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“What...?” Cassie hesitated, wanting to know more, but not wanting to know. “What did she do?”
“I can show you, if you want,” Drummond replied, his eyes darkening. “If you really want to know why I have been running for ten years, why the Fox Library is in the shadows, why we must keep the Book of Doors from her, I can show you.”
“How?”
Drummond pulled a book out of his pocket. “The Book of Memories, Cassie,” he said, holding it out to her. “I can show you my memories of this day.” Cassie stared at the offered book for a long time, and it felt as if the whole world receded into the background. She knew Drummond wanted her to see; that was why they were there. She knew it would be awful, but a part of her wanted to share Drummond’s burden, to help him not be alone.
She reached out and held the book and suddenly Bryant Park was gone, and Cassie was looking out of another person’s eyes.
Izzy and Lund
“I remember it, but I don’t,” Izzy said, watching the footage of Cassie at the door in their apartment with the Venice street beyond her. She had found it when checking her phone for her movements for the last day or two. “It’s like a dream, you know? When you remember it, but it doesn’t seem real?” She shook her head once, watching until the footage was cut off with the sound of her own voice. She pressed Play again and watched it once more. It was hypnotic. “How does it work?” she asked. “Is it like science or magic?”
Receiving no answer to her question she lifted her eyes. Lund sat across the table from her, a bowl of chicken noodle soup in front of him, the spoon on its journey to his mouth. He held half a bread roll in his other hand. It looked tiny.
“Will it come back to me? Will I remember it all?” Izzy asked.
Lund swallowed the soup and his eyes flicked up to Izzy’s, then down to the bowl again. “Don’t know,” he said.
“I mean, I think I remember most of it,” Izzy continued. “Whatever that man did, all that pain...” She waited while a shudder vibrated through her. “It shook some things loose. I know what happened. But I don’t rememberexperiencingit. If that makes sense?” She stared at her reflection in the window. She knew she was prattling. She was nervous, in shock maybe, and she couldn’t stop herself. Outside it was latemorning, the street throbbing with traffic and people. They were in a diner somewhere in Midtown, a large, spacious place on the corner of a block, a place Lund had picked.
Two hours after they’d arrived they were sitting in the same booth and Lund was finishing his third meal, the bowl of chicken noodle soup having come after a cheeseburger with fries, then an omelet. Izzy hadn’t been hungry, she’d been too shell-shocked to eat, but she’d ordered a grilled cheese sandwich and a coffee anyway. By the time the food had been served the memories were already starting to come back to her. She had let it happen, not forcing it, feeling like this was a process of getting back to normal, of feeling more like herself than she had all day. The process helped distance her from what had happened, from the pain, from the bald man who had tortured her.
“You don’t say much, do you?” Izzy said now, reflecting on how few words the giant had spoken since they had left the apartment.
Lund lifted his bowl and slurped the last of his soup. “Nope,” he agreed, wiping his mouth with his napkin. He placed the remaining half of his bread roll in his mouth and chewed, watching Izzy without expression.
“You look like a cow,” Izzy observed, but there was no cruelty in it.
He smiled around his chewing.
“What are we waiting for?” Izzy asked, suddenly impatient.
“You’re not waiting for anything,” Lund said. “You can go if you want. I’m not forcing you to wait.”
“Okay, what areyouwaiting for?” she asked.
“A message,” Lund said. Izzy waited for him to elaborate but it didn’t come. She slumped back against the booth, defeated.
“Do you think Cassie is okay?” she asked.
Lund shrugged. “Don’t know.” He was watching the world outside, the passing traffic, the buildings across the street. He seemed content to just wait.
Izzy checked her phone again. There were no messages, no calls. “I haven’t heard from her. It’s not like her. What if that man got her?”
“If that man had her, he wouldn’t have come for you,” Lund observed.
Izzy accepted that reassurance gratefully. “Yes,” she said. “You’re right. I hope she’s all right.”
They sat in silence for a few moments, and Izzy remembered something else, another moment uncovered: Ben’s Deli, with Cassie, and a man.
“There was a man,” she said suddenly. “With Cassie and me...”
Lund watched her with interest.
“I think... I think he was the one who made me forget,” she said.
Lund waited.
