I looked at her with her eyebrows raised, then to my grime-covered feet and shrugged.
“Well, you’re at least six-foot-something.” She sat a boot beside my foot. “Maybe an eleven… twelve. I’ll see what I can pick up at the used clothing store tomorrow.”
I wiped pear juice from my chin and took another bite of the succulent fruit.
“Let’s hope the cops don’t come by again tomorrow. You’re all over the news, you know. Naked pervert riding a white horse.” Melba shook her head. “They came back about an hour after they left. Brought hounds with them this time. I was sure they’d sniff you out. The dogs ran the whole yard and came back to the police car.”
Must have been while I slept, I thought to myself.
“That horse of yours must have taken off—if he even is yours.”
Excalibur.
I sat the pear core in the container and stood, bending my knees, trying to stretch the tight material against my thighs. I stepped out into the balmy night air and opened my mouth to call the stallion. As soon as I uttered the first syllable, Excalibur rounded the corner, neighing, sounding almost joyful.
“There you are,” I said, feelings of fondness for the horse taking hold of me.
Excalibur nudged my cheek with his nose in a loyal gesture.
Melba stood in the doorway. “There’s a bucket of water outside for your friend, and all the fresh grass he can eat. You two seem to know each other quite well.”
“It seems we do,” I answered while staring into the horse’s docile eye.
Excalibur entered the shed, walked to my makeshift bed and stood on one side.
“I guess he wants to go to bed,” Melba said, then laughed.
I smiled for the first time that I could remember.
“I’ll be back in the morning. Don’t let anyone see you.”
I gave her a nod. “Thank you… for everything.”
Melba closed the door behind her, leaving me and Excalibur alone. For some reason, having the horse near lessened the fear of what had happened earlier, to the extent that I began to think I had dreamed of the black fog.
Picking up the blanket Melba left, I re-situated myself on the earthy bed. The lantern above still shone. When I turned onto my side, I noticed the container that had held the tea sitting on the floor mere inches away, casting a wavy reflection of my face in the steel.
Blue eyes, set under black lashes and thick, dark eyebrows stared back at me. I picked up the contained, turning it, looking for a clearer picture. But the steel was dull and curved, making my face look distorted. Still, there I was, Solomon Brandt; dark, shoulder-length hair and blue eyes; muscular and once strong, and I knew how to use a gun.
I sat the container down and turned to look at Excalibur, who lay beside me now, staring intently at me. “Did you bring me here on purpose, boy? Is this where I’m supposed to be? Or did the scent of peach blossoms and clover lure you here?”
One corner of my mouth lifted while my eyes grew heavy. Words Melba spoke earlier rang in my head: crossed and evil.
olomon… Solomon! Excalibur!”
Excalibur lifted his head from a patch of wild grass growing along the riverbank and looked in the direction Melba’s voice came from. I cut my bath short, jumped out of the cool water, and skinned on the too tight clothes Melba had given me the previous night.
“Solomon?” she called, her voice sounding closer this time.
“Over here,” I answered. “At the river.”
A minute later, Melba burst through the bushes carrying a crinkly, bulging sack. When her gaze met mine, her hand flew to her chest, and she muttered something into the air.
“I thought…” She stopped, took a deep breath, and positioned a hand on her hip. “You can’t just traipse around in broad daylight, child.”
Although I was hardly a child, this wasn’t the time for that debate. For some reason, Melba felt the need to mother me, and I was at least grateful for the care she willingly offered. So I let her scold me.
“Someone might see you,” she looked at Excalibur, “and that horse.”
With his nose buried in a patch of wild grass, Excalibur nickered softly.
“You can’t wander around the property so soon.”
“So soon after what?”
“Well, after yesterday, of course. I just came back from the city. The main road is closed off. Yesterday, someone appeared on a horse, naked, smashed the street and the sewer line, and then rode off. Fits your description to a tee.” She cocked her head, pursed her lips, and continued scolding. “So it might not be a bad idea for you to lay low for a few days, until someone robs the local liquor store or something, to take people’s minds off yesterday’s incident.”
