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Isabella cannot reconcile it.

Timid, respectful, obedient, harmless Nathaniel.

And a monster who'd capture Shell off the street and force her home with him and destroy her.

She can't fathom it. She is not a perfect copy of the other Bells. She thinks - they agree, for that matter - that she's turned out gentler and softer than they. Certainly she did not have as fine an education, except perhaps compared to Shell Bell, except in music. But they are still undeniably, essentially versions of her.

She has to know what happened to Voice, to make him Voice and not timid, respectful, obedient, harmless Nathaniel.

So she tells Micaiah where she will be going, and asks Jane to take her there, and she seeks out Voice.
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Voice is sitting in a dark room, in a hooded cloak, listening to quiet instrumental music. The room is the one with the box in it, but the box is open and empty. There is no one else in the house.

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Angela just stands there for a moment, waiting to be noticed. She isn't sure how to begin.

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He flinches.

"Who are you?" he demands. "Go away! Go away! Don't look at me! Go away!"
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"I have some questions for you," says Angela. "I will go away sooner if you choose to answer them."

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He pulls his hood down over his face and shudders. "Leave me alone."

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"I need to know why you did what you did, because in my world, there is a child who is a version of you, and I cannot for the life of me see the danger in him, but if it is there I need to know where. When I know that I will leave you alone."

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"I don't have any answers for you," he says. "Go away. Go away. Go away."

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"I can be very patient, if I have to," Angela says. "I will go away sooner if you tell me what I need to know."

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"I don't know what you mean," he says, still shivering.

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"I might be a little familiar to you, if you looked at me. You had an alternate version of me, kept in your box, for twenty-five years," Angela says. "She is a lot like me. There is someone who is similarly like you, where I am from. And someone similarly like the prisoner who was taken from you recently."

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"I don't understand any of that," he mutters.

He is telling the truth.
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Angela sighs and backs up. "There are many worlds. Some of them have magic and some don't, some of them have creatures other than ordinary mortal humans on them who can nonetheless think and speak and some don't, some differ in other ways. My world is called Samaria. There's another called Atlantis. There's another without a name, that you're from. A girl on Atlantis died, and appeared here, and you took her home with you and kept her for twenty-five years and let her go. Later, you captured someone from the same world as you, and that's the prisoner that the new management took away from you. Between worlds people are often similar - cut from the same mold and then sanded down a little differently. The girl who died on Atlantis and I are alternates of each other in that way. And my husband and your last captive are alternates of each other in that way. And my brother-in-law and you are alternates of each other in this way, but I don't understand, because he's a harmless child and I cannot imagine him growing up to kidnap and torture people who'd done him no harm, and I want to know why this could happen."

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"I get lonely," he whispers.
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Angela waits for him to go on.

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"But I can't - I can't let anyone look at me, I can't stand it, don't look at me don't look at me go away," he says desperately, cowering in his chair with his hood still pulled down over his face.

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"I haven't seen your face," Angela says. "I have no reason to wish to. I'll know what you look like when Nathaniel grows up, anyway. Why can't you let anyone look at you?"

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"I can't," he says. "I can't I can't I can't."

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"Have you forgotten why? Or did you never know?"

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"I just—don't like it," he says miserably. "It's frightening."

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"Has it always been?"

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"I don't remember," he mutters. "Go away."

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Angela considers, then expends a pentagon to offer Voice the same perfect recall that the Bells enjoy. Temporarily.

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He curls up into a tiny ball in his chair and screams.
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Angela has some sympathy for him. Not very much, but some. "The memories will not last forever," Angela says. "But I need to know, because an innocent little boy is somehow in danger of turning into you, and he is under my protection, and I won't have it."

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He cannot hear her. Because of the screaming.

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