Magic & Memory (2 page)

But even as she said it, she wasn’t sure how that was supposed to happen. The snow was coming down hard outside, and an ambulance would never find its way up here in this weather.

And they’d probably both need a hospital if she tried to drive him down the icy mountain.

 “Can I please stay here? Just until I warm up a little?” His eyes were wide and pleading beneath the tangle of his hair.

It would be insane to let a total stranger stay in her home. Still, Lu found herself considering it. The fact that he was injured triggered a powerful and all too familiar caregiver instinct in Lu, and that helped sway her decision.

Besides, she really didn’t see any alternatives. Finally she said, “Ok. But just until the snow lets up.”

“Thank you,” he said. Then he asked hesitantly, “Are you sure it’ll be ok with your family if I stay here?”

Lu looked away and murmured, “Yeah. They, uh, won’t be back tonight.” She changed the subject and went into nurse mode then, telling him, “You need to get warmed up, before you get hypothermia. You can take a hot shower if you want. Then we can bandage your hand. I have no clue if that’s how you’re supposed to treat a burn, but some gauze may help protect it until we can get you to a doctor.” She straightened up and took a step back from the stranger.

The room swayed before his eyes as he rose to his feet. He braced himself against the wall, trying to steady himself. When he finally took a hesitant step forward his legs started to buckle, so Lu grasped his elbow and helped him across the living room and up the stairs. His good hand clutched her arm, and she could feel his body shivering as he leaned against her for support.

Lu led him through to her bathroom and adjusted the temperamental old faucets for him. He was fumbling with the buttons on his shirt with one shaking hand, so she asked, “Do you need help?”

“Yes please.” 

She felt herself blush as she came and stood in front of the boy and unbuttoned his ragged long-sleeved shirt. He stood perfectly still as she did this. Lu was hardly short at 5’9, but she noted that the stranger towered a good five inches above her. She didn’t look up at him as she concentrated on the buttons.

Then she said, “I don’t think there’s any way of pulling the sleeve over your burned hand without really hurting you. So what do you think about cutting it off instead of pulling it off?”

“Do whatever you think is best.”

She found a little pointed pair of scissors in one of the drawers and ran the blades carefully though the fabric of his shirt from cuff to shoulder, then snipped through the seams. The shirt fell away from the left side of his body.

Stepping back from him and shyly averting her eyes, she said, “I think you can take it from here. There are clean towels in the cabinet behind you.”

“Thank you,” he told the back of her head as she hurried out of the bathroom.

Lu jogged downstairs and put on the tea kettle. Then she found the first aid kit and pulled everything out of it, arranging the supplies on the kitchen table to find what she needed.

She ran back upstairs and searched the closet in the spare bedroom, and found an old University of Oregon sweatshirt and blue and black plaid flannel pajama pants. So, ok, the sweatshirt was going to be impossible to put on over his burned hand, but maybe she could cut off one of the sleeves or something. She searched a bit longer but found no better alternatives, surprised at just how much stuff was crammed into this little closet. The clothes had belonged to her Uncle Chuck, who’d passed away more than ten years ago. But his wife, Lu’s Aunt Claire, had been the type of person that hung on to everything. At the moment that was coming in handy.

Lu went to put the clothes on a chair outside the open bathroom door, and that’s when she saw the boy hunched over on his knees on the tile floor. Water dripped off his slightly long black hair and ran down his back as he gripped the edge of the tub.

In a flush of embarrassment she grabbed a towel and draped it over his naked body, then helped him up. “Are you alright?” she asked as she led him to a little wooden stool in a corner of the bathroom. The chair creaked beneath him as he sat down.

The boy looked up at her then, and Lu’s eyes went wide. He was absolutely, stunningly beautiful. There was no other word for it.

She hadn’t seen it before beneath the mud and all that hair, but now it was just overwhelming. His pale skin was flawless, lips full and sensuously curved, expressive eyes an extraordinary deep indigo blue. Lu took a stunned step back from him.

“I’m ok,” he was saying quietly. “I just got a bit dizzy when I stepped out of the shower.” He kept his injured hand curled against his stomach as he rubbed his hair with a corner of the towel, the rest of which was draped modestly across his lap.

Lu backed up further, bumping into the doorframe, and retrieved the clean clothes from the bedroom floor. She put them on a hook close to him, making a point of not looking at his naked body as she said, “These are for you. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Call me if you need help.” She left quickly.

He watched the girl curiously as she ran away from him. He made her nervous, that much was clear. Which was surely to be expected, having trespassed in her home as he had.

He dried off as best he could with one hand before standing carefully, afraid of falling again. He took a couple steps to the sink and tugged a brush through his hair to get the tangles out of his eyes, then ran a palm over the mirror’s fogged surface.

The face staring back at him was that of a stranger. He looked closely, but could recognize nothing in what he saw.

His mind felt clouded, unfocused. The events of the day were a blur, dominated by pain, fear and confusion. And before today….

Before today he could remember nothing at all.

Panic welled up at this realization. And the room spun around him again, dizziness threatening to topple him.

Maybe things will become clear after I get some rest,
he thought.

 He took the clothes the girl had given him and left the bathroom, going to sit on the edge of her bed. He pulled on the flannel pajama pants awkwardly with one hand. But he couldn’t figure out how to put on the sweatshirt without scraping it across his burn, so he left it off.

The boy sank onto the mattress and rested his head on a pillow, intending to gather his strength for just a moment before heading downstairs. The girl’s bed was so comfortable. Her pleasant scent enveloped him as he shut his eyes.

When Lu came back upstairs she found the stranger curled up in her bed like Goldilocks, sound asleep. He lay on top of the covers, dressed only in the pajama bottoms. She set the mug of tea she’d brought him on the nightstand and shook his shoulder gently, saying, “Hey, we still need to get you bandaged up.” He didn’t stir.

