Chapter Twenty

The lithe nineteen year old woman walked along the garden path and breathed deep the musky smells of the jungle after the morning rain. She shook her short black hair away from her face as she pulled down a banana tree leaf and drank the water that poured off it. It was colder than she expected, and she blinked her brown eyes in surprise.

She had walked this path countless times, as it led off the estate and hooked up with the seemingly endless mountain hiking trails she loved so much. Yet, something about the walk seemed different this morning. She knew every rock and turn, the twitter of birds and the buzz of insects in the trees, and the way the sun glinted off the wet leaves. At the same time, it all looked new again. She shook her head and grinned. Maybe it was the weird dreams she had been having lately. Maybe she was a bit hung over from the sake she had drunk to help her sleep last night. Whatever it was, she found it amusing to see one of her favorite hangouts as if it were new to her.

When she reached the trail head, she opted to go up the mountain behind the estate, figuring the exertion would clear her head. A few minutes into the climb, she hit her stride. The sound of her breathing and the feel of her heart pounding created beats that measured her footsteps. She loved feeling this symphony of rhythms inside her body. It focused her mind and made her feel like she was where she belonged.

As she hiked, she revisited the dream she had last night. It wasn’t unpleasant, just confusing. She was going ice-skating at a large, sunny outdoor rink. There were lots of families with kids, and the place was filled with the happy chaos of getting kids ready, on and off the ice. Randolph, her ex-husband was with her. He was very kind to her, which made no sense. What made even less sense was he was helping her with her skate laces because she was somehow unable to get them to work right. He got them laced up, and they had a fine time skating. She couldn’t remember anything else from the dream. When she awoke, she was sure she had missed something. Now that she was replaying the dream, she was again convinced there was something else going on that she had overlooked.

Frustrated at still not being able to crack it, she put the dream out of her mind and refocused on the trail ahead. She thought about the sensations in her body, her ribcage breathing, her leg muscles straining, the sweat seeping from her skin despite her thin top and hiking shorts. She recalled this same feeling from pumping a bicycle up a long low grade. She blinked and the memory started to fade. She wanted it back. She took a deep breath and calmed herself. “Just get back the rhythm,” she told herself.

A moment later, the vision came back. She was a child, on a bike that was a bit too big for her. She was riding home from school through a suburban neighborhood. Home was at the top of the hill. Yes, now she remembered. Home was at the top of a grade that must have been six blocks long.

She kept hiking, looking down at where she was walking while her attention was turned inward, intent on retrieving the memory. She had no concrete memories of her childhood, and she really wanted to piece this one together.

She remembered finally reaching the top of the hill and turning into the driveway. She steered her bike up the sidewalk path to the front porch, and laid it down on the grass. The front door was open, and she went inside.

She smiled broadly at finally remembering so much detail. Her enthusiasm completely blotted out the exertion of the hike.

She recalled walking through the living room into the dining area. She heard her mom in the kitchen rattling pans. She felt really happy to hear that her mom was home. This confused her. It was as if it was a big deal for her mom to be home. She called out, “Hi Mom! I’m home!”

She stopped hiking so suddenly she almost stumbled. A chill ran up her spine and tears came to her eyes. She blinked furiously as if that would make what she saw go away. She felt like she wanted to wake up from a nightmare, but she was already awake.

The woman who stepped out from around the kitchen counter to greet her in the memory was herself. All grown up. The same face she knew as her own. Cheri Macklin.

She bent over, and leaned on her knees and panted. The vision faded, but the fright still had a firm grip on her. How could a memory be so screwed up? Obviously, her trauma hadn’t just knocked her memories out, but scrambled them as well.

Her fear turned to frustration. So few memories, and when one finally comes back, it’s jumbled up and ruined. She picked up a rock and threw it as hard as she could out into the jungle canopy. “Shit.”

She resumed her hike. Now she really needed it to clear her head.

Upon her return an hour later, she was glad to have not triggered any more memories. She had really pushed herself, beating out her frustration, and she had the sweat to show for it. As the broad verandas of the two-story wooden house came into view through the foliage, her only wish was to get upstairs and into the shower.

