CHAPTER THIRTY

Some hours later, Tillie found herself standing in the kitchen of her apartment. The kettle was boiling. A strainer full of tea was ready in a pot, and it smelled of cinnamon and orange, heady and rich, but—

When did she buy it?

A chill rolled down her body, and her hands began to tremble. How did she even get here? She'd hugged Jon, wished him bon voyage, and then ...

Now, she was boiling water for tea she didn't remember buying. In a state of frozen horror, she stared at the boiling kettle, watched as it clicked off, and tried to piece it together.

What had she done? Where had she gone?

What the actual hell was happening to her?

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, tried to feel for some sense of her actions, her journey home, where she'd gone. It was terrifying that she had wandered around the city in her amnesiac state. How long had it been? She'd left Jon around 1:00 p.m.

Light slanted through the high row of windows, about to disappear behind the building to the west. Her heart gave a single, hard thud. Way later than 2:00 p.m., which is about how long it would have taken to get home from the restaurant. She looked around for her phone, but her purse was across the room. Quaking, she turned her head to check the sunburst clock on the wall: 4:10.

Her legs wobbled, and she sank like a puppet to the floor. Three hours! Three hours wandering around the city without herself, Tillie without Tillie. She pressed her hands to her eyes, feeling panic swell through her body, squeezing the air from her lungs. The edges of her vision prickled, and she feared she would faint. Have a heart attack.

No. She thought of Liam telling her to breathe. In. Out. A long breath in, one, two, three, four . A longer breath out, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight .

Again.

After a few rounds, she could think more clearly, but it didn't help. The three hours were utterly blank. Where had she gone? What had she done? Standing up, she looked at the bag of loose tea, and it had the sticker from the co-op she and Liam had visited together, the place that smelled of patchouli and lost time.

A tickle of memory rose through the fog. As they'd left the brunch spot, parting ways with a big hug, she had smelled a strong waft of patchouli and yeast, and thought, That's an odd combination .

The co-op was only a few blocks from the brunch spot where she'd had lunch with Jon. Maybe it was the smell that triggered her fugue state? She could imagine that she'd stopped by there to feel closer to Liam, relive a good moment, and then—

What?

Her phone. It tracked her path because she liked to keep track of her steps. The map followed her all over town. Jon thought it was creepy, but he had a robot in his apartment that listened when he spoke—and all the rest of the time—so he was one to talk.

The phone wasn't in the pocket where she usually kept it, and when she dug through her bag, remembering that she'd dropped it inside at brunch, she couldn't find it. She checked her sweater pocket. Usually, it was too heavy for that fabric, so she didn't carry it there.

It was gone.

She never lost her phone. It was here somewhere. She checked the bathroom, kitchen, studio, couch, bed.

No.

From her bedside table, she picked up her tablet and used it to ping the phone, listening for the series of dings.

Nothing.

Carrying the tablet with her into the kitchen, she poured hot water over the tea she'd already measured, and while it steeped, she realized that she was desperately thirsty. She poured a glass of water. Whatever she'd been doing, she was hungry, thirsty, and slightly sweaty, as if she'd walked a long time.

Well, yeah. Three hours.

The app offered a message: Phone cannot be located. Last location: Home.

Damn. The charge had been very low last night when she got back, but she'd forgotten to plug it in. The phone must have died somewhere before the locator pinged the restaurant.

Anxiety started roiling up from her gut. She should call Jon and—

Oh, wait. She didn't have her phone.

A faint Mylar line buzzed to life over her right eye. No! She couldn't get a migraine right now, not with a lost phone and a terrifying amnesiac episode, and her best friend on a plane to Crete and—

One thing she knew for sure was that this whole thing was getting out of control. She needed to talk to her therapist, pronto. Before the zigzag light took over her vision, she searched for the therapist's name in her contacts and sent a text through her tablet.

Winnie, I need help urgently. Having strange memory and migraine issues, even a panic attack. When can you talk?

It was only a few minutes before Winnie texted back. Can do a session in one hour. Phone or in person?

Zoom, pls.

Done. Sending link now.

The tablet would show her if anyone had texted her phone, but only if both were on the same system. Tillie and Liam were on different ones, so she couldn't tell if he'd tried. This added to her anxiety, but the aura was taking over her vision, so she stumbled into her bedroom. Setting the timer on the tablet for fifty-five minutes, she covered her eyes with a pillow to try to empty her head.

Surprisingly, she dropped off almost instantly, maybe worn out from walking so long. No dreams.

