. They forget that children will use reason to explain the odd things most important to them.”

We spent an hour or so chatting and remembering. It snowed long enough for the ground to be covered with a thick layer of snow. We decided to stay outside.

She told me she still loved her original. Even though she now knew he was not her brother, but only a man who had raised a clone of himself as her, it was hard to change the bonds of family, real or not. I asked her if the experiment was a success, even if I interrupted it.

“I’m not sure. They said they gained a significant amount of information, but the hypothesis of clones having humanity is not exactly a scientific one. It’s hardly measurable.”

“Maybe it can only be felt.”

“Agreed.”

We spent a moment looking at the snow as the sky darkened. Some whiskerwal kittens, remnants of our old world, appeared and began playing in the snow. We played with them for a while.

“Hey,” said Rain, scratching behind the ear of one of them. “The experiment’s over, and they told me I’m free to do whatever I want. That means you’re free too. What will you do now?”

I took a moment to think. “I don’t know. Perhaps you found your original, but I don’t fully understand where I came from. Or Jacob, or Marley, or my mom or dad. But I’ve outgrown solving mysteries, it’s not something I want to spend my time on anymore. Maybe I’ll go catch some whiskerwals instead. It was fun when we did it.”

“Yeah, it was,” she said, smiling.

I never told Rain about what happened directly after we entered the Abyss. I said we had no memories, but that wasn’t the truth. The truth is scientists had brought me in and questioned me about her. They asked how I was certain she was a clone. I realized if I told the truth, I would give them evidence of the inhumanity of clones, that there existed some irrefutable way for an average person to tell them apart from a real person, and I wouldn’t know what would happen to Rain if I did. So I lied.

“I don’t know. I was just interested in her.”

“We know all about your interest in her. You fell in love with a clone?”

“Yes. I didn’t know she was one.”

A few of them murmured when they heard that answer. Some were even happy about it. Others were skeptical about it, but I would not budge. The truth was that children have keen perceptive skills when they fixate on something. When they do, they don’t let go, and this allows them to see things adults miss in the chaos of their busy lives. At least, this was my hypothesis. Or what I believed.

When my train finally came, Rain and I said our goodbyes and went our separate ways. Though we only vaguely promised to stay in touch, it was a delight to run into her at the train station, and before I knew it, I was already hoping it would happen again.

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