“Oh, so we’re not going anymore?”
I blink at him. I expected him to ask for more details about Valeria and the perpetrator, but instead he’s asking about the trip into town.
“Well,” I say, “we don’t have to go but I kind of still want to. I’d like to see my friend for a bit.”
“And is that something you’d rather do… alone?”
“Do you not want to come?”
“Do you want me to come?”
I sigh. “Come or not. It doesn’t matter to me.” I go over to my desk. “I don’t want to stay overnight though, so I’m going to leave now. It’s a couple hours from here, right?”
“Uh, yeah,” he says, standing up from his desk chair.
I put the cell phone and Remington’s letter in the tote bag. I consider taking the gloves too but wearing them in the middle of summer would just make me even more suspicious in town. “So are you coming or not?”
“If it’s fine with you, then yeah, I guess. I haven’t left this place since I got here. Might be able to buy some snacks. I really wish we had chips here.”
“Okay, cool. Should we get some water and food from the kitchen or something?”
He pats his backpack, which he had put on the chair. “I already got some. Six bottles of water plus four sandwiches.”
I hold out my hand. “Give me half.”
“It’s fine. I’ll carry it.”
I roll my eyes. “Don’t be such a ‘gentleman.’ You think I want to ask you to dig in your bag every time I want a sip of water or a bite of a sandwich?”
He sighs and unzips his backpack. He hands me three bottles of water and two sandwiches wrapped in foil paper. I put them in the tote bag.
“Okay, let’s go,” I say.
We walk out of the cabin. Hunter leads the way into the forest.
“Do you know how to get out of the pocket universe?” I ask.
“Yeah, Remy told me how. We just have to go to the Red Tree and knock. He taught me the pattern.”
“Red Tree?”
“Yeah the bark has a reddish tinge to it.”
“Let’s hope we can find it among all these other trees.”
“Don’t worry. I know where it is. I walk through the forest a lot.” He glances back at me. “By the way, the investigation is over? Doesn’t that mean you completed the second task?”
“Yeah, Li told me I can do the third task now.”
“So you didn’t succeed? I can’t blame you. It’s really difficult.”
“No, I haven’t done it yet. She just told me to go to Shikoba, saying something about a confrontation of my past.”
“And you haven’t gone to him yet?”
“Well, I just wanted to see my friend first. But that’s why I don’t want to stay overnight. I’ll do it first thing tomorrow. But anyway, Li also said I can keep trying the third task until I succeed. How many times have you tried so far?”
“Just once.”
An animal darts past me, scaring me for a moment, but Hunter just keeps walking, unbothered.
“So why haven’t you tried again?” I ask, catching up with Hunter but staying just behind him.
“Chrys, do you know what Shikoba’s gift is?”
“Something about a photographic memory.”
“That’s part of it.” He stops and turns to face me. “His memory is perfect, yes, but he can also make someone relive a memory exactly as it happened. In reality, just minutes pass by but it feels like it’s in real time, as if it’s happening to you again, except you also remember everything that’s going to happen with disturbing clarity.”
I exhale slowly, my mouth not finding any words to say. In that case, a confrontation of my past would mean reliving something that happened. Something I probably don’t want to relive. The stuff I keep locked up, pushed down, far far away.
“Look,” Hunter continues, “I’m not trying to scare you off—I want you to succeed, which is why I’m telling you this. It’s intense. You should be prepared for the worst. He’s going to make you relive the memory that makes you wish you weren’t gifted the most.”
“So how do you know if you’ve succeeded or not?” I say, throat feeling tight.
“It’s simple. You just have to get to the end of the memory without asking him to pull you out.”
“That’s torture. Why would Li force us to do that—to relive some horrific memory?”
He shrugs. “Maybe because she doesn’t actually want to erase anyone’s gift? I mean, she knows how difficult it is. Those who even manage to get to the third task never try a second time. If he pulls you out, the next time you have to start all over from the beginning. Some don’t even bother trying at all, once they hear what they have to do.”
I close my eyes and massage my temples.
“Chrys, if you want to succeed, you have to make it through the first time. Don’t ask him to pull you out, no matter what. If you do, you’ll never want to ask him to put you back in there again. Trust me.”
I drop my hands and open my eyes, sighing. I look over at some rustling nearby but don’t see anything.
I turn back to Hunter. “So you’re never going to try again?”
“Well, the thing is I don’t really want to have my gift erased anymore.”
“Why not?”
He looks at me for a moment and then turns around suddenly and starts walking. “It’s nothing. I’m just okay with having it now.”
I follow after him. “But what changed?”
“Nothing changed.”
“What about all the noise? You’re fine with that too?”
“Turns out the noise isn’t that bad if I focus on one person.”
“Wait. Are you focusing on me right now?”
“Well, you know yesterday when you told me to focus on you and you thought about your friend? I’ve never actually done that before—you know, focus on someone. Usually everyone’s emotions just float around in me, but people who are the closest to me or people with really strong emotions are the most prominent. But when I
