No Name Trilogy, Book I: No Name

Chapter 10 - Mac

We left the cabin when the sun was half-set. The twisted trees were dark enough, and they kept us covered. Both of us felt pretty safe, far away from people. Henry tried to put everything back the way we'd found it, but he didn't mess with the broken glass in the door. We took only our clothes and a couple of water bottles, burying our Oliphant attire as deep as we could in what appeared to be a compost pile outside; if we threw them away, they might be found. We didn't bring any food; neither of us was hungry, and we figured that San Judo couldn't be too far away. Besides, neither of us had backpacks or bags; we had only the pockets in our jackets (which we'd discovered in a hall closet). We didn't want to be filling them with things we didn't need. Henry had also found a Swiss army knife, and I couldn't blame him for taking it, although I did feel uncomfortable stealing from whomever owned the cabin. I couldn't tell him that again, though--he might grow exasperated with me.

We set off walking in the direction we'd been going when we'd first come across the cabin. It was weird how there was no direct road to it. There was no way a car could drive to it. Neither of us could guess why, but Henry said that if we kept walking, we'd have to eventually hit a main road; it was impossible not to, based on what he'd seen on the map. I hoped he was right.

"Fingerprints!" I suddenly cried. I didn't know why the thought came to me so sharply, but it did.

Henry spun around, and his pale eyes flashed. "What?"

My breath quickened. "Our fingerprints are on everything in that cabin! They'll definitely figure out it's us if those people call the police."

I was sure Henry would be as concerned about it as I was, that he'd want to go back to wipe everything clean, but he didn't even flinch at what I said. He just shook his head slowly.

"Fingerprints?" I repeated, the urgency draining from my words.

"That isn't going to be a problem," he said quietly.

"What are you talking about? We touched everything. And I don't remember seeing you wipe anything off."

Sighing, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small flashlight.

I gasped. "You took a flashlight, too?"

He didn't answer that question. Instead, he told me to put out my hand palm-up, and when I did, he shone the light on my fingertips. I didn't understand. I looked at Henry, who was glowing a little in the outer rim of the light's radius, but he only encouraged me to look closer. So I bent down toward my hand, thinking first that if something were weird about them, I would already know. They were my hands, anyway, and I'd been with them for as long as I could remember. But as I really looked, I noticed what Henry knew I would. The skin of my fingertips was totally smooth, no whorls or lines demarcating fingerprints. I never would have noticed if Henry hadn't pointed it out, but now that I'd seen them, the lack of prints was weird and obvious. I stared for a few minutes, then turned back to Henry. He saw the question in me.

"Mine are gone, too." He turned the light on his own fingers. I looked close at them and saw that he was right. His skin was entirely smooth on his fingertips as well. It was unsettling.

"Why?" I said.

He shrugged. "I noticed it in Oliphant. At first, I thought my eyes were tricking me. But then I tested it, grabbed the bar on my bed. You know how in certain lighting, and if your skin has enough oil in it, you see your fingerprints on tabletops and metal objects? My prints should've shown up on the bar. But there was nothing. I also tested it with the ink in a pen I acquired. But I'm sure it's not just a coincidence. Whoever erased our minds erased our fingerprints as well." His voice fell away into silence. He curled his fingers and slowly withdrew his hand from the light. Quietly, he added, "I told you I knew you were the one I was waiting for. Whoever did this—they didn't want either of us to exist."