"What was I thinking just now?"
The woman frowned. In her mid-thirties, not tall, trim, she wandered through the semi-darkness, absorbed in herself.
"I was definitely thinking about something."
She strained her memory further. Nothing. No general idea, no image, no stray detail to seize upon — only a dark abyss opening before her inner sight. Like a dream that lingers vividly while the eyes are still closed — so convincing, though the mind already knows it was only a dream — and then dissolves utterly the instant daylight strikes the retina, however real it had seemed; so the thought had sunk into that abyss, whose depth she had not yet grasped, and vanished simply because her eyes were already open.
"Where am I?"
She lifted her head and looked about. A dimly lit square, not large, resembling countless old town squares paved in cobbles; a stele or fountain at its centre; low stone houses pressed close together, save for one rising above the rest with a narrow tower. Night — though more likely late evening, for the square was far from empty.
"What place is this? How did I get here? Why? From where?" flickered through her mind.
She turned and stared into the dark alley from which she had emerged, trying to reach backwards with her eyes — to remember herself five, ten, fifteen minutes ago. Nothing came.
"Miss? Miss?" an insistent voice called. "Do you need help?"
Two men stood behind her.
Help?
On the one hand, she could scarcely imagine what strangers might do for her — she was not about to ask the name of the town, unless perhaps the location of a police station. On the other, a single glance at them was enough to know she wanted no involvement whatsoever. It was in the look. Yes — impertinent, predatory. And the same grin on both faces.
"No, I'm fine. Thank you."
"Are you sure…" one of them persisted, "that you're not lost?"
"I am. It's quite all right. I'm waiting for a friend — he's late, that's all." She half turned away, letting her gaze drift past them in a quiet signal that the conversation was over.
"What's your name?"
She was about to object to the familiarity when their eyes met. She froze.
Fear rose into her throat — because she could not remember herself a year ago. Nor five. Nor ten. She did not merely fail to know where she was, or where she had come from, or where she was going. She did not know who she was.
Strangely, she felt that this was not the first time.
"Show me your papers."
Her hands flew automatically to her left hip, where her bag usually hung. It was not there. "Why on earth should I show them my documents? They're not police — no uniforms, no badges… Wait — something like a sheriff's star." She checked her back pockets. "Can't see what it says in this light." She patted her jacket.
"I think I left them at home."
"Oh, really. How careless. And where do you live?"
She looked at him blankly.
"Who are you? A witch? Then show us your wand. You couldn't have forgotten that. Not a witch? Then what — vampire, werewolf, squib…?"
He went on listing creatures whose names meant nothing to her. It hardly mattered now. They were mocking her — that much was clear. She began glancing about nervously, hoping someone might intervene. Yet the longer she stared into the dimness, the stranger everything seemed.
The lantern flames trembled — "gaslight?" Myriads of stars burned above — "no city glow, no motorway nearby." There was not a single car in the square; instead of engines she heard the click of canes and the tap of umbrella ferrules on stone. People wore long cloaks rather than coats or parkas; bowlers, top hats, bonnets — not caps. They paused, drew something gleaming from their breast pockets and glanced up at the tower — "checking the time by the town hall clock. My God… when am I?"
It was not the square that looked out of place. It was her. Skinny jeans. An oversized hoodie. Perhaps the leather boots — and the jacket — might have helped a little. These two wore leather as well, though in combinations she could not begin to decipher: tartan wool trousers narrowing at the ankle, violently coloured waistcoats — something between… punks… and rockers. But why laugh at her? They were not boys.
Declaring herself a witch — in any century — felt dangerous. Still studying one man's clothes, she began cautiously,
"I'm not…"
Suddenly, she noticed the crossing straps over his torso. And from one loop at his side protruded a slender, elegant stick. "What the…"
Their eyes met. The fear on her face was no longer concealed. He bared his teeth in something very like a grin. She forced herself to look away, to take in the square again.
Light flared in a nearby window: an elderly woman was lighting candles in a heavy candelabrum, touching each wick with a long taper — without flame. A bell rang somewhere, followed by a call: "Mister! You forgot your parcel!" The 'mister' waved his hand; a large box floated from the open doorway towards him. An unharnessed gig creaked past.
