The Memory Thief

Clara Jordan had always imagined the inside of her head to be like a well-organized filing cabinet—until the day she opened a drawer and found it empty, as if some invisible thief had stolen her past.

Leaning back in her chair, Clara rubbed her throbbing temples. The stress of her current case was getting to her. Being a social worker was emotionally taxing at the best of times, but in a small town like Maple Creek, where everyone knew everything that was happening with everyone else, it was particularly heart-rending.

Her last hour had been spent with a workaholic mother who despised the laissez-faire attitude of her husband and wanted to send her child to a bootcamp for the summer. The child – a young boy struggling to emerge from under the shadow of his over-achieving brother and delegated to being the unpaid, unappreciated babysitter for his delightfully undisciplined youngest brother – was acting out. Cutting classes, staying out late, talking back to his parents, teachers, and all authority figures.

Clara wanted to beg the father to provide some boundaries for his children and scream at the mother to let her children be children. They were the parents. Couldn't they see they were causing the behavioural issues? The boy was not the problem. The boy was a victim of parents who couldn't see the trauma their adult problems were inflicting upon him. It was easier for the parents to blame the child than come to terms with their own responsibility.

The throbbing in Clara's head got steadily worse as her blood pressure rose. All her cases affected her, but this one was hitting too close to home, though she wasn't entirely certain why. As an only child, Clara could empathize with big families and understood the unique nature of sibling relationships logically, but she hadn't experienced anything like it herself. Taking a few deep, steadying breaths, she opened up her purse to pull out the camera she brought with her everywhere.

Photography was her outlet. She often advised her clients to take photos so they could remember happy times, remember love and joy. Separate the anxiety of the moment from the big picture of a complex family life.

Pictures did the same for her, helping her separate the chronic stress of the job from the grand scheme of a long and complex life, full of varied emotions.

Flipping through the digital images instantly calmed her nerves. She had been spending a lot of time down in the fields along the coast lately. It felt nostalgic there, as if she had spent all her childhood summers in those fields, with those wildflowers. Imagining herself as a child, running through the tall grass with a blonde haired, blue-eyed sister made her smile. It was joyous, even if it was made-up.

After a few minutes, Clara realized she had scrolled back far enough to find images of an event she didn't remember photographing. Living in a small town, she knew everyone here, but these faces were strangers. Except for Elijah, her oldest friend. It must have been one of his historical tours or writer's walks. He hosted so many, it was no wonder she didn't remember them any more. The faces looked happy, laughing and hugging as if everyone was old friends. She must have spent the day with them because they all looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn't put any names to the faces.

Tears pricked behind her eyes and she skipped through the rest of the event photos until she was back to the serenity of the fields. She was letting her work take too much of her. She couldn't even remember her own experiences any more, she was so wrapped up in her job.

It wasn't healthy. Even the beauty of the wildflowers she was looking at was beginning to look ominous, despite the summer glow.

Shutting off her camera she reached instead for her phone. Photos weren't helping her mood any, so she may as well bring her mind back to the present. Emails always promised a dose of heavy reality.

She stopped to open one from Elijah. It was a reminder that their book club meeting that evening would be at the library, instead of the bookstore where they usually met. It was a group email, cc'd to all the members who had been gathering together for years.

Something wasn't right. Her subconscious read the names of the other attendees, knowing there was something wrong with them. It took her conscious mind longer to catch on. Names she should know, faces she should remember—they were all blank spaces in her mind, as if neatly deleted from the story of her life in her memory.

The more she searched for details, the further away they became.

Am I losing my mind? Clara's heart pounded in her chest and the room pulsed in her vision, closing in on her. Blood pressure spiking again, the roaring in her ears seemed to be whispers of secrets she couldn't quite hear or understand.

Desperate to jog her memory, Clara wrenched open the bottom drawer of her desk and pulled out the photo album she kept hidden there. Flipping through pages of captured moments, her fingers tracing over faces that should have been as familiar as her own reflection. It was like looking at the paper photographs that come included with a new picture frame.

