Craig the caretaker was definitely trying to hide something. I didn’t know exactly what he was trying to hide, because he was working very hard to disguise his emotions, but I could sense it was something important. The dangerous glint in his eyes was enough of a warning for me.
“There was mention of fire breaking out, down by the lake,” he continued, eyeing me carefully.
“Really? Who mentioned it?” Only a couple of people knew about the fire, and the ones that knew weren’t telling anyone else. How had Craig known about it? Could there have been scorch marks left on the shore? I’d been so exhausted when Tristan had carried me out of the lake, I didn’t remember much about what I might have left that could provide clues for later . . .
“I heard someone talking,” was his vague reply.
There was something fishy about Craig. I could see it in his eyes. “I don’t know anything about any fire . . .” It was my turn to do a little interrogating. “But, hey, I hear you’re new to this camp?”
“Yes, I took the position a week ago. Apparently, the guy before me was too old to handle all the long walks.”
How opportune to fill the position just in time to catch the Annual Gathering, I mused to myself. “And how long have you been in the caretaker business, Craig?”
My first question had been innocent enough, and hadn’t raised any suspicion, but my second seemed to have caught his full attention. I felt his guard go up in the blink of an eye, like an impenetrable brick wall. He was a damned good blocker.
“A while,” he said, his tone clipped.
How vague, I thought. “Right . . . So, anything else you want to ask me?” I took a cautious step back, my posture suddenly defensive. His suspicious manner was making me increasingly paranoid. “Because I need to get on . . .” I took a quick glance back towards the main house. The front doors were only a few feet away. If I could walk that small distance, I would be safe and in Tristan’s sight again. I only needed to climb back up those steps and I would be out of harm’s way . . .
Craig caught on to my change of stance, and his eyes became a lot more intense and threatening. “Wait, Gray,” he called out, as I climbed the first step. “You have to come with me. We’re not done talking.”
“I’m s-sorry, but I really have to go.” Mental warning sirens were blaring in my head, and flashbacks to a dark, deserted warehouse played on repeat. I was a second away from breaking my cool facade, my heart racing while I tried to act calm on the outside.
I continued climbing the steps – slowly, because I didn’t want to trigger Craig into action – but he still advanced towards me, his eyes narrowing menacingly.
In that moment, we both knew that the pretense was over. He knew that I knew he was a threat. His cover was blown.
Still, the hit came unexpectedly. Even though I was on my guard and well aware of the imminent danger, I still wasn’t prepared for the blunt force of a full mental attack. Something hit me directly inside my head, overpowering all my thoughts, ramming its presence into my mind like a freaking wrecking ball.
My knees caved and I hit the ground, grabbing my head in pain. I could faintly hear Craig also groaning, only a few feet away from me. He then hit the ground hard in exactly the same way I had done. We locked eyes for a split second.
And then my mind switched off to protect itself, and I blacked out.
I blinked myself awake to find a guy kneeling on the ground next to me, his eyes frantically searching mine as he cradled my head in his lap. He had such strange eyes, which seemed oddly familiar, for some reason, but I couldn’t pinpoint why.
“Joey? Are you okay? What happened?” he asked me.
I propped myself up on my elbows, thinking it was kind of odd that this guy’s tone of voice sounded so intimate. My head hurt so bad that it made my stomach lurch. I grimaced in a mixture of pain and nausea as I tried to sit up on the grass.
“W-where am I?” I asked groggily, rubbing at my temples. It looked like I was in some sort of park, but I couldn’t remember getting here. There was a circle of people standing around me, staring expectantly and waiting for me to say something.
“We’re at the main house. A girl saw you collapse and ran inside to call us. She said that one minute you were talking to Craig, the next you were both falling down like something had hit you. What happened?”
“M-main house? Craig?”
“Yeah, he’s right over there. He just woke up, too.” He pointed to a middle-aged man with glasses and a moustache, dressed in khaki shorts, sitting on the steps. The man looked as confused and bewildered as I felt. “Were you attacked?” the guy continued asking, still holding me to give me support.
