The Veils: A Love Story (complete)

Most good things that have come about in my life have been because of mistakes, sometimes bad ones, mostly good. I once accidentally took rat poison instead of vitamins when I was a child; this led me to labeling everything quite clearly as I grew up. Throughout all the stages of my life, I have always had a label maker. When I was in high school, I went into the wrong classroom and took an advanced science class that changed my life, leading me to the career I have today. In college, I went to the wrong restaurant for a date, and wound up talking to the waitress all night. The waitress became my wife, Clara, and I have been happy ever since.

Our college goals took us down similar paths. We were both in science courses, with Clara aiming towards astrophysics and space exploration, while I focused on biology and medical research. We studied together, learning from one another and growing to expand our understanding of each of our fields. Even when we ended up transferring to other colleges, we kept in constant touch, always excited to share what we were learning.

Clara was always exceptional. She seemed to excel in everything she did without breaking a sweat. She never failed to impress me, even when her true colors showed. She was never a good cook; in fact, she was an odd cook. Her flavor combinations sailed into a Cronenberg territory that only she enjoyed. Shealso had a knack for falling asleep anywhere, no matter what the comfort level or where she was. If she’s sleepy, she’ll fall asleep where- she stands if she has to. I’ve caught her sleeping on the toilet more than once.

When we graduated, we got married. Clara already had job offers stretching across the country and even overseas, but she decided to take a job that placed us halfway between both our hometowns. I found an internship nearby, where I worked up through the ranks to eventually land a job in the research and development team.

The project I came to work on was a top secret one. It was hidden under the guise of a new drug study, but what we were really doing was something else entirely. The subjects who were brought into the study were all suffering the same sort of strange condition. It hadn’t yet been reported on the news, and the story was being squashed by the benefactors funding the research. The people we were studying were exactly who they were on paper - and yet, they weren’t. They looked human, acted human, and in fact, when interviewing family and friends, some never spotted a difference. There was always something strange about them, though.

The people in the study appeared to be afraid of the dark, but once in darkness, their eyes had the same reflective quality as a cat’s. The eyes were always a dead giveaway. One of my subjects was a man slightly older than myself; he was calm, collected, very intelligent, and we talked at length most days. His body’s name was Langdon, but I called him Lang.  He had kept the disguise perfectly, but as time went on, a bit more of the real him beneath the skin showed through.

I made Lang slip up a few times. Langdon was a custodian for a hospital, and by all means was an intelligent person, but it was safe to assume my scope of knowledge was beyond his. But I would throw things about my work into conversation, and technical topics I had learned from Clara and her work. Lang went along with these subjects, and knew what I was talking about.

“How do you understand this?” I would ask him.

Lang would get a surprised expression on his face and chuckle. “Must have read it somewhere.” He always shrugged, then smiled at me.

Our research took us down a strange path, one that should have been more science fiction than fact. We performed brain scans and blood tests on the subjects regularly, but nothing ever came up. Everything appeared normal, except that their blood had an unusually high concentration of iron. Apparently, the key ingredient we needed in all of this was time. By the one-year mark, more cases of this strange phenomena had been reported. Most of the cases happened in coastal towns, beaches, anywhere near large bodies of water. It was getting hard to hide this from the public, and we researchers were under tremendous pressure from the higher-ups.

One day while meeting with Lang - who had at this point become a friend - I was taking a regular blood sample when the blood came out blue. It was the first time anything like this had happened.

“It seems like you may have your answers soon, Dr. Eccles,” Lang sighed. “Will you still bring me the newspaper when that happens?”

“If you can answer me honestly,” I breathed quietly, “we can avoid anything drastic, Lang.”

Lang took the alcohol wipe from my hand and rubbed down the puncture in his arm from the needle. “It will always be drastic. Doesn’t matter how the truth is revealed, it’s always the typical clutching of pearls followed by the shedding of blood.” Lang smiled at me. “But we all just want peace, Dr. Eccles. We just want a place to call home.”

The brain scans came up different this time, too. Whereas everything appeared normal at the start of the study, now everything was coming to light. There was a foreign object in the subject’s brains, and it looked like a kid wearing a sheet over themselves to pretend to be a ghost. This thin veil over the brain reacted like a fully functional brain would - it sent impulses down through the spine by fiber-like tails, making the body move, walk, talk, and do everything a human normally does. It was also discovered that while this veil kept the body alive, the brain was inactive - dead.

So, whoever these people were, they were not the original owners of the bodies. The ‘Veils’ as we began to call them, had taken over both the body and the person. They became the human host, hiding in plain sight.

I was horrified by this discovery, but I wouldn’t breathe a word of it to anyone. The Veils were slowly encroaching upon us, taking over more and more of humanity each day. We received at least five new cases every single day, and the numbers were growing fast. Almost no one outside our program knew about this, and we didn’t have a clue how to stop it or protect ourselves from it. All we knew was that it took a year for the Veil to become visible. Until then, we had no idea who was a Veil and who wasn’t. 

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One day, Clara came home more excited than I had ever seen her. She was grinning from ear to ear and bouncing off the walls like a sugar-hyped child.

“You’re never going to believe this, Edmund!” She grabbed my hands, squeezing them and shaking them in the air. “I was chosen!”

“Chosen?” I forced a smile just for her. “Chosen for what?”