The alarm awakened her at almost the same moment the tablet dinged with a notice. She rolled over, testing, relieved to discover that there was no emergent migraine, just a little bit of a stiff neck.

The message was a text from Jon. On my way, baby. He added an airplane emoji.

Have so much fun! She typed back a dancing emoji.

She took a long swallow from her water bottle, then propped pillows against the wall and opened the Zoom app to connect with her therapist. The thought of her orphaned phone ribboned through her, as if she had physically injured herself, but if it wasn't locatable, it wasn't being used, either, so nothing dire would happen in the next hour. She imagined it lying on the floor of the restaurant, out of juice, hidden beneath a table or kicked into a corner, and it felt like her own body was lying there. She thought of the conversation with Liam about no television or computers when they were kids, and it seemed absurd that a phone felt like her body now.

But it absolutely did. She felt weird without it, like she was missing a kidney or a foot.

Before her thoughts went too dark, Winnie appeared on-screen, and only then did Tillie think to look at herself in the little window. It made her so self-conscious that she often left it off, but it was on from the last call she'd had. Her hair looked windblown, and any makeup was entirely worn away.

Winnie had seen her in worse shape. "Hey," Tillie said.

"Tillie! It was such a surprise to from you. It's been a while!" Winnie was in her fifties, maybe, with prematurely silver hair and a penchant for great lipstick. "What's going on?"

"It's crazy," Tillie said. "So crazy." She told Winnie about the painting, the strange bits of lost time, finding out she had a sister who'd died, the strangeness of the death certificate with her name.

Winnie nodded, listening, interjecting a question now and then, mostly clarifications. When Tillie reached the end—the strange business of walking around the city for three hours with no memory of it—Winnie sat quietly for a moment.

"Okay," she said, nodding. "Let me get this straight. It sounds like the painting triggered a push for your memories to surface, and the guardian portion of your brain that wants to keep you safe is pushing back to keep the doors closed."

"That sounds right."

"Almost exactly the sequence of events that triggered your problems in college."

She frowned. "No. That was just finals stress."

"Was it?" Winnie flipped back through a file on her desk. "I don't think so. The first episode, which was extreme depression and migraines, was triggered by a concert you attended, and you had several short memory losses."

"Wait. I did?" Tillie frowned, trying to remember. "I completely blocked that out, that I had amnesiac episodes that time, too." A clammy sweat broke out on her body. "Am I losing my mind?"

"I don't think so." Her tone was so matter-of-fact that it was reassuring. It was one of the things Tillie liked most about Winnie. No drama. Straightforward clarity. "But I think you are going to have to delve into those repressed memories, or these episodes will just keep getting worse."

She heard the ring of truth, and dropped her face in her hands. "Yeah. But how?"

"There are a number of therapies we can try. Are you familiar with EMDR?"

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It was a mental health treatment for dealing with trauma, Tillie had read. Her throat closed. "Yes. But what if ..."

"What if?"

"What if something terrible happened, and I don't remember for good reason?"

"I suspect something terrible did happen, Tillie," Winnie said. "One part of your mind is protecting you from something it didn't think you could manage, and it has done its job. But you were a child then, and now you're an adult. If we go easy, I think we might be able to peel the onion without creating a crisis."

She was silent, thinking about the repercussions of opening a box she'd kept tightly closed her entire life.

"If you don't start trying to untangle this, Tillie, I'm afraid it will keep getting worse."

"Yeah." She took a breath. "Okay. I'm officially scared, and I need answers. How do we start?"

"Let's go back to the college episode, when we first talked. Do you remember what set that off?"

"I thought I did," Tillie said. "It was a rough semester. I was failing a class, and I couldn't get it together."

"According to my notes, you went to a folk concert. Do you remember that?"

"Not really. I mean, I went to a lot of concerts in those days. And smoked a lot of weed at them." She smiled. "Which probably accounts for some of the forgetting."

"Do you still indulge?"

She shook her head. "Makes me paranoid."

"That's probably better. You should avoid anything that alters your mental state for a while."

"Painting is mind-altering, but I have to keep working."

Winnie was silent for a moment, looking back at the notes in her file. "Hmm. You had a memory loss while painting then, too."

"What? Why don't I remember any of these details?"

"Protection, most likely."

"Do you have notes on what I painted then that caused a lapse?"

Winnie ran a finger down the page. "It looks like it was a cat."

