Archive of Our Own ^beta

A plane went down over the Alps. A month later, they found a survivor, sheltering at a farmstead a few miles away.
There wasn't a scratch on her.
It was a miracle, they said.
She has the greatest luck, others said.
Beth Harmon is as unsinkable as Molly Brown, the chorus proclaimed.

Back in the States, the doctor listened for her heartbeat. He found none.
But she was perfectly healthy. Eyes a little dull, face a little pale. Nothing more.
He grabbed a different stethoscope, and tried again. This time, it worked. And the first one, tested later, was functional again.
Dust on the earpiece, he decided.
Little did he know, the Swiss medic who first examined her had had the same experience. The things no-one notices. Doctors do not talk about wonky stethoscopes.

She didn't come back to Kentucky. Or to New York.
Sometimes there was a light on, however, in the front window of the powder blue house on Reed Lane.

She was quiet at tournaments, rarely spoke, and was inexpressive when she did. But she was always quiet, outside interviews. Always so self-possessed. It shouldn't be a surprise, they said.
But she used to accept interviews. Now, the reporters couldn't even find her.
And when playing, sometimes, she became so so still. The only noise she made was the clack of pieces on the board.
But she survived a plane crash, the whisperers are reminded. No doubt that left its mark.
In the context of the accident, her silence seems perfectly reasonable.

It is her, State Departments around the world agreed. Her fingerprints matched, her papers in order.
It is her, chess aficionados agreed. No one else plays like she does.
It is her, they said.

She didn't play for fun anymore, or for cash. She only showed for the few tournaments needed to get her to the World Chess Championship.
Every game she played now was perfect. Perfect, and so so so cold.

The final game, at long last, came. And went. Vasily Borgov resigned quietly, offering his hand to shake.
She accepts, and her features thaw. She smiles once more—drip.

Drip.

Drip drip drip.

Drip drip drip drip drip.

From the skin inward, she melts in her seat; her clothing slips and soaks and collapses inward; her hand drips onto the table. Base parts freed of their muscular restraints slump down–clunk down off the chair–and her dress piles after.

Flesh into snow, snow into water.

As the security guards rushed to help her—two years too late—Borgov standing up over the table, eyes wide and face white, a rictus of horror—she melts away. Until nothing is left but a puddle and fire-blackened bones.

They say Beth Harmon died of an aneurysm after the game, and was cremated in a private ceremony after the investigation concluded. They had to come up with some reason of course, for who could believe in something this sublime? There had to be some explanation for the loss of such a prodigious talent, so soon. Theirs is what was printed in the newspapers, and in the biographies, and inscribed in the memorial at her old high school.
But the people who were there know better, and they will attest to this if you ask. There are still a few around, you know.
They will say that Beth Harmon died that night, with the rest of her plane. That her force of will was such that she came back to win the World Chess Championship, to prove she could, to complete that last ambition.

But I wonder. There's no doubt that something won the 1972 World Chess Championship, and that whoever it was did it by playing some of the finest games ever witnessed.… But was it really Beth Harmon? And if not her, who—or what—was playing, those last two years?

You know as much as I do, now. What's your say?