“Attacked?” My head spun and I heaved in dizziness.
“Okay, everybody, step away!” the guy supporting me shouted to the crowd. “She needs some space, let her breathe!”
A young woman dressed in a flowery summer dress passed through the crowd and kneeled in front of me, her brown curls falling gently over her round face. “Jeez, Celeste wasn’t kidding when she said you attract trouble like honey to bees,” she muttered, while checking my pulse. “You were out of our sight for, like, what? Five minutes?”
I frowned at the intrusive poking, and pulled my hand away from her. “I’m fine. A little dizzy, but fine, thank you very much,” I grumbled, annoyed. “How did I get here?”
There were four boys also kneeling next to me, watching me, worriedly. They were very handsome, each one in a different way. Nothing like the guy holding me, though: that one was in a whole league of his own, beautiful like a Hollywood movie star.
One of the pretty boys reached out and held my hand, as if we were old friends. He had messy blond hair and the most beautiful, vivid green eyes I’d ever seen.
“Come on, Joey. Stop horsing around. Tell us what happened,” he said, squeezing my hand.
I pulled away from him, awkwardly. He seemed so earnest in his concern that I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but I wasn’t comfortable with a stranger holding my hand like that.
“Look, this is getting really surreal. I don’t know how I got here, or who you people are, but this isn’t funny any more! You can stop with the prank now,” I protested, scooting away from the movie star guy. He could be as unbelievably handsome as he liked, but I still didn’t know him, and he was leaning far too close for comfort. I wasn’t used to a guy that good-looking fussing over me in the way he was. Actually, all the boys were too close; it was a little disconcerting.
They all blinked at me, seeming stunned. “She must have hit her head pretty bad when she fell down,” Green-Eyed Boy suggested.
“Joey, please, look at me,” Movie-Star Guy said, taking my face in his hands and forcing me to face him. The gesture felt strangely comforting and familiar, his eyes coaxing me to trust him, his deep voice soothing. That’s when I realized why his eyes seemed so odd and out of place. They didn’t have any color.
“What is the last thing you remember?” he asked softly.
I blinked and watched his handsome face. He had a roughly stubbled, square jaw, the most perfect thin nose and mesmerizing gray eyes that twinkled with a mysterious light, as if they were metallic silver rings. So uncanny, yet so beautiful.
“Hmm . . . I-I’m not s-sure . . .” I pulled my face away from his hands, my cheeks heating in embarrassment. Something was tugging inside my head, trying to tell me there was something urgent I should be thinking about, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember what it was. “I remember I was about to move with my mom to a new place . . . Esperanza. Has something happened on the way there? Oh, my God, did the car crash? Where’s Mom?” I asked, looking around urgently.
It was the only thing that could explain all this. The car must have crashed on the way to Esperanza, and we were stranded somewhere in the middle of the road, where these people had found us.
“Jesus, man.” Gray-Beanie Boy exhaled in shock. “That happened almost four years ago, Joey. Are you saying you
don’t remember any of us?” he asked, giving me a long, hard stare. His voice sounded so worried, and his hazel eyes looked so honest, I immediately wanted to trust him, even though I hardly knew him at all.
“No, I don’t know any of you! How does everybody know my name?” I asked, puzzled. These people weren’t making any sense.
Hushed murmurs spread through the circle of people around us, while the boys kneeling next to me all started talking to Movie-Star Guy at the same time. He glanced at me with those mysterious gray eyes and must have seen the confusion and distress I was feeling at that moment, because he called everything to a halt.
“All right, stop talking, everybody!” he shouted to the crowd, his voice full of authority. Everyone stopped at his command. “Arice, you go talk to Craig, find out what happened here, and then get Celeste to meet us at our cabin. I’m taking her back there now. We’ll figure things out after she’s recovered.” He helped me stand up. “Are you okay to walk, Joey?” He held on to my arm and I nodded curtly, feeling slightly flustered.
He looked so incredibly hot when he was shouting orders like that. I wished he would stop touching me, though – maybe then my heart would stop beating so damned fast and I could stop blushing.
