I didn’t expect to find anything like that; the frightening sight of a human shape lying on the paved ground of a dark street with absolutely no sign of life coming from it. I really thought he was dead but I was irresistibly attracted, wanting to see this with my own eyes, for something deep inside me suddenly held all the pain in the world and my whole body started to shake uncontrollably. What was I so much afraid of?
I took the most careful steps towards the shape not afraid of the scene displayed before my eyes, but by the thought that maybe there was nothing I could do to save this person: the shape appeared to be a man, dressed in a shattered work shirt and used pants and boots with a large bleeding hole in his chest. His eyes were merely opened staring tiredly at something unknown, arms spread limply along his sides and I could swear on my life that he was still breathing.

So I ran the last steps that kept me away from him and I delicately took a hold on his throat on the left side trying to find a pulse; and it was there, weak and irregular but definitely there. I reached for a piece of clean cloth in my purse and pressed it to the damaged chest and it was immediately soaking with dark blood. I took another piece, added it over the first one and with a larger, started to quickly bandage the whole of it. It took me all I had to draw him to my close by apartment really thanking Heavens for not having to climb stairs to come in.

His eyes were closed now; too tired to keep them opened to face his unfortunate fate. So I hurried to my bedroom and laid him as gently as I could on the padded covers. I instinctively grabbed his wrist in search of his pulse and I almost stumbled and cried on the floor when there was none to be found. I reassembled my strength and courage rushing to my small cabinet to take a stethoscope, not even able to think of anything else but making sure he was still there, with me.


His heart beats were just mere whispers and his breath shallower than a new born child’s, but I tried, I had to, there was no other possibility than this one. Storming out the late afternoon sun bathed room, fear and hope gnawing at my young inexperienced doctor’s heart, I raid my cabinet in quest of all of the necessities for a decisive operation. In less than a minute I had a full wooden box of alcohol bottles, syringes, cloth, needles, aprons, scalpels and guidance books and bottles of all kinds of contents ready to bring back that man from the dead if I had to. Hastily putting on a white surgeon apron, soaking my hands in a bath of alcohol for disinfection, I started do display my most needed material making sure I didn’t forget anything. The books were spread on a nearby desk, curtains shut and lamps lighting the bedroom brightly.
My heart was now shred to pieces as I was watching more carefully the damages delicately cutting off the now red bandages and last remains of a shirt from the man’s chest. With water I started to superficially wash the deep wound taking in the ravages made to this once certainly most beautiful chest. A Perfect three inches bullet hole-I could swear it was - was digging through the flesh to a still unknown depth. With a little chance the wound wouldn’t be as profound as it actually seemed with the bullet still inside, certainly near the heart according to the situation, but not close enough not to eventually heal. I hoped and I prayed to a God I had never been exactly sure I believed in. But that time, I found the faith of a true believer as my hands started to take holder pinches in and out and around the opened wound, moving as quickly as I could without causing more damages.
Fortunately the bullet was still there not far from the two last solar left ribs, right under the heart. After what seemed like an eternity, I was sewing the skin shut back again considering the fact that the man was still miraculously alive. The bedroom floor was covered with blood soaking cloth in metal and ceramic basins, the lights still brightly lighting the place. That was when I allowed my eyes to take a closer look at the man lying in my bed.
I knew his body was tall and strong for I experienced its weight upon my shoulders and its length when I tried to make his size match the bed mattress and realized he was a little too tall to fit perfectly. Large delicate hands with long fingers that made me think he wasn’t an ordinary worker but certainly a man of intellectual occupations. His broad forehead was a mark of intelligence and deep thinking whereas long dark lashes extended from delicate eyelids. Brows I could only imagine furrowing while concentrating or thinking, cheeks taut and smoothly shaved, thin lips that I hoped I could see curl up in a genuine smile very soon. For sure that was the most handsome features I had ever seen and suddenly, I was strangely moved to tears when I thought about the way his body had been almost deadly damaged. Or was it something else, something that made my heart tighten dangerously when I saw him lying on the ground?

