“Then you may be the first to do so in a very long time,” Edwina said, dipping her head in deference, a gesture that he returned.
Something unspoken had been conveyed, something bewitched between the two of them. Ian understood nothing of the accord they’d negotiated, yet it seemed to settle Elvanfoot on the matter.
“Come,” Elvanfoot said. “We must make haste.” After conferring with his spell book one more time, he asked for a lock of Ian’s hair, something of solid gold, which Edwina provided, and a jar of ginseng, which she did not.
“I have no such herb,” she said in alarm as she handed over the gold ring she’d found on the foreshore to use in the spell.
Elvanfoot tapped his finger on an apparent substitute listed in his spell book. “Root of ashwagandha will do,” he said, looking up in expectation.
His request was met with not one but two faces reflecting ignorance of such a substance.
The old witch read his third choice. “Surely, you must have leaf of lemon balm in stock.”
To everyone’s great relief, Edwina fetched a packet of the dried leaves, proclaiming them to be as potent as newly picked.
Ian reached for the knife in his pocket so he might cut off an inch of the required hair, but the weapon wasn’t there. “The knife,” he said, patting his pockets. “It’s gone.” He quickly thought back to the last time he’d seen it for certain and landed on an image of himself standing outside the doss-house before he ended up lying in bed upstairs in a fever dream of someone else’s mind. Perhaps it had fallen out of his pocket, lost in the cab or in the crease of a blanket.
Edwina approached him with a pair of scissors from her cupboard. “May I?” Her hand swept the side of his face as she collected a twist of his hair in her fingers. Her face came close enough to his for him to smell the flowery pomade she massaged in her own hair. The nearness of her skin, mouth, and eyes to his kindled his desire. He swallowed, wondering which forgotten memory of the flesh had been resurrected. Whatever the source, he could no longer deny the pleasantness of her body next to his.
Edwina snipped the lock of hair, letting it curl around her finger until she dropped it beside the gold ring. Elvanfoot crushed the dried leaves of lemon balm and sprinkled the flakes into a small porcelain bowl he’d snatched off a shelf.
“A candle, if you please.”
Edwina lit a beeswax candle in a brass holder with the snap of her fingers. Her attention briefly flitted to the front of the store, where the odd boy cupped his hands around his eyes and pressed his face to the window.
“Never mind the mortals outside,” Elvanfoot said. “They can see nothing of our business here. Only shadows of an empty shop.” The witch cleared a space on the counter for the baubles, cleansed the air above with the smoke from the candle, then put the ring, hair, and crushed leaves in a pile together. “It’s a variant of a common attraction spell. The leaf will help boost the power of memory. The hair will attract like to like, meaning you,” he said to Ian. “And, with a wee bit of luck, the gold will enable the energy to flow between the two. If all goes as planned, the rightful memory will make itself known so that we may restore it.”
The detailed preparation settled Ian. He no longer blamed Edwina for her part in the false memory he’d been given. Looking at the collection of stolen memories, he understood the challenge she’d faced and reasoned she’d tried to restore his mind in good faith, choosing the one she felt most confident about. It was plain, both then and now, how she’d defied her sister’s nature to see the right thing done. He stepped up to the counter ready to risk the process of recovering what he’d lost all over again, despite the sliver of doubt reminding him of the feel of the phantom knife sliding across his throat.
Elvanfoot had been brushing his beard absentmindedly as he peered one last time at his book. Seemingly ready, he nodded and looked up. “Let us begin.”
“Begin what?” Mary stood on the third stair from the bottom. Her hair was a tangled mess from sleeping. A bruise on her left cheek had blossomed into a purple rose. Edwina went to her, hoping to offer comfort, but those eyes full of smoke tracked to the old witch and the items arranged on the counter. “What’s going on? Why do you have my things?”
“We need to return Ian’s memory to him,” Edwina said. “The correct one.”
Mary ran down the last few steps, agitation and disbelief flaring in her eyes. “Those are mine. You can’t just take them.”