Before today he could remember nothing at all.
Panic welled up at this realization. And the room spun around him again, dizziness threatening to topple him.
Maybe things will become clear after I get some rest, he thought.
He took the clothes the girl had given him and left the bathroom, going to sit on the edge of her bed. He pulled on the flannel pajama pants awkwardly with one hand. But he couldn’t figure out how to put on the sweatshirt without scraping it across his burn, so he left it off.
The boy sank onto the mattress and rested his head on a pillow, intending to gather his strength for just a moment before heading downstairs. The girl’s bed was so comfortable. Her pleasant scent enveloped him as he shut his eyes.
When Lu came back upstairs she found the stranger curled up in her bed like Goldilocks, sound asleep. He lay on top of the covers, dressed only in the pajama bottoms. She set the mug of tea she’d brought him on the nightstand and shook his shoulder gently, saying, “Hey, we still need to get you bandaged up.” He didn’t stir.
Maybe it was good that he wasn’t awake for what was about to happen, Lu thought, since it was probably going to hurt. She pulled some supplies from the pocket of her hoodie and tore the wrapper off a thick roll of sterile gauze. Then she gingerly bandaged his injured hand, being careful not to wrap it too tightly. She used up the entire roll and secured the gauze with a little strip of tape at his wrist. It kind of ended up looking like a big white catcher’s mitt, but it was the best she could do.
Then she got a nice warm quilt out of the closet and covered the boy with it. She paused to stare at him for just a moment before shutting off the light and leaving him there in her bed.
Chapter Three
The power had gone out last night as Lu was getting ready for bed. This was a fairly common occurrence. The propane system running off a huge tank in the backyard was ancient and in desperate need of replacement, routinely seizing up when the temperature fell below freezing. So now the house, which was always a bit dark in the shadow of the surrounding forest, was lit by dozens of candles and lanterns kept for just this purpose, and warmed by a big fire in the hearth.
Lu picked up a flashlight and went upstairs to see if her guest was awake. She’d been checking on him regularly, and had layered extra blankets on him so he’d stay warm when the power went out. It was now early evening, and he’d slept soundly all day as the snow continued to fall steadily outside.
When she stuck her head in the bedroom this time she found him propped up against the headboard, hugging his knees to his chest. The lantern she’d left on the nightstand cast his shadow against the far wall. “Hey,” she said. “Are you ok? How’s your hand?”
His dark eyes searched her face for a long moment before he said, “It hurts. But far more troubling is the fact that I can’t remember anything.”
“What do you mean?” Lu came to stand at his bedside.
“My earliest memory is waking up beside that creek in incredible pain yesterday. I can recall nothing prior to that.” He knit his brows as he said, “I can’t even remember my own name.”
“Maybe you’re in shock. You’ve obviously been through some kind of trauma.”
“Perhaps.”
“Why don’t you check your clothes for your I.D.?” she suggested. “That might help jar your memory.”
“That’s a good idea.” He stood a bit shakily and when Lu stepped closer to help steady him, he slipped his arm around her shoulders for support. She led him into the bathroom, then held the flashlight for him as he searched every pocket in his ripped, muddy shirt and jeans, which were still on the floor beside the tub. There was no wallet. But he did find two slips of paper, which they brought back to the bed.
He sat on the edge of the mattress and took a look at what he’d found. One was a generic receipt dated five days ago for something costing $2.35, paid in cash. The other was a note in a tight, messy scrawl that said: Alastair don’t forget: 10 p.m.
She sat down beside him and read the note. “Alastair,” she said. “Maybe that’s you.”
He considered this. “Or maybe I wrote the note to give to someone called Alastair.”
She fished in the nightstand and produced a pen and a pad of paper. “Here, try writing it.”
He set the slips of paper down and wrote the name in an elegant script across the notepad. Lu told him, “You definitely didn’t write the note, it’s nothing like your handwriting. Plus, the way you just wrote that looks a lot like a signature, so I’m gonna guess it’s your name.”
“It seems as if my own name should feel familiar, which this doesn’t. But for lack of any better ideas, you may as well call me that.” He looked up at her. “And what do I call you?”
“I’m Lu,” she said. He looked a little perplexed at that, so she added, “It’s short for Luna, but no one calls me that. Ever.”
He looked back at the name he’d just written. “I don’t understand what’s happened to me, Lu.”
“Soon as the snow lets up we’ll get you to a hospital,” she said gently. “The doctors will figure out what’s wrong.”
“You’re so kind to me,” he murmured, still looking at the paper. “I’ve done nothing but cause you distress, and yet you’ve shown me such extraordinary compassion.”
She colored slightly and changed the subject by saying, “Do you feel well enough to come downstairs? It’s a lot warmer in the living room.”
“I think so.”
Lu helped him down the stairs to the couch, which she’d pulled up right in front of the fireplace. He sank onto the upholstery, musing absently, “I don’t understand why I’m so weak, why even walking is such an effort.”
Lu used a thick oven mitt to retrieve a pot she’d set on the hearth. Next she pulled a tea kettle away from the fire before sitting beside him. While she did that, he stared at the bulky gauze wrap she’d applied to his burned hand and asked, “When did you bandage me up?”