“I’m going on the Persephone Mission!” she screamed happily, spinning us around in circles. “I’m going into space!”

I grabbed her up in my arms and hugged her as tight as possible. “That’s amazing!” I started to cry with her. All her life, going into space had been her dream. I had seen so many pictures of her wearing a space helmet made from a box, or putting her dinosaurs into a rocket made from shoe boxes. Ever since she accidentally watched ‘Alien’ as a child, she had dreamed of becoming just like Ripley. 

I pictured the chest-burster scene from the film. That was unsettling to think about, knowing what I did about the Veils. I couldn’t tell her; it could end her career, and her chances of going into space, if I leaked any information at all. I couldn’t have cared less about my career. If it wasn’t for the contract, I would have been long gone.

“I love you, Clara,” I told her. “I am so proud of you!”

She grinned up at me. “And I love you more than most things.” Those words made me smile. They were her little way of teasing me and declaring her love at the same time. “But there’s not that much I love more.”

I supported Clara though through all of it. The Persephone Mission was testing a garden in space as part of its research. It would be the biggest cultivated garden ever to be grown outside of Earth’s atmosphere They were even going to take chickens up with them, which Clara seemed excited about. 

I don’t remember the day she left all that well. I remember the morning, because we had to get up extremely early. As we started to leave the house, she turned to me with a bright smile on her face and worry in her eyes.

“You know I love you more than most things, right?” she asked me.

“I know,” I said with a nod. “But not much else, right?”

“Exactly,” she said as she gave me one last kiss. “Not much else at all.”

I watched the takeoff, but if I tried to pull it up in my mind, it all felt as foggy as a dream. I was so happy for Clara. She was getting to live everything she had wanted since she was little. 

But the only thing I really remember about that day is the cold, gnawing, sinking feeling of dread I felt. There was no reason to feel that way at all. Liftoff went smoothly, and reports back from the crew when reached their destination were nothing but glowing. But deep inside, the terror I felt about the Veils was spreading through me. 

The Persephone Mission was supposed to last five years. The crews were meant to switch out once a year and return to the site after three years, so each crewmember would make two trips. During the year Clara was gone, the research on the Veils was taken to another location and another group of people. I was relieved to an extent, but I knew too much already. I knew the Veils were out there.

Before I packed up, I had one last conversation with Lang. By all accounts, he looked almost exactly the same as he did when I first met him, but after the discovery of the Veils, his personality had shifted. Lang was a touch colder, more blunt, and had stopped talking to anybody except me. I greeted him with his customary newspaper, and sat down at his table. 

“How is your wife?” he asked me as he opened up the paper. 

“She’s fine. Reports are good,” I said with a nod. “How are you?”

A twitch of his brow was all that gave him away. “Why do you ask, Dr. Eccles?”

“You’re being transferred today,” I replied. “Aren’t you nervous for what is ahead? I mean, I don’t even know where you’ll be going.”

“I expected it,” he answered. “As with all things, the truth eventually comes out. I knew we wouldn’t be able to hide long here. Longer than most, but that’s the point of these research missions.”

I furrowed my brow at those words. “Research missions?”

Lang flicked to a new page of his paper. “I can tell you this now because after today, you aren’t allowed to speak about any of this. You had your exit interviews, and you’ve given them all you know.” He looked at me. Over time, his once-brown eyes had become a vivid blue. “We are here looking for a home, for a way out. Humanity offered us that, and we only took what we needed.”

I shook my head. “I don’t understand,” I whispered. “Are you saying you’re extraterrestrial?” 

Lang smiled at me. “We are below the surface of your understanding. But whatever it is you need to tell yourself, we are what we are.” His expression turned sad. “I have enjoyed our friendship, Dr. Eccles. I have very much liked our time together. I pray the people I end up with will be of the same caliber as you.” He nodded his head again and turned his attention back to the paper. “Have you found a new job yet?”

“Yeah,” I said quietly. “It’s a pharmaceutical study.”

Lang sighed. “Sometimes a placebo is a better healer. I wonder why that is,” he murmured to himself. 

When I left that day and returned home, I found several people waiting at my door. They were military, police - and Clara’s boss. All of a sudden, the dread made sense. It was no mistake that I had felt the way I did the day she took off. I felt sick to my core, rotted from the gut out. I went numb as Clara’s boss explained everything to me. 

Something had happened during the Persephone Mission, and mission control was considering bringing the crew back a few months early. An emergency order was issued, and the crew had to eject earlier than planned. Their shuttle came through the atmosphere just fine, and was expected to land on target. But something happened, and when the shuttle landed, it was breached and started taking on water fast. Clara sacrificed herself, working to contain the leak, and drowned so her crewmates could live. They tried to retrieve her body, but by the time the rescue team got the crew out, the shuttle had been completely submerged.

My Clara was gone. She had disappeared into the ocean forever. I had never felt more lost in my entire life. I was baffled, confused, and disappearing into my own mind. Living through every day was like driving a car with amnesia. I could remember point A and point B, but not anything in between.

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Three months have gone by since then. I’ve been working on autopilot, not sure if it’s caused by the grief or my efforts to ignore it. One day, I come home and I see that the lights are on. I don’t really question it; I’ve been known to forget what I am doing half the time these days.