“Yeah, I can walk,” I mumbled, but I wasn’t so certain after I’d taken my first step. My legs felt wobbly, and I wasn’t sure if it was because of my throbbing head or the fact that he still hadn’t let go of my waist. His arms felt so strong around me. “I’m okay to walk, honestly.” I tried wiggling away from him, but he wouldn’t let go.
“You still look dizzy. I don’t want you falling again and hitting your head,” he said calmly, his grip still firm on me. “You really don’t remember me, Joe?” His voice had an anxious edge to it.
“I-I’m sorry, no . . .” I was pretty sure I would have remembered him: a guy like that was kind of hard to forget. He was pretty dreamy.
He watched me carefully. “That’s okay, you’ll get your memory back soon . . . We just need to figure out what happened to you first,” he said, mostly to himself, and gave me a reassuring smile. He urged me to keep walking ahead, while the crowd dispersed up the steps into a big wooden building that I had only just noticed. The other four boys followed us closely.
“Where am I? Where are we going? Is my mom okay?”
“Your mother is fine, don’t worry about her, she’s safe and sound in her house. You’re not moving to Esperanza,” he told me with a frown, as he led me up a trail through the middle of a forest. “Your memory seems to have taken a blow and has momentarily lapsed. We are staying in a cabin at the top of this hill, just for this week. But you have pretty much a four-year gap to catch up to.”
“You’re kidding, right? I’ve forgotten almost four years of my life? That can’t be!”
“When you moved to Esperanza, you had the longest hair. Check your hair now. You had it cut a month ago,” he pointed out.
I lifted my hands slowly up to my head and gasped when my fingers touched a very, very short, spiked haircut. “Oh, fuck! It’s so short! This isn’t happening. It can’t be true . . .” I muttered, watching Movie-Star Guy wincing as I cursed.
“You seriously don’t remember us, Joey?” Gray-Beanie Boy asked nervously at my other side. He sounded like a big brother would if his sister were in trouble.
I shook my head. “I’m really sorry.”
“What about me? You know me!” Green-Eyed Boy asked, looking expectant. He saw the silent apology in my face, and his body sagged in disappointment. I bit back the urge to hug him and tell him everything was going to be okay. He was a stranger, after all. “What about those two buggers over there?” he tried one more time. “Sammy and Josh? Don’t you remember their ugly faces?”
A boy with brown curly hair, wearing a checked flannel shirt, peeked at me with a small goofy smile, and the other guy walking next to him turned to watch me as well. He was very tall and built, with a dark Mohican haircut. He looked kind of intimidating.
“She doesn’t even remember her own husband, Harry. She’s not going to remember us!” Mohican Guy scoffed.
My brain registered the word “husband”. “Wait, what? Husband?” I asked, doing a double take.
“Stop pressuring her to remember, guys. Things will come back to her in due course, don’t worry,” Movie-Star Guy insisted in a hopeful tone.
“Hold on, stop! This is crazy. A person doesn’t forget nearly four years of their life in the blink of an eye!” I protested, maneuvering out of his grasp. “And what’s this nonsense about a husband? I’m not married,” I squeaked, my voice coming out slightly panicky. My head throbbed violently, and I swayed before he caught me again by the waist.
“Don’t be afraid, Joey. You’ll be fine,” he said. His voice echoed in a distant memory. I could remember him saying the exact same words before in a . . . a dark cemetery. It was night, the sky was sparkling with colorful fireworks, and he looked so calm and ethereal, like a ghost from the past. I remembered telling him I was not afraid, because he was with me, but then he vanished, engulfed by the dark.
Was he gone? Dead and gone. Something whispered in my head, and I blinked, startled by the memories. He was there, right in front of me, in broad daylight now. He was real, and alive in the present again, his face marked by worry.
“Your name is Tristan,” I ventured, and he smiled softly in response, the corners of his beautiful eyes crinkling in warm affection. I reached out, my fingers gently touching the side of his cheek. “I remember this smile,” I murmured in a daze.