And then she found it—a photograph of her and a young girl, both smiling under the summer sun. They were posing in the very same fields she had just been admiring, surrounded by the very same wildflowers. The girl's name danced at the edge of her consciousness, a ghostly whisper in a dark room. She stared at the photo, her gaze drawn to the girl's icy blue eyes, and for a moment, the room went cold enough to frost the window panes.

"Don't you remember?" a voice whispered, so soft and disembodied, Clara couldn't be sure she'd even heard it. But she knew that voice. Her soul recognized it instantly, even if it remained a vague empty silhouette in her memory.

Her phone buzzed, jarring her back to reality so brutally her elbow collided violently with the corner of her desk, sending a jolt of pain up her arm. Swearing under her breath and rubbing the sore spot, she opened her phone. It was a text from Elijah: "See you tonight. Looking forward to a catch up."

A catch up was exactly what Clara needed.

***

Clara had always loved the small-town charm of Maple Creek, where everyone knew everyone else's business. It was the kind of place where you could leave your front door unlocked and kids still rode their bikes until the streetlights came on. But that evening, as she walked down Elm Street toward the library for the book club meeting, the town felt different—eerie and strange. As if she didn't really know the town at all.

The first hint of unease crawled up the back of her neck when she passed Mrs. Thompson's rose garden. The elderly woman was known for her green thumb and her penchant for gossip. But today, Mrs. Thompson was nowhere to be seen, and her roses seemed to wilt as Clara walked by, their petals darkening as if drained of life.

Then came the whispers. Soft, unintelligible murmurs coming from the shadows themselves. She sped up, listening for sounds beyond those of her heels clip clapping against the cement of the path.

As she turned the corner onto Oak Avenue, a sudden chill cut through the warm summer air. Spinning around, she searched the early evening darkness for anything or anyone lurking, her own shadow stretching unnaturally long and grim on the ground. And then she saw it move. It twisted and writhed, as if trying to tear itself away from her physical body.

Terror darkened her vision and Clara turned back toward the library. It was just at the end of the street. She could see Elijah standing at the entrance, waving at her. Safety was so close.

"Don't you remember?"

Words filled the air around her with an ominous accusation.

Clara froze, her eyes darting around the empty street again, more frantic now. The shops were closed, empty. The windows were all vacant.

Clara was alone.

And yet her every instinct screamed at her to escape, to run from an invisible yet physically tangible threat.

Blood pumping so hard her heart beat in the soles of her feet, she shook off the paralysis and ran toward the library; toward Elijah and the promise of light and safety and people she remembered.

As she ran for her life, Clara had a fleeting moment of clarity. The town she loved, the life she had built, and the relationships she had fostered, were disappearing.

She just couldn't remember what, precisely, she was losing.

***

Clara burst through the library doors, gasping and hurtling herself toward a startled Elijah.

"Clara!" The tall, lanky man caught her before her momentum took them both down. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"You have no idea" Clara righted herself, though her voice was distinctly shaky.

Elijah had a habit of holding his head with both hands, his fingers hidden within a mop of curly hair, making him look slightly unhinged whenever he was the least bit unprepared for a situation. A journalist by trade but a historian at heart, he was always digging into the town's past for his next big story.

"Sit down, you're making me nervous." Elijah gestured to the nearest chair.

Clara sat, her eyes assessing the room as if expecting the walls to close in on her. "Elijah, something's happening to me. I'm losing my mind, my memories, and now... now there are things happening that I can't explain."

Morbid curiosity piqued, Elijah leaned back. "Things like what?"

"Whispers in the wind. Shadows moving on their own. A voice asking if I remember. It's like something out of a horror movie."

Elijah's gaze started to get that distant, hazy look that indicated a history lesson was taking place inside his head. "You know, Maple Creek has its share of ghost stories and unsolved mysteries…" Trailing off, he shook his head. "But you've been pretty stressed lately. It's probably just your anxiety playing tricks on you."

"Or maybe it's something more. Something connected to…" Grasping at her missing memories, Clara couldn't finish the thought.

"Elijah, do you remember a girl with blue eyes and white blonde hair? A friend from childhood? I have a picture of us playing in the fields by the coast and it feels so important…"

Elijah gave Clara a guarded, questioning look. "You mean Mara?"