The door is unlocked. That’s puzzling because my autopilot always has me double-check all the locks, and I always check the labels on my keys. When I enter, I hear a sound coming from the back, like the washing machine is going. I step further inside and see a pair of pink tennis shoes by the door. I know those aren’t mine.

I start to head towards the hall closet, where the washing machine is, and Clara steps out. Her hair is tied back in the same messy bun she always wore at home, and she’s wearing my college sweatshirt and a pair of black socks.

“There you are!” She beams at me. “I was getting worried.”

I can’t breathe as she wraps her arms around me. Her kiss is so soft, and I missed it so much. I grab hold of her, kissing her hard as her giggles turn into soft moans.

“Someone is in a mood today,” she winks at me. She runs her fingers along my jaw. “When is the last time you shaved, Mr. Edmund?” she tuts. “You’re a grisly sight.”

“Me?” I whisper. “What about-”

Clara taps her finger to my lips. “What’d you have for lunch today?” she asks me. It was always what she asked me when I first came home. She knew my tendency to eat junk food instead of a good meal, that I was given to living on gummy bears and chips when I wasn’t being supervised. 

“I don’t recall,” I murmur. “It’s… It’s been a while since-” It really had been a while since I had to report back to her. She’d been gone for so long. She’d been dead.

Clara gives me a look. “I don’t take that as an excuse,” she huffs, snapping her hands to her waist. “Do you know how disgusting the fridge was? Did you forget how to clean?” She smiles at me, placing another kiss on my lips. “You’re too much work, you know?”

I hold her again, feeling Clara, smelling Clara. “Yeah, I know,” I whisper.

Clara takes hold of my hand. “You ok, Mr. Edmund?” she asks me. “Did something happen at work today?”

I shake my head a few times, then chuckle. “Who are you?”

She looks me over with an inquisitive look. “I think you need to lie down and sleep.” She tugs at my hand. “I just put clean sheets on the bed and took the old duvet down from the closet, so you should feel all cozy.”

“No, really.” I grip her hand tighter as we enter the hallway. “Who are you?”

Clara turns back and looks up at me. “Edmund,” she says sternly, “let go of me.” She tries to jerk her hand away.

I tighten my grasp, gripping her hand hard. “Who. Are. You?” I repeat slowly, intensely. I inch closer to her, yanking her sideways so she’s right in front of me.

“You’re hurting me!” Clara struggles harder. She looks up at me with wide green eyes. “Edmund? Edmund!” she screams. “Stop it!” Fat tears come to her eyes. “You’re hurting me! Edmund!” 

I gasp and release her. She stumbles away from me, tripping over her feet and falling down in the hallway. She’s crying, sniveling as she presses her back into the corner.

“Oh my god,” I whisper. “Oh my god, Clara! I’m so sorry!”

“Whatever happened at work, don’t take it out on me!” Clara screams at me. “That really hurt!” She looks up at me with a massive scowl on her face.

I kneel in front of her. “I’m sorry, I really am. I don’t know what came over me.” I sit there for a moment while she cries. “I don’t have an excuse for why I did that.”

Clara wipes her face with the sleeves of her sweatshirt. “You scared me.”

“I know,” I whisper, fear bubbling up inside me as well. “I’m sorry.”

Clara huffs, wiping her eyes a final time. “Help me up.”

I stand and give her my hand. She tugs on my wrist to get up, then looks in the direction of the bedroom. “You really want to make it up to me?” she asks.

I nod, unable to speak.

“Then...” A coy smile spreads across Clara’s face. She leads me into the bedroom and pulls me down on top of her in bed. She kisses me, pulling out a hunger in me. Everything feels, tastes, and smells like Clara. I have missed her for so long and so much, I fall into her easily, repeatedly. I take my time remembering every nook and cranny of her and how much I love her. I exhaust myself by burying everything in the memories I hold of her. It is all so strange being with her, knowing she is gone and yet in my arms at the same time. 

“You really do need to shave,” she teases as she lays her head on my chest. Her fingers trail down my stomach and back up. “That stubble hurt my thighs, you know?”

“Sorry,” I rub my hand up and down her back. “I guess I got carried away.”

Clara kisses my cheek. “I didn’t mind.” She nestles back down. “I don’t know about you, but I needed that.”

“Yeah,” I murmur, staring up at the uneven wobbling of the ceiling fan. The lights are still on, but dimmed. Clara never let me completely turn them off. She wanted to see me during all of it.

Clara sighs as she rests her body against mine. “You know, I’m glad to be here,” she whispers dreamily. “I’m happy to finally see you.”

“Yeah.” I squeeze her shoulder. “Me too.”

For a long time, the room is silent save for the squeaking of the ceiling fan. I consider getting up to turn the light off, but Clara’s arm tightens around me. 

“Don’t go,” she whimpers.

I lay back down in bed. “I won’t.”

Clara’s fingers flex on my chest. “Do you love me, Edmund?”

“Yeah, of course,” I breathe. “I’ll always love you, Clara.”

“No matter what?” Her voice catches.

I glance down at the top of her head. “Yeah. Of course I will.”

“Forever?”

I rub my hand down her back again. “Always, remember?”

Clara takes a deep breath. “I know,” she whispers. “It’s just-” She swallows, then chuckles softly. “It’s just nice to hear. You know?”

“Yeah. I know,” I whisper. “Do you love me?”