"I'm…"
A sharp pop. A man appeared from nowhere and stepped into a shop as though he had simply turned a corner. A young fellow tapped his palm with a… wand? — and a flaming heart took wing on pigeon-feathers into the hands of his beloved. Sparks leapt from beneath another lad's shortened cloak and struck the cobbles at his companion's feet; he stumbled.
"Not a witch," the patrolman said with certainty.
"I couldn't go outside without a wand," the woman recalled his words, and she began to tremble. "What was he listing? I'm…" She seemed almost to have settled on an answer, when the moon slipped free of the clouds and drew every gaze with its sudden brightness. It was full. "Damn it."
"Not a werewolf either," the second declared.
"Then who are you?"
"Who am I?!" She bit her lip. "I… you see, I have memory problems. It's a serious condition. A very frightening one. I don't remember who I am. I don't know where I live or how I got here. I…"
"Evelyn?"
The voice came from some distance away. It spoke the name with the slightest hesitation, yet remained firm and composed.
"Thank God. A familiar face at last."
Relief washed through her — and vanished almost at once. A box hovered in the air beside the man who had addressed her: the same box that had floated out of the post office door. She refrained from leaning forward.
"Or so it seems…"
She looked at him more closely.
"No. I know him. I'm certain I do. But how? I don't remember. I don't remember anything. At least he knows my name. Unlike me. Although… I answered to it..."
For several long seconds the familiar stranger studied her eyes with quiet attention.
"What are you doing here? How did you get here? I was certain you were waiting for me at home, as we agreed."
His tone was not patronising. It carried concern — and respect. It steadied her.
"Gentlemen," he said to the patrolmen — and only a very attentive ear might have caught the contempt beneath the courtesy. "This is Miss Greenwood, an old acquaintance of mine. She suffers from a memory-related illness and is presently in an acute phase. The moon is known to affect more than werewolves. Miss sought my help and has been staying at my house for some time."
She stared at her prospective rescuer.
"I know that voice. That cold, authoritative voice. But from where?"
"Miss doesn't appear to recognise you," one of the patrolmen observed.
"That would be entirely consistent with what I have just explained. Wouldn't it?" the man replied. This time the contempt was undisguised.
"If he had looked at me like that, I would have sunk through the cobbles," she thought — and suddenly felt like a student answering before a crowded hall, though in truth speaking only to one man. "But he isn't old enough to have been my professor."
And yet he was not young.
Nor especially handsome. Nor meticulously groomed. Nor elegantly dressed. Beneath his unfastened mantle she glimpsed black garments, the long tails spattered with damp road-mud.
"Has he come straight from travelling?"
With his dark hair and austere clothing he resembled a hermit monk. Yet his bearing — that restrained self-possession which confirmed rather than advertised itself — set him unmistakably above the others in the square.
She felt oddly flattered: to be claimed as an acquaintance by such a man. Or, if he were lying, to be deemed worthy of so deliberate a lie.
He went on speaking, and it was clear that the patrolmen knew him — and bewared him. As he spoke, he drew gradually closer to her. At last he stood beside her and lifted his hand to the level of her shoulder blade. He did not touch her, yet his open palm seemed to radiate something — a current directed outward, protective. Now. In the future. In the past. Always. She felt it without understanding how one could possibly know such a thing.
"I trust I have answered all your questions. In any case, you know my address."
She had barely returned to herself when the fingers of her defender's hand closed around her shoulder — firm, unyielding — and, with effortless ease, as though she weighed nothing at all, he pulled her into a whirl of motion.
"Damn it! We still haven't determined her nature"
"She's a witch, without doubt. Surprised, yes — but not as someone seeing magic for the first time. She was more unsettled by the gaps in her memory. At worst, a squib — and that's no crime. Yet. If you wish, we can call at his house. But are you certain you want to cross him?"
The centre of the vortex was her rescuer.
Horrified, she clutched at the hands hidden beneath the cloak and looked up at the 'monk's' face. It seemed utterly detached. The box spun around them as well, but watching it quickly made her nauseous. With a low, helpless sound she pressed her forehead against his chest. Nearer the axis of the turning, her balance steadied somewhat, and she breathed more evenly.
