Blank Slate Kate

Chapter 36

Ethan and I spend the weekend together getting to know each other again, then on Monday after lunch he leaves to visit friends in New York and I go to my session with Doctor Ferraro.

She's shocked, of course, to hear about the baby. "I did ask him if there was anything private I should know before working with you," she says, clearly far more annoyed that he'd kept it from her than that he'd kept it from me. "He should have told me."

"Yeah. But here's my big concern. When he told me, it didn't do anything to awaken my memories. Does that mean they're never going to come back?"

I can see her struggling with herself before saying, "I don't like to say never, Kate. But I do have to admit that I would have expected something, anything, to be recovered by now. If they were going to be recovered, that is."

She hasn't said anything I didn't already think of myself, and yet hearing it from a medical professional makes it seem awfully final.

After the session, I head home since it's too early to pick up dinner, then lounge on the couch skimming through the newest emails from MMC employees. The skinny man, Ned, was as good as his word and gave me a thorough tour of my company right after the meeting while assuring me that MMC would survive my condition. The emails back him up: nobody has asked to be released from their contracts and six people have offered their compliments for my strength in telling them the truth.

I respond to them all, touched that they took the time to write, then am about to start trying yet again to crack Bubbly Words when I have a thought. Everything else I needed to know to get into the secret area was in Donna's things. The number supposedly from Bruce Williams, the name Grace on the fortune cookie fortune although she'd certainly have remembered that on her own. What else do I have that might be able to get me in?

I go through what I've kept. The cat fur picture, while pretty, seems a little useless at the moment. I have another Grace-related fortune but I've already used Grace's name for a puzzle and I doubt Donna used it twice. And then I have that strange quote.

If I'm downright mad and downright upset, it's down to me to handle what's left.

I looked up the speaker, Eaton Dudley, the night I found the quote in Donna's Ottawa office but couldn't find any reference to him or his words. Still, the quotation includes a lot of directions, downs and lefts and rights and even an up, and they might be what I need.

I check my phone for the first four steps. Down, right, down, right. They are it. Donna must have invented the quotation to help her remember the code. And I'm delighted that she did.

Excitement flooding me, I do the number tapping and enter Grace's name, then begin following the quote. Down, right, down, right, up, down, left...

And the damn program just sits there.

I tap the bottom of the screen again and it beeps disapprovingly.

I re-enter the whole sequence then try right. Nope. Again, then try left.

It kicks me out.

I can't give up, though, so I go back in and try the top, and it doesn't like that either.

Unbelievable. It has to be one of them. I keep trying, but apparently it doesn't have to because the game simply won't let me in.

"Come on," I mutter, trying again and again. "I need this."

It doesn't care. No matter what I try, it won't let me in.

My eyes are dry and scratchy by the time I admit defeat. I just don't know what else to try.

I lie back on the couch and sulk for a bit, but of course that doesn't help so I make myself get up. I'll take the damn phone to the Apple store at the Eaton Centre and see if--

Such a blast of realization hits me that the world seems brighter for a second. Center. Eaton. Center.

I go back into Bubbly Words, my fingers shaking, and enter the numbers and Grace and tap the appropriate edges of the screen.

Then I tap the center.

No disapproving beep. Silence has never been so sweet.

But now what?

Dudley. Dudley isn't a top or bottom or left or right.

I could just tap them all and find it, but that feels like cheating. I solved all the other puzzles and I know I can get this one too.

Dudley. What do I know about Dudley?

He's the cousin in the Harry Potter books, but I don't think that helps much. Dudley Left? Dudley Center? Dudley Right?

Dudley Right.

Dudley Do-Right. That ridiculously cheesy cartoon I watched and loved as a kid.

That has to be it.

I'm scared to try, but eventually I make my finger move forward and tap the right side of the screen.

The beige-and-brown screen flickers then becomes red and purple. Each saved game listed at the bottom now has 'read' and 'edit' buttons.

The thing now looks like a diary.

I am in.

**

Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you’re enjoying Kate's story. The next chapter will be uploaded on Sunday! :) (Please note - I'm working really hard on another book and am behind on comments here - but I hugely appreciate them! :)

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