Something plunked hard in her gut. "A cat. I don't remember working on cats then, like, ever. I was in a semiabstract stage." She could place herself in time according to the professors she'd been working with, and she'd been deeply enamored of a colorist who used abstracts to create mood. Jon had been in the same class, and it proved to be a keystone for him. "I was using big color," she said, reaching back. "Fuchsia and lime and—" A flash of the painting at Jon's gallery rose. "The painting that started all this is in those colors." She shook her head, feeling a headache starting to knock at her temples.

"That's interesting."

"And I've been painting this cat, like, over and over. I keep dreaming about him."

"Okay. That's good information."

"I can't stop painting these odd things, and I really need to focus on the things I'm supposed to be doing. I have a show in a few months."

"Okay." Winnie settled. "Do you want to get started with the EMDR?"

"Now?" she squeaked. "No, no, no. I don't have anybody around. My best friend is on a plane to Crete, and the guy I've been dating is in London. Anyway, he's tangled up in all of this somehow."

"You didn't mention him. How is he connected?"

"I'm not sure," she said slowly, "but I keep thinking that if he hadn't also been there that night I saw the painting, none of this would be happening."

"Yet."

"Right. I mean, I guess eventually things come out or ... Do people ever keep things behind a paywall forever?"

"Sure," she said. "People manage all kinds of things in all kinds of ways. But in this case, your mind wants you to figure it out. Or at least that's how it looks from here. You almost did it that first time around but shoved it all back down. Now your mother has died, and you're processing all kinds of emotions."

"Yeah." Tillie curled her arms around herself. "My mom was still alive then."

"Yes. I also suspect that's the change here." She tapped her pen against her chin. "Tell me about the new guy. Do you think he reminds you of someone?"

"Not exactly? I just feel like I've always known him. Like, always , which is stupid, I know, and he's also famous, so maybe I've just seen him somewhere and filed his face away."

"Famous?"

"Not like a rock star or an actor. He leads workshops and things like that."

"I see." Winnie made another note. Looked at Tillie without judgment or conversation.

"So what do we do?"

"It's not going to happen fast, Tillie. I'd really rather meet with you in person as well. Is that possible for you?"

"Yes."

"We can also try some drug therapy, if you feel you need it."

Some part of her threw up a hand. No. She touched her chest in surprise. "No. Not right now, anyway."

"All right. You have twofold homework. I want you to journal every day as a general practice, preferably when you first wake up, and also whenever you feel anxious or worried. And I want you to keep a dream journal. Write down any dreams you have, and whatever emotions come up."

A little sense of panic fluttered in her throat. "I'm scared. What if I find out something I don't want to know?"

"We can do some hypnosis to help keep you from getting overwhelmed, if you like."

"Okay."

"We'll start that at our next session. Can you come in next week?"

"Yes, of course."

They scheduled an appointment. Winnie said, "You have my number. Text me if you need to. Are you feeling okay right now?"

Tillie tested her body. "I'm good."

"All right. I'll see you next week."

As often happened when she finished a therapy session, she fell back asleep.

And there were the girls, on the porch. With the cat, sitting between them. For the first time, Tillie saw that the place was a little shabby, and amid the flowers in the beds along the steps grew weeds. The girls played a game, maybe jacks, and their clothes were too big for them.

They were speaking a language Tillie couldn't quite hear—related but not exactly like a romance language, those fluid syllables. She strained to listen, and the words started translating in her mind, like subtitles on a movie, and she understood that she could do the same in return. In their language, she said, "Hello. What are your names?"

They turned, one hostile, one open. "That's our language!" the hostile one said.

"Sorry," she said in English. "What's your name?"

"Sunny," she said, "and this is my sister, Stormy."

"Sunny and Stormy," she repeated. "Who are you?"

The closed one gave her a look like she was an idiot. "We just told you!"

And then, as if a door slammed, she was back in her bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to capture the images rather than run away from them. The girls were dark-haired and skinny. Sisters, maybe even twins.

The language eluded her now that she was back in her usual mind, but wisps of it lingered, clinging like feathers. It was both familiar and not, as if it had been taken from another language she'd studied.

Mindful of her therapist's homework order, she got up and found a notebook to write down the dream. The subtitles made her laugh, and on the blank page, she drew the feeling of the syllables, lilting, and made it into an Arabic-looking format.

Sunny and Stormy. Sunny was her imaginary friend from childhood. Was Stormy the shadow version of that invention?

Then she asked herself if this could be the other Tillie, the one who'd died in the firestorm. Was it a snapshot of the pair of them at some earlier time? Was one of the girls her sister? It made her feel terribly sad.

Enough. The clock on the wall said 7:00 p.m. She really needed to find her phone.