I blinked. “Oh.” Wow. That sounds…intense. She offered so quickly. What if she regrets it later?
“All of Landreia’s fosters have spoken very highly of her. She has a reputation of being a witch, but then again, this is Salem.”
I didn’t know what that meant. Or even what a witch really meant, especially since it sounded like it was supposed to scare me yet it didn’t. “How many fosters has she had?”
She pursed her lips. “Over the last four decades? Gosh, I’d say at least a dozen, if not more.”
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.
With a grimace, I hurried to catch up, but when I got there my jaw dropped. The walls were painted a lighter shade of purple that perfectly matched my eyes. Something inside me felt like it wa
s a sign that this was the right decision. Hanging every few feet were more of the paintings of the fancy sticks I’d seen on the floor below. They were bright colored and covered in crystals, some even had feathers hanging from them. I wanted to stop and take in every detail. But the thing that really caught my attention was the long shelf running about waist-level along the wall in front of me, lined with those same fancy sticks.
My fingers burned with the desire to reach out and touch them. It was so consuming I shoved my hands in my coat pocket to stop myself. I walked to the shelf and stopped. My eyes widened as the crystals sparkled. “You really like these fancy sticks, huh?”
Landreia chuckled behind me. “They’re called wands. They’re quite useful for many reasons, but mostly they’re all just so pretty. I may be a little obsessed.”
I snorted. “I get it.”
“Later, we’ll play with them.” She squeezed my shoulders. “For now, let’s get you settled in.”
I spun around just as she turned and walked down a narrow hallway that led right to a door. The handle groaned a little when she twisted it and the wooden door got a little stuck, but with a gentle push it swung open.
Bright sunlight poured into the hallway and over my feet. Landreia disappeared inside. My palms grew sweaty and my mouth suddenly felt dry. I didn’t know why I was so nervous, but I found myself creeping after her.
But then I stepped inside the room and my breath left me in a rush.
It was a bedroom and it was perfect. The room wasn’t wide, but it was long. The walls were made of wood that looked raw and unfinished yet I knew it was intentional. The ceiling angled in at the top but that was okay. I was tiny, my head didn’t get anywhere near that. In fact, I thought it made the room more cozy.
Or maybe that was from the plants lining the walls and the little golden lights hanging from the ceiling. On the far wall, nestled in the corner and under a window, was a bed big enough for me to lay in any direction without falling off. Not that that was saying a lot. The room was narrow, so there was only about two feet of space between the edge of the bed and the wall, though I thought this was a big factor in the coziness level. I liked it. The blankets on the bed were black and white and looked super fluffy, and I was dying to bury myself in that mountain of pillows.
The wall on my left was made entirely of shelves and full of books. And candles. There were candles everywhere. I looked to the right and found a massive tapestry of the moon phases and ocean waves. Crystals hung from leather cords along the top. I spun in a circle with my jaw dropped and my heart fluttering. Everywhere I looked there were a million little details, it was impossible to take them all in at once.
Something sparkled in the window on the far wall so I walked over, expecting to find crystals hanging or little lights on strings. But when I got there my jaw dropped. Just outside the window were dozens of tiny bugs that lit up like golden lights.
“Not a bad view of Essex—”
“Fairyflies,” I breathed.
“What’s that?” I heard her footsteps moving closer and then smelled her sweet perfume beside me. “Oh my, fireflies? In the daytime? And in the winter? I have never seen such a thing.”
Fireflies? I’d called them fairyflies. Why? That was the second thing I’d had a different word for and I didn’t think that was a coincidence. I frowned and turned to ask her about it when something big and blue leapt into my chest. I gasped and stumbled back a step, but instinctively I caught it.
It was the brightest shade of blue, like the sky just before the sun rises.
“Oh, Nyx!” Landreia squealed and threw her hands out toward me. “I’m so sorry, she never does that.”
She? I frowned and looked down, then gasped as my gaze landed on a pair of big golden eyes with narrow black slit pupils..
“I swear, this cat…” she shook her head.
This cat….this is a cat? I cradled Nyx in my arms. Her fur was the softest, fluffiest texture I’d ever felt. I brushed my fingers over her wildly blue fur and her back twitched — and wings popped out. My jaw dropped. Her cat had wings. Her blue cat had wings. I’d never seen such an animal, but then again my memory was nonexistent at the moment, so I supposed it was possible.
“Wow.” Landreia chuckled. “Nyx doesn’t normally like people, and never at first meeting, and here she is purring in your arms.”