“Last night. You were really out.”
“Thank you.”
“I hope that was the right thing to do.” Lu sounded worried as she glanced at him. “It seemed like keeping it clean and protected was a good idea, but I actually have no idea how you’re supposed to treat a burn. I hope I didn’t make it worse somehow.”
“The pain has receded somewhat, so I think you did the right thing,” he told her. His indigo eyes met hers, and as she quickly jumped up to finish dinner he asked, “May I help somehow?”
She plunked teabags into a couple mugs and poured hot water from the kettle as she said, “No thanks. You’re not in any condition to cook. Not that what I’m doing is cooking, but still.”
Lu had set up a little kitchen work station on the mantel. She busied herself with ladling hot vegetable soup into a bowl, placing it on a plate, and making a tidy ring of crackers around the bowl’s base. Alastair tucked his legs up onto the couch as she placed the meal on a little folding table and set it in front of him.
“Did the power get knocked out in the storm?” he asked idly.
“Yeah. Happens a lot.”
When she set the tea in front of him, he took a sip and sighed with pleasure. “Thank you. That’s wonderful.” In truth it didn’t taste like much, but the smell was comforting and familiar, the warmth soothing.
She smiled at that and said, “Figures you like tea. I do too. My aunt got me in the habit of drinking it.” She cleared her throat to alleviate the quick tightness that had come with mentioning her aunt.
“Why does it figure I’d like tea?”
“Well, because you’re British. And lots of people in the UK drink tea.”
“I’m British?”
“Yeah. Don’t you hear your accent?”
He shrugged. “I don’t notice it.”
“Seriously?”
“Do you notice your accent?”
“I don’t have an accent,” Lu told him. “No one from this part of the U.S. does.”
“Sure you do,” he in
sisted. “A very strong American one.”
“News to me, but ok.”
“What state are we in now?” he asked.
“Oregon. You’re in the mountains above Ashland, at the southern end of the state. We’re about twenty miles north of the California border.”
“Ah.” He took another sip of tea, then asked, “So what else do you notice about me, besides the fact that I’m British?”
She studied him. “Well, you’re probably around seventeen or eighteen.” And you’re ridiculously gorgeous, she added to herself. “But beyond that, I can’t tell much about you.” His dark blue eyes remained fixed on her.
She colored slightly, nervous under his gaze as she dumped the remaining soup into a cup, then sat at the opposite end of the sofa and took a cautious sip from the steaming mug.
They ate in silence for a while. Eventually he glanced at the falling snow through the bank of windows across the room and asked, “Will your family be able to make it home in this weather?”
“Actually,” she admitted, “I live here by myself.”
“But aren’t you a little young to be on your own?”
She just shrugged.
“Where are your parents?” he asked.
Her jaw clenched. “They’re gone. And in case you’re about to ask, my legal guardian is in Chicago.”
“I’m sorry about your parents.”
“They’re not dead. Just gone. And I don’t want to talk about it.” She drew her knees to her chest and wrapped an arm around them.
He said gently, “So we’re both alone. It’s good we found each other then.”
“You’re not really alone,” she pointed out. “You just can’t remember anyone right now. You probably have all kinds of people looking for you, parents, friends, brothers and sisters, a girlfriend….” her voice trailed off.
“But I feel alone,” he insisted. “Apart from you, I feel like I have no one.”
“Once it stops snowing we’ll go into town and check at the police station, and I’m sure we’ll find that your family’s filed a missing persons report on you,” she said. “I would call the police station now. But my cell phone needs to be charged, which I can’t do with the power out. I’m sorry about that. Your family is probably so worried.”
My family. He thought about that, turning the words over in his mind. He tried to feel hopeful at the prospect of finding his parents, people who cared about him. But the word ‘family’ kindled nothing but intense sadness in him. At that moment, he realized he could recall emotions from the life he’d forgotten – though not the memories that accompanied these emotions.
And what he felt was more than a little troubling.
He shuddered slightly as disembodied feelings from a dark, lonely, miserable existence stirred in him. There was so much pain and suffering, so much fear, though the cause remained hidden. And now that he’d tapped into these emotions they rose up and overwhelmed him, panicking him as he thought, what the hell have I forgotten?
Lu, still in nurse mode, mistook his shudder as a shiver and grabbed a nearby blanket, draping it over him. He caught her hand and held it like a lifeline.
Her brow creased in concern as she asked, “Are you ok?” His eyes locked with hers and she could plainly see fear in them. “Alastair, what’s wrong?”
His breathing was ragged as he tried to concentrate only on Lu. He focused on the clear blue of her eyes for a long moment and this more than anything helped calm him and root him in the present.
Eventually he regained control enough to whisper, “I’m alright. I guess…I guess I had a panic attack or something. Will you please keep holding on to me for just a little longer?”
“Of course,” she said gently.
Still holding her hand, he curled up against her, and Lu put a protective arm around him. She could feel the tension slowly draining from his body as his shoulders relaxed, his breathing leveled out. Eventually he said, “I’m sorry about that. I don’t know what came over me.” His voice was thin, and he made no move to let go of her.
