第1章 第9節 決意
The Decision
That evening Nora made her choice without telling a single .
If she asked for , she knew, someone would talk her out of it.
If I stayed here, she thought, I would spend my life wondering.
She pulled a bag from the and began to in silence.
If her mother were truly dead, this tape could not exist at all.
And if the tape is real, then the town holds answers she needs.
She packed the tape, the photograph, and her most trusted machine.
If I were braver, she thought, I would have done this years ago.
She left a short for Dan, saying only that she needed time.
If anyone asks, she wrote, tell them I have gone to rest.
She would not say the word "Saltmere" to anyone she loved.
If the town has hidden a death, it may hide other things too.
As she zipped the bag, her phone rang loudly in the quiet flat.
The name on the screen made her stop: it was her father.
He never called her, and certainly never late at night.
"Nora," he said, and his voice was shaking down the line.
"If something came to you in the post, you must not keep it."
"Whatever it is," he whispered, " me that you will it."
"If you it tonight, this can all still stay in the past."
She heard fear in his breath, the same fear from his house.
"Why should I my own mother's voice?" she asked him quietly.
There was a long silence, filled only with his tired breathing.
"Because if they learn you have it, they will come for you."
If I were you, he said, I would run from this, not toward it.
Nora looked at her packed bag and made her .
"Then I am already too late," she said, and ended the call.