As her name was spoken, the air grew cold again. Memories flickered, just beyond her reach. A girl. A friend. A best friend.

She disappeared.

Clara searched Elijah's eyes, hoping to find more answers somehow but only seeing his deep worry.

Tears warmed behind her eyes, a burning contrast to the freezing air surrounding Clara.

"Something's happening, Elijah. You have to help me remember."

Pulling her into a hug, he offered platitudes of assurance and safety, but Clara couldn't shake the feeling that her missing memories were a symptom of something much darker than she was ready to face.

***

Elijah led Clara to a dark, empty corner of the library The air smelled of musty paper and ink and there were old newspapers, yellowed with age and brittle to the touch, organized haphazardly along every shelf and table. Sitting Clara down in a ragged arm-chair, he angled toward one of the cabinets and began sifting through clippings.

"Here!" Already thoroughly lost to the excitement of history, Elijah handed a piece of newsprint dated 20 years ago to Clara. The headline read: "Local Teenager Missing: Search Continues Near Coastal Cliffs."

Time slowed down and standing air echoed in Clara's ears as she scanned the article. It detailed the disappearance of a young girl from her 14th birthday party. A blue-eyed, blonde girl named Mara. There was a black and white photograph from the day she went missing. She was wearing a lacy white dress, perfect for a small town princess on her birthday.

Clara looked up from the paper. "Did you know her?"

20 years ago Clara and Elijah would have been 14 as well. She should remember this. She should know this girl, but there was just a empty, aching darkness in her memory when she tried to remember her early teen years.

"You don't remember?" Elijah's words sent a chill up her back, causing all the tiny hairs on her body to stand alert. He was looking at her with pity, maybe even a bit of suspicion.

She shook her head slowly and he sat down beside her, reaching for her hands.

"Mara was your best friend, Clara. You were inseparable. When she went missing, I always assumed you didn't want to talk about it. Couldn't, maybe. So I didn't ask. Didn't mention her. We just…moved on. You really don't remember?"

Clara's breath caught, paused in her lungs and began to come in short, shallow gasps, each one a desperate plea for air. Her chest constricted like a vice around her lungs, making every inhalation a battle. She clutched at her chest as Elijah's hand gently pressed her head down. He was telling her to put her head between her knees but she couldn't focus on anything but the overwhelming sensation of drowning in open air.

Eventually, after what felt like hours, her body convulsed into sobs that broke through the hyperventilation and then, as quickly as it started, the panic attack calmed. Her breaths started to come easier but with them came the shakes. Clara was exhausted, trembling and confused. Elijah held her in his arms and was rocking her like a baby.

She pulled back and nodded to assure him she was ok.

'I'm so sorry, Clara, I thought you knew. Do you remember now?" His voice was as confused and scared as she felt. "Was it repressed memories? Do you remember?"

Shaking her head, frustration began to take the place of anxiety. "No," she vocalized, "no, I still don't remember anything. I don't know what just happened. I don't know why any of this is happening." Hot tears pricked behind her eyes as Elijah looked at her with pity again. And maybe a hint of relief. Maybe whatever he remembered was better left forgotton.

"Tell me, please Elijah. Tell me what happened." Nothing could be worse than the blankness in her mind, no matter how horrible.

"We were kids, we were just kids. In 20 years, nobody has come forward with any information on what happened. No one knows for sure…" Elijah trailed off.

Clara was used to him getting lost inside his mind but she didn't have the patience to wait for him to collect his thoughts so she nudged him, prodding him to continue.

"I wasn't friends with you then. It was you and Mara against the world. Her family was rough, she practically lived with you to get away from them. Her mom was a lawyer or something and her dad…well, I was young, but I'm pretty sure he drank a lot. Alex, the oldest, left for college that summer. I remember because he was a football star, full scholarship. There was a younger sister too, I think. The party…" he looked at her, not sure if he should continue but she nodded him on.

"I wasn't invited. It was just the two of you, but everyone knew where you were. You had danced through town in your matching white lace dresses, running out toward the fields where you spent most of the summer, collecting the wildflowers there."

