6

Violet Miller and the Whack-Job Police Officer

Crumbs of a dream lingered in Violet’s mind when she awoke. Her lashes fluttered in the late afternoon sun filtering through the slats in her window blinds. Her hand drifted slowly to her thudding forehead, and she made an anguished sound, dreaming of a tall glass of cold water and an aspirin. A ringing sound echoed through her ears.

She sat up in bed, dropped her hand to her lap, and glanced at her mirror across the room. She screamed.

Zorah burst through her bedroom door with oven mitts on. “What? What? What?” she asked. “What happened?” The pretty surgeon in her early thirties looked like she was ready to use her oven mitts as boxing gloves. Her glasses were halfway down her nose and her hair was falling out of its bun, but her eyes were big and alert.

Violet lifted a torn flap of her most expensive blouse. “What happened to my awesome clothes?!” she screeched. She twisted so she could see her back in the mirror. An even bigger dirt stain ran down her spine.

Zorah slapped an oven-mitted hand over her chest. “Gah, seriously, Violet! I thought someone came in here and attacked you! Why’d you scream so loud over a measly blouse?” But as her eyes took in Violet’s state, her brows came together. “What were you doing last night?” she asked.

“I have no idea!” Violet said, rushing to her mirror to see better. “And where are my heels?!”

“Vi, are you really concerned about your shoes right now?” Zorah slid off an oven mitt and came over, lifting a piece of Violet’s shredded sleeve.

“I spent every penny I had on those shoes! I don’t have money to buy another pair.” Violet dropped to the floor to look beneath her bed. Once on her knees, she spotted a long run down her nylons, and she moaned. “These were brand new nylons, too.”

“You look like you played mud football.” Zorah tugged her oven mitt back on and headed for the door. “And since you’re not hurt, I’m going back to my pie!” Zorah trudged into the hall and trotted down the stairs to the kitchen. “Come try it!” she shouted back up. “The berries came straight from our garden!”

Violet barely heard her. She climbed to her feet and grimaced toward her mirror at the sight of her hair a tangled mess, her lipstick smeared over her chin, and her mascara a river of black down both cheeks. “Is this a joke?!” she shouted at Zorah, or the wall, or the neighbours through the window, or whoever. “Did someone pull me out of a swamp this morning?” She headed into the hall.

In the kitchen, Zorah was dragging a steaming pie from the oven. She grinned and placed it on the hot pads. “Yum!”

“Zorah!” Violet shouted as she came down. She slowed when she looked at the clock in the kitchen. It was the middle of the day.

Zorah turned with her oven mitts in the air. “Huh?”

“What happened to me?” Violet asked in exasperation.

Zorah paused and pushed her glasses up higher on her nose. She looked Violet over. “You got in a fight?” she guessed.

Violet threw her hands up. “You’re not at all worried that I look like this?” she demanded, and Zorah shrugged.

“I mean, I was, but then you started going off about your heels, so I figured you were fine—”

“You’re not wondering or concerned about what might have happened to me for my blouse to look this way?” Violet went on. “I don’t even remember going to bed or…”

A large, ear-piercing bell.

A long, black, rain-covered coat with a hood.

Striking multicoloured eyes.

A steep cathedral roof.

Falling…

Violet gasped as bits and pieces of a chopped-up memory came back to her. Parts of it were missing—like a story with gaps. She couldn’t remember why she was on a roof or how she got there. But Violet remembered falling. She remembered her throat being too thick to scream. She remembered…

Two strong arms catching her in midair. The smell of flowers and an earthy, tea-like aroma hitting her senses as he hugged her close and broke her fall.

Violet slapped a hand over her mouth. Old fears she’d stuffed away rushed upward alongside the vomit that threatened the back of her throat.

“What?” Zorah raised a brow. When Violet didn’t answer right away, Zorah abandoned her to go smell the raspberry pie, but she cast a worried look back toward Violet.