Yet when the spinning ceased and solid ground returned beneath her feet, the sickness surged back. She bent double, gasping, retreating a step in search of support, fighting the urge to retch.
"Here. Drink this — you'll feel better at once."
Cold fingers caught her searching hand and placed a small smooth vial in it. Without hesitation she swallowed its contents. The nausea vanished instantly.
She straightened, tense. What she had seen — what she had experienced — made her look about her again, wary.
They were indoors. By all appearances, in the sitting room of a modest house.
"What was that? All of it. Magic?"
The 'monk' did not answer. He appeared as unsettled as she was, studying her with the same mixture of intensity and disbelief with which she had studied him in the square.
"Who are you?" she asked before he could speak.
"Haven't we met before?" The voice, earlier hard and cool, was unexpectedly gentle.
"I don't know." The tension left her brow; her voice softened, as did her gaze. She realised they were experiencing something very similar. Almost. "So you lied to the patrolmen."
"I wouldn't put it quite so plainly. In any case, you are in my house now, and I strongly advise you not to leave it until you remember who you are."
The words might have been meant lightly. Yet it seemed he was not accustomed to joking — or did not know how. The result carried more warmth than irony. She felt touched. Not so much by the warmth itself, as by the fact that it did not appear to be habitual in him.
"Well then. I suppose I should commend you?"
"Accepted," the 'monk' replied simply, inclining his head slightly, and went on in an even tone. "The servant is not here at present, so I shall leave you for a moment to prepare a guest room…"
"I can manage myself, if…"
"Rest. Regain your bearings." He was about to go, then turned back. "Make yourself at home." He did not know why he felt compelled to add that.
He left.
When he returned, something in his chest tightened.
How many times had he seen this scene? She stood half-turned towards him, an ancient, weighty volume in her hands, her attentive gaze moving slowly across the lines, a look of delighted absorption on her face, capable of preserving its freshness against all odds. How many times.
But when?
Even earlier, standing at the post office window waiting for his parcel, he had noticed a familiar profile, a familiar expression: tense, unsettled — yet not panicked.
How?
"Do you read Latin?"
She did not look up from the book and so did not see the flicker of confusion — now edged with something like nostalgia — that crossed his face.
"Yes." He fell silent for a moment, then, realising the brevity might sound curt, added, "It is part of my life… work." He gestured towards the shelves beside her. "I am… the closest term you might recognise would be 'pharmacist'."
"Pharmacist?" She lifted her brows sceptically. "It looks more like alchemy. Are you trying to cure the body by refining the soul?"
"You know about alchemy?" He seemed genuinely surprised.
"No more than I know about magic," she dismissed lightly. "Only from films and novels. But tell me — is it possible to perfect anyone's soul but one's own?"
He smiled, almost indulgently.
"We shall certainly discuss that. But it is late, and I can only imagine how exhausting this day has been for you. Come — I'll show you your room. And no objections," he added, forestalling protest. "From this moment, I am your attending physician."
She pulled a face like a sulking child, then shrugged, replaced the book on the shelf, and followed him into the hall and up the stairs.
The room was small — her gaze fell almost at once upon the window — and plainly furnished. A bed occupied most of the space. Behind it, beneath the window, stood a desk with drawers, its surface entirely bare. Beside the door, a wardrobe with a mirrored panel; beyond it, a door to the bathroom. A bedside table held a lamp, a carafe of water, and a key. On the bed lay towels, toiletries, a hairbrush, and even a set of pyjamas — which, as she would later discover, were precisely her size.
As the 'patient' surveyed the room, she could not fail to notice that, though his expression remained perfectly impassive, her 'physician' was holding his breath.
"Perfect," she said with a small smile. "It seems I have everything I might need. Thank you."
"The servant will return tomorrow and can provide anything further. Rest. Do not think about anything tonight."
And he withdrew.
Descending into the living room — which was also his library — he sank into the armchair beside the small fireplace. Leaning back against its high back, he closed his eyes.
He tried to think clearly about the strangeness that overtook him in this woman's presence.