“There’s no need to apologize.”
“I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t met you, Lu,” he said after a while. “I would be so lost were it not for you.”
She kept holding him, taking comfort in his soothing presence as much as he was taking comfort in hers. And both marveled at how natural it felt to be in each other’s arms like this, as if this was where they belonged.
Chapter Four
When Lu awoke on the sofa the next morning her first thought was of Alastair, and she sat up quickly. He was leaning against the opposite arm of the couch, watching her.
“Good morning,” he said with a shy smile. The room was warm, the fire burning brightly. He leaned forward and used a thin piece of firewood to hook the handle of the tea kettle, pulling it back from the flames. Then he used the big oven mitt to pour hot water into a couple waiting mugs. Teabags bobbed to the surface.
“How do you feel?” she asked by way of greeting.
“About the same.”
“Have you remembered anything?”
He forced himself not to shudder as he thought of the emotions that had assaulted him the night before, and replied, “Nothing concrete,” as he set a cup of tea in front of her. She thanked him, reaching for the mug.
“I’m really sorry about that panic attack, or whatever it was last night,” he said embarrassedly. “You must be so tired of all my drama.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” Lu told him. “I know you’re dealing with a lot right now.”
He leaned back against the arm of the sofa, holding a mug in his lap and idly submerging the teabag again and again with his fingertip. After a while he said, “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Why don’t you go by Luna?”
She grinned. “That’s random. But ok, it’s because I really don’t like my name.” She fished out her teabag, depositing it on a nearby saucer.
“Why not?”
“I guess because it was a hard name to grow up with. Other kids loved to make fun of it. They’d call me Lunatic, among other things. I learned to hate it.”
“I can see how that would be annoying. But I quite like your name. It’s beautiful, and in that regard it suits you,” Alastair told her.
“Oh. Well, thanks.” She felt the color rising in her cheeks at the offhand compliment. “I like your name, too,” she added, and immediately felt stupid for saying that.
“If that’s really my name,” he said.
Lu smiled. “It has to be yours. It’s so totally British.”
He smiled too, which lit up his eyes. “That doesn’t prove it’s my name. I could be called any one of a hundred names that are equally British. Nigel, for example. Or Bertram. Or…Hamish.”
“Hamish?” she laughed.
“Why not? Don’t I look like a Hamish?” He was still smiling.
“You look like an Alastair. And why can you recall several examples of British names when you can’t recall your own?”
He thought about that. “I have no idea. Do me a favor -- ask me a trivia question. Let’s see if I know the answer.”
“What’s the Queen of England’s name?”
“Elizabeth the second. Hmm, curious,” he mused. “Now why the hell do I know that and not my own name?”
“Because you’re a fine British citizen,” she joked, eliciting a chuckle from him.
“But it makes no bloody sense,” he said, and then added, “Ah, there, I just heard my accent. No Yank would describe something as bloody.”
“Unless it was, of course, bloody.”
“Indeed.”
“Nor would we call ourselves Yanks,” she pointed out.
“This is true.” He smiled, then studied her for a long moment before saying, “You have the most amazing affect on me, Lu. You make me feel like everything is going to be ok, even at a time when my life is an utter shambles. I’m so grateful for that.�
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“It is going to be ok,” she told him.
“As long as you’re around, it will be.”
“Well, I’m not going anywhere,” she murmured, looking closely at him -- his open, vulnerable expression, the dark blue depths of his eyes, the way his lips parted ever-so-slightly as he met her gaze. God, he’s beautiful, she thought. She was tempted to reach out and run a fingertip over the perfect curve of his upper lip.
And then she realized where her mind was wandering and felt ridiculous. To hide her embarrassment she abruptly jumped off the couch and headed to the kitchen, mumbling, “I think I have some honey to go with this tea.” And as she retreated she told herself, Get a grip, Lu!
He’d noticed and misinterpreted her sudden discomfort and followed her into the kitchen, saying, “I’m sorry, Lu. I know I make you nervous.” His voice was tinged with sadness as he stared at the worn linoleum floor. “It must be awful for you, having a stranger in your home, disrupting your life like this. And that I just broke in uninvited -- it’s no wonder I make you so uneasy. But I swear I mean you no harm. You don’t have to worry about your safety with me.”
Lu turned to face him. “I know, Alastair. That’s not at all what makes me nervous around you.” Now it was her turn to study the linoleum.
“Then what is it? Please tell me what I’m doing to make you uneasy and I’ll stop it at once.”
She couldn’t help but grin at that.
“Well, now I’m confused,” he said as he watched her expression.
“You don’t make me nervous because I find you threatening, Alastair.” She looked him in the eye and decided to be honest. “You make me nervous because you’re…well, you’re really good looking.” What an understatement! She grinned again as his eyebrows shot toward his hair line. “And no way can you stop being hot, so I’ll just have to get used to it.”
Now it was his turn to grin. “You think I’m attractive?”
“Anyone would think you’re attractive. Have you not at any point looked in a mirror?”
He relaxed against the kitchen doorframe. “I have, actually.”
Magic & Memory Page 2