groovygamers.com

Colin looks around for Shelia at school during a lunch break.

"Hi, Shelia. Have you got a minute? There's something I'd like to talk with you about."

"Sure Colin, what's up?"  Shelia's mood has been better over the last few weeks.  She has her ups and downs but for the most part she's doing alright.

Colin looks around to make sure nobody's listening. "It's about the letter that Vandross wanted you to send him and made you forget about. There might be a way to help you remember. To find out how you met him and maybe who he is."

Her mood darkens, but she nods slowly.  "Alright, if you think it'll help.  What do I need to do?"

"Not much. You remember Sylvia? You should have a talk with her. Can you drop by the newspaper room after classes are over? I'll explain it better to you there."

"Sure.  I'll see you then."


Later on, after the last bell, Shelia makes her way into the Husky News office.

Sylvia goes over copy at a work station.  "They're . . . there . . . their . . . it's . . . they're. . . . "  And without turning around, eerily enough, she says, "Hi, Shelia.  Have a seat."

Colin looks up from the mac he uses to work at the graphics and welcomes Shelia with a smile.

"Oh, Shelia. Yes, take a seat." He goes grabbing a chair for her.

"I owe you an explanation. Well, it's simple really. Sylvia... can read minds. If your memories are still there, she might be able to find them."

He looks at Shelia to evaluate her reaction.

"She won't go poking around or looking for your secrets. Just what happened with the letter."

Shelia looks a little nervous as she sits down.  "Okay, I suppose.  Should I think about anything in particular, or maybe not think of anything?"

Sylvia presses her lips into a flat line, thinking it through.  "I don't suppose you do yoga or anything like that?  You know, meditate?"

"I do some deep relaxation stuff.  I'm, well, my folks and I are seeing therapists to help deal with Rory's death.  I do these deep relaxation exercises to help cope sometimes.  You want me to do that?"

"Yes, please. It might make things easier."

Shelia gets comfortable in the chair and then closes her eyes.  She takes a few deep breaths, letting them out slowly and deeply.  Sylvia can feel her relaxing, a tension fades from the room.

Sylvia finds her breath synchronizing with Shelia's.  Inhale.  Exhale.  And then, like a free diver, she plunges past the silvery surface of Shelia's thoughts and kicks into the deep blue in search of hidden monsters.  "We're going back," she says in a quiet, soothing voice.  "We're going back to the last time you saw the card.  The last time.  The card."

It's as though Sylvia is watching two movies at the same time.  In the first one, the one that's clear to see, Shelia is doing her homework and eating some cookies.  In the second, the movie underneath the first one, Shelia is taking the card from the binder in her brother's room.  The name of the card and the set it's from are on a slip of paper on the desk, and she keeps looking back at it to make sure she gets the right one.  Then the card goes into an envelope.  Shelia flips the piece of paper over and copies the address written there onto the envelope, along with the name Emile Vandross.  Then she puts the envelope in the outgoing mail and goes back to the table where her homework is, then their is only the one clear movie of her doing her homework.

But why would she do something like that?  Sylvia tries to follow the memory backward.  Her verbal cues become a telepathic litany.  And before that? she asks Shelia.  What happened before that?  Who planted the command in Rory's sister?  When?  And how?

Sylvia is trepidatious but takes comfort from the knowledge that her psychic Superman will come after her if she gets lost in the maze of the human mind.

There are flashes of inconsistent moments that don't fit properly in the movie of Shelia's day.  Like snapshots from another life, taped to the underside of her memories.  One moments she's taking the slip of paper from her locker, the one with the information about the card and the address.  In another moment she's walking towards the back of the library, and there is someone there, holding a cell phone.  She doesn't recognize the person, but then who could, in the memory he's not a person at all but a cardboard cutout with not features.  That is the moment when all her altered memories begin, everything before that is normal, and after she gets rid of the card everything returns to normal.

Sylvia treats the memory of the cardboard cutout like a time bomb.  She's wary of failsafes, worried that whoever meddled with Shelia's memories may yet have the ability to hurt her.  But she can't leave it alone.  She digs at the memory, trying to find the truth behind it--the real face, the real name.

There is nothing there, except for the cell phone.  It's like she remembers a person that isn't real.

Sylvia fixes on the cell phone and tries to run further back through Shelia's memory.  Who called her most recently?  What did they say?

There is nothing there that seems to lead anywhere.  The cell phone is a persistent image, perhaps the only thing about the person that is real, the only detail that isn't fabricated about them in her memory.

Sylvia glances at Colin and transmits what she's seen.  He's not real.  The only thing that feels real is the phone.

Colin's shoulder fall in disappointment. "Well, at least we tried.". He touches Shelia's hand. "We're done, Shelia. I'm not sure what we learned. Thank you, though. You've been great."

"I hope it helped, whatever it is you learned."

"Every little bit helps. I hoped for more, though. He's good at covering his tracks. We have to be smarter."