She stepped into the bathroom and glanced in the mirror. She blinked at just how sweaty and disheveled she looked. “Impressive.” She stripped off her clothes and tossed the lot of them into the hamper basket. She gave her tanned, fit body one last assessment in the mirror before moving to the shower, when something caught her eye. Rather something in her eye caught her attention.

She leaned in close and held her lid open with her fingers. Was it a random flash of light? No, it was a spot of color. There at the edge of her dark brown iris was the tiniest speck of blue. She checked the other eye and it wasn’t there. She knew irises were usually a mix of colors in the muscles, but hers were all shades of brown. Except for this spot. She blinked and touched it with her fingertip to see if it was something stuck to the surface of her eye. It was actual color in her iris. How had she never seen it before? Maybe she hadn’t ever looked so carefully. It didn’t hurt and it didn’t seem to be doing any harm. She shrugged and moved to the shower.

A few minutes later, she heard the bathroom door open and the cheery voice of Young Nae Yoon. “Hey, sweets! How are you?”

“Young Nae!” she called out over the roar of the shower. “I didn’t know you were coming up today. Weren’t you at some conference down in K-L?”

“I was.” He slid open the shower door. “I got done and decided I wanted to see you.”

She put her hands on her hips. “Well, you certainly see me now.”

He made no pretense as he looked her naked body up and down. “My, you certainly have gotten tanned. Even in winter, and all over too.”

“It was sunny all last month before the rains came. Now if you’re done with the peepshow, would you please close the door? You’re letting all the cold air in.”

“If you keep sunbathing au natural, you’re going to give my gardening staff ideas.”

She pulled the door shut. “I’m discreet. They all know I’m yours alone.”

“You got that right.”

She saw through the lightly frosted glass that he was starting to take his white shirt and dark slacks off. This time she opened the shower door. “Sweetheart. I had a really bad morning. I’m not sure I’m up for that right now.”

“You do realize I drove over three hundred kilometers to get here from K-L.”

She nodded. “I appreciate that. Let me finish in here. I’ll pull myself together. Just give me a few minutes, all right?”

He shrugged. “Tell you what. I’ll get us some lunch. Food always hits a good reset. Then we’ll have the whole afternoon.”

“That sounds great. Thanks.” She smiled and leaned out of the shower to kiss him.

He stepped up and gave her more of a kiss than she was asking for. When he fondled one of her wet breasts, she pulled back and laughed at him. “You are so naughty!”

He smiled broadly. “See you downstairs.”

* * * *

“No, I’ve got it,” Young Nae told the chef as he carried the chafing dish to the table. “I know, presentation matters.” The white jacketed Asian man followed him into the dining room holding a tray of dishes, each with a different meat, sauce, or vegetable. As Young Nae put the plates out, the chef wordlessly lit the burner under the chafing dish and poured a pot of broth into it. Young Nae nodded at the spread. “I think that’s it. Thank you.” The chef bowed and left just as Cheri was coming down the stairs.

“Oh my! That’s some fancy lunch.” She stopped at the bottom of the open staircase, and looked down at her T-shirt and sarong skirt. “Maybe I should go change into something nicer.”

“Nonsense. Come sit down.”

“Whatcha cookin’?”

“The broth needs to heat up to a boil, so it’ll be a minute. Now you said you had a rough morning?”

“Well, yeah. I’ve been having strange dreams. I don’t put much stock in dreams. This morning I was out hiking, and I thought I had a memory from my childhood. Unfortunately, it was all screwed up, and it gave me quite a fright. It was like I was having a nightmare, even though I was wide awake.”

“That sounds disturbing. From your childhood? That would be great. I thought all your memories from before your trauma were gone.”

“Me too, which is why it got my hopes up. Then it turned out to all be a mixed up jumble. Really dreamlike. I met my mom, and she was me.”

“Freaky.”

“I agree. I practically ran the rest of the way up and down the mountain, trying to get the image out of my head.”

