“He doesn’t like me very much, does he?” I said.
Maya’s face softened. “Not exactly. You have a history. I lost count how many times you two got into dustups at school over the years. You really don’t remember?”
“No, I really don’t,” I snapped.
“What do you recall?” she asked gently.
I tried to steady my voice long enough to explain how I’d woken up on the beach in Maryland the night before and found my way to Maine without understanding the need to be here. “I thought my name was Brad, because—” I pointed to my wrist, already knowing how pathetic I’d sound “—because it says so on my watch.”
Her face fell and she put her hand on my arm, her touch soft. “It was your dad’s.”
“Brad’s my father?”
“Yes. Your mom, Rosalie, gave it to him.”
“Brad and Rosalie are our parents?”
“No. I’m your stepsister. My mom, Ophelia, and Brad met when we were teenagers. You and Brad moved to the US from England after your mom...after she...” Maya’s eyes went wide and she swore softly under her breath before continuing, “After she died.”
“My mum’s...dead?” I said, and Maya bit her lip as she looked away. “What about my dad, and your mum? Do they live close? Can we see them? Maybe it would help, if—”
“Oh, Ash,” Maya said. “They’re gone, too.”
“Gone as in...dead?” My feet stopped cooperating and I stumbled as Maya’s hand went around my waist, propping me up. “All of them?”
She rubbed my shoulder. “It’s been the two of us, you and me, for years.”
I waited for this information to do more to me, make me feel something, anything—grief, anger, despair. Whatever I’d hoped for didn’t hit, and instead, emptiness expanded inside my heart. My parents were both dead, Maya’s mother, too, people I must have loved and mourned, but no longer remembered. All of my memories, history, identity...gone.
“I can’t deal with this,” I said, fight-or-flight instincts kicking in, making me want to run. Except I couldn’t run from the person I wanted to leave behind, the most terrifying one of all: me. “I can’t do this,” I whispered again. “I don’t know how to—”
“I’m here, Ash, I’m here.” Maya wrapped her arm around my middle as she guided me to her car. “I’ll help you. Let’s go to the hospital—”
“No.”
“You need to get checked out. You’re hurt.”
I took a step back, escaping her grip. “I said no.”
“Okay, okay. We’ll go home. Get you cleaned up, and afterward we’ll take our time and figure out what to do. It’ll be okay, I promise. You can trust me.”
My other choice was to return to the old house I’d broken into, and once she’d opened the door to a dusty Nissan Pathfinder and brushed off the passenger seat, I got inside. It smelled of sand and bubble gum, somehow familiar and comforting. She settled into her seat and as she was about to start the engine, I noticed her key chain, a shiny oval piece of wood with a single word burned into it in italics: Hope.
“Do you really think you can help me?” I said.
“Of course I can.” She reached for my hand and gave it a firm squeeze. “We have a pact. A long time ago we promised we’d always watch out for one another, no matter what. Nothing’s changed. Let me help you. I’ll take care of you, okay? You can lean on me.”
As we drove in silence, Maya kept glancing at me, as if to make sure I was still in the car. I had no recollection of who she was, yet something told me I was in the right place, and from now on, everything would be okay. She seemed to have no qualms about inviting a stranger into her vehicle, which meant either she was as crazy as I felt, or I was who she and the others said I was. I put my head back, looked out of the window into the darkness, saying nothing until we drove up to a house. I saw the lights first, a string of silver stars hanging in the window. I peered at them, the fog shifting inside my head as a sliver of my past tried to get my attention, but it wasn’t enough for me to comprehend. Maya followed my gaze.
“You gave me those,” she said, pointing to the lights. “A few days after Mom and I moved in, because I was scared of the dark.” She gave me a small smile. “I never admitted it, but you sensed it anyway. After school you biked all the way to the hardware store and hung them over my dresser as a surprise for when I came home.”
“Home,” I said, staring up at the two-story building at the end of a long, dark road, hoping for a memory jolt, but none came. The house appeared to have exhaled a long, languid sigh before giving up and slightly folding into itself. There were no neighbors close by; we’d passed the nearest place about a mile ago. I searched my mind for an indication of my being here before. Nothing. What if it was a lie? For all I knew, she was an ax-murderer.
“How long did you say I lived here?” I said.
“Ever since you moved here from the UK with Brad when you were fourteen,” Maya said. “About a year before our parents married.”
I nodded at the knowledge I was British but had lived in Maine for years, instinctively certain Maya was telling the truth, not a doubt in my empty mind. No wonder I’d recognized the number plate on the trailer and figured it was home. “But I left? When?”
“Two years ago.”
“Where did I go?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why did I leave?”
“I don’t know that, either.” She glanced at
