I should’ve kept my memories. But I hadn’t.
Strange.
The only conclusion I could come up with was I must’ve gone someplace else. There was no way to tell, so I’d put it out of my mind. Instead I focused on perfecting the statuette. If the hair had come from a Wult, then there had been one way to find out. I’d used the blond hair, magically working it inside the pewter. Not surprisingly, the spell was finally functioning, meaning the hair had to have come from a Wult. I couldn’t be happier.
But I still had to test it.
“Benjamin,” I said. “Do you have any collections? Dragon statues or anything of that nature?”
He cocked his head. “Why do you ask?”
Because I need a test subject. “No reason, really.”
Dreamthief
Blessed are the weird people:
Poets, misfits, writers, mystics,
Painters, troubadours:
For they teach us to see
The world through different eyes.
~Jacob Nordby~
Chapter 1
I don’t believe in karma. Once, I gave twenty bucks to earthquake victims, thinking hey, maybe tomorrow my luck will change, maybe I can pay the utilities this month without sacrificing my grocery money. The next morning, my car broke down. Transmission. Nine hundred bucks. Don’t get me wrong, I still think we ought to help others, but not because we expect the universe to pay us back.
I do believe in magic. Not magyk. Not Magick. Not the stuff that Wiccans or warlocks practice. I believe in the old stuff—the real, honest-to-goodness, straight-from-fairy-world kind of magic. Am I crazy? Maybe, but not because I believe in magic.
I knocked on apartment 31C off Champion Forest Drive. Standing on the porch with my hands in my pockets and my breath coming out like puffs of cumulus clouds, I wished the guy inside wouldn’t have taken five minutes to open up. Houston was a damp place in November.
The door cracked open.
Elmore stood a little taller than me, with a paunch belly and pale skin. He was in his mid-twenties, but if he were young enough to attend high school, he would have been labeled a nerd. He ran his hands through his greasy, uncombed hair as he stared at me through thick-rimmed glasses. His T-shirt read 100% Pure Middle Earth.
“You the shrink?”
“Yes.” I’d stopped correcting people a long time ago. If they wanted to call me a shrink, let them. I’d been called worse. “My name is Olive Kennedy. Dr. Hill sent me.”
He looked at my purple Doc Martens, my dark, reddish hair cropped in a bob, and then stared at my slightly pointed ears. His brow creased. “He said you were a shrink, not a Ren fair geek.”
Ren fair geek? Look who’s talking.
Elmore took a step back. “I’m sorry you came all this way, but I’m feeling awful today. Maybe you ought to come back next week.” The door started to close, but I held it open.
“If you’re not feeling well, don’t you think I should see you now before you get worse?”
“I’m getting better.”
“You just said that you’re feeling awful.”
“I am.”
“Then may I please come inside?” I asked.
“I’m not sure you can help me.”
“We won’t know until I try, right?”
“Are you sure you won’t mess me up even more?”
“Elmore,” I said, “Dr. Hill trusts me. There’s a reason he sends me to all the patients he can’t cure. Because I can.”
Elmore gave me one last glare and then opened the door. I adjusted my backpack and stepped inside. It smelled of sour laundry, and it looked how I’d expected. An Advanced Dungeons and Dragons poster hung over the couch, collectible AT-ATs and homemade lightsaber hilts cluttered the end tables, and overstuffed shelves stood along the walls. I spotted a few Star Trek collections, Dr. Who DVDs, and the typical Robert Jordan books. His décor looked promising, although I wasn’t sure he qualified as my patient. If I didn’t find what I needed, I would prove to be a liar. Worse, I wouldn’t be able to help him.
“Mind if I have a seat?” I asked.
He nodded at the couch.
I placed my backpack on the floor and sat across from him.
“I hope Dr. Hill told you I’m a hopeless case,” Elmore said.
“He didn’t use those words exactly.”
He barked a cheerless laugh. “Did he tell you that I’ve suffered with depression since I was twelve? He’s prescribed every drug in the book. I’ve attended therapy sessions, I’ve been in and out of the mental hospital more times than I can count, and the panic attacks won’t go away. I really don’t know why you’re here.”
He clasped his hands, and that’s when I saw the scars. Elmore’s file said he’d attempted suicide twice. Raised keloids crisscrossed his wrists.
“My methods aren’t like the other doctors,” I said.
“I’ve heard that before. You’re all the same.”
“Are we?” I brushed back clumps of hair to draw attention to my freakish ears. This worked half the time. “I’m not much different from you.”
He shrugged. “Not bad. But my friend Whitmore’s prosthetics look better.”
Score zero for me. “I’m sure they are. Mine were incredibly cheap.” As in completely free—a donation from my elven daddy’s DNA.
“Elmore, I’m not here to prescribe medication or make you suffer through hours of therapy. I’m here to find the trigger to your panic attacks. I’m here to heal the part of your brain that’s been damaged from a traumatic event. But first, I need you to help me. Do you have any collections?”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Wizards, fairies, that sort of thing?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Like I said, I’m not like the others.”
He seemed to debate my answer. I’d already shown him my oddball ears, which meant he pegged me as either a hard-core nerd or a doctor desperate to impress her patients. I wanted him to realize I was different. Most therapists guided conversations, letting their patients work through their own problems, thus coming to their own conclusions. I used that technique some of the time, but with a case like his, it didn’t matter how many
