Shauna stood outside the Bed and Breakfast, looking up and down the main street. She looked for moments frozen in time and tried to capture the memories that she should have. The street looked narrower than in her vague memories and the buildings smaller. “But that might be the perspective of a child over an adult.” She thought.

Down south, a row of small shops that seemed to have evaded time brought back a few memories. Turning north, her memory faded unexpectedly, it was like that part of town didn’t exist for her. “Yes, this is what I need to face.” She thought.

Shay’s mind shot back a few months. She found herself in front of a brownstone, an unremarkable building that was the first thing that she could really remember. At that time, she looked down at her hands and saw changes in them that she didn’t recognize. The car she was driving was pretty ordinary, but she didn’t recognize it either. She glanced in the rear mirror and saw a semi-familiar face, but one more reminiscent of her mother than herself. She sat there not sure what to do, or what she was feeling, but the feeling of being awake wouldn’t leave her. She just sat there. After a while, a woman came out of the brownstone and approached her car.

The woman was as remarkable as the building was unremarkable, her sheer vitality seemed to make her glow to Shay.

“Do you need some help?”

Shauna stuttered, “I don’t know!”

Those three words turned into being ensconced in a very nice furnished apartment on the second floor of the four-story brownstone. Myn’s wife, Sally, was cooking, and the contents of her car were spread all over a table. The conversation turned stranger from there.

“This is nuts!” Shay said with feeling.

“Shauna, how old are you?”

“I’m 18, and I am due to graduate High School in 8 months.”

Sally looked up at that and then went back to what she was doing. Myn looked closely at Shay with a look Sally had only seen once before. It sent a shiver up her back remembering Alicia! Before Sally could think further about that, Myn asked a question that hadn’t occurred to Sally. It reminded her that Myn always seemed a step ahead and aware of things no one else saw.

“What’s the date?” Myn asked carefully.

“October 29, 1999, why?” At that, both women looked at her until she couldn’t stand it. “What?”

“Sharon, you are driving a 2012 Honda Accord.”

”2012? You’re crazy.”

It had got crazier because it was 2019, but it started to add up quickly. Therapy helped, but it still took a while to piece together nearly twenty years, 19 different places, and a bunch of different jobs — that all spiraled to this place once plotted on a map in reverse order. Sally was the first one to spot the pattern, but Myn acted like she was expecting it. The center of the spiral was this small town, the one Shay was now standing in.

Shay was from here, went to high school here, and left suddenly with no explanation and only pieces of memory were slowly coming back. She lived at Myn and Sally’s place for six months, talking to a therapist friend of Myn’s, and even shared their bed often. It seemed both strange and thrilling and also one way of stopping the nightmares that plagued her at night.

She walked to a small coffee shop that had been an ice cream parlor. Breakfast was toast and coffee delivered by a harried lady a few years older than herself. She reminded Shay of someone, but the face was also too fuzzy to make out. She also bought a local paper, but it didn’t seem like she remembered. It was small, only eighteen pages, and loaded with ads. The comics were skimpy, but she clearly remembered reading them with ... someone else! The date rang a bell, Oct 29th, but why it rang didn’t come to her. It was the same day she had given to Myn before discovering she had ... misplaced ... twenty years.

Walking she reached the southern end of Main Street quickly. The parking meters were gone and the traffic lanes wider. Parking was now around the back of the shops. She took a pause and returned to the town center. She looked north and it was unrecognizable, it was like she never went in this direction when she was younger. “How can a whole half of a town not seem to exist?”

Shay opened her phone to a blurry picture Sally found online. It was a younger Shay standing next to someone else. The weirdest thing was the first time Sally showed her the image, she couldn’t even see anyone else in the photo. Both Sally and Myn swore there were two people in the picture and she saw only one. It was a month later when she started seeing the outline of another person. Slowly, over the months, the image resolved to two people, only the face of the other was blurred. Every day she looked at the photo because it seemed very important and every day she could see more. Suddenly Shay realized she could see the other’s eyes. They were sharp, a lovely brown, and round shape, more than Shay’s slight Asian tilt. She knew those eyes, but she had no idea from where.

“One day at a time, one word at a time, and one memory at a time” was a phrase she and Myn had coined to explain what she needed to go through.

Myn’s face with a wry grin came into her mind and she calmed down. Their faces always calmed her considerably. For a second she felt the urge to go back to them, but she also knew that she was closer to knowing something! To turn back now would be a mistake. She smiled thinking about Myn heading to her basement workshop, the one part of the brownstone even Sally didn’t venture.

Shay went back to the B&B while trying to avoid gazing directly northward of the town center. No, she realized, not just north, but slightly east. It was something on the east side of the road, or at least toward the east that refused to come into focus. She retreated to the B&B to think about this. She opened her laptop and called up a map app. She looked at an aerial view of the small town and saw a discrepancy, no not a discrepancy but a blank spot. “Why hadn’t I looked at the aerial view before? The satellite view looked normal, but the map view showed a blank spot where none should exist. It looked empty, but the satellite view showed a street and a large house on a much larger property.”

The lady who ran the B&B was refilling the coffee pot in the common room. Shay smiled at her and asked about the large estate north of the town center.

“You’re mistaken, there are no estates north of town. You have to go clean to the next town to hit something you might call an estate.”

Shay thought about arguing, but decided it wasn’t the time. It was like the woman had the same blind spot she had. “I guess so. Thanks, I think I’ll take a walk.”

“You might try the park over one block. They’re getting ready for the town Halloween party,” the lady said helpfully.

