“You remembered them,” Malcolm said quietly behind her.
She hadn’t.
She didn’t.
It was hard to breathe. Her rib cage felt as if it had knitted together, squeezing her lungs until they were shriveled raisins. She heard her breath loud in her ears, ragged and harsh. Her feet retreated until her back hit the door.
“We’re close! Very close. There’s almost a pattern.” Lou swept his arm over the bulletin board. “A few more, and it will fall into place. We have the suspects narrowed down to a mere handful. All we need are the final pieces … and then we’ll have him.” He closed his fist. “Are you ready?”
“Ready for what?” Eve asked. Her voice felt dry.
“To remember more,” Lou said.
Malcolm tilted her chin up so she had to look in his eyes. He stared at her as if he could access her thoughts through her eyes. “What’s your last memory?”
“I saw the box in Patti’s office. And then the hospital … and that’s it until today in the library. I was shelving books. Malcolm, the box. How did it get there? What …”
Malcolm released her chin and said to Lou, “I told you, the harder we push—”
“Your objection was noted, but we have no choice. He will start again. My sources have confirmed it. It’s a matter of when and who and where, not if.” Lou pointed a finger at Eve and then at the leather couch. “Lie down. Use your magic. Have a vision. Tell us what you see.”
Eve didn’t move. She must have heard him wrong. He couldn’t be asking her to … No, she thought. She couldn’t have done this before. She couldn’t have seen all those people!
She turned back to the bulletin board and tried to remember them again—but looking at them was looking at strangers. Except for the antlered girl and the boy with the tattoos. Eve wished she could run. She wanted to be as far from this place, these people, this case, as possible. But the photos stared at her. He won’t stop, Malcolm had said to her once. He’ll find another way. If we don’t catch him, it will begin again.
The antlered girl, Victoria’s sister, had worn silks and velvets, Eve remembered. But she never wore shoes. She’d run through the forest at dawn while the undergrowth was still damp with dew and the air filled with birdsong. Eve had watched her, her bare feet pounding down the same path every morning. She’d skip over a brook, and it would burble and babble at her feet. Her footfalls were soft on the needles, but she was still loud enough to startle birds out of the underbrush and cause the squirrels to scurry to the tops of the trees. She had run alone.
Eve moved to the photo marked number two, the boy with tattoos. She leaned close until her nose almost touched the bulletin board. The tattoos looked like serpents that were woven so tightly together it was impossible to tell where one snake began and another ended. The scales bled into one another. She could picture a box with a clasp encrusted in silver serpents, a replica of those tattoos.
There’s truth in my visions, she thought, and she felt her stomach churn. She tasted bile. If her visions were memories, or even twisted versions of real memories …
She realized both Lou and Malcolm were watching her. Arms crossed, Lou was drumming his fingers on his bicep. She wondered how many visions she’d already had and what she’d seen, and realized she was shaking.
Lou exhaled in a puff. “Just do it. Every moment you waste—”
“But I’ll lose days!” For every memory she gave them, she lost dozens more. “How many times have we had this conversation? How many times have I forgotten everything I’ve done?” She waved her hand at all the photos on the bulletin board. “How many times have I forgotten everything I thought, felt, decided, believed? Everything I cared about? Everything I am?”
Malcolm was silent. He looked at Lou.
“We have had this conversation three times,” Lou said. “And we will have it again. And you will remember because otherwise people will die.”
Eve felt herself deflate.
“You will be here the entire time.” Malcolm’s voice was soothing, and he steered her gently to the couch. “You will be safe. You don’t have to be afraid.”
“Was I afraid before?” Eve lay down. She crossed her arms over her chest and felt as if she were lying in a coffin. The couch cushions were stiff and smelled of smoke.
Malcolm hesitated, as if he wanted to lie. “Every time.”
She leaned back onto the pillows. Her heart was pounding hard, so hard that it hurt. She laid her hands over her chest as if it were a bird that she wanted to hold inside her ribs. Her ribs were a cage, and her heart was a bird, and it was fluttering its wings so very fast. It would escape, and it would fly to the sky and leave her body to die, heartless and without memories on the couch.
“You don’t always forget.” Malcolm patted her hand. “Sometimes you remember—at least until next time.” He smiled as if this should reassure her. It didn’t.
“Get on with it,” Lou said.
She thought of a bit of magic she could do, harmless magic. She remembered the flowers that Zach had grown in the library. She spread her hands and imagined there were flowers growing from them. Bark spread over her hands. Leaves sprouted between her fingers.
“Don’t transform!” Lou said sharply.
But it was too late. She was wood inside. She felt it spread, calming her, steadying her. She felt his voice recede until it was merely wind. He was shouting; she could see his lips move, and doctors were rushing into the office. Then bark sealed over her eyes, and she saw nothing until the smoke rolled in.
Smoke curls around me in shapes: a snake, a dragon, a cat, a hand … and then it dissipates into a formless haze. I am suspended in the smoke. Ropes are wrapped around my wrists, my elbows, my shoulders, my knees, my neck.
I feel safe.
Cocooned, I spin slowly, and the ropes wrap tighter around me. And then I spin in the other direction, and the ropes unwrap. I twist. I untwist.
And then the ropes loosen, and I fall.
The ropes snap. I scream.
I am lying facedown in the muddy dirt. My arms shake as if they have never been used before, but I push myself upright.
I am on the dirt floor of the carnival tent, in a row of feet and legs. Around me, above me, hands are clapping for a performance that I didn’t hear or see. Up farther, faces are smeared with white paint and rose circles. Garish eyes are painted on foreheads and necks and chests. I can’t see the stage. It is shrouded in smoke, my smoke, that billows and puffs into a snake, a dragon, a cat, a hand … But I am outside the smoke, between strangers, and I do not feel safe anymore.
Pushing past the legs and climbing over the feet, I squeeze down the row until I reach the aisle. At last, I can see the stage. It is draped in red velvet and lit by candles that line the edge.
A cello plays slowly.
The Magician pushes a box onstage. It is larger than those in the wagon, but it is undeniably the same. I recognize its gilded edges and the silver clasp. Staring at it, I feel my rib cage shrink inside me. It’s hard to breathe, and the smoke-laden air scratches my throat.
A girl with many arms scuttles onto the stage, pushing a freestanding silver mirror with two of her arms and using her other arms as extra legs. She positions the mirror behind the Magician, and then disappears back into the smoke.
Looking around, I see a break in the tent at the back of the audience. I walk toward it, away from the stage and the Magician and the box.