In that world, the carnival had been beneath a city in the trees. Above them, vast structures had been woven into the branches, and the homes had been like enclosed nests. As the acrobats flew overhead, the Storyteller had nestled in the roots of one of the trees. She had told tales about birds who guarded treasure while silver-clad monkeys stole everlasting fruit. While listening to her, Eve had watched the golden boy.
Bits of memory or bits of imagination?
Eve didn’t know, and she couldn’t summon the energy to care. She felt drained, as if someone had siphoned every drop of blood and moisture out of her body and left her a husk.
Leaving the hospital room, Eve joined Malcolm at the nurses’ station. He glanced at her and then handed the paperwork to an expressionless nurse with slicked-back hair. The nurse filed the papers and then turned to Eve. “Wrist,” the nurse commanded.
Eve glanced at Malcolm to interpret this cryptic statement, and he tapped his left wrist. She wore an ID bracelet. She hadn’t noticed it. As she lifted her arm up, she read the bracelet: PATIENT 001. She wondered if that meant she was their only patient or their first. She didn’t ask. The nurse snipped the plastic band off and dropped it in the trash.
“Keep her hydrated,” the nurse said to Malcolm, as if Eve weren’t capable of listening to and following instructions. Maybe I’m not, Eve thought. She wondered how many instructions she’d heard and forgotten over the weeks, months, or however long she’d been with WitSec. “Lots of rest. You keep pushing her like this, and I won’t be held responsible.”
“It’s not my call, not anymore,” Malcolm said. “The situation changed.” Eve looked sharply at him. “But I will do what I can. Her well-being is always my priority.” Hand on her shoulder, Malcolm guided Eve away from the nurses’ station. She wondered what had changed and if it would do any good to ask. Swiping his ID card, Malcolm unlocked a door and led her through a white hall to an elevator. He pushed the down button. The doors slid open—
She knew this elevator: the brown-walled interior and the worn carpet, the tinny music that drifted out the open door.
This isn’t a hospital, she realized.
She’d never left the agency.
Eve followed Malcolm into the elevator. He punched the button for the garage, and the doors slid closed. The elevator lurched down. She’d been on level four. The offices were three. Level five had the room with the silver walls.
“How many times?” Eve asked dully.
Malcolm raised his eyebrows.
“I was at the pizza place with Aidan, Topher, and Victoria. You brought me here. How long have I been here?”
“Seven,” Malcolm said.
“Days or visions?”
“Days,” he said as the elevator opened. “I don’t know how many visions.”
Seven lost days, she thought. Numbly, she followed him out of the elevator and through the garage to yet another black car. She climbed into the passenger seat, snapped on her seat belt, and rested her head against the window as Malcolm drove out of the garage.
“You need rest,” Malcolm said. “I told Lou this was too intense. You need the memories to return more naturally—through association or memory prompts, not self-inflicted comas. But Lou’s under pressure with the latest incidents—” He cut himself off.
“Tell me more of your memories,” Eve said. “You told me about your mother singing. Tell me about your father. Nice memories. I only want nice memories.” Nice memories to scrub away the smoke and blood inside her.
He drove out of the parking garage. “My memories?” He sounded relieved, as if he’d expected other questions, but Eve couldn’t bring herself to ask the real questions or hear about “incidents,” not when she felt as if she’d been scraped raw inside. “Okay … um, let me think … My dad and I used to play basketball. When I was a kid, he’d lift me halfway up to the basket. I’d dunk it in, and he’d cheer and shake me in the air like I was a trophy.” Taking one hand off the steering wheel, he demonstrated the shaking. “But I’d never made a basket on my own until one summer, when my father was away for two weeks. Every day of those two weeks, I practiced for hours. And the next Saturday, when Dad asked me to shoot hoops with him, I shot the basket from the ground by myself. My dad lifted me up and shook me like a trophy.”
Eve closed her eyes. “Tell me more.”
“My father was a cop, and he hoped I’d follow in his footsteps. Have a son on the force, you know? On the day I told him I was a US marshal … I swear he wanted to lift me in the air and shake me like a trophy. Only reason he didn’t was that I outweighed him by then. Also because my mom cried.”
Eve opened her eyes. The sky was cloudless blue. The trees were heavy with dark-green leaves, motionless in the still air. She watched the telephone poles pass. “Why did she cry?”
“She didn’t want me to be in any kind of law enforcement. She wanted me to be something safe like a veterinarian, even though I’m not good with animals. Hate cats. Okay with dogs. Don’t see the point of goldfish.”
“What happened?”
He shrugged. “Five years in, I was recruited for WitSec. Two years after that, a routine case proved to be anything but routine, and I came to the attention of the paranormal division. Para-WitSec is always looking for new agents. Since this is the only known nonmagical world, we are in high demand as a safe haven for witnesses of magical crimes. I was immediately assigned to multiple cases. All of it was classified, but I always wished I could have told her. As it was … she didn’t understand that my job is to keep other people safe. I’m doing what she—what both of them—taught me, what feels right and natural.”
Malcolm parked the car in front of the drab yellow house. She watched him get out, check the area, and then open her door. She stepped onto the sidewalk next to him.
“Was that the kind of thing you wanted to hear?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Good.” He slid on his sunglasses. “Because that’s as much sharing as I do. Go on in.” He nodded toward the house as Aunt Nicki swung the door open. Eve headed toward her, then glanced back over her shoulder at Malcolm.
Unmoving, he watched her from the sidewalk.
Inside, Aunt Nicki put her hands on her hips. “You look exhausted,” she pronounced. “And too thin.” She picked up Eve’s wrist and wrapped her fingers around it. “You’re wasting away. I don’t care how much pressure Lou is under. We can’t have you wasting away. Are you eating?”
Eve shrugged. She didn’t know how many of the seven days she’d spent in the hospital bed and how many in Malcolm’s office. “Intravenously, I think.”
“Doesn’t count.” Aunt Nicki bustled into the kitchen, and Eve followed. “Soup? Sandwich?” She checked the refrigerator. “I’ll make you a grilled cheese sandwich with microwaved tomato soup. Serious comfort food. You look in need of serious comfort food.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Did I ask if you were hungry?”
“Will you tell me your memories instead?”
Aunt Nicki slowed. She stared at her, blinked once. “Excuse me?”
“I want … to hear your memories. I’m hungry for memories.” It was the best way she could think of to put it. It felt like hunger, vast empty spaces yawning inside her that wanted to be filled.
“You are the weirdest kid that I have ever met.” Aunt Nicki sped up again, making a cheese sandwich and plopping it into a pan. It sat there, sad and unsizzling. She selected a cup of soup and put it in the microwave.