What happened to him? Who did this to him and why? I discovered I was taking an unusual interest in that whole situation. I was not the kind to bring a heavily wounded stranger home trying to make him rise from the dead in my bedroom. I was not the kind to be so moved by a wound no matter how it presented itself.

I never cried over someone’s lost blood as washing and boiling bandage cloths; never. And that was what I was doing, hands still covered with blood, blood on my apron and deeply dying the cloths, I was crying and washing and crying even harder at the irreplaceable loss. I couldn’t calm down; I didn’t know at that time the exact causes of so much emotion, but I was sure I‘d discover everything I wanted to know the moment the man in my bedroom opened his eyes.


Three days of waiting, wounds washing, constants matching and sleepless over watching. He was still there, fighting for life, struggling with fate. The wound was healing incredibly fast, though. Just a few more days and the whole thing would only be a far away memory.


It was snowing outside the bedroom window. My bedroom. It became the only place I could be because *he* was there and I had to be there if he woke up; and if he ever did I had to be there for him. And he did, by late morning; he opened the most beautiful hazel eyes I had ever seen. A perfect shade of green, golden and brown mirrors stared at me from under lashes even longer and thicker than I actually thought. I stepped up from the desk chair I was sitting on making my way to the bed’s side extending one shaky hand over his large one, barely able to speak a word, overwhelmed by waves of relief and another million of unspeakable emotions. I squeezed it gently trying my best to hold back the tears and forming a smile by curving my shaking lips. He smiled back a weak smile at me squeezing my hand gently too and sank into sleep a while more.


He woke up the next morning an indescribable expression on his face. Was it fear? Was it pain?

My voice steadier than the day before greeted him softly enough not to scare him. I could swear he was studying me, watching me closely with now slightly wary eyes. Like I did about twelve hours earlier, I stepped closer to the bed but this time I gently reached his left wrist to check his pulse while leaning down to take in his now firm steady heart beats with my stethoscope. It took some time for him to form a sentence, I could see him struggle with the words as his brows predictably furrowed. Unsurprisingly, he asked me where he was. His voice was just a murmur but the deeper tone of it wasn’t a hard guess. His soft look lowered to the covers he was tucked in and one hand reached for the bandage across his chest. He asked what happened to him and I honestly responded that I didn’t know, telling him how and where and when I found him. He suddenly looked lost as his brows furrowed again, asking to apparently someone else in the room who he was. Then his eyes shot up darting into mine as if to find an answer to his torments and I faintly shook my head as to say that I was sorry, I didn’t know. Fluttering eyes went watery and the reddish shade around the hazel accentuated the green in them. He tried to rise from the bed, but failed and I had to bring support not to let him fall on the carpeted floor. I could sense panic rushing through his now tensed body and I tried my best to sooth him with words but I hardly managed and I had to push him to the bed with my hands on his shoulder wondering either I should give him something to calm him down. I didn’t know when it happened but I felt myself reaching out for his face with one shaky hand speaking words I can’t remember even now, and he finally gave in lying back on the mattress.


“Are you hurt Sir?”

He slowly shook his head yes and I gave him the medication I had prepared for that case. He drank it painfully making the greatest efforts to swallow the clay-colored liquid. I had so many questions to ask him but not knowing whether it was appropriate or not to start a conversation right now. So I just asked him if he wished to eat and he whispered that yes, he did wish. I helped him sit down leaning his back on the bed head. He suspiciously looked at the cutlery and bowl of warm bouillon that I brought him on a legged tray. He hesitated for some odd reason that I thought I understood, but when I saw him raising alternatively his right and left hand in attempts to pick up the silver spoon I was rather perplex myself. Then he chose to eat with his left hand, making sure the flavored liquid only directed into his mouth and not anywhere else.
Surprised by his attitude I went to my office after his meal and started some researches. The way he looked at things with always almost frightened eyes alarmed me a little. It was like he didn’t even recognize the simplest things or the most essential words and their order in sentences. As I ran throughout the pages of numerous books I fell upon a theory that said that persons who underwent a violent and traumatic experience tended to develop some kind of amnesia, in different stages and degrees of manifestation with language and move coordination disabilities, or some others with loss of immediate memory and other much more complex cases of mental alienation. So I decided to deepen my researches by preparing a series of tests that essentially consisted in simple questions and simple physical tests.

