We walked such a long way. After our talk, Henry didn't seem to care about walking in daylight. It was as if his mind were set on getting into the nearest city as quickly as possible, and suddenly, time was all he cared about. I trusted him to know what he was doing and didn't complain about a single thing. I didn't want to do anything to annoy him—didn't want him to have any reason to consider leaving me behind. And for as long as we walked, neither of us seemed to get very tired, anyway. I couldn't speak for Henry, but I was driven by a fear of being caught and taken back to Oliphant. He likely was driven more by his desire to find answers. I had a lot of time to think about him during our silent movement from the fields and into the thickening scrub-oak forest. I thought about what he could've possibly done to get placed in the high security area of a juvenile criminal facility. I thought of his importance—how grown men had been arguing over him. It was clear that he was set on getting his past back, and that scared me a little. How far would he go? I had thought about my own memory often enough, but now, knowing I might actually get some of it back, I wasn't as certain as Henry was that I wanted it. He was messed up somehow, like me, and we deserved answers . . . but would we be broken by remembering whatever our brains had forgotten? There must've been a reason to erase it. Somebody had thought it was prudent not only to delete our memories but also to hide us away somewhere. What were we? What terrible thing had someone—or we—done?

Long through the day and into the night we walked. I began to grow weary more from the monotony than the physical exertion, but I followed Henry like a zombie, moving only because I had to and not exactly paying attention to anything except the person in front of me. And just when the darkness was deepening to the point that we were soon to lose much of our visibility, Henry stopped walking. He paused and held out his arm, signaling for me to wait where I was, which I did. When our feet weren't moving, the air became still, and I could hear the sound of water, like a stream, somewhere off in the darkness. I thought it was what Henry was listening to, but it apparently wasn't.

"Look there," he said, pointing deeper into the dimming trees.

I strained to see what he wanted me to find. Because it was a weird stage of darkness, the cabin took a couple of minutes to come into focus, but it did finally solidify. "Should we be worried?" I asked, thinking Henry wanted to stay as far away from other people as he could.

"Are you?" he asked, looking blankly at me.

I felt like I had just been given a quiz and didn't know the answer. How did Henry want me to respond? Was this a trick question?

"You shouldn't be," he filled in for me. "It's just what we need. You wait here. I'll check it out."

I wanted to continue following him, not to wait alone in the dark, but he'd told me to stay, and I didn't want to irritate him. Still, when Henry started off toward the cabin, dread welled up in the pit of my stomach. What if he disappeared and didn't come back? What if I'd be left alone in the darkness? Darkness freaked me out. It brought back the one tiny memory I held in my murky brain. The bluey black and flash of metal . . . My heart began to quicken. Henry had been consumed by the night's shadows. He'll be back, I told myself. He's going to come back. But I didn't feel the truth of my hopes. I couldn't see him at all anymore. Every minute the night darkened, so that soon, it was so dark I couldn't even see the trees ten feet in front of me. I wouldn't have been able to see the cabin if a dim light hadn't flipped on in one of its windows. But that light frightened more than heartened me. A figure moved across the square of gold. It didn't occur to me that that person could be Henry. All I could think was that the people who were living there had found him and were going to call the police. My stomach sank.

I was shivering awfully, and I didn't know if it was because I was cold or because I was scared. Whatever the case, when Henry returned, emerging out of the gloom as white as a ghost, I was holding onto the nearest tree for support. When I realized it was him, I swam with relief. He was okay, and he had come back for me.

"It's good," he said. "I checked it out. Nobody's inside. In fact, it looks like nobody's been there for a long time. I think we'll be safe in there. Come on."

"Why?" I asked, beginning to walk again.

We took several steps before he answered me. He was concentrating on not running into anything in the darkness. "Because there are things we can use in there. Some food, clothes, whatever. Maybe we can find out a few things. Where we are and what time of year it is. The nearest city."

At the moment, that sounded good to me. I was over all this walking in the dark, and some warm blankets, potentially a shower--those things sounded amazing. I hoped the cabin had running water. When we walked in through the back door, I did notice one thing. One of the glass panes in the door had shattered, and the doorknob had been partially pulled out on the inside. For some reason, I felt relatively sure that it wasn't Henry who had done that. All I thought was, Somebody's broken in before.

I must've slept better than ever that night. The last thing I remembered was Henry pointing to a sofa. After that, I guess I laid down and fell asleep right away. I didn't have any dreams, didn't even recall closing my eyes. It was like, all of a sudden, daylight was coming in through all the cabin windows. As if I'd blinked and the night just disappeared. I remembered where I was and sat up quickly, causing the blanket on top of me to slide to the floor. The night before, I hadn't really gotten a good look around the cabin. Now, I could see everything clearly. I was sitting on a sofa in a large main room. There were several other chairs and another sofa and a really big TV. Off to the right was a dining and kitchen area. Everything was wood-floored and stone-walled. There were things like fish and deer antlers displayed on the walls, and over the massive fireplace by the TV was a big painting of some bears catching salmon. There were so many shelves and tables of magazines, books, and figurines that it was a lot to take in at one glance. One door—probably the front door—looked out onto a deck and some trees. Another door in the room led deeper into the cabin, probably to bedrooms and bathrooms.

