Silas

One very loud half hour later, Muffin the Hellhound was free to go, and George returned to his office.

“You know,” I said, crossing my arms as I peered up at him, “when you said he was a hellhound, I thought you meant, like, an actual hellhound.”

“He is!” George flailed a hand toward the door. “You heard him!”

“Uh-huh. But he’s a chihuahua.”

“Yes. Exactly. And I still maintain that chihuahuas are a breed of toy hellhound, but no one wants to admit it because then no one will buy them.” He huffed and rolled his eyes. “Though God help me if they start breeding them with poodles. The actual hell doodles are bad enough. If someone brings in a chi-doodle, I’m retiring.”

Laughing felt really, really good right then. Not enough to make me forget everything, but enough to get me breathing and make me think there was some hope of recouping my sanity. And few things made me laugh like George ranting about chihuahuas and people breeding poodles with everything that moved.

How long has it actually been since I’ve laughed at your dog breed rants?

Instantly, I sobered. The last time I remembered doing it was on the way home from the airport. Yesterday according to my mind, but a year ago according to the calendar.

It literally felt like less than twenty-four hours, but the realization that it had been much, much longer was a gut punch on top of all the other gut punches I’d had this morning.

“Hey.” George appeared in front of me and touched my shoulder. “You okay?”

“Not really,” I croaked as I met his gaze. “This is all…” My shoulder sank under his hand. “I don’t know how to deal with this.”

“I know.” He offered a faint smile. “We’ll figure it out, though. I’m not sure how yet, but we will.”

My throat ached as I held his gaze.

I want my memory back.

But I don’t want to remember deciding we didn’t love each other anymore.

I don’t want to remember losing you.

Was it too much to ask to remember everything else, but to leave that part out? Probably, yeah.

I took a deep breath and cleared my throat, though it didn’t help me keep my voice steady. “Thanks. I, um… I don’t even know where to start. But thanks for the help.”

His smile was reassuring. There was something in his eyes that made me uncomfortable, though. Something he wasn’t telling me.

Why do I feel like, when this is all over, I’m going to wish I still didn’t remember?

After I’d graduated from college, I’d gone back to my high school to visit a former teacher. She’d been an amazing mentor, and she’d done everything from helping me get into some advanced programs to going to bat for me when the administrators wanted to ignore some homophobic bullies. We’d stayed in touch after that, and I’d promised to stop by when I moved back to town.

Stepping into that building again had been a bizarre and surreal experience. For four years of my life, I’d spent most of my waking hours there. The architecture, the colors, the décor, the trophy case in the hallway, the lockers—it was all as familiar as the house I’d grown up in. It had been like a second home, for better or worse. A lot of growing up had happened there, along with a lot of heartache and frustration.

Returning after four years away had been a weird mix of familiar and alien. Some of the décor had changed. There were some new trophies in the case. The students all seemed way too young. The faculty who I’d seen every single day were suddenly like relatives I only saw every ten years at the odd family reunion. It was the place I’d intimately known, and… not.

That was what came to mind when I watched George taking in the sight of the condo we’d once shared. He gazed around with wonder, and maybe some melancholy nostalgia, as if he were someplace from his past he’d never expected to return to.

I sure as shit hadn’t ever expected him to be a guest here. I was used to him leaving his shoes by the door and draping his jacket over a kitchen chair while he told me about the latest shenanigans of his patients. I was used to him absently tossing his lanyard and clinic ID badge someplace random, then forgetting where they were and needing me to help him find them.

Where do you leave your lanyard now?

My heart clenched as another thought tumbled forward:

Who helps you find it now?

He hadn’t mentioned another partner, and he hadn’t indicated he needed to call or text someone before coming over. Maybe he’d done that in the car or in between patients before we’d left?

I didn’t know. I didn’t think I wanted to know.

George slid his hands into his jacket pockets and turned to me. “So, um… I’m not quite sure where to start. Have you checked your social media?”

I nodded. “I went back a few days. Didn’t… Didn’t go back any further because it was…” I shifted my weight and rolled my shoulders.

“Hard to take in?”

“Yeah. It’s weird to look at my own posts and photos and not remember them.”

“I bet,” he murmured. “Okay. Well.” His eyes lost focus for a moment. “Have you checked your car’s GPS?”

