After Sunday mass I stood in the sunny churchyard. I had come to see my parents in Dale and while father had stayed home, Sage had been overjoyed to have her only child come to the mass with her.

But for the first time in some time I felt somewhat hollowed out afterwards. Mom had found some of her lady friends and was still talking with them inside the stone building. I wandered among the graves.

Without any conscious intention, my feet took me to a specific location. I stopped by a huge stone grave behind the church. When I had still lived in Dale, this spring, I had come to the graveyard to take a relaxing night walk one sleepless night. But had ended up discovering the frozen corpse of a homeless man. I remembered thinking he had looked a bit like the late husband of Aunt Chime. Maybe because I had talked with Aunt Chime just before the meeting.

Now I stood in the same spot bathed in daylight. It looked very different from the snowy, dark and windswept grave of my memories. My breathing didn't mist in the warm afternoon breeze and off course, there wasn't a corpse. Recent rains had brought the moss stains into vivid greens.

I remembered thinking the man had been a sign, somehow related to Little One...

Timothy. Somehow related to Timothy. That was his name. Timothy. My devil, as Valentina had called him. Timothy the Devil.

Had he killed the man? The homeless man that had kind of looked like Uncle Mathew? If he was the devil, wouldn't that be possible? But then, that didn't fit in the picture quite right. I had had long chains of messages with him. We had even met, I was sure of that.

"I can't give you the magic key, unless you believe in magic."

"Magic makes you drunk. The memory doesn't stay."

Both Valentina and Plume, the man who couldn't be Rosemary's brother, they had both talked of magic. And said I needed to believe in it in order to go forward. Believe that Plume, the handsome youth, was a vampire.

Was Timothy then a vampire as well? Had I discovered it and then suddenly lost all my memories of him?

A shiver travelled through me. There was something repulsive about the thought. My encounter with Plume had put me on my toes.

And what if Timothy was for me what Plume would be for Rosemary? If I believed in magic, couldn't then Timothy be a lost brother, stripped away from remembering? A vampire I had discovered and consequently forgotten.

The thought had odd logic to it. It wasn't the type of deduction I would ever voice out loud. But deep in my mind it was kind of taking root. Kind of. I had believed in God and his guidance for so long, I wasn't sure I believed in coincidences anymore.

It was the reason for my visit as well.

If there was the smallest chance he was my brother, then there had to be evidence of it. Somewhere, somehow. Not just messages. But pictures, something with his name on it... Timothy White Torch.

I just needed to find it.

"I'd try the cellar."

I started. A dark haired girl–who looked somewhat like Valentina but was leaner–had come to inspect the same stone I had been staring at. She looked at me innocently.

"You talk to yourself. I just thought that if you were looking for something forgotten, I would start from the basement. That's where I would put everything I want out of the way and forgotten."

She shrugged.

"My name's Catalina. I was at the mass."

"Ermm... Right. Nice to meet you. Mimosa."

We shook hands.

The gesture was supposed to be a brief and confused one, but she covered my hand with hers like an elderly lady might and then held me there.

"If you ever happen to need help cleaning your basement, I am sure I can be of help. Shed light in the dark corners."

For some reason, I suddenly had the impression we were not talking of houses anymore.

"Call me whenever you feel like it. I might answer, or maybe not. I'll come back to you. But don't leave a message. You see, there are no angels on this side. And sometimes the demons keep odd schedules."

Then she released my hand and started walking away, her dark ponytail swinging with her steps.

I was left standing perplexed behind the church. I was just about to run after her, when I heard mom calling my name. Instead of running after this mysterious Catalina, I walked with my mother back to my parents house.

Later, as I passed the cellar door to the kitchen, I stayed in the passage in my pyjamas and recalled her. Catalina. I had never gotten a number I could call in the middle of the day.

I rested my hand on the doorknob. Against my bare feet drifted cold air over the threshold.

"Mimosa?"

Dad had come to the kitchen door. He had a sandwich in one hand and an apron in the other.

"I'll have the omelettes done in a minute, why don't you join me in the kitchen? How's life in the big city?"

I let go of the door and followed him into the kitchen. Dad had laid eggs in a row and had a bowl where he was breaking them.

"It's good. I don't know if you remember it, but when I was a teen, I went to one summer camp with a girl named Valentina. We have been reacquainted. It's been nice."

"Valentina? No, don't really remember. You had many friends when you were a kid, unlike..."

The egg shell broke. He cursed and started fishing shell pieces out of the bowl.

"Unlike who?" I asked.

"What? Who?" He glanced behind his shoulder at me sitting on the small table that was there for hurried breakfasts and late lunches.

"You were saying that I had many friends, unlike....?"

"Ah. That. I don't remember. The thought went. Maybe the neighbour's kid. Something we adults noticed. I don't think you even knew him."

Just then my mother entered the kitchen as well. She gave my father a kiss and then continued on toward the shower. Dad mixed the egg mass in the bowl and then poured the mass on a huge frying pan.

"I think I might have put there one egg too many." He laughed. "Well. Something to snack on if one of us wakes up in the dead of night."