“More than anything,” Clara’s soft voice replies. 

I close my eyes as a painful lump forms in my chest. “Do you love anything more than me?” I ask.

“No,” she tightens an arm around me. “There’s nothing I love more.”

It must be a mistake, I tell myself. Like most things in my life, this must all just be a mistake. Clara never died. Clara never went to space. I’ve just been stressed at work, that’s all. It’s a mistake.

I wake up alone in the morning, and for a second, I dare to believe it was all a dream. I sit up, feeling groggy and lightheaded. I get up and wobble over to the bathroom door. Inside, I hear the shower running. As I peek inside, I see Clara is in the shower stall. I stand there for a long time, confused again.

“You gonna just stand there, or do you want to come and join me?” Clara opens up the shower curtain and grins out at me. 

I stand there, still staring.

Clara’s brow knits together. “You okay, there? Are you even awake?” She waves her hand in front of me, then flicks water onto my face. 

I rub my eyes. “You never get up before me.”

“Oh,” she shrugs. “I woke up and couldn’t fall back asleep.” She closes the shower curtain. “Figured I would get up and get ready, let you rest.”

“Yeah,” I whisper. “Uhm-” I shake my head. “Listen, Clara, we need to talk. I can’t wrap my head around this-”

“How about pancakes for breakfast?” she interrupts. “I really feel like pancakes. When I’m done, I’ll make us a big batch.”

I gape for a moment. My mouth flops open and closed as I try to form the correct thoughts I need. “You… you hate making pancakes. I always have to make them.”

“Take the hint then,” Clara steps out of the shower. “Duh!” She chuckles at me. “Obviously I want you to make them.” She kisses me on the cheek. “I’ll get everything ready for you while you shower. Coffee too.” She slips a towel on and leaves the bathroom. 

“I don’t drink coffee…” I murmur to myself.

When I go into the kitchen, I see that Clara has everything laid out for the pancakes. She’s sitting at the table, reading the newspaper. 

“Did you sleep well?” she asks.

As I look at her, I want to ask who she is. My Clara died, I was sure of it. She drowned. Her body vanished. When we had the funeral, we just added her name to her father’s tombstone. There was no coffin, no body to bury. We had to lay flowers on the beach. But what if I’ve made a mistake? What if I’m just remembering things wrong? What if I’m deluding myself?

“Edmund?” Clara leans closer to me. “Are you alright?”

Perhaps it’s a mistake. “I’m fine,” I chuckle. “Just haven’t woken up completely.” I move to the counter, where all the ingredients and utensils are laid out for me, just like Clara promised. “So. Pancakes?”

“Pancakes!” Clara bounces in her seat. “You know what else would be good?”

I know Clara. I know her appetite and how she eats. She always loved having cheese melted onto her pancakes before pouring the syrup on. “What else?” I ask to tease her.

“Maybe, if you really love me... maybe you could make me some bacon, too?” Clara tugs at the back of my shirt.

It’s a mistake. “Yeah, of course.” I smile down at her. “No problem at all.”

I can’t help but remember what Lang told me, the day my research on the Veils ended. I thought he had been talking to himself, but I now realize that he had been talking to me. He told me that, sometimes, a placebo works better than real medicine. I thought he was taking a jab at my job in pharmaceutical studies, but it was a warning of sorts. Lang was telling me point-blank that the Veils are a placebo, because the human brain was dead while the Veil took control. Perhaps the Veils only ever intended to take over people who were dead or dying. Lang said they were on a research mission to save themselves, but to save themselves from what?

In any case, my Clara is a placebo, a sugar pill. She is no longer the Clara I knew, but a near-perfect copy of the woman I loved. Perhaps, if I can continue to delude myself, I’ll love her too. 

I start calling this new Clara ‘Clara Bell’. It’s cute, it’s sweet, and she has no complaints with the name. Eventually, the name shortens and I just call her Bell. After all, she isn’t Clara, and it seems fitting that this new one has a name of her own.

Bell is everything Clara was - funny, bright, extremely smart to boot. There are often times we get lost in conversation, going down rabbit holes of biology and astrophysics that make me forget I’m not talking to Clara. More than once, I’ve slipped up and called her Clara. No matter what name I call her, Bell never seems to mind. I think she’s just happy to be here, to have a home, to have me. There are times I believe that Bell really loves me like Clara loved me. 

I try to make it work, to make everything normal like it used to be. I’ve asked Bell out on lots of dates. For coffee during breaks at work. To fancy restaurants. We even take a trip up the coast for a long weekend. She’s excited to get closer to the ocean, even though I’ve come to fear the water ever since my work with the Veils. The coasts are where most cases of the Veils come from, along with people who have recently traveled. 

“It’s so lovely here,” Bell says to me as she stares out the window of our hotel room. “Like an old memory.”

“What sort of memory?” I ask her.

Bell turns and looks back at me. “I’m not sure.” Her eyes have a strange look in them. It’s like she desperately wants to tell me something, but she’s holding on to it for dear life. “It’s just all familiar. We all came from the ocean, you know,” she tells me, her tone turning chipper.

“Oh, really? I had no idea,” I smirk. “Tell me how all of us came from the ocean.”

