“It’s like a 404 error,” Ken wearily quipped. In the office, everyone looked at Ken, and he realized they didn’t understand. “You know. A 404 error. Like, you click a link to go to a page on a website, and it isn’t working? A lot of times, you’ll get an error page that says something like 404 file not found. It was active at one point, but the destination file was deleted, and no one changed the link.”
“Exactly,” Peyton said. “The information was deleted from her mind.”
“Yup,” Ken said.
“Are we sure there’s not some sort of honest error?” Dewi asked. “Maybe he made her get cosmetic surgery or something?”
“We thought of that,” Peyton said. “We’re certain that’s not the case.”
“How do we know there is another Hyacinth?” Duncan asked over the phone. “No offense, Hamish, but you haven’t seen her in how long?”
“Ask Tamsin what kind of cook her mum is,” Hamish cryptically said.
“What?” Dewi asked.
“Just do it.”
“Hold on.” It sounded like Dewi grabbed another phone and made the call, apparently walking to the back of the cabin. She returned with the answer moments later. “Tamsin said she’s an amazing cook and always has been. Now you assholes better give me an excuse to feed her for asking a whacky-assed question like that, because you have to admit that was a fuckin’ weird question to ask her out of nowhere.”
Hamish barked a laugh. “That more than anything’s all the proof I need,” he said. “Hyacinth literally couldn’t cook to save anyone’s life. Woulda burned the house down tryin’ to boil water. Frannie was an amazing cook. She might be Tamsin’s mum and Faegan’s wife, but she’s not the Hyacinth I knew. I’d believe the Goddess herself would appear in front of me before I’d believe Hyacinth learned how to cook.”
“Does she have any memories of Donnel?” Badger asked. “Or Hamish? Or Bryn?”
“No,” Peyton said. “Once we started digging, now that we suspected pieces were missing, she said the same thing—that they left, she doesn’t remember when, and she has no idea where they went. Same answer, every time, like it was scripted. Donnel, Bryn, and Hamish. She insists she’s Hyacinth, but she can’t recall her parents’ names, her maiden name, or even if she had siblings. She can’t remember any details of her childhood.”
“How is that possible?” Dewi asked.
“It’s not,” Trevor said. “It’s like her life started when she married Faegan. Her name is Hyacinth Lewis, she grew up in Wales near this house, and acts like that’s all she should know. She doesn’t even question that she doesn’t remember. When we pointed that out, she looked at us like we were deranged for questioning that she couldn’t recall anything before marrying Faegan.”
“I’m sorry,” Duncan said, “but I find it impossible to believe a shifter her age can’t remember the names of their parents or siblings, much less the name they were born with.”
“Or that she forgot Hamish was ‘dead’,” Ken added. “I mean, that’s not the kind of information you forget.”
“Is there any explanation for this?” Trent asked.
Peyton scrubbed his face with his hands. “This isn’t the result of a brain injury or lobotomy or drugs or hypnosis. The only thing that could accomplish an annihilation of memories without doing physical brain damage is a Prime Alpha. She hasn’t just been ordered not to speak of the memories, or can’t remember them because she can’t access them either due to brain injury or hypnosis or Prime order. They’ve been completely wiped from her mind. They aren’t repressed—they’re not there. They do not exist. They never existed.”
“Exactly,” Trevor said. “Like someone reprogrammed her with only the information she needed to know.” He stood and paced the room. “As someone who supposedly lived through two world wars here, the woman, regardless of who she is, should at least have that knowledge, and yet she doesn’t. There isn’t a single shifter who lived here then who can’t tell you horror stories about both wars.”
“Then we’re back to a 404 error,” Ken said. “If you tell someone to forget everything they ever knew, and then tell them only what you want them to know going forward, that’s a lot easier than implanting new facts in lieu of old ones to keep all your lies straight. Reformat her meat computer with a factory reset. Remove all the third-party software except for the BIOS and operating system.”
Peyton nodded. “Would take a lot less time, too.”
“A matter of minutes,” Duncan grimly said. “With zero risk later. If you completely wipe her mind, there’s zero chance of her saying or remembering something you don’t want her to.”
“And she can’t betray any secrets about why that happened,” Trevor said.
“What about her being a good cook, though?” Dewi asked. “Doesn’t your theory fall apart there?”
“Not necessarily,” Trent said. “Ken’s analogy is perfect—you do a full factory reset.”
“Tell her to maintain all her skills but remove all memories of how she learned them,” Duncan said. “It fits.”
“And,” Ken added, “if that’s what happened, couldn’t whoever fucked with her mind set a trigger that another person could feed her information?”
“Like Faegan,” Peyton said.
“Exactly,” Ken said. “Also likely explains why she stayed with him all these years—he ordered her to.”