He was sleeping by that time and I allowed myself to use a most deserved night’s sleep as well. I woke up the next morning and surprisingly found him standing up against the far other window of the room, looking at the snow falling on the street and little yard across from it. He didn’t even turn around when he told me he couldn’t remember anything, not even his own name. He couldn’t tell why he’d been shot or what he was doing in that street not far from my house, nor could he explain how he was able to do that. And then he brought up his hands before his face and started to make one of my old handkerchiefs fleet appear and disappear. He did the very same thing with coin and a ball that he had in his trousers pocket. I was rather surprised myself at the sight of it but then something became clear. I started to explain one of the few theories I had read as I saw anxiety growing stronger on his soft features and asked him if he’d agree to do the tests I had prepared so that we could know a little further about what was really wrong about his memories. He quickly shook his head as a yes and we started right away.


I still had a few of my grand-fathers belongings in the house I lived in and that once belonged to him. I gave the man a clean shirt and a new pair of trousers that strangely enough, fitted him. I don’t remember my grand-father being that tall, or just maybe, the man wasn’t as tall as I actually saw him. As he was getting dressed, I prepared him a new room, not really knowing why I did it because the man didn’t seem to need convalescence. I did anyway; my old room, the one I had before I finished my studies and before my only remaining relative died of lung disease. I lived all alone there, with two remnant white streaks in my hair due to utter grief and self desperation after my grand-father’s death; and I wasn’t even in my twenty second year of age. I was a doctor, the Colorado Spring’s doctor.

I was what the others at university called a ‘genius’. I didn’t like the word because it made me appear as some kind of strange creature; and whereas most of physicians obtained their certification after almost ten years and sometimes more, I gained it only after four years. It had been extremely hard to exist among older men that always regarded me as an inferior or as some kind of monster. I know I am not the only woman physician in the country, but I sometimes don’t know anything else to do but cry over my own choices and my naïve attitude. I wish I could be more than what I am, or maybe I just would like to be who I truly am. It was my grand-father’s disease that made me decide I would be a physician later on, just like he was, and I’d be able to save him. He didn’t even wait I had my diploma; he died three months before, while I was in Boston making my proofs to a famous hospital. When I came back, it was too late. Since then I have two permanent reminders of my selfish choice and its consequences. My place was at my grand-father’s side, that’s what those two white streaks keep on telling me.

I told the man that his new room was ready if he wished to stay until I had a clearer vision of his health with the results of the tests. He simply and quietly stated that he had all the time in the world. I led him upstairs in what was about to become our meeting place for the next two months. It appeared that he had some difficulties to climb up the stairs due to a bad leg. Had he been injured? We found him a stick anyway and it seemed that it was a part of him in some strange way, which might indicate that he certainly have had to use one before he was shot.


Two months during which he had to relearn or learn everything, even the simplest of things, because he didn’t have any memory of anything. He couldn’t read or eat or bathe properly nor button up his own shirt or tie knots to his shoes. I taught him most of those things as patiently as I could, with unexpected results. He learned very fast. The tests revealed that his blood possessed slight differences compared to anybody else’s. It didn’t seem to alter his normal vital functions so I let it at what it was for me, a simple particularity.