I wondered where Henry was. He wasn't anywhere I could see. He must've put the blanket on me after I'd fallen asleep, because I couldn't remember doing it myself. It was fluffy and soft on my skin, though, so when I stood up from the sofa, I pulled it back up around my shoulders and walked with it like that, a little moving mountain. Henry had to be somewhere. It was clear that he wasn't in the same long room as I was—the TV room, dining room, kitchen area. He was either outside or somewhere deeper in the house. I stepped softly across the wooden floors, but they creaked regardless. I moved down a hallway and came to a larger open space, where there was the door we'd come in through. It was like a landing only on the same floor. It was kind of a big, empty space that about six other rooms branched off of. A few of the doors were open. I could see two beds in one, and another I could tell was a bathroom when I saw the shine of a glass shower. I really didn't want to open any closed doors; what if I came across Henry sleeping? It would be awkward. And besides, this place wasn't mine. It seemed an invasion of someone else's privacy to poke around too much. Standing in the middle of that landing didn't sound feasible, either, so I decided to head back to my sofa and wait, but right as I was about to turn, I got the strange sensation that I was being watched. That someone had eyes on me. There was a window in the door nearby, and there were windows in the open rooms, but I couldn't see anyone outside of them. And yet . . . goosebumps rose on the back of my neck, and I grew tense, and I heard my breathing in my head . . .

I spun, and Henry was right there behind me. My breath caught. He'd sneaked up so quietly--how had he managed? I must've stepped on all the wrong floorboards. When my heart stopped racing, I sighed, trying unsuccessfully to appear annoyed.

"Let me show you," was all he said, no "good morning," no "how did you sleep?" He just turned and went back the way I'd come, into the dining room.

"I didn't see you when I woke up," I said, following him, wondering where he'd been.

He reached the dining room table and went around it. "I was outside. Don't worry—I promise I won't leave you."

I stood opposite him, eyes slightly narrowed. Had he actually been outside? It'd seemed as if he'd appeared out of nowhere, like he had the night before, in the forest. There was something different about him this morning, though. For one thing, he had a shirt on, and jeans. But there was something else, as well, something in his overall affect. Something positive. He wasn't smiling; his mouth was the same straight line, and the rest was all serious. But he seemed otherwise radiating energy. Maybe he'd gotten a good night's sleep, that was all . . . then again, had he slept at all?

"I know where we are," he said, not taking his eyes off me. I realized that I was staring at him, so I lowered my own gaze to the tabletop, where there was a map. "We're in Texas, outside of San Judo, near the Mexican border. I don't know how close. See this line?" His finger traced a black squiggle of ink circling San Judo and trailing off toward the US/Mexico border. There were other markings on the map, which appeared to be of North America. I saw little stars on the West Coast, something up north, even a dot or two up in Canada, like someone had been noting cities they'd been or wanted to go to. "I'm pretty sure this line indicates the route to get from that city to here, this cabin. It's probably somebody's vacation spot."

I watched his long finger move across the map. What he was telling me wasn't exactly sinking in. Where we were on a piece of paper felt entirely different from where we were in real life.

Henry didn't notice my lack of interest. He was excited to have discovered something. "We've got to head to the nearest city, then. San Judo. Have you ever been there? Not that you'd remember if you had, would you?" He let out a short, bitter laugh, then continued thinking out loud. "Once we're there, we can figure out what we can about this . . . this Eden Circuit, whatever it means. I guess we'll have to find somewhere to research. Everything's online, isn't it? Then . . . I'm not sure, but that's a start, right?" He paused. "Nadia?"

Hearing my name pulled me out of my daze. "Right. A start. Good."

He frowned at me, but it was more out of concern than annoyance. With a sigh, he added, quietly, "Is that what you want me to call you? Nadia?"

For a moment I just stood and thought about it. Then I shrugged. "It's not my name, but it's what my roommates called me."

"So . . . we can give you a different name . . ."

"I don't know what it would be." He was about to say something else but I preempted him. "Nadia is fine. It suits me."

He nodded, satisfied, then got back to business. "Before we go anywhere, though, we should rest here for a while. We'll stay all day—leave at night, when it's dark. I don't really know what's out there. We'll have to look for a main thoroughfare. I've already looked around this place, taken care of myself. You probably want to shower, and you should change out of the Oliphant clothes. I found this stuff in one of the closets; luckily someone was my size. Dress in layers. Also, you might want to eat and sleep some more before we go. Obviously, there isn't fresh food, but there's some canned stuff, crackers and water bottles. Nothing impressive, but it'll do."