Maybe it was good that he wasn’t awake for what was about to happen, Lu thought, since it was probably going to hurt. She pulled some supplies from the pocket of her hoodie and tore the wrapper off a thick roll of sterile gauze. Then she gingerly bandaged his injured hand, being careful not to wrap it too tightly. She used up the entire roll and secured the gauze with a little strip of tape at his wrist. It kind of ended up looking like a big white catcher’s mitt, but it was the best she could do.

Then she got a nice warm quilt out of the closet and covered the boy with it. She paused to stare at him for just a moment before shutting off the light and leaving him there in her bed.

The power had gone out last night as Lu was getting ready for bed. This was a fairly common occurrence. The propane system running off a huge tank in the backyard was ancient and in desperate need of replacement, routinely seizing up when the temperature fell below freezing. So now the house, which was always a bit dark in the shadow of the surrounding forest, was lit by dozens of candles and lanterns kept for just this purpose, and warmed by a big fire in the hearth.

Lu picked up a flashlight and went upstairs to see if her guest was awake. She’d been checking on him regularly, and had layered extra blankets on him so he’d stay warm when the power went out. It was now early evening, and he’d slept soundly all day as the snow continued to fall steadily outside.

When she stuck her head in the bedroom this time she found him propped up against the headboard, hugging his knees to his chest. The lantern she’d left on the nightstand cast his shadow against the far wall. “Hey,” she said. “Are you ok? How’s your hand?”

His dark eyes searched her face for a long moment before he said, “It hurts. But far more troubling is the fact that I can’t remember anything.” 

“What do you mean?” Lu came to stand at his bedside.

“My earliest memory is waking up beside that creek in incredible pain yesterday. I can recall nothing prior to that.” He knit his brows as he said, “I can’t even remember my own name.”

“Maybe you’re in shock. You’ve obviously been through some kind of trauma.”

“Perhaps.”

 “Why don’t you check your clothes for your I.D.?” she suggested. “That might help jar your memory.”

“That’s a good idea.” He stood a bit shakily and when Lu stepped closer to help steady him, he slipped his arm around her shoulders for support. She led him into the bathroom, then held the flashlight for him as he searched every pocket in his ripped, muddy shirt and jeans, which were still on the floor beside the tub. There was no wallet. But he did find two slips of paper, which they brought back to the bed.

He sat on the edge of the mattress and took a look at what he’d found. One was a generic receipt dated five days ago for something costing $2.35, paid in cash. The other was a note in a tight, messy scrawl that said:
Alastair don’t forget: 10 p.m.

She sat down beside him and read the note. “Alastair,” she said. “Maybe that’s you.”

He considered this. “Or maybe I wrote the note to give to someone called Alastair.”

She fished in the nightstand and produced a pen and a pad of paper. “Here, try writing it.”

He set the slips of paper down and wrote the name in an elegant script across the notepad. Lu told him, “You definitely didn’t write the note, it’s nothing like your handwriting. Plus, the way you just wrote that looks a lot like a signature, so I’m gonna guess it’s your name.”

“It seems as if my own name should feel familiar, which this doesn’t. But for lack of any better ideas, you may as well call me that.” He looked up at her. “And what do I call you?”

“I’m Lu,” she said. He looked a little perplexed at that, so she added, “It’s short for Luna, but no one calls me that. Ever.”

He looked back at the name he’d just written. “I don’t understand what’s happened to me, Lu.”

“Soon as the snow lets up we’ll get you to a hospital,” she said gently. “The doctors will figure out what’s wrong.”

“You’re so kind to me,” he murmured, still looking at the paper. “I’ve done nothing but cause you distress, and yet you’ve shown me such extraordinary compassion.”

She colored slightly and changed the subject by saying, “Do you feel well enough to come downstairs? It’s a lot warmer in the living room.”

“I think so.”

Lu helped him down the stairs to the couch, which she’d pulled up right in front of the fireplace. He sank onto the upholstery, musing absently, “I don’t understand why I’m so weak, why even walking is such an effort.”

Lu used a thick oven mitt to retrieve a pot she’d set on the hearth. Next she pulled a tea kettle away from the fire before sitting beside him. While she did that, he stared at the bulky gauze wrap she’d applied to his burned hand and asked, “When did you bandage me up?”

“Last night. You were really out.”

“Thank you.”

“I hope that was the right thing to do.” Lu sounded worried as she glanced at him. “It seemed like keeping it clean and protected was a good idea, but I actually have no idea how you’re supposed to treat a burn. I hope I didn’t make it worse somehow.”

“The pain has receded somewhat, so I think you did the right thing,” he told her. His indigo eyes met hers, and as she quickly jumped up to finish dinner he asked, “May I help somehow?”  

She plunked teabags into a couple mugs and poured hot water from the kettle as she said, “No thanks. You’re not in any condition to cook. Not that what I’m doing is cooking, but still.”

Lu had set up a little kitchen work station on the mantel. She busied herself with ladling hot vegetable soup into a bowl, placing it on a plate, and making a tidy ring of crackers around the bowl’s base. Alastair tucked his legs up onto the couch as she placed the meal on a little folding table and set it in front of him.

“Did the power get knocked out in the storm?” he asked idly.

“Yeah. Happens a lot.”

When she set the tea in front of him, he took a sip and sighed with pleasure. “Thank you. That’s wonderful.” In truth it didn’t taste like much, but the smell was comforting and familiar, the warmth soothing.

She smiled at that and said, “Figures you like tea. I do too. My aunt got me in the habit of drinking it.” She cleared her throat to alleviate the quick tightness that had come with mentioning her aunt.

“Why does it figure I’d like tea?”