One night I hazarded one question, to see if it appealed anything to him. I asked him for his name. He stared at his hands gathered on his lap for endless minutes, making efforts to try to remember something, anything, and then giving up; he said that he didn’t know. I hazarded further more proposing that he could then choose his own name, a name I could call him until he remembered his own. He nodded briefly, looking at the dark skies beyond the frost window.

“One should deserve a name.” He said with a distant voice.

“You deserve one. You are a person, you deserve a name. And by the way, how am I supposed to call you? It’s become hard to find ways to avoid that path. Won’t you relieve me?” I said, trying to stay a little casual despite the grief that was now violently biting at my heart.

“Then choose one for me. I don’t know that many names, as you can suppose.” his bitterness now palpable in his voice and in his words. I was in sheer agony.

“If I may…I’d like to… What do you think of…Logan.” My eyes were nailed at my feet, feeling a torrent of discomfort washing over me.

“Logan? Logan.”

“It might sound silly but, I do love that name, and I’d be honored if you… And I think it suits you very well.”

“Logan. It’s a nice name, and simple. What is yours then?”

“My name is…Marie DeWitt.”

“Marie…” He whispered my name like to engrave it somewhere inside his mind, or in his heart, just like I hoped he would.

The truth was that this name, Logan, was music to my ears, it was the name of that soldier who’d saved me a long time ago, from myself, mostly. And I discovered over the years that the feelings I had for him at that time never seemed to fade. They were not as strong as what they were then, but definitely still there. And that man looked so much like him now that I thought about it, the same expression in his eyes, the same hazel in them, the same feeling of security I had when I was around him. And that could explain why I had that strange feeling when I first caught sight of him on that street. For me it was as if Logan was back for me, though I knew it was impossible, for Logan had gone a long time ago.

Now, he had a name and it didn’t matter who gave it to him, and I selfishly and foolishly hoped he’d stay here with me, forever.


Days became weeks and weeks soon became months. Two months with Logan, teaching, correcting, encouraging and falling madly in love with him. But there was no way I could confess him my feelings, not with what he was living.


One day as he read a news paper, his face became paler than death itself. I rushed over to him to see what caused him to shock and saw the macabre picture. A dead man lying in front of some kind of enormous box surrounded by water tanks that contained corpses. All the corpses had the same features, the same as the man lying on the floor at their feet, like doubles. I hardly contained a cry of sheer horror as realization hit me like a ton of bricks. They all looked like Logan, exactly the same features; everything was terrifyingly alike about them all. The article didn’t read much about the discovery in England. But we were in the United States, in Colorado Springs, how could such a thing happen? Were they all brothers? What happened to them? And were they really linked to Logan? They were drowned in water tanks and one of them had been shot in the chest according to the pictures. Just like Logan had been, but the difference was that Logan was still alive, sitting right beside me, miles away from what was displayed on the grayish pages. I instinctively reached out for his hand and started to press it into mine like to make sure he was really there with me in that room. His face turned even paler when he lifted his gaze to meet mine.

“What if I was one of them? What if I belonged with them?”

“How could it be possible? It happened in England, this is completely impossible!”

I was trying my best not to shout out my fear and pain at him. His frightened silence was his only response. Something was happening in him and I could sense it but I couldn’t name it right away. A kind of need I supposed considering the look on his face. He needed to know. And this article maybe was the key to whatever questioning he started to form in his agitated mind. I also knew that very minute that I was on the verge of losing him, that he was going to chase those ghosts until he even lost himself in the search. I knew it from the despair that was now written all over his handsome features.

I couldn’t let him go, yet I knew he couldn’t avoid leaving. My heart tightened alarmingly at the thought of losing him but it was so selfish to want to keep him for me, wanting to steal him away and keep him here safe with me in this house, forever. It was so selfish and foolish too. Then he said the words I didn’t even dare to wish he would say, but he told them.

“Come with me” he said. It wasn’t even a question. It had to be a dream because I launched myself in his arms, crying uncontrollably.