He went quiet again, wringing his fingers. "You came back alone. You were…changed. Silent for weeks. No one could get a word out of you and no one could find Mara. She was just gone. Something happened out there, but no one knows what and eventually, everyone stopped asking you. Mara's family left. Not even a month after she disappeared they gave up on finding her and everyone gave up on questioning you."

Elijah's words made sense to Clara, but they had no meaning. She had no memory of any of this, but something inside her ached, grieving and terrified.

"When school started, you just became my friend. As if we had always been friends. As if there was no question about it. I had seen you, in the silent weeks, like a ghost of yourself. But you came alive when school started and I just…went along with it. I didn't ask because I was scared I would scare you away. We just…moved on."

Clara looked at Elijah. Her oldest friend, or so she had always thought. Searching the depths of his gaze, she suddenly felt like she didn't know him at all. She didn't know herself at all.

"Clara, are you okay?" Elijah's voice was a whisper now, his face etched with concern. "You look like you're about to pass out."

"I need to go to the fields, Elijah," she said, her voice suddenly cold and desperate.

Surprised, Elijah shook his head no. "Are you sure that's a good idea? I mean, considering…your state of mind."

Clara stared back at him, resolved. "I have to go, Elijah. I have to remember."

He sighed, resigned and worried "Alright, but I'm coming with you. You don't want to end up as another unsolved mystery in this town, do you?"

***

They parked in the lot nearest to the trail entrance, the headlights illuminating the tall, dry, waving grass and glinting off the white petals of summer flowers. The fog was rolling in and the fields were bathed in mist, converting the daytime glory to eerie, sinister gloom.

Clara stepped out of the car and took a deep breath, tasting the salty moisture in the air. There was something else too; something that reminded her of damp, decaying foliage but it was far too early in the season and much too close to the ocean to be appropriate.

Sensing Elijah come up beside her she turned to her friend. "Stay here, please. I won't go far, but I feel like I need to go alone."

Putting up her hand to cut off his immediate challenge, she promised to stay within shouting distance.

"I hate this, Clara." He shuffled his feet in discomfort. "I'm turning the headlights back on."

Smiling she nodded agreement and started out toward the path. The tall grass brushed against her legs with each step and there were pricks of cold where the air condensed to a droplet and puddled on her arms.

Step by step, she went further along the path, searching the environment for anything that might trigger a memory, or call out to her like the voice from earlier.

As she got closer to the cliffs, the temperature dropped. Shivering, Clara reasoned that the closer to the water, the cooler it should be, but the steam of her breath in the suddenly frigid air was hard to ignore. The soft rustle of the fields began to sound agitated, whipping the stalks of grass and flowers against each other in a non-existent wind.

Recognizing the stupidity of her choices, Clara left the path and ventured deeper into the fields. There was a spot she needed to get to, but she couldn't quite figure out why.

A specific point at the railing that prevented those wandering through the fields from tumbling over the cliffs into the ocean. A spot she would have sworn she had never step foot near before this moment.

She ran her fingertips over the weathered fencing at this precise location and felt etching in the wood.

"CJ."

And a few inches over "MT."

"Clara Jordan," she whispered, and gasped as a memory hit with a painful, heartbreaking jolt. "Mara Thorne."

Clara sobbed at the briefest memory. The name of her childhood best friend.

The rustling in the field behind her turned into tortured screams of whispered anger.

"Say my name again, you forgot me!"

Clara whipped around to find the source of the voice and found herself facing a beautiful young girl. The girl from the picture only with all the joy and happiness replaced by fierce hatred and wild savagery. The lacy white dress was tattered and torn and great clumps of white blonde hair were missing. Scars shone in the moonlight, criss-crossing the girl's face and arms.

She was missing a finger. A detail Clara noted with odd calmness as the ethereal girl pointed aggressively.

"You forgot me, Clara."

Mara's voice broke, releasing sadness and heartbreak in a tangible wave, hitting Clara like a blow.

A blow that woke memories and shattered Clara's heart in an instant with regret and grief and a terrible, overwhelming loneliness.

