Her mom was quiet on the other end of the line. Then: “Okay. And?”
“And?” Sloane clapped a hand to her forehead. “And I’m freaking out!”
“Slo, you’ve been together for ten years.”
Sloane’s face got hot. “We’ve never even talked about it! Don’t you think that if he wanted to marry me, he would, you know, bring up the subject of marriage casually at some point? For all he knows, I hate the entire institution on principle.”
“While that would not be at all surprising, given the number of things you do hate,” June said, a hint of amusement creeping into her voice, “maybe he wanted to keep it a surprise.”
Sloane watched a cat prowl along the curb outside.
“Sloane.” Her mother sighed. “He’s the best you’re gonna find. Trust me.”
Sloane didn’t respond.
“I gotta go,” her mom said.
To do what? Sloane didn’t say. She hung up without saying goodbye. That wouldn’t surprise June. They usually spoke only once a year, on Christmas, for about five minutes. They hadn’t exchanged “I love you”s since Sloane was a child. Since before her dad left, then turned up dead in a morgue in Arkansas—killed by a Drain—and June had to go identify the body.
He’s the best you’re gonna find. She was right, obviously, because Matt radiated goodness so hard, you wanted to punch him sometimes. Not loving him was like not loving freedom. Or puppies.
But there was something about the way June had said it that grated on Sloane. He’s the best you’re gonna find. And that, too, was true—what was she supposed to do, join a dating app? Pretend to have a regular job? At what point would she mention that she was one of the five saviors of humankind? Was that a third-date conversation or more of a fifth-date one?
But it would have been nice, she thought, for June to say something kind and reassuring for once.
Sloane sat with her phone in her hands. The sun was setting, and the eye-searingly blue fairy lights had turned on across the street. She felt uneven, like the room had shifted around her. But she also knew that whenever Matt proposed to her, she would say yes, because it was the only rational thing to do. They would get married and he would take care of her and she would try as hard as she could to be good enough for him.
TOP SECRET
AGENCY FOR THE RESEARCH AND INVESTIGATION OF THE SUPRANORMAL
SUBJECT: UNEXPLAINED DISASTROUS EVENTS OF 2005, TRANSCRIPT OF DEBRIEFING SESSION WITH LEAD OFFICER [redacted], CODE NAME BERT
OFFICER S: Please state your name for the official record.
OFFICER K: My name is [redacted], but for the purposes of this mission I have been assigned the code name Robert Robertson.
OFFICER S: Noted. We are here today to make an account of your collection of Project Ringer Subject 2, Sloane Andrews.
OFFICER K: Correct. I received notice on 17 October that Subject 2 had been identified and her retrieval was to occur immediately.
OFFICER S: The record shows that there was a twenty-four-hour delay on action, despite this order. Can you account for this?
OFFICER K: Yes. I requested a delay of one week to allow Subject 2 to attend her brother’s funeral. My request was denied, but I was granted a delay of twenty-four hours. I deemed this to be insufficient but did as ordered and arrived at the Andrews residence on 18 October at 1500 hours.
OFFICER S: And how did you find the Andrews residence?
OFFICER K: As anticipated. Our intel indicated that the Andrews family was of relatively low socioeconomic status, so I was prepared for the dilapidated house as well as the worn quality of the rest of the neighborhood.
OFFICER S: And you made contact with Subject 2 directly upon arrival?
OFFICER K: She was sitting on the front steps. Her appearance was disheveled. I confirmed her name and introduced myself with my code name.
OFFICER S: And her reaction?
OFFICER K: She said, “That sounds like a fake name.”
OFFICER S: Astute. Your reply?
OFFICER K: I confirmed that it was indeed a fake name. I thought I might begin to gain her trust if she felt that I was being honest with her.
OFFICER S: Noted. Go on.
OFFICER K: I asked if her mother was home and if I could speak with her. She looked uncomfortable. She asked me who I was and what I wanted, and I said I could only talk to her if her mother was present. Her reply was that if I was waiting for her mother to be “present,” I would be waiting a long time.
OFFICER S: Ah.
OFFICER K: At that point I deemed it necessary to change my procedure. Typically with the subjects of Project Ringer, I speak with the parent and the subject at the same time, but this was a special situation. A dead father and brother and what appeared to be an incapacitated mother. The subject was essentially alone. So I decided to speak with her alone. I asked if we could go inside, and she refused. Said she wasn’t about to let a strange man into her house. So I simply stood where I was.
OFFICER S: How did you begin?
OFFICER K: She asked who I was again. I replied that I was with a clandestine part of the government, the exact nature of which I was unable to disclose, and that I was there about a prophecy.
OFFICER S: Let the record reflect that the officer is referring to Precognitive Vision #545, regarding the Dark One and his equal, colloquially known as the Chosen One. How did the subject react to the notion of a prophecy?
OFFICER K: She said, “I don’t believe in that stuff. I just stick to what I can see and touch.” I asked her how she was able to account for what the Dark One had been capable of. It was perhaps a poorly timed remark, given that her brother had just been killed by the Dark One earlier that week—
OFFICER S: Did she become upset?
OFFICER K: The opposite, actually. She took on a flat affect. No expression. And she said, “I don’t know.” I decided that it might be best to appeal to her logical side and suggested it was the word prophecy she didn’t like. I then cited Newton’s third law.
OFFICER S: Let the record reflect that Newton’s third law states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
OFFICER K: . . .Thank you for that.
OFFICER S: Not everyone remembers physics, Officer.
OFFICER K: I explained that the prophecy simply predicted that for the Dark One, there would come an equal and opposite individual. We had, in other words, received a list of criteria for who that person would be. We had acted in cooperation with Canada and Mexico to narrow down our options, since the attacks have thus far been exclusive to North America. When Sloane’s brother died at the Dark One’s hands, she became one of those options.
OFFICER S: You don’t mince words.
OFFICER K: It was my theory that a young woman forced to be so independent due to parental negligence would interpret my bluntness as respect for her autonomy. It seemed I was right—she took in this information with no apparent reaction. I further added that my job was to prepare all five potentials for this eventuality so that humanity had our best chance of survival.
She asked me, “Are you saying I’m . . . ‘the One’?” With finger quotes around the phrase “the One.”
I answered, “Yes and no. I’m saying you might be the One.” I cited some of the criteria she met—the death of her father and brother, her birth during a harvest moon, a mother who did not share her last name, the rare blood type AB negative—