Free Jane Was Here by Sarah Kernochan

cyber-strangers have posted comments: “no but wd like 2 nail her,” “she lookin for me? hey babe write me @” giving a prison address.
On this particular morning, while Jane is out for a walk, he is startled to see a new comment: “This photo closely resembles a female, 23, 5’5”, gray eyes, dark blond hair, missing 2-1/2 weeks, last seen 7/20 at the Winchester Mall in Deer Run, PA. This young woman is unstable and needs attention. Her parents are anxious to bring her home. Please contact [email protected] with whatever information you have.”
His heart thumping, Brett quickly deletes his post. He tries to reassure himself that there was nothing contained in the listing that could lead anyone to her hiding place.
It’s hardly shocking that she has parents. It’s the word “unstable” that throws him.
Ten days ago, on the humid night when she rapped on the door, his first intuition had been that she was a mental patient—but that was before he loved her. Unstable? More like mysterious: enigmatic and strange.
She’s deluded as well.
“How old are you?” he asked her at breakfast this morning.
She feigned not to hear, teasing a lump of scrambled eggs with her fork.
“I’m twenty-eight,” he offered. “You’re younger than me, right?”
“How can it matter?”
“Because I think your memory is playing tricks on you,” he says gently. “Jane, Father Petrelli has owned this place over 30 years. You could have lived in Graynier—just not in this particular house.”
“No!” Fork clattering onto her plate, her hands became fists. “Truly I was born in this house!”
He held his ground unhappily. “That’s impossible.”
“It is not impossible if…” She hesitated, regarding him cautiously. “If I lived here earlier than Father Petrelli.”
“But you can’t be more than thirty.” With her naïvely earnest gaze, she looked all of 12.
“Why not? Perhaps I’m 50,” she mused. “Or 150.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Why do I remember playing the seraphine?” Her voice was grave. “It’s possible I was born a very long time ago.”
Don’t snicker . “You’d have to be, like, immortal.”
She grew cool at his condescension. “Our souls are immortal. You may indulge me, at least, on this point.”
Brett found himself on unexpectedly shifting ground here. He believed in the safety of numbers, the digital universe, not this woo-woo stuff. On the other hand…why not indulge her, her “memories,” her illogical claims? Accept them on faith, fall into step, and help her in her weird quest.
How better to get inside Jane?
He agreed to take her to the town’s Registry of Deeds tomorrow, where they could research the house’s prior occupants, going all the way back to the age of the seraphine. Then she left for her walk.
Now he hears her calling his name, her sneakers drumming on the stairs as she rushes up to his garret. Logging off his computer, he checks his appearance in the screen’s reflection, rakes his sweaty hair back.
She bursts in, flushed and out of breath. “I’ve had an other memory!”
“Great. What?”
“I must find a wall !”
He’s bemused. “Any wall?”
“One made of stone. It climbs up a hill. I shall recognize it when I see it. And I have a word! I heard it here—” she presses her hands to her temples, “—and very clearly, too.”
“What did you hear?”
She catches her breath. “ Quirk .”
“Just…’quirk’?”
“Nothing more. Yet—truly it means something. I prayed for a clue, and now I have two! A rock wall. And quirk .”
Brett has a word, too; it weighs on his mind. Unstable .

C HAPTER N INE

H oyt brandishes a handful of remotes, testing the cable TV and DVD player in the Meltzer’s entertainment room, the windows’ motorized curtains, the sliding panel that reveals the screen. All working now.
In the dining room, one of the track bulbs is out. To change it, Hoyt climbs up on one of the antique dining chairs. His boot goes through the