Water pouring from her eyes, Clara immediately moved toward her lost friend, instinctively trying to hug her. "I'm so sorry, Mara."

Mara's eyes narrowed and she was suddenly a few feet away, her dress waving around her, flickering like a dying flame.

"Sorry?" Her voice was as cold as the air.

"You left me here and you forgot me."

"It wasn't on purpose." Clara took a step forward, desperate to be with her friend again, after so long. "I don't know how. I'm so sorry, I don't understand what's happening." Tears created zigzag lines down her cheeks as she shook her head in confused defiance of her own missing memories.

"I know it wasn't on purpose." Mara sounded like a petulant child with a temper. Probably because she had had two decades stuck in a ghostly limbo, perpetually frozen at 14 and watching her world grow up without her.

"I took your memories, but you let them go. You didn't even try to find them."

Mara's temper was fading, replaced with loneliness and longing. Clara watched her illusory presence, trying to make sense of what was happening but unable to come up with the right words, the right questions.

"But I do care, Mara. I loved you – I remember that now. I loved you so much losing you might have killed me. I would have never forgotten you, not on purpose."

For a moment, Mara's icy demeanor softened. "But you did," she whispered.

"That day you might have died with me. That's why I took them, your memories. I took them to protect you. But I thought you'd come looking for them. I thought you'd come back. I waited here and you didn't come back. I waited and waited and waited! I think I waited too long. I got tired of waiting and I went looking for you. But you were…" she gestured toward Clara with disgust.

"You were old. And you had new friends and you didn't try to remember me. So I started to take your new friends to. I stole your memories to make them my friends. Don't I deserve friends?" A lifetime of abandonment poisoned her vitriolic words. The moonlight glinted through Mara's eyes, making her seem more malevolent than Clara had initially recognized. For the first time since seeing Mara, fear cut through the surrealness of the situation.

"You…" The words got stuck in Clara's throat. "You stole my memories? My friends? I don't understand, Mara, you have to tell me why. Tell me what happened here, what happened to you?"

"Ha!" The scarred, beautiful young girl sounded like an old, bitter, life-long smoker. The gravelly voice wasn't the sweet, joy-filled song Clara now remembered from her youth. Not even the longing and eerie question from the wind. What she was hearing now was the hatred of a betrayed spirit, never given the chance to find solace or justice.

"You don't really want to know what happened. You just want to pretend like I never existed." Mara began moving toward Clara again, arms wide open, but not welcoming a hug. Clara began to wonder if Mara could steal more than memories.

Heart pounding in her ears, Clara looked straight into dead, icy blue eyes and tried again. "I do, Mara, I do want to know. Please, we can make this right. I can be here for you now. I can help, I know how to help now. Please," she begged, "please tell me."

Mara started smiling, still slowly moving toward Clara with arms held high. The smile was wicked. As if she was watching a pile of garbage rotting and she was relishing the plan to set it on fire and wipe it out of existence. The smile was cruel. But her eyes were sad, and tired, and full of betrayal.

"You asked for it," she said, finally close enough to place both her hands on Clara's face, one at each temple. Mara started laughing. At first a chuckle, then a cackle, and soon a maniacal howling. It lasted only a few seconds and then a blinding light flashed and Mara disappeared.

The light went out and Clara saw only black darkness. A voice called out to her, but it was a man's voice. Elijah. He was frantic. He had flashed his high beams – that was the light. Clara turned toward him to tell him she was ok. He was running toward her as fast as she had ever seen him move.

She tried to catch his attention, intending to do something to calm him. Tell him she was ok. But the second their eyes met, the flood of memories Mara had stolen returned.

Faces, laughter, tears—all the joy of the friendship she had known with Mara rushed back in a torrent, overwhelming her senses.

Mara's final words echoing in the wind, "You wanted the truth."

The last memory was Mara's. The last thing she had seen. Eyes. Such familiar eyes. Such horribly empty eyes.

Elijah caught up to her, finally, looking at Clara with concern written all over his face. Their eyes locked and Clara's world went black.

She fainted, directing herself away from his arms. Toward the wood-carved fence, hoping it was too weathered to support her dead weight.

She really didn't want to know.