Vicious Memories

Chapter 53

The ghostly faces around the village looked at me with pleading eyes. They appeared everywhere I looked: as we ate a silent breakfast, as we brought our silverware down to the creek door washing, as we looked up at the bright and cheery morning sky.

Somehow I'd known the day would dawn flawlessly. Nature had a way of balancing the scales. The day you got your promotion was the day it thundered and hailed, and the day your girlfriend broke up with you was the day the sun tried to make you laugh. The island was no different. Villagers stranded without supplies in a jungle rich with game and fruit; prisoners locked on an island so beautiful you couldn't help but feel freer than you'd ever been.

I couldn't let another person die - not Alice, not anyone, not when they were relying on me to protect them. Beneath it all the hunger to recover my missing memories still simmered dangerously.

"I need to go for a walk," I said to Alice.

"Where?"

"The jungle north of the village."

"You can't," she said. "Not alone. Three people at least, remember?"

"I know. But I need to think. We can grab Neema on the way. It'll be fine. Trust me."

"I do, but—"

"Please. There's too much going on here. I have an idea that'll help me sort through a few things in my head."

I took her hand in mine. It was rough and callused, with strong fingers that were used to working and fending off the dangers of life here.

She didn't pull away, simply looked down and let her fingers wind their way through mine. It was a reassuring feeling, a soft promise that what had happened two nights ago might not have been a solitary burst of need and passion. That it might be, could be, something more.

"You're sure this is a good idea?"

"Yes," I said. "I just need to puzzle a few things out. There's something on the farm that'll help me think."

"You told me not to touch them," Neema said.

"I know I did."

"You said, and I'm paraphrasing a bit here, 'Make sure you don't trip and accidentally ferment them into a paste'."

I laughed. "I'm pretty sure you're the one who said that."

She arched an eyebrow at me as if to say, Oh, did I?

The air in the jungle pressed close, so rich with smells like dense earth and growing leaves that it became sickly sweet, suffocating. I was happy when we broke free of the trees onto the wide open farmland.

Alice and Neema watched me closely as we walked. I marveled at the way the farm seemed to be running itself. Bright light picked out the rows of growing plants, fruits on their vines, small trees with branches reaching further into the sky with each passing day. No weeds. No fallen trees. No spoiled fruit. Just a hazy yellow glow and the whisper of the wind.

It hammered home the fact that only a few days had passed since everything had gone to shit. Hadn't we felt confident enough a couple days ago to trek through the jungle just to swim in a lake?

Alice hung back a bit. In the end, this place belonged more to her than anyone else. While she hadn't cultivated it, it was thanks to her knowledge that it existed. But - as Neema had warned me - she seemed uncomfortable, a wrinkle forming on her forehead, shoulders stiff. What role had farming played in her life? A place she grew up? A place she visited often? A place she hated?

Her discomfort brought me back to the task at hand.

Ah, I thought, here. This is what we came for. Something from my past, not Alice's.

Together we gathered the Yellow Slumber in a large cloth tote bag we'd scavenged from the supply cabin. The daisy-yellow petals seemed to sigh up at us as we disconnected stem from root, crying out softly at their own demise. I held them up to the light from a moment, marveling at the richness of their color, at the hidden potential in their chemical makeup.

"I'm not going to push too hard," Neema said as we worked, "but can you just tell me one more time why we need these? In case what happens?"

"In case who knows happens," I answered casually. "Anything could happen, and right now we don't have a lot of weapons at our disposal. We might not need them. It's mostly to help me think. As much as I might hate what I remember from my past, if I can work with something from it, I'm hoping I can tap into some of the critical thinking skills I obviously possessed back then. You were in the clearing with me. You saw it happen."

"That I did, detective. And what are you going to do with the paste once you've made it?"

I shrugged noncommittally.

A few minutes later we left the farm, bringing the flowers back to my cave in amiable silence.

They left me alone with an empty bowl, a pestle-shaped rock, and a dozen other tools and ingredients.

I stared at the sad pile of torn yellow petals for a long while. They called to me, sang tantalizingly of past deeds, past secrets, promising all the information I so dearly wanted. It was like staring into a black portal - the answer were there, just through the door, but I couldn't see it from where I was standing.

I hoped this busy work would clear my mind and allow me to puzzle out the mysteries standing between me and the murderer.

The other murderer, you mean, a little voice whispered. Don't ever forget what you are.

I began to work.

Time passed, and my mind tussled violently with disparate thoughts and ideas. It felt like I was fighting against myself. A dull throb rose slowly at the back of my skull, near my neck, and began to pulse maddeningly, like a smoke detector with low battery and no off switch.

Time was running out, I knew. The hole in our hourglass had just cracked wider and sand was slipping through at an alarming rate.

It tossed and tumbled in my mind: Jessica, the murder that had started it all, killed as she slept; Sirus, his throat slit as he returned to the village for a new bucket, spread-eagled on a lonely tree stump, a ritualistic offering to a forgotten god; Mads, gone without a trace, back without a child; Shana, dressed in red, staring up at the rain falling into her eyes.

Who had been where during the murders? Who had solid alibis? Who had the opportunity, the means, the motive?

The throb in the back of my head refused to abate. There weren't enough painkillers leftover from the shipwreck to be used for something as trivial as a headache; something as simple as Advil or Tylenol was a luxury beyond imagining, taken for granted all your life until you find yourself in a situation where it's beyond your reach. The same was true of a lot of things, I supposed. Most things.

I don't know how long I worked - I stopped paying attention to the sun traveling across the sky beyond my cave's roof. I do know that eventually the rage, confusion, and fear dwindled slowly beneath the calm monotony of semi-conscious work. The rage went first, reluctantly followed by fear. My thoughts returned to all the problems we were dealing with. No single individual could have committed all four crimes.

Eventually the paste lay before me, a viscous and pale thing, cream-colored and distasteful, lying in thin ribbons spread across a large flat stone that I laid gently in the one corner of my cave currently bathed in sunlight.

When I straightened up 1,000 volts of electricity shot through my body.

"Oh Jesus," I breathed, glad Neema wasn't around to hear me.

Before I left my cave, I tried to figure out how I could prove my theory beyond doubt. I didn't have nearly enough evidence, and if it came down to word against word, I wasn't sure how I would stack up. The face that swam in my mind's eye was one that was too well-respected around the village.

Finally, after stagnating for so long, making a clear decision to take action was charged with excitement. The blood in my veins pulsed a rapid march. Because I had figured it out.

I knew how to catch the killer.