I wasn’t sure why I was here.
Through one of the bedroom doors, I noticed discarded clothes and basketballs cluttering the floor. Miranda quickly pulled the bedroom door shut and ushered me to a tatty, cloth-covered couch situated under the room’s only window. I sat as Miranda pulled an office chair away from her desk and positioned herself across from me. She attempted a smile as she blotted her eyes with the tissue.
“Sorry,” she said. “It’s been a rough morning.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Did Dr. Hill tell you why I was coming?”
She nodded. “He said you’re a non-traditional therapist—that you help people with missing memories.”
I supposed that was close enough to the truth. “Do you feel like you have missing memories?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No, not really.” She let out a soft laugh. “But I do feel like I’m going bat-crap crazy.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Bat-crap crazy?”
“Everyone thinks it. They don’t say it, but I know they think it. I would think it, too, if it were someone else. I’m the only person who remembers him.”
“Remembers who?”
“His name was Zeke. He was my—well… I guess we weren’t really official. But we were friends. Close friends, you know. Even though I’d only known him for two weeks. We liked a lot of the same stuff. Basketball, mostly. He played at the courtyard outside. That’s where I first met him.”
“What did he look like?”
My phone rang before she gave her answer.
“Sorry,” I said and pulled it out of my bag. Brent’s ringtone. “White and Nerdy” by Weird Al Yankovic blared through the room. My cheeks flushed with embarrassment as I silenced the phone and stuffed it back in my pack. “Go ahead,” I told her with a forced smile as I cursed Brent under my breath.
She gave me a look but then continued. “Sure. Zeke was tall. Really dark skin and bleached white hair. Kinda strange. But he had the most amazing smile. His whole face lit up.” She stifled a sob. “And now no one else believes he ever existed. I’ve talked to the cops, to all my friends. It’s like he just disappeared or something, and I’m the only person who remembers him.” She shook her head. “I’ll understand if you think I’m crazy.”
Miranda’s description of Zeke piqued my interest, especially the part about everyone having missing memories. I sensed the work of goblins. “Believe me,” I said. “I’ve been around crazy, and you’re definitely not.”
She gave me a tiny smile. “Thank you.”
“Can you tell me more about Zeke? Did he live on campus?”
“I don’t know. I never went to his dorm or anything. I assumed he was a student, but there isn’t any record of him.” She sighed. “I guess I didn’t know him as well as I thought.”
“But you spent time with him?”
“Yeah. He finally came to one of my games. I sort of had to convince him. It seemed like he was scared of crowds—what’s the name for it?”
“Agoraphobia?”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“Can you tell me about when he went missing?”
She shuddered. I could see the fear in her eyes and hear it in the wavering tone of her voice.
“I invited him to go to the beach with me. I thought it would be a good idea since all we ever did was hang around campus. He didn’t want to at first, but finally he said he would.” She paused. “I shouldn’t… I shouldn’t have made him go. It’s my fault.”
“No,” I said. “I’m sure you never intended for anything bad to happen.”
She let out a lengthy sigh, keeping the tissue pressed to her nose. “I just wanted to hang out, have a good time. I feel like all I ever do is study and play basketball. And he seemed so sincere, not like the other guys around here.”
“Miranda, what happened at the beach?”
“Well, he was acting kind of nervous. Like, anytime someone would talk to us or walk near us, he would get anxious. I thought it was just his agoraphobia. That night, we went to that seafood restaurant out over the harbor. We hadn’t even gotten our table yet when he said he had to leave. I didn’t understand why. He said he needed to take care of something. Then he left. When he didn’t come back, I went out to look for him.”
“I bet you were pretty upset.”
She nodded. “Mostly I was scared for him. I started to think about the people we saw down on the beach. I guess it should’ve seemed weird that two guys were wearing black capes on the beach, but they were having that festival down on the Strand, where everyone dresses up in Victorian costumes.”
“Dickens on the Strand?” Every December, the island honored Mr. Dickens by going all out and turning the place into a Victorian winter wonderland. Dressing in period clothing was encouraged, so seeing men in capes wouldn’t have come as a surprise. Unless, of course, they happened to be strolling on the beach, not anywhere close to the festivities.
“Yeah, that’s the one. I assumed those guys were just part of the festival.”
“But why were they on the beach?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she answered.
Honestly, I’d seen weirder people in Galveston. But I didn’t think it was a coincidence that Chester had also been attacked by Geth’s men—who also happened to wear capes.
“Do you think they might have had something to do with Zeke’s disappearance?” I asked.
“I’m almost sure of it,” she answered. “When I went down to the docks, I saw those same two guys out on the pier. I heard a scream, too, but I’m not sure who it came from. It could have been one of those guys. It could’ve been Zeke.” She stiffened. “I also saw a light. It was odd, like a gray mist that glowed. It was a clear night, not a hint of
