The trip from Library Market Square was a long one. The official parade had ended, but the streets were filled with inebriated pedestrians, which backed up traffic worse than the parade.

They found the door to my office locked.

Igraine tried to convince the knob that it was unlocked by turning it in quick succession. When it didn’t work, she said, “Oh no, don’t tell me he went home for the day.”

I had not left. I was sitting at my desk, and in the seat across from me was a guest. We tried to ignore the knocking. I figured it was Walter, who had finally returned to do the work he had set out to do this morning. It was a 50/50 chance his solution would do more harm than good, so I was content to let him think the office was closed for the day.

I extended my hand across the cluttered tanker desk and waited for my guest to place the item we had been discussing in my open palm.

The knocking continued, this time with the voice of a woman shouting to get my attention. I tilted my head toward my guest, looked down at my hand, then back to him.

He took the hint and relinquished the item.

I took the silver necklace with the turquoise ornament and placed it in the inside jacket pocket of my second-hand sports jacket. Then I excused myself to see who was at the door of the suite. I made sure to close the door to my office after I stepped into the waiting room. With the blinds into the office shut, my guest would have a good chance of remaining unnoticed. And if the visitor were like to figure out someone was in there, they at least would be able to keep their anonymity.

Not everyone likes to admit they hire a paranormal investigator.

I crossed the waiting room, avoiding the old tin watering pot I borrowed from a supply closet to collect the water leaking from the ceiling. It was about halfway full.

I gave my response without opening the door. “I’m busy, come back tomorrow.”

“It’s Igraine.”

“And Dolly!” a familiar voice said. It was cheerful and energetic.

I gave the only appropriate response. “Go away and never come back.”

Through the closed door, I heard a softer, “I thought you said he was nice.”

Igraine didn’t argue the matter. Instead, she spoke through the door, “We need your help.”

I gave in and opened the door.

Dolly, the woman who blamed me for every strange thing that occurred in her life, smiled and said, “I wouldn’t marry this guy, he’s twice my age.”

I had questions, but Igraine didn’t wait for any of them. In one breath she sprinted over her day. “We were confronted by Burton Maurer this morning and he robbed Dolly of the money she was going to pay to a protection racket. And then the protection guy, the Butcher, said he wouldn’t do it but he gave us a ring that makes people forget and we were supposed to use on Burton but Dolly used it on herself.”

Of course she did.

I didn’t understand everything Igraine had relayed. About the only thing I understood was that Dolly had wiped her memory. And if she thought I was twice her age, she’d wiped almost two decades’ worth. If it was possible for her to understand what she did. Imagine, waking up one day and you’ve lost twenty years of your life. As fired up as Dolly gets me, she deserved better.

I waved them over to the well-worn couch in the waiting room.

“Have a seat.”

Dolly said, “God, this place is awful.”

Igraine tried to shush her, but Dolly couldn’t stop. “Does he know the ceiling is leaking?”

“Of course he does! Don’t be rude,” Igraine scolded.

“What about the hole in the ceiling? Does he know about that?”

Igraine was going to say something else while they sat down, but I cut her off. “Don’t bother,” I said, “she hasn’t spoken a kind word to me in over fifteen years. I'm not expecting that to change just because she doesn’t recognize me.”

We were all ready to listen, but no one wanted to talk. They sat on the couch along the wall of my narrow office suite, and I sat on a chair to their side, purposefully blocking their view into my office windows. My guest was quiet and I suspected he might also be listening. I mean, that’s what I would do.

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“Well…?” I tried to get things rolling while trying not to look like I was rushing them.

“Dolly isn’t going to understand and I'm worried she might freak out.” Interesting. That explains why she rushed through the explanation a moment earlier. Say it so fast Dolly wouldn’t be able to comprehend anything and I might comprehend just enough. This was not the first time Igraine had demonstrated good instincts.

“I think it’ll be safe. Talking about what she went through doesn’t even approach the level of trauma of going through it.”

Igraine relayed to me the events of the day, and Dolly just laughed.

Igraine was getting flustered. “Dolly, this is serious!”

“No it’s not,” I corrected.

“You can fix her?” Igraine asked.

“Not even a little. No, this is what she wanted, even if her current state isn’t exactly what she envisioned.”

Dolly shook her head and giggled some more. “You two are silly.”

I smiled at the young woman inhabiting Dolly’s body. “That is a lovely ring, may I take a closer look at it?”

“I’m not wearing a ring.”

Igraine replied, “Dolly, look at your hands.”

She held them out and gasped at the sight of the ring.

“I don’t recognize this. I’m not sure it’s even mine. I would never wear something like this,” she said and began to take it off.

From personal experience, I knew that Dolly would only wear jewelry that had precious gems. Anything else was “unfit to adorn her person.” A phrase, I recall, she picked up from her grandmother.