He was smiling down at me, sitting on a tombstone on a winter’s afternoon. The cold wind was blowing past us and I could almost smell the scent of carnations lingering in the air. I remembered how that smile had taken my breath away.
I blinked and swayed again, but this time he had me firmly in his grasp and did not let me falter. “Has anyone ever told you that you have the most strange eyes?” I asked breathlessly, my eyes locked on his.
His smile got bigger. “You may have said something about that once or twice.” His tone was light and had a chuckle beneath it.
“You feel really familiar, Tristan . . . but I still don’t remember much more about you. Sorry.” I gave him an apologetic smile.
“That’s all right. The rest will come back to you soon. You’re already remembering some things. That’s good.” He turned his face to the road ahead. “I’m sure you’ll feel better after you lie down and rest your head a little. Come on, we’re in that cabin over there.”
Chapter Fourteen
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“HERE, TAKE THIS. It will help with your headache.” Green-Eyed Boy – Harry? – handed me a glass of water and a couple of aspirins, and I took them with a hesitant smile. He was still acting like an old friend and leaning too close to me on the couch. I shifted away from him, feeling slightly uncomfortable.
“Man, this is so messed up!” he said, turning to Gray-Beanie Boy, who sat in the armchair in front of us. “Look at her, she’s acting like she doesn’t know me at all, Seth! How freaky is that?”
Gray-Beanie Boy – apparently named Seth – gave me a weak smile and turned to his friend. “She may have partial amnesia, but she still can hear you, Harry.”
Harry glanced embarrassedly at me. “Oh, right. My bad, Joey.”
The guy that I recalled being named Tristan was talking urgently to this stern blonde woman that had arrived soon after we got into the cabin. Their conversation sounded serious and intense, but most of their words were too cryptic for me to understand. The woman noticed my puzzled stare and came to sit next to me.
“Okay, Joey, by the look on your face I assume you don’t remember me, either,” she didn’t so much ask as affirm. “So I’m going to try something, here, to see if I can jog your memory back to normal, all right?”
I leaned away, suddenly alarmed. “Are you a doctor? What are you planning to do to me?”
“I’m a kind of doctor, yes, you might say so. For t
hese sorts of affairs, at least,” she concurred. “I’m just trying to help and maybe get a glimpse of what happened to you. Please close your eyes and relax.”
I eyed her suspiciously for a moment. With a silent nod, Tristan urged me to do as I was told, and somehow I knew I could trust him. Even if I didn’t understand what was happening or who he really was, I was certain he would do everything to keep me safe. Where this certainty came from, though, I had no idea.
I closed my eyes and let her touch my temples. I felt a faint pressure, which initiated at the base of my skull, and, suddenly, an intense pain exploded in my head and a jumble of images rushed back to me, all at once, like a flooding river.
I remembered her, then – the blonde woman. Her name was Celeste Harker. A flickering stream of images came into focus: Her house filled with magic amulets and dusty old scrolls, the two of us arguing relentlessly over something in her study, her sisters Arice and Luna in her house, and an androgynous dark-haired man dressed all in gray, sitting by her side on the couch. I remembered knowing her, her temperament, and the tone of her voice when she was upset, how she frowned when she was concentrating. I just couldn’t connect the rest of her story to my life. When had we met? What was she to me? What was she doing here now? A lot of memories were coming back, but they were jumbled and disconnected and I couldn’t make any sense of them. It was like watching random fragments and small scenes of a very long, complicated movie.
I lurched forward and dry-heaved as if I had been punched in the stomach. The headache, which had dulled since I’d arrived in the cabin, returned tenfold, throbbing violently in my skull.
Retrieving my memories was turning out to be as traumatic and painful as losing them. I recovered from the mental blow to see Celeste beside me, slightly dizzy too. “Whoa. Take it easy, there, Celeste. You are going to make me throw up!” I groaned in protest.
“You remember her name?” Tristan asked happily. “Did you get your memory back?”
“No. I remembered a few moments I had with Celeste. It’s all a jumble of images clashing inside my head right now. It’s quite chaotic, but I can’t see the bigger picture yet . . . I’m sorry. It’s such a mess.”