“Zorah, I think it happened again.” Violet sank into the closest chair at the table. She could hardly believe her own words. She couldn’t trust she’d really just said them out loud.

“You think what happened?” Zorah blew lightly on the pie and pulled a lifter from the drawer.

“I think… someone erased my memories.”

The pie lifter clattered to the floor. Zorah’s glasses fell off, too. She turned to face Violet again without stooping to pick them up. “Are you messing with me right now?” Her words were sharp and to the point like she wouldn’t appreciate it if this was a joke. “What do you mean, someone erased your memories? You mean you’ve got amnesia again?”

“No, I think someone is to blame,” Violet said. “Like what happened with all those other women…” She slowly lifted a hand to her chest, feeling her deep, living heartbeat as she thought of the ones who starved to death while they were sleeping.

“Then how do you remember me?” Zorah asked, ripping off the oven mitts and scooting into the chair across from Violet. Her large, unmaintained brows were scrunched together.

“Not all my memories were erased like last time, just…” Violet glanced at Zorah’s phone to check the date. A whole day had passed since she was let go from The Sprinkled Scoop. “…just part of yesterday, I think. I remember pieces of what happened, but something is definitely missing.” Violet rubbed her forehead, reminded of aspirin and trying not to panic as the familiar feeling of helplessness overtook her senses. It didn’t feel real—that she was waking up again, missing part of herself.

Zorah’s shoulders relaxed and her eyes softened. “Oh.” She almost laughed.

Violet dropped her hand to the table. “It’s not funny.”

“Oh, I know. I’m just relieved. I thought it was like, you know, a real memory wipe or something. Like before.” Her aunt waved a hand around, completely dismissing the urgency of what Violet was saying. She even went back to her pie and poked it.

“I’m being serious,” Violet said.

Zorah nodded. “All right.”

“Zorah!” Violet stood again, and Zorah sighed.

“Yes, I know you are. You look ridiculous and you don’t remember what happened. Let me guess, you were out late last night? Did you enjoy some celebratory festivities with your coworkers at The Scoop for getting hired permanently?” Zorah folded her arms.

“No! I didn’t go anywhere last night! I remember going somewhere yesterday morning though.” Violet glanced off. She’d gone to a cathedral yesterday. She’d gotten the address from a niche newspaper, and she was going to try and get a job interview. But what in the world had happened after that?

She looked down at her outfit again.

“I think I need to go to the police,” she said.

“I think you need to sleep it off,” Zorah said back. “But if you’re worried, stop at the station on your way into work. I’m guessing you’re planning to head to The Scoop with a very well-rehearsed excuse as to why you missed a whole morning. I’m surprised they didn’t even try calling while you were sleeping.” She took a long knife from the drawer and carefully began cutting the pie into slices. “Also, can you grab my glasses?” She pointed to them with her toe.

Violet huffed and grabbed the glasses off the floor. She set them on the counter and headed back up to her room to change.

Something had happened. She felt in her bones; the familiar loss of a thing she couldn’t put her finger on, the unexplainable feeling of having misplaced something important. She could have walked back downstairs and forced her aunt to believe her, especially because if she didn’t have Zorah’s concern, she had no one’s. But Violet wasn’t sure she wanted to force Zorah into this without finding out what had really happened first.

The last time Violet had woken up with amnesia, Zorah had sacrificed everything for her. And while Zorah was a positive person by nature, she’d been a young, struggling student at the time. Even though her aunt had never complained about it, Violet knew it had been hard on Zorah back then to take care of a young girl while carrying the weight of classes and finances on her shoulders.

Violet checked herself over quickly as she pulled off her clothes—arms, legs, fingers, toes—for bruises or cuts. There was nothing apart from a few scrapes on her elbows. She didn’t feel like she’d been assaulted or hurt, but if she had been attacked and had put up a fight, she’d likely have the attacker’s DNA beneath her fingernails. She lifted her hands.