“Wait,” Igraine said, and Dolly paused.

She was being cautious again, but I was fairly certain this was safe. The Butcher had a reputation. Or rather, several reputations. Some good. Some bad. None were careless.

“It’s ok. May I have it? I think I know the rightful owner.”

“Sure,” she said and handed it over to Igraine who wasted no time putting it in my hand.

“You know Dolly, I’m going to have Igraine take you home. Do you mind, waiting outside in the hall while I have a word with her?”

She agreed and then said, “It was nice to meet you.”

I choked back the emotions in my voice. “It’s been real.”

When Dolly stepped out, I gave Igraine the keys to my 1971 Mercedes-Benz. “I want you to take Dolly to her parents’ place. Reality will probably sink in when she sees how much older they are. At the very least, she’ll begin to ask more questions.”

“Shouldn’t you take her?”

“No reason for them to hate me more than they do already.” I imagine they’ll be happy to have their daughter back in a reality they accept. Even if it came at an irreversible cost.

I gave her the directions and added that if she got lost, the car would still get her there. Bernie, the mechanic who haunted it, knew the way. Bernie’s name brought back unhappy memories for Igraine of the day Avalon went missing.

I tried to redirect her attention. “I’ll be here when you get back, and you can tell me more about everything. But one last thing, could you tell me how the Butcher said this works?” And held up the ring.

Igraine relayed the instructions, along with the magic phrase and how the Butcher said there would be a short span of time to remove the ring to prevent the wearer from retaining any memory of the object. Burton would not be as willing as Dolly had been to give up a mysterious ring that he was wearing.

Then she threw me a suspicious glance. “Wait, tell me you’re not going to do the same thing Dolly did.”

“Don’t worry. Like I said, I’ll still be here when you get back. All of me.”

She still wasn’t sure, but at this point she didn’t have many choices. She stepped out, and through the closed door, I heard the two of them talking.

If Dolly had gotten what she wanted after all these years, I hoped that Bernie wouldn’t take it from her by being… well, Bernie. But who was I kidding, he only had it out for grumps like myself.

After the two of them left, I spoke loud enough so my voice could be heard in my office. It didn’t take much to hear a conversation from the waiting room if you were quiet enough in the office.

“How much of that did you catch, Burton?”

My office door squeaked open, and a remorseful Burton Maurer stepped into the waiting room.

Burton somberly said, “Ya, I heard.”

He walked around and stared at the black metallic ring I held in my hand.

“How much for it?” he asked.

“Seems to me you recently came into a large sum of money,” I said with a grin.

He pulled out a thick envelope and tossed it to me. Anger on his face. I placed it in the other inside pocket of the sports coat.

“Oh, come on,” I said. “It’s not like you’re going to remember ever having it.” I tossed him the ring and repeated the instructions, just in case he hadn’t heard them clearly. This wasn’t something either one of us wanted him to get wrong.

Before placing the ring on, he wrote a note to himself and gave it to me.

He placed the ring on a finger and spoke the magic words. There was a moment when the magic was doing its work where he couldn’t move. I slipped the ring off and placed it in my pocket.

Burton shook his head. He put his palm on his head, as he tried to clear a mental fog. For a moment, he didn’t look like his angry old self.

Then he recognized me and his anger returned.

“Wait!” I said, “I’m just delivering this message.” and handed him the letter he had written a moment ago. I assumed his words did the trick because he didn’t shake me down.

He just grumbled, balled up the paper, and threw it on the ground before leaving the office suite. I hoped Igraine had gotten Dolly far enough away where they wouldn’t cross paths with Burton.

As calm as I had been in front of Igraine, I did not enjoy holding something that belonged to the Butcher, especially since he had not given it to me himself. But I couldn’t send Igraine back there by herself either. My choices were to either hold the thing that would put me in more danger the longer I held it, or return it to the rightful owner as fast as possible.

I decided to let Burton get some distance before I set out for Library Market Square. While I waited, I uncrumpled the letter he wrote to himself:

It’s Founding Day. You had too much to drink.

Go back and deny everything.

The mission failed.

Don’t let this loser tell you anything else.

If Burton had been smarter, he would have mentioned something about the pile of cash. Then again, the Burton who wrote the letter was focused on more important things.

Leaving the office to run my errand was a bit of a risk, having just told Igraine that I would be here when she came back. And then reassured her on top of that. All the same, I’d still be coming back, and I had no interest in using the ring the way Dolly had. Plus, Igraine had farther to go than I did. I pulled out a notepad to leave her a note as a courtesy. But what I lacked was a pen. I searched everywhere and came up empty. I’d be back in no time.

I made sure to lock the door to the office suite before I left.