She threw the sack at my feet. “Hopefully these will fit. There’s more in the car. Now get dressed and come back to the shed. I’ll make you breakfast.”
Sleep and Melba’s tea healed my body on the inside, strengthening muscles and spirit. The cool river water lifted some of the dirt and sting from the cuts. All in all, I felt exhilarated and also motivated, but I was starving.
“Don’t dawdle,” Melba called from halfway down the path.
I pulled out a pair of heavy cotton trousers, blue like the too-small ones I wore, from inside the bag. I also found a white undershirt decorated with a large orange M and a bear’s head on the front, and the words Mercer University printed below; the garment fit loosely. The one other item was a gray jacket with a hood and no buttons, but two strips of silver running up the front, which I didn’t know how to fasten; although the device looked similar, but different, to the shorter fastener on the trousers Melba showed me how to use the previous night. When I was fully dressed in the baggy clothes, I felt sloppy, unkempt almost.
Melba was nowhere in sight when I returned, but something different about the shed stuck out at me. A heavy line of red dust crossed the entrance. It hadn’t been there when I left for the river. I stepped over it, careful not to disturb whatever Melba had set up in my absence.
Inside, I found three sacks filled with clothing and a pair of odd-looking shoes: blue with bright orange stripes and laces. The shoes fit perfectly over a pair of socks I found in another sack.
When Melba arrived with breakfast, she nodded her approval at the attire she picked out for me. “Now you look like a college boy, and not some ghost of a romance novel model.” She held a finger to her chin. “A quarterback maybe. Yes, Solomon, the Quarterback. Although, your accent is heavy, even for these parts.”
My accent? I thought she was the one with the accent.
Melba watched me toy with the metal fastener on the jacket. “Here, let me show you how to do that.” With both sides in her hands she said, “It’s a zipper, the same as on your jeans… only the ends are different.”
Melba fastened the zipper up to my neck, then backed it down again. “Now you try.”
As I worked the zipper, grinning with triumph, worry lines etched Melba’s forehead.
“Maybe you have amnesia,” she said, using a serious tone.
“I don’t think so,” I answered, although I didn’t know why.
Her brows knitted together. “No. You’re right. Your ailment goes much deeper than just memory loss.”
The fried ham and eggs and toast quelled the hunger, and the orange juice and medicinal tea, which Melba called the hot spicy mixture this time, quenched the thirst. As I toyed with the zipper, pulling it up and down, Melba stared at me, looking amused.
“You need a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste, too, and maybe a comb for that mane of yours.”
The next couple of nights, I spent dreamless in the shed. Melba had given me a pillow to go with the blanket, and a toothbrush, toothpaste, and comb. She also insisted on trimming my “mane,” as she called it. Although I knew little about myself, I liked the feel of the long hair and allowed her to cut only the tips off, but in the end, she took off a lot more. Daytime, I spent in the yard, cleaning up fallen sticks
and debris, weeding gardens, and moving a pile of boulders to the back end. Melba showed me how to start a lawnmower and mow the lawn, and to use a device called a Whipper Snipper. Surprisingly, I liked mowing the lawn. Excalibur wasn’t too happy about the noise, though, and retreated into the woods while the machines ran. The cops hadn’t returned, and Melba said the sewer line had been fixed, the road had been patched up, and the workmen moved out.
On the eve of my fifth day at Melba’s, I was painting the outside of the shed creamy white, when she did something that surprised me. She invited me inside her house for supper. She said she cooked a roast dinner and wouldn’t mind the company.
I looked at my paint-speckled arms and hands. “I’ll go to the river and clean up.”
“No. There’s no need for that. There’s plenty of water inside. Besides, it’s time you started using modern conveniences.”
