I eyed this Detective carefully. “You know her very well.”
She chuckled. “Landreia was my foster mother when I was about your age. I think the world of her.”
That made me smile. Landreia had saved me. She hadn’t hesitated to take care of me, and she’d even stood up to the cops for me. And then she’d showed up here unprompted this morning.
I took a deep breath and let my decision settle in. It felt right. “In that case, then yes. I like her, I’d like to go with her.”
Detective Lewis grinned and squeezed my forearm. “Good choice, kiddo. All right, there are some legal things that have to happen first, but I promise I will get them settled as soon as possible so we can get you out of here. Just hang tight.”
I smiled as she headed out of the room. “Thank you for helping me.”
She stopped at the door with her fingers on the handle and glanced back at me. “We’re going to figure this out, I have a good feeling about it.”
I hope you’re right.
I didn’t have a good feeling about this at all. Every time I tried to remember something it felt like I was staring at a big black hole. Like if I took one more step I’d vanish forever. I sighed and tried to ignore the tension building inside me.
“Take a deep breath.”
I looked up and found Dr. Troy strolling back inside. “What?”
“It’s okay to feel overwhelmed and scared. I’d be worried if you didn’t, considering. So just take a few deep breaths.”
Deep breaths. Right. I can do that. I closed my mouth and inhaled through my nose until I couldn’t suck any more air in…then I let it out. I did this about six times before my pulse started to slow back down.
“Very good.” Dr. Troy leaned against my bed. “Any time you start to feel like that…all that anxiety rushing to the surface…try breathing just like that.”
I took another deep breath. “And if that doesn’t work?”
“Count out of order.”
“What?”
She chuckled. “It sounds strange, but it’s quite effective. Our minds cannot spiral out of control with anxiety while counting out of order because that requires too much concentration.”
I blinked. “So like…one…five…eleven…eight…”
“Exactly.”
“Okay. I can do that.”
She picked up a pen off the counter and scribbled something on a piece of paper. “I wrote my name and phone number on here. This is my office and also where I live. Once you get out of here, which should be this evening, come by and we can have a chat, just the two of us, see if we can start trying to get your memory back.”
My heart was pounding in my chest, but my eyes rolled. My eyelids fluttered and tried to close. Sleep was coming for me whether I wanted it to or not. But I didn’t want to be here by myself. “W-will you stay?”
Dr. Troy smiled wide. “Until you ask for me to leave.”
Chapter Six
Saffie
“This is fine, you can pull over here.”
My stomach rolled and bile rose in my throat. It’s fine. It’s gonna be okay. I looked down at the three business cards in my hand as the driver of the car pulled to the side of the street. There was a card for Detective Lewis, Dr. Allen, and for Dr. Troy. All three said to call them anytime. For any reason. I didn’t know if they meant that, and I kind of hoped I wouldn’t have to find out.
Landreia is great. You trust her. The cops trust her. The doctors and hospital trust her. It’s going to be fine.
Then why do I feel like I’m about to jump off a cliff?
“Saffie?”
I jumped and looked over to find Landreia standing outside the car, leaning in. “Yes. Coming. Sorry.”
“It’s all right, sweetie. No rush.”
Yeah, tell that to the uber driver. I still didn’t quite understand what an uber was but Landreia acted like it was no big deal so I went with it. I climbed out of the car just as a cold gust of wind slammed into my back. I shivered and pulled my coat around me tighter. Landreia had come back prepared with a coat, hat, pants, and boots. I still had my little purple dress on. It felt wrong to part from it just yet. It was the only thing I had that was mine.
Landreia wrapped her arm around my shoulder and squeezed. “Ready?”
I looked up and my breath left me in a rush. I knew this corner. I’d been here last night. This was the exact corner Landreia had found me on when that guy was chasing me with his sword. My heart pounded against my chest like a hammer.
I took a deep breath then nodded. “Yep.”
“Great. You’re doing great, sweetie.”
She led me down the sidewalk, passed a pub with flags hanging from above the windows, and up to a stoop I recognized immediately. I’d spent a bit of time huddled there waiting on the police to arrive. I looked up at the dark wooden building and the sign that read The Night Haven. It was a relief to recognize it, which was silly, since of course I did. It was last night. My short-term memory was working fine, Dr. Allen had tested it.
“All right, now the first floor is my shop. It’s an occult shop—”
“A what?”
“Occult shop – a witch shop.” She waved for me to follow her up the steps, then stopped us just inside the building where there was another door. “The shop is through this door. The rest is my home. Our home.”
I peeked through the glass window in the door and my jaw dropped. There were glass balls and crystals hanging from the ceiling. The back wall was lined with candles of every size and color, and the smell was intoxicating.
“So what all do you sell in here?”
“Well, lots of things. Candles, crystals, pendulums, lots and lots of books. In the back we do tarot card psychic readings…” she reached down and picked up my left hand, brushing her finger over the ring on my thumb. “We sell rings just like this one—”
“Stardust quartz?”
She frowned and pursed her lips. “Stardust quartz? Hmm, I’ve never heard it called that before but I like it.”
My cheeks flushed. “I don’t know where that came from. Or where the ring came from. Sorry.”
“Don’t be!” She grinned and pointed to my ring. “This ring has a story and if we’re lucky we’ll get to learn it. This is a piece of who you are and the life you lived, be thankful that you had it on. It’s proof that there’s a reason to not be deflated and overwhelmed by the problem. And never be sorry for remembering something.”
“Even if I don’t know where it came from?”
She shrugged. “I’m going to get you a little notebook. Every time you remember anything at all, I want you to write it down.”
My heart fluttered. “I like that idea.”
“Solid plan then.” She winked, then pulled me away from the door and toward the narrow staircase. “Now, the store can be overwhelming and we don’t want to do that to you just yet. So let’s get you settled in first, okay?”
“Okay…”
I followed her up stairs that creaked under our weight at every step. We passed the second floor where the walls were painted a bright purple and held paintings of fancy colored sticks. Before I could ask what they were, Landreia had gone all the way up to the third floor. She paused at the top and smiled down at me.