Trespassers: a science-fiction novel (13 page)

“
You mean amnesia?
”

“
I guess,
”
she said.
“
But I think it
’
s something different.
”

She had Jeremy
’
s attention, now. He reached up and took hold of the horse
’
s flowing mane, settling in for a long story.
“
You
’
re going to have to explain that,
”
he said.

“
I don
’
t know where to start.
”

“
How about the beginning?
”
he said.

The simplicity of this comforted her. At least she knew exactly where the beginning was.

“
Okay,
”
she said with a sigh,
“
that takes us back to December eighth of last year.
”

Sara
’
s mind drifted back. It all started eight months ago, at the Downing Springs Mall. Sara had awoken and found herself on the floor in the corner of a department-store dressing room. From that low angle, she was looking right under the dressing-room door to see a pair of high heels walking around racks of clothes.

Sara got the impression the store was about to close, and she wondered whether she should be headed to the exit. Something was missing, though, and she was waiting for it. She was waiting for the memories that would flood back into her mind and explain how she arrived here.

No memories would come, no matter how hard she tried to summon them. Instead of a memory, she had a folded piece of paper taped to the back of her hand. She peeled the tape back and unfolded the note, which was as frank and direct as it was startling:

Your name is Sara Collins. You won
’
t remember anything. Don
’
t even try. You live with Rupert and Margaret Nathan above their hardware store. They think you
’
re from Nova Scotia. Just go along with it. If anyone detains you and asks you strange questions, stick with that story. But don
’
t mention this note to anyone!

Somebody will return in about a week and contact you to fill you in on everything and let you know where to go from there. Try to blend in until then.

Nathan's Hardware: 215 Alabaster Ave - Juniper, IN

Destroy this note immediately!

What she did immediately with the note was read it again .
.
. and again .
.
. and again. She was trying to find the humor in it .
.
. trying to understand it as a joke .
.
. trying to find some purpose in it. The note made no sense at all, except for one little fact: she had no memory of her identity.

Somewhere among the multiple readings, she had gotten to her feet and had sat down on the bench in the corner of the dressing room.

Knock-Knock-Knock
. A knuckle rapped lightly against the dressing-room door.

“
We
’
re about to close,
”
a woman
’
s voice said.
“
If you have any purchases, you
’
ll need to take them to the register, now.
”

Sara folded the note and pushed it into her pocket. She slid the latch and opened the door. The lady was still standing there, pointing to her watch.

“
You have about three minutes,
”
the lady announced, on the verge of turning annoyed.

Sara smiled and walked right past her. The note had instructed her not to try to remember anything. This was a pointless directive. All Sara could do was try to remember. Over the next eight months, trying to remember would become her preeminent preoccupation.

To put it more accurately, Sara could remember almost everything. She remembered the language. She remembered the days of the week .
.
. the months of the year. She could name most of the fifty states. She even remembered what foods she liked. There was a strange duality to her memory, though. When she tried to recall her childhood, she felt a dull, nagging blankness. She felt it again when she asked herself about her parents. It was as if these parts of her past were being kept from her.

Sara exited the store and remembered where she parked her bike
—
even remembered the combination to the lock. Part of her was looking over her shoulder for secret agents who might detain her and ask her these
strange questions
, as the note mentioned. The other part of her hoped all this was nonsense.

As she made her way to Nathan
’
s Hardware, with dusk settling in over the little town, she was satisfied that no agents, secret or otherwise, were after her. Everything was peaceful. She had entered the address into her phone and was able to follow the directions. As she turned on Alabaster Ave, she began to recognize landmarks. She had definitely been here before. She would be able to find her way without the map.

When Sara finally arrived at Nathan
’
s Hardware, it was a dreamlike experience. She knew her way around, but she couldn
’
t remember having been there before. She moved up the stairs, anticipating each creak of the wooden steps, surrounded by a comfortable familiarity.

She wondered what the note meant when it said,
They think you
’
re from Nova Scotia
. If she wasn
’
t from Nova Scotia, where was she from? Why would the note go to the trouble of telling her where she
wasn
’
t
from, while failing to tell her where she
was
from?

Mrs. Nathan
’
s face appeared from the kitchen, warm, friendly, and familiar.
“
Did you find your earring?
”
Mrs. Nathan asked, as sweet as could be. Sara recognized the voice. But she couldn
’
t locate any tangible memory of it. Now, Sara got around to hearing the words.