Each time she came close, his ordinarily steady heartbeat faltered and quickened — he had nearly lost his way when she had pressed her forehead to his chest. And whenever she looked directly into his eyes, he felt an almost physical urge to cross the distance between them, draw her into his arms, and kiss her.
As far back as he could remember, he had never experienced such impulses.
Not entirely true.
There had been one woman.
Not his.
And she had died.
Long ago.
It was not her.
Then why?
The following morning he rose earlier than usual in order to give particular instructions about breakfast.
When he entered the kitchen, the house-elf was already bustling about — she had returned from the market and was distributing provisions among cupboards, shelves, cool chests and ice-boxes. At the sight of her master, she snapped her fingers; the objects that had been hovering in mid-air flew at once to their proper places. She hurried forward to report.
Everything had proceeded without incident the previous evening. She had delivered his message word for word. Events had unfolded precisely as anticipated.
"Good." He realised he had almost forgotten the matter and reproached himself. "That's good."
He did not move. The elf waited patiently while he drifted, in thought, back to that place and that hour. After a moment he returned to the present.
"Today, prepare breakfast for two — something that will keep. We have a guest; she may sleep late. I'll have mine at the usual time. Any questions?"
"No, sir, none!" The elf smoothed the keen curiosity from her expression. Overnight guests in this house were rare; a female guest, likely unprecedented. Yet given her master's habits and temperament, speculation promised little reward.
"Very well. I'll be in the library."
A rolled newspaper flew from near the front door into his outstretched hand. He turned and left with long, noiseless strides.
He always took his meals in the library, without lifting his eyes from a newspaper, book, or manuscript; reading, translating, annotating at the tall writing desk; without appetite, without indulgence, without wasting time. The elf served wherever he happened to be. But when it came to practical work, he tolerated nothing extraneous — no object, no presence.
Silently, she placed the breakfast tray upon the small table beside his armchair and made to withdraw.
"Tinker?"
"Yes, master?"
"I trust I need not remind you that what occurs in this house is not intended for other ears."
"No, of course not, master."
She waited for a while, but her master's face did not show from behind the newspaper, so she tried to leave again.
"Tinker."
The elf's ears lifted; something in his voice had shifted.
"This guest… this woman… She is a good person. That is why I am asking you to keep silent."
The sun rose over the low roofs of the town and shone straight through the second-floor bedroom window. On the eastern side the house bordered a vacant lot, so nothing blocked the light; it lingered there through the whole morning — ideal for larks such as the owner. Less so for owls, such as his guest. She would have to get up.
"Perhaps it's for the best," the woman thought. "I slept well. And I'm starving." She drew in a slow breath. "And something smells delicious downstairs." At last she opened her eyes. "I'm still in this house… And I still remember nothing." She exhaled in frustration. "All right. Relax. There's nothing to do but go along with it and look around."
Having resolved that, she washed — she always showered before bed — dressed, and went downstairs, deliberately making as much noise as she could so as not to startle anyone. For some reason she was certain she would be the last to rise. Yet, perversely, not a stair creaked beneath her; even the thud of her boots was swallowed by the narrow runner laid along the steps.
She paused at the open door of the sitting room. The man was already there, standing at a tall desk with a large open volume propped before him. His fingers moved slowly along the dense lines on the yellowed pages while he made notes in a notebook. He did not notice her at once; and when he did, he neither moved nor spoke, seeing that she was studying him with the strained look of someone trying to recall something just beyond reach.
"You remind me of a painting," she said at last, still half-absorbed. Then, brushing the thought aside with a faint smile: "By one of the Old Masters, perhaps."
"I expected you later," he said, by way of explanation. "Did something wake you?"
"No. I simply slept enough. I followed your advice and tried not to think."
The silence that followed was too brief to grow awkward. It was broken by the maid, who had heard the guest's voice.
"Excuse me, will Miss be taking breakfast in the kitchen or—" The thin, high voice cut off the moment 'Miss' turned round. "Young mistress?… Miss Evelyn?!"
The woman did not know what startled her more: the small creature before her, the way it addressed her and flung itself forward in delight, or the echo of "Evelyn?" from behind her.
"You called me that yesterday. You said my name was Evelyn Greenwood."