There we were, on a boat to England sailing to unknown answers. Holding his hand, I watched the coast shrink until the land that saw me growing up became a memory. I felt the urge to cry again at that moment, I needed to hold someone close to my heart to fight the fear that was building up inside of me. Logan held my hand tighter sending a wave of sweet reassuring warmth through my whole body. Maybe he was afraid too. It took me all the strength I no longer had to remember that all of this was not about me, but about him.


Love…


This feeling was starting to burn and hurt like nothing else. Closeness no longer bearable made me weaker everyday but I couldn’t let go, not just yet; because it wasn’t about me.


London was a dark and dirty city even in spring. I believed all great cities shared the same fate. Logan hadn’t spoken much during the whole journey, drowned was he in his thoughts, not even giving me the chance to talk to him or ease his troubled mind in any kind of way. Stepping down from the enormous ship we went on the search of a place to stay for the next few days we were about to spend there. I had to change a large part of my savings to accomplish this despite the fact Logan was against my spending a penny for what he saw as a rather personal quest. But I’d made a secret promise to myself when I saw him that fateful day in the dark corner of a street lying lifeless; I promised I’d take care of him in any way I could. I knew he quite disliked it but what we were about to do involved spent money in some extent.


I booked two rooms in a nice little hotel near the center of London. The first few days we spent there led us to meet one of the journalists that had written the article. I had to go alone for evident reasons. The man explained that the whole scene had been a mystery even for the police, and that there certainly were more things involved that what they had in hand.

I tried to walk down the streets with Logan to see if he could recall anything and he stopped in front of a theater. Posters were displayed on the walls and as we stepped closer Logan and I both held our breaths. ‘The Great Danton’ was what they read. The man on the pictures was handsome and had charisma; he could have been Logan’s twin brother. The man was some kind of a magician, an illusionist according to the posters, and none of the least. So we entered the richly and heavily decorated place but no soul could be found inside.

“Do you remember something?” I asked with a low shaking voice.

“I came here I think, a long time ago.” Logan said as he put his hand on the marble railing of the main stair well.

And that was true; the place did look familiar to him, he seemed in his element, knowing which door led to where. But nothing seemed to clearly speak to him. Then I tried the police station but they wouldn’t let me see the place where the corpses had been found. I couldn’t tell them I actually was with someone that might be directly linked to the scene. If they knew they would have Logan closed in some prison until they could light out the whole mystery. I couldn’t let that happen. I went back to the journal and tried to find some answers and fortunately enough, the man I first met gave me a name hastily written on a piece of paper. I showed it to Logan later that day but he couldn’t tell me much about it. We searched all the theaters that showed magic shows until we found someone that actually knew the Great Danton. When he took sight of Logan, his heart almost stopped it seemed. He spoke about a mysterious machine and a very dangerous trick. He also added that that man, Danton had died sometime ago and that his ‘murderer’ had been imprisoned and hanged. The man also was a magician and the whole story was enveloped with a veil of mystery that no one had been able to clear. They all were dead and according to him, Logan was the only survivor of a real tragedy. He gave us another name, the name of a man that seemed to have been the closest to that Danton. He also told us that the illusionist’s real name wasn’t Danton but Angier, and that we would find more with his mysterious mentor who was now in the United States.