Her dusty-rose nail polish was chipped on the ends and her nails were jagged, like she’d savagely filed them down. It was so bizarre she couldn’t stop staring at them.

Maybe after she went to the police station, she could spend the afternoon getting a manicure so Zorah would think she was working. A grunt-moan escaped her as she thought about having to tell Zorah the truth about The Sprinkled Scoop job. It was a true saving grace that Zorah didn’t watch the news, or she would have already figured out that Violet had been let go based on that horrid interview Violet had done in the rain yesterday—Why had she done that?

She flopped back onto her bed.

A wave of light-headedness made the room spin, and she wondered if she’d missed taking her iron pills last night. For a split second, she considered maybe her iron deficiency was to blame for her patches of memory loss. But it was too weird. She’d never had trouble remembering quite like this, even during her worst days of dizzy spells.

Her hand came up slowly to her temple as she got up, squirmed out of her clothes, and pulled on a comfortable pink summer dress. Once she smoothed down her hair, washed her face, and redid her makeup, she looked at her reflection in the mirror, reliving her worst day all over again. She had to admit—this felt a little like that day. Lost. Filled with questions. No one waiting at her bedside to tell her what had happened. Her skin pebbled, and she hugged her arms to herself, shivering and shaking the thought away.

The police station was loud and busy. Violet almost turned around and changed her mind, positive she was inconveniencing the Toronto police officers who seemed to have too much on their plates already. She could hardly hear the officer calling her over when it was her turn to approach the desk for crime reporting.

She brushed a hand down her hair to position it back in place, and she ventured over, pushing past a few people to reach her spot. She shifted her purse to her lap as she sat down in the open chair which looked anything but sanitary.

“What brings you here this afternoon, Miss?” the officer across the desk asked as he punched some buttons on his keyboard.

“Um. I’m not really sure. There’s a chance I was attacked,” Violet said as quietly as she could. She didn’t want the whole station to know.

“There’s a chance you were?” The officer looked up from his computer. It was remarkable he could hear her over the noise.

“I mean, I don’t remember. I think my memories were erased. Listen, I’m a journalist, and I’ve been following some pretty weird, unexplainable stories. Like potentially magic, folktale type stuff.” She held up her hand to stop the officer when his face changed. “Don’t assume I’m eccentric just yet. I have evidence and all the facts point to something going on in this city that doesn’t always seem human in nature. I’m sure you know about the memory loss case—”

“Hey, Baker!” the officer suddenly shouted toward a far desk in the corner, making Violet jump. A young, blonde officer looked up from the desk. She had her sleeves rolled up, revealing two armfuls of tattoos. “This one’s for you!” The guy nodded toward Violet as he yelled, and Violet blushed as his volume turned heads. The officer glanced back at Violet. “Go see Officer Baker. She’ll listen to your story.”

“B… but…” Violet raised a finger to protest, but the officer pointed back toward the corner desk again.

“We have an officer who specializes in… well, you know—weird, supernatural, mythological… anything unexplainable, basically. You’re best off telling your story to her,” he said.

Violet’s jaw tightened a little. She was used to people not believing in the stories and articles she wrote with her opinions on the odd happenings in Toronto. But half of her facts she’d gotten from the police themselves. This officer was clearly uninformed about that. She bit at her lip in frustration as she picked up her purse and weaved through the crowded station toward the waiting blonde officer.

Books as thick as the Bible were piled on her desk. Violet stole a look at the title of the one on top: MODERN FOLKTALES. Another was splayed open with a loose paper tucked in like a bookmark. Notes were written on it in messy cursive. Violet reached over and carefully lifted the cover to see the title: CANADIAN ODDITIES AND OTHER MYTHS OF THE NORTH.

It seemed this Officer Baker person was the right cop for Violet after all.

“Can I grab your name, friend?” Officer Baker said through a wad of gum. She tugged the book away, making the cover slip from Violet’s fingers. The officer slapped the book shut and added it to her stack of colourful tomes.