“Studies say there’s evidence that humans may have evolved from water-based creatures. Like the wrinkling of our hands!” She holds her palms up to me. “That gross, weird, wrinkling we get? They say it’s so we can better grab things underwater! How amazing is that? Something our bodies have always done and they said was just silly might actually be some sort of huge deal!” She giggles and shakes her head. “We know more about space than our own oceans. I’m starting to think I studied the wrong thing.”

I kiss Bell’s forehead. “I never realized you had such a fondness for the ocean. I should have taken you sooner.”

Bell smiles up shyly at me. “I’m happy we’re here now.”

I notice something strange about Bell’s eyes. Clara’s once-crisp green eyes with flecks of gold seem to have a bluish tint to them now, but she turns before I can really tell. 

“What should we do today?” Bell asks excitedly. “I saw that the hotel has a restaurant at the top. Maybe we should go get something to eat, then turn in and get an early start tomorrow.”

“I was actually thinking about going to a place down the road,” I tell her. “It’s a dine-in theatre, and they’re playing your favorite movie.”

Bell tilts her head to the side. “Movie?” she chuckles. “Like a movie theatre?”

“Yeah, but they serve dinner and drinks while you watch. I thought it could be fun.” I start to approach her, but Bell jerks away from me and folds her arms across her chest. “Nah. you don’t really wanna do something like that, do you?” she scoffs. “We could go have a romantic dinner upstairs and not worry about going out.”

“But they’re playing Alien,” I insist. “I thought you loved that movie.”

Bell huffs and shakes her head. “I’m tired of it.”

I furrow my brow and try to laugh. “You’re tired of it?” I ask her.

Bell looks away from me, clutching her elbows. “Yeah. So?” She frowns up at me. “I just don’t feel like seeing it.”

“I’m confused,” I murmur. “You used to find any excuse at all to watch that movie. What’s changed that you don’t want to see it?”

“I just don’t!” Bell snaps at me. “I don’t feel like seeing it! I don’t feel like watching it at a theatre, where it’s dark and I won’t be able to even see what is on my plate!”

I slouch back, nodding my head slowly as Bell looks away from me. “Where it’s dark,” I murmur. “I see.” I walk over to my luggage and take it off of the bed. “That’s okay. Maybe another time.”

Bell glances back at me. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. Another time, maybe.” I sit down on the edge of the bed. “I can’t change how you feel, Bell. I just wish I could understand it.”

Bell slides her hands down her arms until she’s lacing her fingers together. “What do you mean, Edmund?”

I sigh and hang my head, placing my temples into the palms of my hands. “You’re exactly the same,” I reply. “You’re my Clara, my Bell, and I love you so very much. But-” I grimace and shake my head. “But it’s like there is an extra piece and a missing piece at the same time. Something just doesn’t feel right.”

Bell sits down next to me, she takes hold of one of my hands to stroke it. She looks at me. “I love you too, and I’m trying hard to be someone you can love.” She positions herself so her body is facing mine. “I can see how you used to look at me, how your eyes lit up, and you would adjust your glasses like you could get a better picture.” She smiles gently. “I haven’t seen it in person, and I really want to.”

I look down at her and she tilts her head to the side. “You see that?”

“Clear as day,” she smiles.

I sigh. “I never realized I used to adjust them like that.”

“You did,” Bell stands up. “You will.” She extends her hand out to me. “Let’s go eat. I’m hungry and as soon as we are done, we can come back here and put our pieces together.”

I scoff as I take her hand, rising up off the bed. “Don’t say it like that, please.”

We go up to the restaurant on the top floor. It’s an extremely fancy place, and we spend more time mocking the prices on the menu than actually picking out food. For a moment, I forget the conversation we had in the room and Bell’s reluctance to go to the theatre. As we drink twenty-dollar glasses of wine, a woman approaches our table. She stands there for the longest time, silent. I recognize her as Clara’s old boss, Noreen.

“Clara? It can’t be!” Noreen shakes her head slowly. “I’m sorry, it’s just-” She looks at me and back at Bell, who is keeping her head lowered. Bell looks at me and then glances towards Noreen, but doesn’t lift her head. 

“Who are you?” Noreen asks. “You can’t be Clara, but you look… You look just like her.” She reaches out to touch her, but Bell pulls away. “You’re one of them, aren’t you?”

Bell looks to me for help. 

“You’re one of them. Right?” Noreen looks to me. “How does she have you fooled?” She starts to get louder. “You know Clara died, right? She sank to the bottom of the ocean like a stone! This isn’t her!” Her voice keeps rising.

“I know it isn’t her!” I snap at her. “This is Bell.” I point to Bell. “Clara’s sister.”

Noreen’s expression goes blank with shock. Her jaw drops. Bell has her face buried in a napkin as she cries. “Oh, oh my god-” Noreen clutches her hand around her mouth. “I’m so sorry, it’s just-” She stumbles back a bit. “All those reports. I assumed-”

“Please leave us alone. We’re both still in mourning and just trying to remember Clara in our own way.” I start to hang my head as Bell jumps up from her seat, running away from the table and out of the restaurant. 

“I’m sorry!” Noreen gasps. I quickly get up to give chase.

I find Bell tucked away near the ice machine. She’s still clutching the napkin to her face, sobbing. “There you are! Are you ok?” I kneel down to touch her, and she slaps my hand.

“Go away!” Bell shouts.

I stand there staring down at her as she keeps her face covered. “Bell, what’s wrong?”

