Page 101 of Echoes
“My love, I wasn’t supposed to die this way. This can’t be how it was supposed to go for us… I know everyone is against us because we’re two women who love each other, but we were supposed to have time. We can fix it.”
“And how would we do that? People know you died, Daphne.”
“We’d go. We’d leave. We’d never contact anyone else here again, and I’ll change my name, too. We’ll figure it out. And it’ll just be the two of us, how we’ve always wanted it to be.”
“You’re talking about coming back to life, and I still don’t know if it’s all in my head.”
“The ring,” Daphne reminded. “You didn’t know about the ring.”
“No, but maybe one night, I was tired and saw you put it in that box, and I just didn’t remember or didn’t put two and two together.”
“That’s not what happened, and you know it. Iris, I need you to bring me back to life.”
“You said you destroyed the device.”
“We’re going to make another one.”
“We?”
“I’m going to tell you what to do, what to buy, and where to get it.”
“Oh,” Iris let out and looked down at her feet.
“What?”
“I have no money. I lost my job, and I only had enough money to afford the rent this month. I’m barely eating.”
“I know. I’ve been watching you,” Daphne said. “And I am so sorry, my love. I thought having the will would help. The money I saved should be yours.”
“I’ll move back in with my parents and find another secretary job. I just haven’t been able to work. I haven’t been able to move.”
“There’s money in my drawer. Bedside table.” Daphne nodded toward the table that was still on her side of the bed. “Bottom drawer. The nest egg was with the bank, yes, but the emergency fund is in the bottom drawer. I should’ve told you about this… I should’ve told you so much more… I left you unprepared, and I’ll never forgive myself.”
Iris rose and pulled out the bottom drawer, finding another shoe box.
“Under the piece of cardboard I put there so that no one else would find it.”
The box had a few random objects in it: a pack of cards, a cigarette lighter, even though neither of them smoked, and some change. Iris lifted the piece of cardboard that looked like the bottom of the box and found more money than she’d ever seen in her life.
“Oh, my God…”
“It’s enough. Maybe, if we do this right, we’ll have a little left over to get us somewhere else.”
“I had no idea you had this.”
“The government paid us well for our work, and I still had my main job, so I’ve been putting a little away for the past several years. Some at the bank and some here. It was for us, for whatever we might need in the future. I didn’t know this would happen.”
“No, I mean… I had no idea you had this. I’ve neverseenyou put money in this box. I didn’t even know this box was here. So, how do I know now?”
“Because, Iris, I’m not in your head. I am real. I’m as real as Ican be in this state. And if you can rebuild the device, I can come back to you.”
“Your team can build it. I can ask them; give them this money.”
“I can’t risk it.”
“They saved your body. They must have thought about bringing you back. You all probably did.”
“I don’t want to risk them, Iris. If they work in the lab, someone will find out. If you workhere, no one will know. No one would suspect you of being able to do anything like this. It’s safer. All you have to do is build it and get it near my body.”