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Narniaisnotexactlyhow I remember it.
The walls are still filled with racks and racks of colorful costumes and gowns. Black studded leather flirts with pink feathers and green snakeskin. Boxes filled with hats and wigs and boots are stacked to the ceiling.
But the wig heads are all bare.
The Lulu Blues, JDV special editions, and Lolo Exxy boots are all missing from their shelves.
My fingers graze the glass top of the console. Costume jewelry is displayed underneath the smooth surface. Gaudy, glitzy pieces that weigh a ton when they’re worn.
Across the room there’s a hole in the wall, which used to be covered with a picture of Adira and me. The framed photograph has been removed and placed on the floor against the wall. “There was nothing on the surveillance video?”
“Static.” Rogue stands by the door. He has his hands in his pockets and a deep-in-dark-thought expression. I suspect he can’t make himself come any further inside. What he sees here is too painful for him.
I can’t say the same. I thought coming here would bring me clarity, but it doesn’t. There’s no light over head or gospel choir singing while I’m flooded with the truth of these past few months. There’s no recreation of the nightmares I’ve been having. “Weird.”
“Adira was certain that you wouldn’t… in front of the camera.”
“So I turned it off?” I could have. I know how to. It just seems like an awful lot of effort to go to when I can’t imagine why I would pick this sacred space in the first place. Unless it was because I knew Adira would be the one to find me, but even then… Rogue said the cameras caught static?
“Or something else happened to cause them to act up.” Rogue’s eyes narrow, watching me closely.
He’s waiting for a reaction from me, but I don’t know what reaction he anticipates. Is he hoping that I’ll remember or afraid that I will? I skirt around the console to the spot where my life was almost forfeited for reasons that I still can’t fathom. “Perhaps I researched ways to make that occur?”
“Perhaps.”
A little of my blood has dried a deep brown on the fuzzy pink ottoman. And the carpet is smeared yellow through to pink, probably from bleach. But there’s no smell in the room. No aroma of chlorine or ammonia. No copper.
Too much time has passed. Too many memories have been lost for my mind to connect to what my eyes see. It’s like something else happened here.
Or like what occurred happened to someone else. Somebody who isn’t me. But isn’t that the whole point of my not remembering? The doctors told me that my brain chose to hide my memories from me for a reason. Because whatever I’ve forgotten is so painful that I couldn’t cope with the knowledge.
I turn my back on the stain. Curl my arms around my torso to ward off the chill that settles over me. “And the cameras overhead caught nothing, I suppose. It would have been a bad angle.”
“What?” Rogue steps into the room to get a better view of the equipment overhead. “I don’t believe they’ve worked in the time that I have known you.”
I glance up at the cameras above. I recall seeing them on top of the console not that long ago. Well, it doesn’t seem that long ago, but with the gaps in my memory I can’t be certain when that was. “Hmm. I’m sure Adira had them fixed.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because I was here when they took them down. But perhaps that was ages ago? Everything in my head is…unreliable.” An open drawer in the console has exploded with scarves and ties. They hang in colorful roped loops. I should put them away and close the drawer, but the ragged edge of a piece of note paper with my handwriting on it catches my eye.
My heart starts pounding in my chest as I snatch it up and crumple it into a ball in my fist. Rogue may have read it already. No doubt Adira has. But this note… it feels personal. Like a clue to what I was truly thinking.
I’m not prepared to read it with Rogue present.
“I don’t remember any of this.” I purse my lips as I consider our environment from a different angle while my pulse returns to normal. Not that the tilt of my gaze makes a difference. I still don’t see anything that will give me the answers I want. “It feels like forever since I’ve been here.”
“Do you remember when that was?” Rogue edges closer.
“I-I couldn’t say.” There’s only a memory from a life that feels like a whole other world ago. It makes me smile as I watch it play out in my head like it’s playing out in front of me, covering the damage and mess that Narnia is currently in.
“What are you remembering?” Rogue’s hands graze my upper arms. It’s like he could tell that I needed his support and didn’t let his own trauma get in the way.
I turn and rest my head against his chest. I can hear the strong and steady beat of his heart in my ear. It’s clear that he cares deeply for me, and it would be a lie to say I don’t like the way it feels to have his love. And that despite my earlier misgivings I find I’m starting to feel that way too. But I’m not ready to say it back to him and I’m grateful that he understood earlier when I couldn’t. “It was before my dad died. He came to pick me up on his way home from the office.”
He’d left his jacket and tie in the car and his sleeves were rolled up to the elbows. He’d leaned against the cabinet while Adira pranced around in his newest costume. I can still see Dad as clearly as if it were yesterday. My chest aches because I miss him, and fills with warmth as I recall how his smile lit up his brown eyes. How the age lines he wore with grace deepened with his pride for his nephew.
“Tell me about it?”