“
I don
’
t know,
”
Sara shrugged. She quickly realized she would have to do better.
“
I mean .
.
. not yet. I
’
m still looking for it.
”

“
It
’
ll turn up,
”
Mrs. Nathan replied.

Sara turned the corner and stepped into her room. It was just as she expected. She could remember everything in the room .
.
. except herself. She felt a decision welling up inside her. She would either have to break down into tears or laugh out loud. She didn
’
t know herself well enough to guess which it would be, until she heard the laughter rumbling off the walls of her tiny room. She flopped down on the bed and hoped she could sleep off this strange day.

“
Then what happened?
”
Jeremy asked.

“
I waited.
”

“
You didn
’
t go to the police or the hospital?
”

“
No.
”

This was starting to sound suspicious
—
made up even.
“
You still haven
’
t been to a doctor?
”

“
No.
”

“
Why not?
”

“
Because the note said not to,
”
she replied.
“
It said not to tell anyone.
”

This made Jeremy laugh. He already had concerns about such a perfect girl going out with him. This could explain it. Either she
’
s nuts
—
which also explained why she didn
’
t have a boyfriend
—
or she was toying with him, trying to make a fool out of him. He wasn
’
t biting.

“
So, you can
’
t tell the police or the people you
’
re staying with,
”
he reasoned.
“
But you can tell me .
.
. does the note mention me?
”

“
No,
”
she said, before detecting the facetious tone.

He didn
’
t want to flat out call her a liar, but he didn
’
t want to be the butt of her joke, either. Those two possibilities still loomed:
crazy
or
toying with him
. He couldn
’
t decide which he preferred. Either way, he needed to end this date quickly and get back to reality.

“
That
is
bizarre,
”
he said.
“
It
’
s hard to believe, though.
”

With that, she instantly knew she shouldn
’
t have told him. She should have listened to the note. She should have tried to repair the damage by telling him that it was just a joke
—
that when she gets nervous she makes bad jokes. It was too late. A separation had grown between them.

On the walk back to his truck, she tried to reestablish a normal conversation. She talked about the trees and the birds. She asked him about DePauw University
—
when he was going, what he would study, when he planned to return. It wasn
’
t working, though. Jeremy had closed the book on this crazy girl and he politely dropped her back at Nathan
’
s Hardware as soon as humanly possible.

“
I had a good time,
”
she said, as she let herself out of the passenger
’
s side of the truck.

“
Yeah, me too,
”
Jeremy replied, waiting for her to close the door so he could drive off.

Stewart stood in front of Stone Ridge Cabin, remembering how snow used to cover his feet here in the winter. His arms were folded, and his right hand stretched up to his face with his finger perched across his bottom lip. This was his thinking pose, and it was serving him well.

Mindy, Web, and New Guy stood around him. They didn
’
t have thinking poses, or if they did, they weren
’
t using them. What they didn
’
t know was that while half of Stewart
’
s mind was focused on their next move, the other half was enjoying a bitter-sweet stroll down memory lane. He had first stumbled across this cabin in a search for the perfect romantic retreat. As he looked down on the landscape now, every tree and rock was a reminder of her
—
the one who got away. Suggesting that the Redundancy Department buy the property was his twisted way of holding on to the memories.

A sudden shift in the wind refocused his thoughts, and he dived fully into the opportunity at hand. As it was his tendency, he imagined there was something big at the end of this maze, and he wanted to be the one to claim it.

“
If we turn this information over, we
’
ll be lost in the paperwork,
”
Stewart reasoned.
“
But if we find them and bring them in .
.
.
”
he smiled a very natural smile,
“
we
’
ll get all the glory.
”

Glory
, Mindy wondered,
was this really about glory
? This was a new concept to her. She had never operated with glory as an objective.

“
Is everybody in?
”
Stewart asked, as an afterthought, much the way someone pushes you out of an airplane and then asks whether you have a parachute.

Web nodded, because he always nodded when Stewart expected him to. New Guy wore his usual stoic glare. His purpose was to follow orders, not to make decisions. That left Mindy, who was filled with questions. But she knew Stewart had made up his mind and was only asking whether she wanted to tag along. She did. So she shrugged and said,
“
Sure.
”