I smiled and scratched behind her ears, which made her purr so loud she vibrated in my arms. “She’s beautiful. I love her coloring—”
“Right?” Landreia sighed and her eyes brightened. “I rescued her because black cats are never adopted. Stupid superstitions. I mean, look at her, she’s gorgeous. Her black hair matches mine, so she was meant for me.”
Black…fur.
She’s blue.
Isn’t she?
I frowned and looked back down at her. What is happening? Are my eyes messed up? Or are hers? One of us had a problem because this cat was definitely blue to me.
Landreia backed away and held her arms out. “Well, what do you think? Will this do?”
I scoffed and nestled Nyx closer to my chest. “Landreia, this room is beautiful. I can’t believe you’re doing this for me. I don’t know how I can ever thank you—”
“It is my pleasure.” She wrapped her arm around my shoulders. “Us gals have got to stick together, right?”
I smiled. “Right.”
She turned us, then pointed to a door in the wall. “That’s a closet. There’s not much in there, just some extra jackets and such. Once you are ready, I’ll take you shopping for some proper clothes. But for now, you need a hot shower and some yummy food.”
My stomach growled. The food at the hospital had not been very good, but I’d eaten it because I’d had to. Yummy food sounded enticing, though I was struggling to think of what that meant. What do I like to eat? What’s my favorite food?
I didn’t know and it was killing me. I should’ve known these things about myself at least. I needed to figure this out. There had to be answers somewhere. Then I remembered Dr. Troy and my appointment.
“Oh, hey, um…” I bit my lip and looked up into her blue eyes. “There’s a psychologist who came and talked to me at the hospital…she’s specialized in children with traumas…anyway, she wants me to come by her office to talk. Is that okay? Will you take me?”
“That’s a great idea. Of course I’ll take you.” Landreia dropped her arm and walked to the cabinet on the wall beside the door. “OH, I did get you this…”
I held my hands out as she dropped the object into my palms. I frowned. Just like with everything else, it wasn’t familiar in any way yet I knew this was a cellphone.
“This phone is for you. I stored my number and the shop’s, just in case.” Landreia winked. “Now, let’s get you some lunch, then the doctor.”
Chapter Seven
Saffie
I sat with my back to the wall as I bounced in my seat, watching the empty hallways around me. From this angle, I could see straight down three hallways that were lined with doors and strange metal contraptions. There wasn’t a person in sight. The silence alone was enough to make me want to bolt, but the cold chill in the air reminded me of waking up on that wharf. My legs itched with the need to stand…to move…to pace…to run back to Landreia’s and bury myself in blankets.
Breathe, Saffie.
But I couldn’t. The air was thick and dense and tight around my throat. Dr. Troy said this was a good idea. She’s a doctor. She knows better than I do. I have to at least try. I took a deep breath in just as a loud, shrill ringing noise ripped through the building. The sound was so sharp it made the wall behind me vibrate and echoed down the halls. In the blink of an eye, every single door down all three hallways flew open and slammed into the walls.
I gasped and gripped the edges of my seat. People poured through the doorways and flooded the hallway like a rising tide. My breath caught in my throat. What’s happening? But then I spotted bags hanging off their backs wit
h straps around their shoulders. I glanced down to my feet, to where a black bag sat mostly empty. Landreia had called it a backpack, she’d said it was something all students carried to hold their books and stuff.
My jaw dropped. These are…students? My pulse skipped beats. These were the other students that attended school here, the ones I was expected to blend in with. I swallowed through the tightness in my throat and winced as the noise pierced my ears. It seemed like each and every single student passing by was talking. Everyone. At the same time.
Some of them sprinted by with flushed cheeks and panicked eyes. Others leaned against the metal contraptions, while some opened them to reveal they were little closets full of books. Two students were kissing against the wall — far too passionately for inside a school. Everywhere I looked, there they were. Rushing and moving in different directions. Doors opened and closed. Laughter echoed down the halls. A few students who looked younger than me hurried by, carrying stacks of books piled up to their chins.
Music I didn’t recognize blared from somewhere. The door closest opened again and four girls strolled out wearing skin-tight pants and shirts that didn’t cover their stomachs. They glanced in my direction and their noses turned up, like I was a rodent digging through trash. These girls were beautiful, their faces were painted on with flawless perfection. I spun in my seat and eyed my reflection in the window beside me.
My hair seemed to be redder than it was this morning. It was practically glowing, which did nothing to help the paleness of my skin. My face was bare of any kind of makeup, only the light splatter of freckles across my cheekbones. The lavender hue of my eyes was bright like flowers in the spring. They were pretty, or so I’d thought. Now I wasn’t so sure. I looked nothing like these girls. They looked so adult, so grownup. With my wild tousled hair and bare face I looked years younger than them.
The Cursed Witch Page 4