“Oh! No, I haven’t. That’s a really good idea.” Jesus, why didn’t I think of that? I grabbed my keys off the counter and gestured for him to follow me.

We trooped back downstairs to the parking lot, and I slid into the driver’s seat of my car. George got in on the passenger side, and he watched in silence as I started the engine and pulled up the GPS.

And wouldn’t you know it—the last address I’d entered was a place I didn’t recognize.

I mean, I didn’t recognize the last several places, which probably made sense. But the most recent was on Lohengrin Boulevard. That was a few blocks over from Baker Avenue, which was where a lot of the mages and fae set up shop. In particular, it was where some of the less than savory magic users congregated. The ones who dealt in socially taboo types of magic like hexes.

George shot me a pointed and somewhat playful look. “You didn’t go to the pet shop there, did you?”

I couldn’t help chuckling at that. “I don’t remember, but with as many times as you’ve ranted about that place, I think it’s safe to say that, no, I didn’t go there.”

“Good,” he said with a sharp nod.

Some small part of me wondered if I had gone in there just for spite. I could be as petty as the next person, and if our breakup hadn’t been entirely amicable, it wouldn’t be beneath me to go to places he hated. Though I hadn’t forgotten the reason she’d hated that particular pet shop, and regardless of how charitable I did or didn’t feel toward him, I suspected I’d still given Magickal Menagerie a wide berth.

“Remember that episode of South Park with the killer goldfish?” he’d ranted over dinner one night. “Remember the pet store with all the animals from an evil parallel dimension or whatever that were basically murdering everyone? That place had to be based on Magickal Menagerie. It had to be.”

“Are you saying we have a pet store selling killer goldfish?”

“I’m saying we have a cursed pet store selling animals that no one should be keeping as pets.” He’d yanked up his sweatshirt sleeve, revealing a small but nasty-looking bite on his forearm. “That’s from a betta fish, Silas. Abetta fish.”

“Do those even have teeth?”

“This one does! And it apparently thinks it’s half-piranha!” He’d flailed theatrically and made an exasperated sound. “Knowing that place, it is half-piranha!”

I’d smirked. “Better than half-basilisk, right?”

He’d tossed a fry at me over that, which I’d richly deserved.

But somewhere between then and now, George and I had split up. Maybe I had gotten curious about Magickal Menagerie and wandered in to find out about their Siamese fighting piranhas.

Did they also have some sort of hypnotic hamster that could erase memories? At this point, I wasn’t ruling anything out.

I snapped a picture of the address on my phone, then shut off the car. “Let’s go back inside. We can look up what this place is.” I paused. “I’m… pretty sure it’s not that pet shop.”

George grunted, and we got out of the car and went back upstairs. I rested my elbows on the kitchen island and looked up the address.

When the results came up, I read aloud, “Gach Rud.”

Then I blinked. Tossed my phone onto the counter. Buried my face in my hands.

“Oh my fucking God,” I groaned. “It is the fae.”

“I’m not surprised,” he said with a note of sympathy. “I can’t imagine what else would erase a full year of your memory.”

“Aside from a nasty head injury,” I muttered.

“Nah, amnesia doesn’t work that way. You’d be more likely to—”

I lowered my hands and shot him a pointed look, which immediately shut him up.

He sheepishly cleared his throat. “Sorry.”

Yeah, that had been an occasional point of contention in our relationship. George was fascinated by medicine, whether it was human or animal, and he was the guy who would yell at the TV for misrepresenting something. Or if someone made an offhand comment, he’d go off on a lengthy but well-intentioned monologue about the realities of biology and physiology.

Sometimes it was endearing. Sometimes… not so much.

He drummed his fingers on the counter. “Maybe see if there’s a receipt in your wallet?”

“Good idea.” I dug it out of my pocket and thumbed through the various folded receipts. That, like every other goddamned thing today, fucked with my head. I always accumulated receipts until my wallet was damn near bursting with them, but out of boredom yesterday—what I thought was yesterday—I’d cleaned them out. Today, there were at least two dozen folded-up slips of white paper stuffed into the billfold along with a couple of twenties.

I didn’t look too closely at any of them. I knew I wouldn’t remember going to those restaurants or purchasing from those stores or even getting gas at those stations. The last thing I needed was to jostle my already fucked-up psyche more than I already had. So I just glanced at the names of the businesses and didn’t look at what I’d bought, how much I’d spent, or when.