That night, Logan couldn’t find rest in the bliss of sleep. He ventured himself in a pub not far from the hotel, which I could see from my room’s window. So we had to go back to where we came from. The man at the theater also told us about a mysterious scientist or alchemist as he mentioned; someone dangerous according to him, the creator of that machine Angier used for his trick called “the transported man”. There was another man involved but the man refused to tell us more about him, saying he was dead anyway and that it was no use knowing about him, although I knew that this last man held the key to Logan’s mysterious past in more ways than one. It was already early in the morning when Logan came back. He knocked on my door ever so softly that I had to concentrate to make out the sound of it. I opened and he was there, a strange mix of defeat, desperation and determination darkening his face. He said nothing, he just stood there in the doorway looking at me with haunted eyes, eyes that suddenly had known and seen too much. He slowly extended tired arms and wrapped me in a strength less embrace. Then and there I knew that there was nothing else I could do for him, it was all up to him now to go and chase his ghosts and demons. I knew and I couldn’t oppose, not this time, so I let him hold me, his grip on my body tightening every second sending fire running through my veins. I was burning for him, I wanted to offer him what little comfort I could; I wanted him. But it was wrong and again selfish. I could see he was hurt, and something in me wanted to take advantage of the situation to have him bind to me. But as I struggled over my desire, I sensed him bent his head until his forehead touched mine and a second later, his lips crashed onto mine in a desperate kiss.

Was it what I really wanted? Was I that desperate to live a dream that never came true with the soldier I had loved once and who died because of me? He was so much like him…Would it be the same? Out of grieve now washing over me I broke the kiss, tears streaming down my face, flames of an ancient love burning me alive. And without a word, using all the control and resignation I could muster I closed my door at Logan’s face.

Leaning on it, I could still hear his erratic breath on the other side of the wooden surface, certainly wondering why I had rejected him whereas my body gave clear signals of encouragement. I had probably hurt him at a time he needed something to hold on to, once again my tormented feelings getting me away from doing the right thing, and I hated myself for that.

The next day we were back to the port, heading back to the United States. Logan and I didn’t exchange a single word since that night. It was the end; that’s what I thought; I had lost him for good. Each day during our travel back I prayed for a miracle, for the silence to be broken, but the miracle never came.

Back to Boston, a man was waiting for us when we descended the ship. Apparently someone from London told him everything about our arrival and he proposed us to follow him to a nearby hotel; he apparently had information to share. The man seemed to be able to afford a room in the most expensive place in town. He was distinguished and refined and spoke with a kind of foreign accent that I couldn’t place though. His face seemed to lighten up literally when he took sight of Logan. Sitting at the hotel’s restaurant at a remote table, the man took a closer look at us. Then he spoke almost as out of a daze.

“So you survived, didn’t you?”

Logan looked at him quizzically, trying to wrap his mind around the whole situation.

“He killed you, all of you; he didn’t want any witness of his doing. Yet you survived, how is it possible?”

I looked at him too, panic now rising bile in my stomach.

“What are you talking about?” Logan’s voice barely hid his own fears.

“You don’t remember anything, do you? Your name, the experiences, the machine…You forgot everything. Or maybe you never knew.”

“Who are you? What is this all about?”

“I can’t tell you my name if you don’t remember it, it would only mean troubles to you, but your name is Angier; you are Angier, or one of him.”

“Angier is dead!” I almost cried out in the half empty restaurant.

“Yes, indeed, but who told you there was only one Angier?”

“What…?”

“The machine I created for him had the capacity to duplicate animate and inanimate things, persons too. Angier duplicated himself for what had to be his ultimate trick as an illusionist: “the transported man”. He made the spectators believe that he could teleport himself from one place to the other, but in reality, it was another him, each time who appeared at the other end of the theater. And each time he killed them so that nobody could find his secret.”

I felt the hair at the back of my neck stand as the man kept on telling his story. I looked at Logan’s disgusted expression all the while. What was he thinking? Was it the truth? This couldn’t be true. Machines that duplicate people couldn’t exist, that was impossible.

“You doubt me, don’t you? I can show you where it all began. It was in Colorado Springs that it all started. A man with a walking stick, just like you, came to my property; he had a special request, he needed my invention. He said he would pay, and he did. He was ready to sacrifice everything for my machine, and he did; he even lost his life to it.”

“How can we trust you?” Logan said through greeted teeth.

“The next train for Colorado Springs leaves in thirty minutes; come with me and I will show you everything you need to see, I will tell you everything you need to know.”

