~~~
‘I’m fine, Candide,’ Lambert said. His wife was fussing over him. That was natural, of course, but he did not want to be fussed over. ‘Well, I’ve lost most of a day, but I’m fine.’
‘We were so worried, Lambert,’ Candide said. They had been married for almost twenty years now and Candide was just as beautiful as the day they had met on the grounds of this very school. Her auburn hair shone in sunlight and her green eyes sparkled when she laughed. Right now, she was worried. Relieved that he was back, certainly, but worried by his loss of memory. ‘We were very worried when daddy didn’t come home last night, weren’t we, Beth?’
Bethany, their eight-year-old daughter, nodded. She was an intelligent girl who would probably end up attending SAS2 eventually. Both her parents had the talent; currently, she was too young to show signs of it. Children under about ten rarely had the mental equipment to perform any kind of sorcery. She took after her mother in looks, which Lambert had always considered a good thing. He was not ugly but snagging Candide had been the luckiest thing to ever happen to him.
‘She’s been very quiet,’ Candide said. ‘I think she was really worried about you.’
‘I’m back now. Nothing to worry over.’
‘Are you sure there’s nothing I can get you?’
Lambert closed his eyes. ‘Really. I’m fine. A little tired, that’s all. Tired and confused. But, in the morning, I’m sure I’ll be back to normal.’
‘Perhaps we should go to bed a little early tonight.’
Opening his eyes, Lambert smiled at her. ‘I think that would be a very good idea.’
Quietly, Bethany got up from where she was sitting on the floor across the room from her father and set off toward her bedroom.
235/5/20.
Bethany made her way from her room to the lounge, and then she went through into the kitchen. No one else was up, it seemed, but she could manage to make herself a bowl of cereal without any trouble. There was also juice in the fridge, so she was set. Her mother would usually make lunch for her, but she could manage in the school cafeteria.
She was eating her cereal when Lambert poked his head in through the door of the small kitchen. ‘Ah, you’re up,’ he said, smiling at her. Bethany nodded an answer. ‘Your mother is having a lie-in. Do you need anything?’
Bethany shook her head.
Lambert moved further into the room and looked down the kitchen to where his daughter was sitting in the nook at the end. ‘Are you okay, Bethany?’ he asked. ‘You’re being very quiet.’
Bethany took a drink of juice, then swallowed. ‘I’m okay,’ she said. ‘I’m glad you’re back.’
He smiled at her and turned around. ‘I’ll see you tonight, after school.’
‘Did you forget? I’m staying with Adaline tonight. It’s a sleepover.’
Lambert paused. His shoulders shifted, tightening. ‘Oh. Yes, of course. You have a good time with Adaline.’
‘I will.’
As soon as he was gone, Bethany poured her half-eaten cereal into the waste disposal, following it with the remainder of her juice. Then she left the house. She did not want to be in it any longer, though she hated leaving her mother alone with the man who had come back to them. She was not sure who that man was, but she was sure that he was not her father.
~~~
‘They said he was just tired and maybe a little dehydrated, right?’ Courtney asked.
‘That was the diagnosis,’ Kyle replied. ‘Bed rest and a meal was all that was needed. They mandated a rest day today, but that was just to be sure. I didn’t figure him for a flight risk, so I escorted him home.’
The couple were walking through the staff residential area of the school, on their way to Lambert Stenger’s house. The residential region was a bit of a mixed bag as far as architecture went. Closest to the more academic parts of the school, there were several apartment blocks for single faculty and staff, and also housing the majority of postgraduates. They provided something of a screen for what was generally called the Estate, a small town of cul-de-sacs with various types of family homes arranged a bit like a tree spreading out from the ‘planting bed’ of the blocks. Luckily, there were pedestrian walkways which provided shortcuts between branches; walking to any given part of the Estate along the roads would have been a chore. Compared to the academic, almost utilitarian look of the school, the Estate was like a quaint suburban neighbourhood.
‘I’m not criticising your decisions,’ Courtney went on. ‘I’m just making sure we’re good to go talk to him now.’ Having missed a lot of lessons the day before, Courtney had decided to interrogate Lambert about his missing time and the destruction of the artefact at lunchtime. She had not wanted to wait until after school.
‘Should be. And that’s it.’
It was a single-storey house rendered in off-white. A broad window at the front showed an apparently empty lounge. There was a front door set under a portico which Courtney headed for.
‘No signs of life,’ she commented as they approached.
‘His daughter’s at school,’ Kyle said. ‘His wife should be at home.’
‘Yeah, his daughter’s at school.’ One of the reasons that Courtney had not wanted to wait until lessons were over was the message she had received from Joslyn Harris, the vice principal. It had been a little vague, but basically it had come down to Bethany Stenger being convinced that the man who had come home the night before was not her father. Bethany had, apparently, been rather vague herself, but she had said one thing which made her story seem a little more reasonable: she had told that man that she was having a sleepover with a girl called Adaline and he had claimed to remember that. There was no girl in her class called Adaline and no sleepover had been arranged. The kid was smart for an eight-year-old. ‘Okay, let’s take this easy at first