My eyes were focused on the air in front of me, because as he talked, the reality of what we were doing sank in. I'd been able to ignore it the night before, but now I couldn't help but mention what'd been brewing in my thoughts. "This is somebody else's stuff. We're stealing someone else's stuff."

For a minute, he just stared blankly at me, and I looked down at the table. Why did I feel as if I'd said something wrong?

"So?" he finally replied. "We aren't hurting anything. We're in need. If these people were here, I'm sure they'd want to help us by offering shelter and food and clothes. Don't you think?"

"I guess . . . but it just feels strange, you know?"

"No. I don't know. You'll have to get over it. We're all alone, you and me, and we have no resources available to us, so we'll have to get what we can, when we can." He breathed deeply, grew distant. "Somebody did this to us. We can't have deserved it, no matter what we've done or seen. So as far as I'm concerned, we have a right to do what we want in order to figure this out. Dammit, Nadia--I'll do whatever it takes. I don't owe anyone anything. It's someone else who owes us."

I tried to ignore his sudden fierceness. "Can't we just go to the police? We can call them right now! There's a phone here. We could—"

"No!" He must've realized he'd startled me, because he calmed his next words: "We can't. Not until we're positive they aren't in on this too. For all we know, they're the ones that put us in Oliphant and erased our minds. Or they might be working for whoever else has screwed with our heads. No. We can't go to anyone. We can't trust anybody at all. Not yet."

I was disappointed that the only idea I could come up with had been so quickly shot down. I felt stupid. "I know you're right," was all I said.

Henry gave me a curt nod, and I wondered what he thought of me for suggesting the police. I was disappointed in myself, a little embarrassed, even, and wanted to separate myself from him for the moment. I couldn't help but feel he was judging me. So, taking some initiative, I went off to go search for a shower and some clothes, as he'd suggested I do.

There were five different bedrooms and two bathrooms opening off the landing beyond the living area. The cabin was huge. I didn't know where to look for something to wear, so I just started opening closets. Most were empty, but in a room with its own bathroom, some sort of master suite I supposed, though it was rustic, I found some things hanging up. There were a number of shirt dresses, white and gray and of the same material as my Oliphant uniform. There were jeans, but they all looked way too big for me, and there were some T-shirts. I really didn't want a dress, but the options were slim. I figured I'd just keep my shorts on underneath and deal with it. There were also undergarments, but I would've felt gross using someone else's underwear. I thought I'd seen a laundry machine and dryer in a small room off the landing, and we were going to hang around all day, so I'd just wash whatever I wanted to wear and be fresh and clean by the time we left.

After sorting the clothes situation, I entered one of the bathrooms and ran the hot water in the shower. On instinct, I turned and locked the door. I wasn't exactly worried that Henry would bother me, but I couldn't be sure. I didn't know him, even if something about him felt familiar. I wasn't sure what exactly I felt toward him at the moment. He'd helped me, and he seemed to want to continue together. He'd said he felt a connection to me, but that could've just been wishful thinking based on what he'd heard in his only memory. Since our meeting, he'd been nothing but considerate of me, and yet I couldn't help sensing that there was something dangerous about him--or maybe not about him so much as around him. It was difficult to differentiate. So there was all those feelings even before I got to the way he made me feel, which was, I had to admit, nervous--nervous in a way that made me want to let my eyes linger on him, perhaps draw a little nearer than I'd dared so far, but that kept me from even considering actually doing either of those things. And I couldn't even figure out why. He wasn't particularly attractive in the conventional sense; he was interesting. But the more I thought things like that, the more I grew irritated with myself. There were so many more important things to worry about.

As I began to slowly undress, I caught sight of myself in the mirror over the sink. My face startled me for a minute; then it pulled at my attention. I left off pulling at my clothes and gazed at my features in the glass. My hands rose up to my cheeks, felt the skin there, smoothed my hairline. I'd seen myself in Oliphant, but I hadn't really looked at myself. Perhaps I hadn't been particularly self-conscious. But now there I was in the mirror, light gray eyes a little too large, lips curved a little too downward. The shower hissed behind me as I ran my thin fingers over my cheeks. What had those eyes seen? What had they had to watch? My chin quivered as I realized I couldn't even know my own senses. What my eyes had seen, my ears had heard, my mouth had said . . . there was nothing. No remembrance. Who was this person staring back at me? In all truthfulness, I didn't know her at all. There was nothing to know. This body had had a life I couldn't imagine. Had I liked it? Had I hated it? Would I like who I was after my memory came back? Would I be able to be that person?

The mirror was the cover of a medicine cabinet. With a shaking hand, I pulled it open, turning the mirror against the wall. I couldn't stand the sight of myself.