“Anyway, how did you know about us?”

“Let’s say that a common friend warned me of your return and of your quest.”

“You’d better not trick us, ‘my friend’.” Logan added with a merely disguised disdain snort. The other man smiled slightly at the threat and leaned back in his chair sipping at his now cold cup of tea.

We're on the train with that strange man, going back to where it all started. Logan is sitting across from me, completely still, silent as a stone. He looks out the window, without seeing anything it seems. I need to touch him, know that he is alright, but after what happened in London, I don't know. He wouldn't talk to me, and it's killing me. I know I've been wrong, but what can I do now. I'd do anything to reverse the time.

The other man, that so-called scientist doesn't talk either, he's just staring from me to Logan, an unreadable expression on his face. I do wonder if it's wise to follow him. I've been away for weeks now. I sent a note to Denver before I left, asking Dr. Drake to keep an eye open while I was away. Dr. Drake, Robert has been one of me colleagues in Boston. We are issued of the same promotion and stayed very close; well in a professional way. He'd always send me the latest medical reviews and books, even without me to ask. He's a very good man, dedicated to his work. I wonder what he'd think of me right now.


The train makes a last stop before Colorado Springs. I can see Logan tense up as he takes in his environment. His hand dig in the pocket of his coat almost absently; searching.

"Logan, are you alright?"

My voice sounds alien, even to me. I haven't used it in so long that I forgot what it sounds like.

He doesn't answer, and that earns me an odd look from the older man sitting nest to him.

"You don't seem to get along very well..."

Which earns him a glare from Logan and an annoyed sigh from me. But the man goes on nonetheless.

"Where did you find him anyway? It is so unexpected, seeing the two of you like that."

I don't know if I should answer this one or let Logan deal with that, revealing what he wants to. After all, it's about him, not about me.

He sends a cold look in the general direction of the window before adding to my surprise:

"We're together. That's all you need to know."

Logan's words have me looking at the toes of my shoes helplessly, trying to hide my discomfort. Yet it seems that it doesn't go unnoticed by the other man.

"As you wish, my dear friend." Then after another pause he drawled in his strange accent, "You're so much like him...it's amazing. Even your personality, your taste for privacy. It all make sense though. You are him in so many ways, but yet so different."

Then the compartment fell silent until we arrived at destination a few hours later. Logan raised an uncertain look at me, his face ashen, drained from life. Whatever it is, I hope this is not goodbye. I pray, plead and beg to God for it not being the last I see of him. But deep inside, I know that I can't keep him, I know I'll fail again.

That's what happened with that handsome soldier; 'my' Logan. I failed at keeping him safe from harm. He died and it's my fault. I was so young, but I already knew. I wanted him. He wanted me. But I knew, I was old enough to know that what I did was wrong.

And I left him alone, and that night, he died.

The rather brutal stop of the train brings me back to reality and to my actual inner fight over what I have to do. We get off without a word, following that man we hardly know, trusting him with our lives. I look expectantly at Logan who seems to be resolved, if not completely convinced.

We take a cabriolet to upper town, in a forest I didn't even know existed. The place is ravaged and kind of deserted it seems. We enter through the damaged fence and walk towards a strange looking house. Logan has a few difficulties to walk on the irregular ground with his walking stick. We don't enter the house right away. Instead, we counter it and reach a kind of small clearing where uncountable hats are pilled next to a tree, and black cats fighting over one of them black ornaments.

Logan's eyes are nailed to the scene before us, something apparently hitting home in his mind, his hand instinctively reaching for mine.

"Yes, my dear friend." The other man says, his thick accent suddenly gone. "This is where it all began. You and maybe a good hundred of him born and killed right here."

"Oh God, this is..." I feel my blood leave my face. The words suddenly traitorous, failing to express the horror I feel.

"Yes my dear. I tried to warn him, but Angier wouldn't listen. He was obsessed by his art, by the loss of his wife and by his once best friend and brother in arm."