After putting the paintbrush to soak in a can of water, I followed Melba to the house. Outside her back door, on the ground, I saw a line of red powder like outside the shed door. This one looked dingy, as if it had been there a while. Melba didn’t step on it, so neither did I—in fact, I was very careful in the past few days not to disturb the line she’d put down by the shed.
Mouthwatering aromas greeted me inside the doorway, filling my senses with comfort and warmth. Melba led me down a narrow hallway to a small room she called a washroom.
“You can wash up in here,” she said and stepped aside.
The tiny room held shiny golden furniture, but what caught my attention was the mirror… more specific, my reflection. My hair was a shaggy mess, curled up at the ends, barely touching my shoulders. Melba had said the cut suited me, and that I’d fit right in with others my age—although I hadn’t seen anyone else since I’d arrived out of nowhere that day on the broken street.
“What about a shave?” When I didn’t answer, she came in and rummaged through the only drawer, in a cabinet below the washbasin. “You can use this.”
She held a pink object up to me with three blades sticking out of the end.
I took the strange-looking device and stared at it.
“It hasn’t been used,” she said reassuringly. Then she chuckled. “Of course, why would I think you knew how to use a razor?”
After Melba showed me how to use the razor, the taps, and the golden seat she called a toilet, she left me to my privacy. But I heard her mumble as she walked through the doorway, “It’s like he was just born.”
The paint scrubbed off my arms and hands easily with soap and a cloth. And after I finished shaving, my chin was as smooth as a peach-blossom petal, and also not nearly as tanned as the rest of my face. I ran a hand through my hair, deciding the look wasn’t so bad, since I couldn’t remember seeing myself any other way.
Furniture crowded the little bungalow. Framed portraits covered the walls. I made my way toward the succulent odors wafting through the place and found Melba in front of a stove.
“Come in and have a seat,” she said, sounding more cheerful than she had earlier.
I sat at a round wooden table set for two and gazed at the room. The window was covered in decorative objects, like colored glass shapes, wooden carvings, and small bundles of herbs.
Melba pulled a knife out of a large washtub set into a counter and cleaned it under the tap.
“The house isn’t usually this messy,” she said with a wave of her hand, while facing the stove. “But I haven’t been myself today. You see, today would have been my twenty-fifth anniversary.”
After a short quiet spell, she turned with a smile on her face, as if forcibly planted there for me, and a platter of food in her hands, setting it to one side of the table.
The roast beef had been carved and placed in the center of the platter. A medley of vegetables surrounded the meat: carrots, turnips, green beans, and whole onions. A bowl of gravy and a plate of butter were already on the table.
Melba took a seat and dished up my supper, serving me a generous helping. She held out a basket of biscuits; I took two.
“So, I’ve been thinking,” she said as she drizzled gravy over her own meal. “It’s time you met more people, went out in the car, maybe. You might see someone who knows you and maybe trigger a memory.” She stuffed her mouth with potato, dripping gravy down her chin, and looked at me. “Do you have your driver’s license?”
I stared back, wondering what she meant.
“Right,” she said and took another bite. “Well, whether you do or don’t, you obviously don’t remember. I think you should get behind the wheel and have a lesson. Maybe driving will trigger something.”
“In your car?”
“Yes. That Toyota is so old you can’t hurt it.” She took a sip of tea. “There’s something else I wanted to talk to you about. I have a small apartment in the basement, and I haven’t found a tenant in a while. It’s just sitting there, collecting dust.”
I didn’t know what she was getting at, but I stopped shoving food into my mouth and listened more intently.
“I wonder if you would like to stay there for a while, until we figure out who you are? It’s time you had a shower, anyway. You can’t bathe in the river forever.” She looked at me with raised brows and a spark in her eyes that I interpreted to be a glimmer of hope.
My options were slim, and it was obvious that Melba wanted the company. “Yes, thank you. I should like that very much. And Excalibur?” I knew the horse couldn’t stay in the house and wondered if she had plans for him, too.