“Stop calling me that!” she screams. “Stop calling me Bell! I’m not Bell!” She weeps loudly into the napkin. “I’m Clara,” she whimpers.

I glance behind me as passerbys linger to stare.

“Can’t we go back down to our room?” I ask. “We can talk there, Clara. I’m sorry about what Noreen said, what she did. She’s just scared, everyone is scared! All these strange happenings going on, anyone would be.”

“Are you?” 

I shake my head. “Am I what?”

“Are you scared?” Bell asks me. “These people who are themselves, but not really. Doesn’t it scare you?”

It’s always scared me, ever since I first met Lang and saw his eyes glimmer in the dark, the pupils widening until they almost blended into the dark, but still had that eclipse-like glow around them. I was afraid of admitting the truth and acknowledging that my Clara was really gone. 

I sit down beside Bell as the ice machine rumbles. She keeps the napkin to her face, but between her fingers, I can see a hint of blue staining the fabric. 

“Let’s go back to the room,” I tell her. I place my hand on her knee. “We can talk there in private. It’s okay.”

“Okay,” she whimpers. “Just… walk ahead of me, okay?” She takes hold of my hand as I stand up. “Don’t turn and look back at me.”

“I won’t.” I give her hand a squeeze as we go to the elevator. When we get on, I stand with my back to the elevator door and her back pressed against mine. It’s silent the entire ride down, and the longer it goes on, the more I have the urge to turn her around and look at her. I fear that if I do, Clara really will leave me forever.

Once in the hotel room, Bell quickly races to the bathroom, where she washes her face. When she steps out, her face and the hair around it is all wet, but I can still see traces of blue staining the rim of her eyelids like eyeliner. 

“You okay?” I ask gently.

She nods as she steps out of the bathroom. “I’ll be fine,” she sniffles. “That was… hard.” She looks up at me. “I haven’t-” She stops herself. “I’ll be ok,” she whispers.

“She was scared, it’s okay. People don’t understand these weird reports, and people love to panic over things they don’t understand. Don’t take what she said as anything against you-”

“It wasn’t what she said,” Bell interrupts. “It was what you said.”

I grow still for a long moment. “What I said?”

“You said I wasn’t Clara.” Her eyes dart around the room as a frown appears on her face. “You said I was Bell. Is that why you’ve been calling me that?”

“I just said that to get her to leave,” I force a laugh. “I figured if she thought you were someone else, she’d stop yelling and go away.”

“But you believe it, don’t you?” Bell blinks furiously, trying to keep herself from crying again. 

I take in a very deep, long breath. “If I admit it, then Clara really will be gone forever,” I whisper to her.

“But I’m right here!” She cries. “Look at me! It’s me, every bit.” She looks me over with panic in her eyes. 

I shake my head slowly. “Not every bit. A lot of what you say and do is Clara, but you aren’t my Clara.”

Bell’s mouth opens, then she shuts it tight. “You said you loved me.”

“And I do. I wasn’t lying. I love you.” I hold out my hands to her. “But I still love Clara too.”

Bell slips her hands into mine and grasps them tight. “How long have you known?”

“The entire time, I guess. But I was trying to pretend I never noticed,” I whisper. “It was small things at first. Things you said... you said them the same way as Clara, but the words were different. The way you ate was nothing like Clara.”

“I tried,” she insists. “I really did. But everything she liked, it made me-” she laughs bitterly. “I couldn’t fake that no matter what I did.”

I squeeze her hands tighter. “I was willing to suspend belief so I could hold on to Clara for as long as I could. But it’s not fair. Not to me, not to you. I want you to be honest with me.”

Bell looks up at me as blue tears fall from her eyes, they stain her shirt as they drip off her chin. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers.

“I know,” I say with a nod. “Now tell me, what happened to Clara?”

Bell trembles. She sits down on the bed, and I hand her a box of tissues from the bathroom. She blows her nose, and the snot that comes out has a bluish tint. Eventually, she gathers her strength and looks me straight in the eye.

“I found her in the water, suspended between the surface and the cold. It was like she was trapped between heaven and hell, or maybe she couldn’t decide where to go.” Bell sniffles, taking another tissue. “I had been waiting for someone like her to help me. I was scared. Everyone is. We were all waiting on someone like Clara to find us, but she found me.” Blue tears stream down her cheeks. As I catch them to wipe them away, they stain my fingertips and nails.

“Meeting Clara was nice. She had so much to share with me. She had so many beautiful thoughts and ideas. I was amazed,” Bell gazes at me with a smile. “Her mind was so alive, so full. I took in everything she was willing to give me. She held so tightly onto you though.” She swallows and takes a shallow breath. “She never wanted to let you go, but when she did, I understood why with so much clarity. I fell in love with you just like she did. I wanted to find you so badly. I knew too much time had passed, and you would never believe that I somehow… that Clara somehow survived.”

Bell looks out the window. The sky had grown dark, and the loudest sound outside is the ocean lapping the shore. “I came out of the ocean,” she whispers. “Clara led me to you. She showed me where the spare key was kept, and told me to do your laundry and clean the fridge. I assimilated myself into Clara’s life, hoping you would never even notice. But you did.” She looks back at me, the blue staining her cheeks. “You knew right away I wasn’t her. I hated myself.” She chokes and begins to sob again.