“You know, I’ve had semi-hallucinations when I’ve been working out really hard. When I’m really in the zone with my fighting practice, when I’m really feeling the power move through my body, I sometimes feel like I’m part of something bigger than myself. It feels like I can affect things beyond my touch. It’s really quite dreamlike.”

“That’s your… savat?”

Young Nae laughed. “No, no. Savate is French kickboxing, which is a sport. I do Silat, which is Indonesian, and is an actual combat fighting style.”

“Oh, like Kung Fu?”

“Well, no. Kung Fu teaches you how to move chi energy around in your own body to focus your strength. Silat teaches you how to manipulate your opponent’s chi energy.” He leaned forward. “I’m thinking you might have run yourself into a form of self-hypnosis.”

“No, I know what the ‘zone’ feels like. This was definitely built from a memory.”

“You also said you’ve been having nightmares. Have they been the same kind of mixed up images?”

“Yes, but you kind of expect things to not line up right in a dream.”

“Are you otherwise healthy?”

“What, you think this could be because I’ve got the flu or something?”

“I dunno. Low-grade fevers can cause disorientation. Any change in body chemistry, actually.”

She frowned at him playfully. “Change in body chemistry? Is that your thinly veiled way of asking if I’m pregnant? No, I’m not pregnant. As much as we screw, it would certainly be a possibility, but I’ve been very careful.”

He put his hands up to match her playfulness. “Okay, I’m just saying.” He used the big gesture to cover his real concern about how she could have accessed memories that were supposed no longer to be available to her transformed brain. Could her nerves have found a way to unlock pathways that were originally encoded with her old genetics? He would have to keep an eye on this.

“The worst part of having these nightmares, or ‘daymares’, is the frustration. I am desperate to remember something of my past. Anything at all. Then I get teased like this.”

“Well, you were clinically dead for a couple of minutes before the paramedics revived you. You don’t survive being beaten nearly to death and expect to come out of it without some lasting effects.”

“Yes, I know,” she said, frustration still coloring her voice. “I don’t even remember the attack.”

“Oh, that’s your brain protecting you. You don’t want to remember what Randolph did to you.”

“I guess,” she sighed. “Hey, that’s starting to smell good.”

He lifted the lid on the chafing dish. “Just about ready.”

“So do you have any word on where Randy is?”

“No, not yet. I spoke with the police last week, and they said they have some good leads. They think he’s trying to gather what he can of his old life back in Maryland. They promised to keep me up to date.”

She put her hand on his. “You know, we always talk about what he did to me, but not about you.”

“How do you mean?”

“He was my husband, but he was your best friend. That must have had a huge impact on you, finding out your closest friend, your lifelong friend and business partner, is actually a violent lunatic.”

He took a deep breath. “Yeah, it hurt. It made me doubt my ability to judge character. I’d like to say I saw it coming, but it was a complete shock to me when it happened. I mean, I had no idea he had so much hate in him.”

Cheri squeezed his hand.

“I’ve come to grips with it now. Water under the bridge.” He pulled his hand out and put it on top of hers. “We’ll bring him to justice.”

She smiled warmly into his eyes. “You take such good care of me.” Then she grinned and glanced at the lunch spread. “So what is all this?”

He stood up and pointed as he explained. “This is called Chiri.” He laughed at the coincidence. “Chiri for my Cheri. It’s little slices of raw fish that you skewer with these long fondue forks and dip it in the boiling broth to cook it, for just a minute.” He prepared one for her as he spoke. “Then you dip it in one of the sauces here, before you pop it into your mouth. You eat it with these steamed vegetables. All subtle flavors.”

She took the fork and tasted the fish. “Hmm. Really tender. The fish has a really light taste.” She snagged a raw slice and tasted it. Then she smiled knowingly at him. “This is puffer fish, isn’t it?”

He sat down and smiled back. “Yes, this is one of the traditional ways to prepare it. It’s just such an elaborate production that you don’t see it done very often.”

“Why Mister Young,” she teased. “I do believe you are trying to trick me into the mood.” She slid off her chair and onto her knees in front of him, and wrapped her hands around the backs of his thighs. “You know I do not need any ancient aphrodisiac fish to get me interested. You are hot enough for me, all by yourself.”