“You’re not. You couldn’t be. Now tell me your name.”
I try again. I fail again. I feel my face crumple as the realization hits me.
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t worry,” she says. “You’ll discover your name here. You’re otherwise well enough, so I’m going to release you.”
“Release me where?”
“Just here,” she says. “This village is called New Eden. You’ll be able to find something to do here, and I believe there’s a few bed spaces in the communal house.”
“You’re not surprised I can’t remember anything? I don’t know where I am. I don’t know who I am?” My voice gets pitchy as I try my best to maintain composure. It’s not easy.
“We have a few patients in your condition,” she says. “I know it’s distressing at first, but once you settle in, after a few months to years, you won’t even think about this moment.”
I frown slightly.
“Here,” she says, reaching for a crinkly bag. “This is a starter kit. There’s some clothes, and a cookie or two. The commune house is across the clearing. It’s the biggest one. You won’t be able to miss it.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” I say. I feel a great deal of trepidation, naturally, but she has a reassuring way about her. She’s wearing a green dress beneath her white coat, and brown boots. Her hair is salt-and-pepper curls that run down her back. Just looking at her, I get the sense that everything will probably be fine.
I take my little starter kit, and I walk out into the middle of a forest.
Birds flit through the air, animals scamper in the undergrowth, and people are wandering around back and forth doing various tasks and things.
“Where am I?”
“Earth, of course.” A friendly young woman around my age with amazing curly hair and the biggest, most happy smile I’ve ever seen stops to talk to me. She has a kitten in her arms, which is batting at one of the curls of her hair.
“I forgot everything. Doctor says I might remember. But right now I don’t.”
“Oh,” she says. “I’m Seeker. What’s your name?”
“I don’t know?”
“You look like a Carrie,” she says. “I had a friend called Carrie once.”
I almost ask about what happened to her, but even in this very limited mental state, I realize that’s not the best question to ask.
“Maybe just call me Miss,” I say. “Then one day, when I remember my name, we can add it to the end?”
“Good idea,” Seeker says.
“Doctor says I should go to the common house and find somewhere to sleep?”
“Oh, you don’t want to go there,” Seeker says, crinkling up her nose. “There’s men there. You don’t want to end up under one of them.”
“No,” I say. “I don’t. I definitely don’t.”
I don’t know what’s going on, but I know I’m not interested in men right now.
“Do you want me to help you out and find a place in one of the women’s houses? I’ve got a spare space for a bed in my hut? There’s me and a couple other girls. Come on. We’ll go ask now.”
“Really? Thank you so much.”
We go to the edge of the village, where a pretty sort of hut sits in a small clearing. There’s a whole lot of flowers around the door, and the hut, which looks like it was made of daubed mud that was then painted with some kind of white compound, also has flowers painted on it in orange, pink, purple, and green. It’s so cute, with a wood pallet door and a thatched roof.
“Vani! Charger! We’ve got a new girl. Mind if she moves in?” Seeker shouts to her friends.