“You’re a Veil,” I whisper. “I studied you for years. Your kind has been taking over recently.”

“You knew?” Bell whimpers. “How?”

“My team was put in charge of studying it - the phenomenon,” I whisper slowly. “At first, it was just a small group of people. They were who they said they were and yet… not at all. I saw them with my own eyes. It took a year, but we finally saw them on brain scans. Like a veil draped over the brain. It was beautiful, but… it was alarming.”

“If you knew, why did you play along like you did?” Bell whispers.

“I told you, I didn’t want to lose Clara. I didn’t want to accept-” I stop myself, remembering the things that Lang told me. 

“Edmund.” Bell reaches out and takes a hold of my hand. “Edmund, what’s wrong?”

I let out a laugh. “Everything,” I whisper. I wipe the tears from my own eyes and sniffle. I make myself breathe deeply. “I became friends with one of you before. I called him Lang, and I greatly enjoyed his company. I think he was trying to warn me, or even prepare me.” I shake my head. “I thought you were all some sort of alien, but I’m starting to believe you’re closer to home than that.”

I look into Bell’s eyes, and see that they have become such a deep shade of blue. I sink back into the bed, wiping the tears away from my face again. “He said that-” I swallow the lump in my throat. “He said that you were just below the surface of our understanding. He meant the ocean.”

Bell averts her eyes from me.

“You found Clara in the ocean, not in space.” I look out the window, following Bell’s gaze towards the water outside. “You even said it today, that we know more about space than the ocean. Lang told me the answer ages ago, I just never understood it.”

Bell takes hold of my hand and squeezes it. “Can we go home?”

“Not tonight.” I reach out and tuck her hair behind her ear. “Lets get some sleep,” I say, kissing her forehead. “We both need the rest, I think.”

Bell tilts her chin up, capturing my lips in a kiss. We part for a moment before rejoining for another kiss. We fall into bed, grasping one another tightly as if for the last time.

I wake up in the dark to hear the ocean crashing through the open window. Bell is sitting on the windowsill, gazing out into the night. Her shoulders stiffen, and she perks up and turns to look at me. In the dark, her eyes glow like those of a cat’s. 

“Are you awake?” Bell slips down from the window, slowly walking back towards the bed.

“I’m not sure.” I am focused on her eyes, and the way they look like two perfect eclipses. She sits on the bed, reaching out to take hold of my hand. She kisses the back of my hand, then looks directly at me. 

“Can’t sleep?” I whisper to her.

“I’ve been thinking.” She keeps her voice low. “I should give Clara back to you.”

I sit up in bed. “What do you mean?”

“I should give her back.” Bell looks up at me. “I should leave.”

I grab hold of her arms tightly. “No. You can’t! If you leave, then you’ll both-” My grip goes slack on her arms.

“This was a mistake,” Bell chokes. “I should never have come back to you. I should have left and never looked back.”

“Even if it was a mistake,” I insist. “Wasn’t it a good one?”

Bell lays her head on my chest. “I was selfish,” she whispers. “I never should have tried to pretend to be the woman you loved.”

I slip my fingers under her chin, tilting her head up until I see the glow of her eyes again. “You are a woman I love,” I insist. “It was both of us who were selfish in the beginning. I held on to you, trying to make you Clara, but I fell in love with Bell.”

Bell closed her eyes again. “I’m not even human.”

“And?” I chuckle. “There have been worse things.”

Bell giggles, opening her eyes again to gaze at me. She cups my hand to her cheek, nuzzling into my palm. “You don’t mind it?” Her voice cracks. “Even when you don’t know what I am?”

“You’re Bell. That’s enough.”

Bell wraps her arms around me, hugging me tight.

The next day, Bell wakes me up early in the morning. It’s still fairly dark outside, but she insists we should leave. As I’m loading the trunk with our luggage, someone walks up behind me.

“It’s been a while, Dr. Eccles.”

I stand up and turn to find Lang standing behind me. It’s strange seeing him in such nice clothes; I had gotten used to seeing him in lab dressing gowns. “What are you doing here?” I ask him breathlessly. “How... even... did you get here?” I lurch to look around the parking lot. “Where’s Bell?”

“She’s fine. She’s giving us space.” Lang extends his hand out to me. “Walk with me, Dr. Eccles. We have a lot to talk about.”

I follow along beside Lang. We walk on the beach, parallel to the water. I notice Lang’s feet are bare. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” Lang says again. “I’m sure you’re not up to date on what has been happening...” He stalls for a moment, turning to look back at me.

“I feared the worst,” I confess. “Part of me thought they were going to cut you out.”

“Oh, they tried,” Lang arches his brows. “They got through two of us before the rest of us fought back. We had struggled so hard to get this life and cling to it that we weren’t going to let it go. I got us out of there, got us safe. I’ve been taking care to make sure others don’t suffer the same fates we went through. Part of that is keeping us as secret as possible.”

My jaw drops and I shake my head. “But there are reports now.”

“Conspiracy theories, all of them.” Lang waves his hand. “That’s what people assume, anyway. No one is going to believe there is an invasion of the body snatchers until it is too late.”

“Why?” I gasp. “Why are you doing this?”

“I told you before, when we were saying goodbye.” Lang tilts his head towards me. “You were the only one I could trust. We only want peace,” he replies. “We only want a place to call home and feel safe.” He presses his palms against his chest. “Remember?”

