Page 3 of Dark Knight

If found, please call Flora Hastings and return.

“Is that you? Are you Flora?” I don’t like it. She doesn’t look like a Flora. Her face scrunches up with distaste.

“I have this, too.” Rolling up her sleeve, she shows me the inside of her wrist—a tattoo with another message.

My name is Bea. I have temporary memory loss. Please give me a safe space.

“Memory loss, huh?” She shrugs as her eyes flit around, trying to find something familiar, I bet. “Bea suits you better than Flora.” Her eyes jump back to mine, and I finally see in the dying sunlight that they’re a warm, golden, honey color and not the hazel that I thought. “Well, Bea, if a safe space is what you need, you’re welcome to join my nephew and me for a fire. We just put the marshmallows away, but I can pull them back out if you want.”

“Yay! More s’mores!” Sawyer cheers as I hear him racing over on the pebbled stones.

Her head tilts as she watches us for a minute. “What’s a s’more?” Sawyer’s jaw drops.

“Come on, Uncle Nolan. We have to make more now.” His pleading eyes gaze up at me.

“Only one more for you.” I point down at him, and he grins like I’ve given him the keys to Disney World. “Well, Bea, can we treat you to a sugar overload?”

Inhaling a shaky breath, her eyes flit around again like something might become familiar, before she finally nods. “S’mores it is.” The smile she gives me is damn near enough to bring me to my knees.

For another hour, we sit around the campfire eating the messy, gooey treat while playing games before I finally send a yawning Sawyer to bed. It takes three minutes before he’s snoring behind the zippered tent door a few feet away.

Studying Bea, I have a thousand questions for her, but I don’t think I’ll get any answers. Not until her memory returns.

“Do you want me to call this Flora person?” I nod at the journal in her hands. She hasn’t stopped fidgeting with it since she sat down.

I watch as she opens and closes the cover, reading the note on the inside and then shutting it again. “There’s a note”—she holds it up—“in here.” Her fingers trace the name on the front. “It says she’s not all that nice and makes things worse.”

I can tell she's confused about what to do, so I offer up a solution. “I have an extra sleeping bag. You’d have to share a queen-sized air mattress with me, but you’d have your own covers. Maybe, after a good night’s sleep, things will clear up in the morning.”

Glancing back to the gravel road where I found her, she hesitates before nodding her head. I try not to examine too closely the relief I feel.

* * *

Bea

I wonder if I’ve felt the confusion before. Is it new, or did I hit my head? I didn’t feel any pain and didn’t find anything to indicate I’d hurt myself when Nolan took Sawyer to the washroom earlier. I hate the assumption that this happens often. Forgetting who I am and where I belong. The not knowing is more terrifying than anything.

“Want to show me what’s in that book?” Nolan’s curious voice is comforting, like a thick warm blanket on a cold winter day. Fidgeting with the pages, I finally hand it over to him.

I watch as he flips through, page after page, before pausing on the last one. “This is really good.” He turns it around so I can see.

It looks to be him, chopping wood, with the boy smiling in a camping chair. “We’ve met?” I never would have guessed. They didn’t say anything.

“Not really. I saw you earlier with three other women. I wanted to stop you, but Sawyer was ready to light the damn fire.” He shakes his head with a grin on his face. “The kid is determined to get me in shit with his mom.”

“Is she your sister?” Nolan and Sawyer have a hilarious relationship. It was fun to watch them interact tonight.

“No. Noelle is my best friend’s wife, and Sawyer is her son. You’d never know he doesn’t belong to Holden, however. They’re thick as thieves.” He sounds envious.

“Do you want children?” I don’t know what gives me the guts to ask.

His head jerks up as he hands me back the book. His eyes bore into mine with something unsaid. “With the right girl, yeah, I think I do.”

There’s something more to that statement, but I’m already so addled that I don’t know what to make of it. I don’t know what to make of any of it. An owl hoots in the distance as the fire crackles, the embers slowly dying.

I feel Nolan’s eyes on me as I stare down into the almost non-existent fire, and a yawn overtakes me, cracking my jaw and making my eyes water. Exhaustion weighs heavy.

“Looks like it’s time to get you into bed too.” His voice is thick, heavy with underlying meaning, but his boyish grin comes off innocent.

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