"How do you know it?" Logan speaks, now his voice full of dread. "You said he was rather secretive. He...I never told you anything!"

What's the confusion about? Is Logan remembering anything?

"Indeed. But let me remind you that you are not alone in this story and in the end I ended up knowing more about than I wish I did. Three more persons are involved, and among them two only and truly are one. That is what caused the fall of the Great Danton. They could divide at will, but not him. Well at least not at first."

"What are you talking about? Two truly are one? What's the meaning of this?!"

"Two brothers, twins. You spent all your life with them and you never knew."

"The Transported Man...it was..."

"They were two. My dear friend."

"You're lying! You son of a..."

"Logan! Please Logan release him!"

"You should listen to the young lady, whatever she calls you."

"I spent years, my whole money, all my energy in a quest, a guess...I thought I finally found the key, and all this time, I was..."

"Fooled. Like everyone of us."

Logan slumps to his knees, unbelieving, defeated. And I can swear on everything that is dear to me that he can remember. Everything. I can see it in his tears filled eyes, in the horror clear on his face.

This is goodbye.

I slump down next to him even before I realize what I'm doing, and hug him as tight as my arms allow me. He needs me now, and I can't deny it, can't deny him anymore.


"Logan, look at me, please..."

"I lost everything, all I had to this man. My wife...He...Oh God. All this time."

"Logan...it's over."

"He killed her Marie, he killed her! All this time my art was all I had left, and he took it from me too. He took everything I had."

"But You're still alive." I try, soothing, crying, profusely over the terrible waist I know nothing about. That's when it hits me... "You have me." I say, my voice barely a whisper in Autumn wind.

I love you...Logan.

"Let's go."

I stand up on wobbly legs, holding Logan's hand like it was the last thing that kept me anchored to the earth. I'm shaken and sick, tears clouding my vision, but I have to do this. For him. Come what may, I won't leave him, not now.

***********


We left the scientist standing alone in the clearing and we left. Walked back to town and to my house.
We never let go of each other's hand, never spoke a word. We just stood there in stunned silence.

Once in my room, Logan fell to his knees, his arms tightly wrapped around my waist, his breath heating my stomach through layers and layers of cloths. He let dry sobs escape from his wrecked body, almost crushing me in his embrace. But I wouldn't let go. Not now, not ever.

He calmed down eventually, and settled to caress his silky hair, enjoying the warmth coming from his scalp and settling in my fingers. All those things I did all those years ago and that I gave up because I thought I'd never been given a second chance.

'My' Logan. Meeting at night out of town near the Indian Reservation, sharing our love under the stars. 'My' handsome soldier. One night I told him that maybe I was in child, and it has been the happiest moment of our lives. He talked about marriage, and meeting my grandfather to him my hand. And then everything came crashing dawn. I lost our baby and I never recovered from that. I never told him, didn't have the time. Another night I came to tell him that it was over. Didn't have the courage to face him and tell him I had killed his child. So I didn't come to our rendez-vous. That night a renegade attack struck the Reservation and Logan's body has been found two days later among Indians' and soldiers' alike. I never told anyone that I knew him, never told anyone that I loved him. My grandfather fell sick a few days after; seeing me retreating into myself a little bit more each day.

All my choices proved me wrong. I always failed at letting my true feelings show and that coast me the first man I ever loved. If I had come that night, I would have died too; but we would have been together.

So now what? I need to let go of the past too. Just like the man in my arms right now needs to. We're both shaken and damaged, but not beyond repair, not if we try.

I have to...say it.

"I..."

He hugs me even tighter, his body shivering, pleading, begging...

"I love you, Logan. I love you."

Then I see him, lifting up his face to look at me, take in my expression, gauge my sincerity. And all I see is the face of 'my' handsome soldier, smiling back at me, tears staining his face.

"I love you too Marie. Always have, always will."




La Fin