Shay left and initially turned south without thinking. She remembered the park was down a block and over one. She deliberately turned north and started walking along the west side of the street. She took her time and several blocks up she realized she was a block past what the satellite view showed her. Coming back, she again was past it without realizing it. She proceeded back toward the center of town. Something felt wrong, not what she was doing, but the timing. She wasn’t sure what that meant, but in the past few months, she trusted her gut more. “Myn’s influence, I’m sure!”

Shay spent the next day exploring the rest of the town. There was a small police station Shay didn’t remember at all. She decided to step in and was faced with a bulletin board. She scanned it briefly and suddenly stopped in her tracks. “The eyes!” She knew those eyes. She pulled out her phone and brought up the picture again. For the first time, it looked complete to her. The girl standing next to her was the one on the poster. Her name was right on the tip of Shay’s tongue before she read the poster. “Linda, Linda Huaer”

It was like the name was a floodgate and so much more came back. Shay stood with one hand against the wall steadying herself. A policeman came in and saw her standing there.

“Ma’am, do you need some help?”

Shay turned and nearly fell down. The officer was someone she knew, Tom Hollister, she remembered him from High School.

“No thanks, just looking at the board. This one looks old.” Shay pointed at Linda’s poster.

He looked, “I don’t know about that one. It was before I became a cop. She looked like a pretty girl. Did you know her?”

“Yes, we went to school together. You didn’t know her?”

“I don’t think so. The name doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Well thanks, Officer. I’ll just be on my way, pretty town you have here.”

He smiled a smile Shay knew well. She should, Tom was Linda’s boyfriend for the last two years of school. Yet like her own spotty memory, Tom didn’t remember Linda, didn’t remember dating her, and didn’t remember her disappearing. Shay went back outside and sat on a small bench. She had to sit down. The poster did it, it all came rushing back. She sat there trying to make sense, but it was too jumbled just yet. She had lunch at the small diner and settled back to think.

Halloween Day dawned bright and clear. Shay took one last look at her online map and looking down at the ground she counted her steps, stopping in the middle of the block, trying her best to ignore everything around her. She stood straight up and turned to the right. There was a haze in front of her on the other side of the street. She pulled six small items from her bag and tossed them in a straight line across the street.

Focusing on the small chalk markers, she went across the street without looking up. Luckily it was a small town with little traffic. When she got to the other side, she closed her eyes and stepped up on the curb. Still facing away from the street, she advanced several steps and opened her eyes, there was a large gate right in front of her and a path leading up to a mostly dilapidated house, more of a mansion than just a house.

Shay didn’t smile because she had seen that house before, just once. She remembered everything, including standing here with her best friend, a girl she loved more than she had ever told her. They both looked at the house like it was daring them to enter. They did, but only one left!

She went through the gate. It wasn’t locked, just rusted. It made a horrendous noise, but she ignored it. The path was uneven, but it didn’t stop her from making her way to the massive door. In the center were two handles, a simple turn and push opened the right door wide that first time. This time the handle moved very slowly, almost reluctantly, but it did turn. She opened the door, took a breath, and stepped through. Twenty years ago she and Linda stepped into Hell, but this time the entryway was empty and partly in ruins. She stood there waiting for something, something she knew would come soon. She stepped to the center of the entry and waited while remembering. Twenty years ago it was almost like they were drawn in and the door slammed behind them cutting off the setting sun.

Linda seemed to move forward eagerly, while Shay hung back. The décor was weird, blacks and reds in constant motion. There seemed to be more people than the entryway could hold, like a party, but silent. One person stood still looking right at them. A tall, raven-haired woman with piercing dark eyes and a mouth with a smile Shay would have never found friendly. She looked at both of them, no, she was looking right at Linda and Linda was looking right back. She kept moving forward and pulled her hand out of Shay’s.

“Linda, what are you doing?”

But Linda wasn’t listening. She went right up to the woman who opened her arms as if Linda was expected. Her mouth came down and those red lips kissed Linda. Shay was scared and also furious. For four years she suffered as Linda dated several different guys, not only never giving a hint she might like a woman, let alone her best friend! At the same time, Shay was confused by this.

The kiss continued, and Shay could see Linda was enjoying it, the woman’s arms held her close, and then slipped down into the jeans Linda was wearing, deeper and deeper until Shay saw Linda stiffen. The woman broke the kiss and those red lips went to Linda’s ear.

“Come for me, my kitten,” a very ethereal voice said. Linda’s jeans slid down over her ass. The woman’s hand was inside Linda’s panties and rubbing her pussy from behind.

“Come for me, now!”

Shay could only watch as Linda quickly orgasmed. She clung to the woman as she came. The woman smiled another smile that scared Shay. Slowly the woman turned Linda around to face Shay. Her top and bra were pulled up and the woman was cupping Linda’s breasts. Linda kept her head turned, refusing to break eye contact with the woman as she was turned.

“Look at your friend.”

Linda looked back at Shay, but this was a Linda she barely recognized. The orgasm had done something, but Shay couldn’t figure it out.

“Ask her to join you.”

“Shay, come here,” Linda said as she held her hand out. “Please Shay, I need you.”

Shay stood there. Something crossed Linda’s face that looked like confusion. The woman turned Linda’s head and captured her gaze again. Then touched her pussy from the front and the confusion left Linda’s face as that finger touched her clit.

The woman looked at Shay, but Shay only had eyes for Linda. Two other women seemed to come out of the dim hall and moved toward Shay purposefully. Shay started backing up. The woman held up a hand. “Stop!” But her command had little effect on Shay who still looked at Linda.