“He can stay in the shed at night and graze the yard during the day. He seems to do his own thing, anyway.”
I smiled at her generosity.
“You know, you’re a handsome young man, with refined mannerisms. Someone must miss you. I hope you don’t have a girlfriend out there somewhere pining away for her long-lost Solomon.” She laughed, and then grew serious. She leaned both elbows on the table, her brows furrowed. “Forgive me for not offering you the apartment sooner, but a woman living alone has to be careful who she takes in. I had to be sure you weren’t some crackpot psychopath, I mean, even the media referred to you as a pervert.”
She toyed with a ring holding a black stone, one of many jewels adorning her fingers.
Her voice lowered. “I can feel things, Solomon. Feel when something isn’t right, and know when it is. For my ancestors, the deep art was a way of life. I just dabble, but the magic is in my blood nonetheless. I know you have a purpose here. There are no accidents, Solomon. Everything happens for a reason. And that reason will eventually present itself.”
I had no idea what Melba spoke of, only that this was the most serious conversation we’d had yet. According to her, I had a purpose, even if I didn’t know what that purpose was, and Melba would help me figure it out.
“Just like the long line of women in my family, I can see into the hearts of men… and I knew from the day we first met that yours is a good one.” She dropped the conversation there and continued eating.
While we ate the sweet potato pie she’d made for dessert and sipped tea, Melba schooled me about Savannah and the surrounding counties, until she was certain she had the state of Georgia covered.
She even showed me images on her computer, hoping to strike a memory in me. And some things did feel familiar, like the old plantations with their tree-lined drives we explored through the Internet. But my mind kept reverting back to the property Excalibur first took me through, the big white house, and the sign out front bearing my name.
I decided to ask about it. “Melba, do you know of Solomon Brandt Estates?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. The old mansion is a museum, and I work there, cleaning, three days a week.” Her gaze narrowed on me. “What do you know about the estate?”
“Only that we share the same name, the estate and I.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Can you take me there?”
She considered my question, then said, “I just might be able to do that.”
After dessert and my lesson in geography, we watched Melba’s favorite TV show. Her blurted answers to the puzzles on the screen filled the tiny room with warmth and happiness.
The sun had set a while ago, so I knew it was late when Melba took me downstairs to the apartment. She showed me how to run the taps, turn on the TV, and use the remote. Then I followed her into the washroom, which doubled as a laundry room.
She walked to an enclosure in one corner of the room, reached inside, and turned on a small waterfall. “This is a shower,” she explained, then her look turned stern. “No more baths in the river. Someone might see you and think you’re… weird.”
“You want me to bath in that tight space?”
“Yes. And it’s not so tight inside, see?”
I peeked behind the curtain she held open, into the water room, encased in square, blue tiles. The space was larger than I originally thought.
“Everything you need is in here,” she said opening a floor-to-ceiling cabinet. There were towels and washcloths in every color, a few bars of wrapped soap, and shampoo left behind by the last tenants. “This is cleaner for the toilet, sink, and shower. And this is toilet paper.”
She turned toward the door. “Well, I think that’s everything you need to know for one night. Enjoy your shower; this one has a rainwater faucet.”
“I think I shall find the river more to my liking.”
Melba looked at me intently, her gaze searching mine. A smile formed on her face. “You just reminded me of my grandfather, old Rasmus Smith. He lived in a shanty a ways up the river, and when he grew too old to be by himself, my mother brought him here, well, not to this house, but to the old farmhouse I grew up in, that stood across the road from here.
“I haven’t thought of him in ages. He, too, would rather have bathed in the river than learn modern ways.” Her smile seemed perpetual as she walked out of the room. “Well, I hope you’ll be comfortable here.”
“Thank you, Melba. I shall attempt a shower tomorrow… maybe.”
As we returned to the living room, the front door to the apartment squeaked open.
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