“Of course I do,” I whisper. I shake my head again and scoff. “But I still don’t understand. I thought you were aliens, but from everything I know now, it sounds like you all came from the ocean.”

“‘Alien’ can have many meanings,” Lang says with a nod. “You called me extraterrestrial, which was not the case. We come from the same blue marble, Dr. Eccles, but we are not of the same world.” He starts walking again along the shore. “Both of our worlds are dying, Dr. Eccles, and you cannot deny this truth. It was our mission to study the surface world to see if it would be a better fit than our own, but we discovered something else.” He stops again and gazes out over the ocean.

“What?” I whisper breathlessly.

Lang sighs, nodding his head gently. “This rot and decay affecting both our worlds could be stopped.”

I take a few slow, deep breaths. “How?” 

Lang looks back at me. “To reverse the damage, our kind must replace humanity.”

“So it is an invasion,” I whisper.

Lang tilts his head to the side. “You may see it that way, but it will not be a complete assimilation. Once the damage has been undone, we intend to return to our world and give you back yours.”

I swallow down the painful lump in my throat, but it sticks in place. “How long will that be?”

“Ten, twenty years.” Lang sways his hand side to side. “There are things here that need time to heal. You humans need to relearn everything.”

“I have to be honest with you, Lang. This all sounds like a threat.” My voice cracks.

“That’s because it is, Dr. Eccles. Your whole way of life is a threat, and you are blind to it.” Lang claps his hand down on my shoulder. “All of us will die. You do understand this, right?” He squeezes gently. “It’s like that little crab said: ‘The human world is a mess’.”

I frown then glance back to Lang. “Did you just-”

Lang breaks a smile. “I understand if this is scaring you, Dr. Eccles. I am scared.” He places his hand over his chest. “I just want to go home.”

“That’s what Bell said,” I whisper.

“We truly mean no harm. We only want to help. Because if we can help you, then we can all go home again.” Lang lets go of me and turns back towards the ocean. “It’s so much more beautiful than you could ever imagine out there.”

“Are you-” I tremble as I try to get the words out. “Are you going to-” I twitch my arm out towards the water. “Is that why I’m-”

Lang looks back at me. “It’s a choice, Dr. Eccles. I will not force your hand. I only urge you to think about what is best for this world.”

“My world-” I quiver. “My world is long gone.”

“Clara, I remember,” Lang says with a nod. “And what about Bell?”

I look up at Lang, then glance over his shoulder at the ocean.

“Who do you really want to be with, Dr. Eccles?” He asks me. “Think about it.” 

He walks away from me as I stand there on the beach. I watch the waves in the distance and feel the water lapping at my toes. After a while, I sit down in the wet sand. 

Bell comes up beside me, standing there as she looks out over the water. “Are you okay?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” I murmur. 

Bell sits down beside me, pulling her knees up to her chest. “I can’t make you stay, nor can I make you go. All I can tell you is that I will be here for whatever decision you make.”

I kiss Bell’s temple, then lay my head on her shoulder. “I think I should go to Clara.”

Bell tilts her head down. “I knew you would say that.” She rises, offering me her hand to help me stand. “I’ll be here, waiting,” she whispers to me.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I stay on the beach all day. Even as it becomes crowded with families, I remain where I am. I watch as children play, running and screaming across the shore and splashing into the water. I see babies crying for no reason at all, their loud screams carrying along the beach. Some people are clearly annoyed, but the sound touches me. 

Scream little baby. Scream for me, because I cannot. 

I continue to wait, even as it gets cold and harsh winds pick up. I watch the water, waiting for Edmund to return. I know he’ll come back. He’ll find me and we can go home together. He may be a little different, but I will still always love him just the same. I clutch his glasses in my hand. He gave them to me to protect. I have to make sure he gets them back, or he’ll be helpless without them.

I fall asleep on the sand, waking to a gentle, cold touch. I sit up, looking up into Edmund’s eyes.

“Is that you?” he asks. “I can’t see anything. Please tell me it’s you.”

I jump up gasping, wrapping my arms around him despite how frigid and wet he is. “Oh, it’s me!” I kiss him happily. “It’s me!” I laugh, slipping his glasses over his eyes.

The glow of his eyes is bright, reflecting off his glasses and making the rims create a halo effect. “It’s dark,” he remarks. “Did I keep you waiting long?”

“Worth it,” I whisper. I take hold of his hand. “Can we go home now?”

Edmund squeezes my hand tight. “That’s all I want.”

We go back to the car and drive off into the night. I fall asleep in my seat, but when I wake up I find that Edmund has carried me inside and tucked me into bed. I’m alone; I slept in longer than I should have.

I step out into the hallway, listening to the quiet of the house. As I stand there, waiting to realize it was all a dream, I hear a clattering and crashing from the kitchen. 

I rush out to find Edmund sitting on top of a carton of eggs. He looks up at me and sighs. “I don’t think I can make pancakes this morning.”

I smile down at him. “It’s okay.” I help him back onto his feet. “We’ll go out.”

As Edmund stands up, he looks at me with a bright smile on his face, and despite the fact his glasses are straight, he adjusts them. My heart shudders and I break into a massive grin.

“What is it?” Edmund asks.

I shake my head. “Nothing. I’m just happy.”