"I… yes." The man rarely found himself at a loss, but now he did. That his maid knew the guest; that the name which had sprung to his mind the previous evening proved to be correct; and the sudden, hard look in the woman's eyes — so different from the warmth she had shown him moments ago — unsettled him in a way he did not like. "I told the patrolmen that. It came to me on impulse. I didn't know…"
"How do you know me?" Without waiting for his explanation to finish, she turned to the elf clinging to her legs. "I don't remember meeting you at all."
"Of course you don't, you've had your memory erased. Oyyy!"
"I've had what?"
"Oy, oy, oy. I shouldn't have said that. It's not right, it's not good. You mustn't know about it — it's bad for you, for your psyche, for—" The elf spun on the spot, stamping, fluttering her hands as though trying to quiet a yardful of hens rather than herself.
"Why? By whom?" The woman shot a sharp look at the host.
"But perhaps I won't get into trouble," the maid babbled on. "It didn't happen here. It happened in another space of choices…"
"Where?" Her master had recovered from his stupor. "What are you talking about? Have you lost your senses?"
"O-o-oh…" The elf grew more distressed still. "No, please don't ask me anything. I can't speak of it, I truly can't. I'll get into dreadful trouble with the Department… Oh, be quiet! Please don't ask, please."
She tugged at 'Miss Evelyn's' clothes and looked up at her with enormous, shining eyes — eyes so full of trust, of certainty that her young mistress would never wish her harm, would always defend her, would understand and forgive — that the woman knew at once there must be reason for it. She knelt and gently took the elf's small hands, which opened and closed in agitation, into her own.
"At least explain what you have already said."
A little calmer now, though still glancing about and occasionally at her master, the elf began:
"We house-elves can slip past the boundaries set not only by magic, but by choice. In truth, it is chiefly the latter; the former follows from it. We exist in all spaces at once. You are not from this one. You come from a reality shaped by different choices. And there, we parted long ago. I do not know how you came here."
"But you know which 'space' I came from. Can you take me back?"
"I'm afraid not." The elf's large ears drooped in guilt.
"Why?"
"Somehow you have crossed time as well. And time is not subject to us."
"Time…" came his voice from behind her.
"Time…" she repeated slowly, as something stirred at the edge of memory. "Time!" With a sudden exclamation she reached into the pocket of her jacket and drew out a gilded object on a chain — a strange fusion of hourglass and ancient calendar disc. She stared at it for several seconds. And then… "Professor?"
In another moment his eyes hovered over those of his potentially former student — astonished, only faintly afraid — and his hands had closed firmly on her shoulders. An instant later he bent and pressed his lips to hers. He tried to make the kiss fervent; her lips did not answer, though neither did she pull away. Very soon he tasted salt.
"Am I repulsive to you?" He drew back, turning his face aside.
"No," she said, looking straight at him.
"But you feel nothing for me."
"I do." He lifted his head — only to be checked at once. "And that makes it worse."
"Why?"
"Because I'm married."
He released her left shoulder and caught that hand instead.
"The other one," she said quietly.
He let go and, more gently now, slid his palm over the hand that held the fragile object.
"Divorced? Widowed?" he asked, hope breaking through.
"No." She shook her head.
"In another world, in another time," he urged.
"It doesn't matter. I have to return there."
His fingers tightened.
"Don't go back. Stay here. Am I not the teacher you knew everything about, the one you worried for? Am I not your mentor, to whom you entrusted your thoughts — even your dreams? Am I not the portrait that was always in its place — never sleeping, always ready to offer support, advice… or to withhold it? Am I not the friend on whom you relied when you went down into the dungeons? Am I a different man here?"
His gaze pleaded, but she could not answer that plea. Gently furrowing her brow — not in rejection, but in sympathy — she seized upon a single thread.
"How did you know about the portrait? From the standpoint of these days, that lies far in the future."
"I read it in your thoughts." There was no shame in his voice, only the faintest trace in his eyes.
"Then you know how you came to be there," she said, after a brief pause. "Look for me in the world where we both chose to live."
"But I am too old for you there."
"Then in the one where that does not matter to me."
"Does such a world exist?"
She raised her hand and lightly brushed his cheek.
"Don't hesitate."