Violet worked her jaw, wondering what this officer was trying to hide from a mere curious journalist. “We’re not friends,” Violet pointed out. “I don’t know you, and you don’t know me.”

Officer Baker nodded and pursed her lips. “My bad, citizen.”

“Citizen?” Violet huffed a skeptical laugh.

Officer Baker settled her gaze on Violet across the desk. She slowly blew a large bubble with her gum, and Violet watched it grow and grow. When it popped, Baker clawed it all back into her mouth with her teeth. She didn’t break eye contact once, and for the first time, Violet shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

“You haven’t given me your name yet and you complained when I called you friend. So, citizen it is,” the officer finally said.

This time, Violet nodded and sat up a little straighter. She cleared her throat. “My name is Violet Miller.”

For a police officer, Baker looked young. Young and pretty. And beautifully tattooed. That felt like a triple threat.

“Violet… Miller…” Officer Baker poked the name into the keys of her laptop, but she paused before she finished. She turned in her seat to face Violet. “The girl who can’t remember anything? The one from the TV shows?” she asked, lifting her artful arms to her desk and folding her hands.

“Yeah… That one.” Violet glanced off. For the last ten years, her childhood fame had gotten her far in her high school relationships, with the fresh-out-of-high-school internship, and with her online socials. But after being dumped in the street by The Sprinkled Scoop, Violet wasn’t sure people would still admire her for being ‘the mysterious girl in the purple dress.’ Also, she was terrible at social media, so she’d never really kept up with it.

Officer Baker looked Violet up and down. “I wasn’t sure about you when you first sat down here, to be honest. But I’ve always wondered about your history. Maybe we have a few things in common.”

“My history isn’t why I came in today,” Violet said. “I came in because I went somewhere yesterday afternoon—to a cathedral on…” She rubbed her temples as her choppy memories flickered. Officer Baker gave her a moment to think and turned back to her computer to take notes. “Roll Street,” Violet remembered. “A cathedral on Roll Street.”

Officer Baker’s fingers stilled, hovering just above the keys of her laptop. Her gaze appeared glued to her hands.

“What?” Violet asked. “You stopped typing, and you haven’t even heard what happened to me yet.”

Officer Baker’s gaze fired up in surprise like she forgot Violet was there. “Hmm? Sorry… Go ahead.”

Violet cleared her throat and tried to piece everything together as best she could. “A crime might have happened. And if so, some of my memories may have been erased to hide it. But not all my memories are gone—it’s like only bits and pieces are missing.”

The officer reached slowly for her phone resting on her desk. She pecked at a few buttons as she listened to Violet speak, nodding all the while like she was listening.

“All right. And you’re sure it was the cathedral on Roll Street, right? Why do you think your memories were erased? Did you wake up somewhere with no recollection of how you got there? Sort of like someone was trying to cover their tracks and took only enough of your memory to protect themselves?” she asked, and Violet blinked in surprise.

“Yes!”

“You know what?” Officer Baker looked around the station. “The noise in here is unreal. Do you want to talk outside?”

Violet nodded and stood, relieved since she could hardly hear herself think. She slid out of the chair and squeezed through the officers and complaining juveniles alike to get to the door. When she reached it, she pushed it open and stepped out into the warm summer air, turning to hold the door for Officer Baker.

Officer Baker wasn’t behind her.

Violet leaned to peer back inside, but the officer wasn’t at her desk, either. In fact, Violet couldn’t see her anywhere in the station. She turned back toward the sidewalk and started at the sight of someone there.

A guy stood in a black vampire coat with his hood up, peering at her with silvery brown eyes that glowed in the late afternoon sun.

“Nice to see you awake.” His voice was deep and crisp.

Violet looked both ways, wondering who this weirdo was. “Are you talking to me?” she asked.

He marched across the sidewalk and grabbed her hand. Violet’s grip slipped off the police station door, and in the blink of an eye, the world around her vanished.