Alexandra fished a cigarette from a small purse and held it between her middle and forefinger, in rather feminine fashion. She seemed uncharacteristically content. “Do you mind?”

“Was I the sort to mind?”

Taking that as either affirmation or a joke, she lighted the cigarette. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then let the smoke escape through her nostrils. She dropped the cinders in a tray on the small table between them.

Adam thought it a little disgusting, but kept silent. He felt anxious about his conversation with Mary and had no time to ponder about the woman.

Eventually, she smiled coquettishly his way. “My husband is still speaking with his mother.” The last word was uttered with no small amount of disgust. “Your wife won’t come down for now, right? Come, let’s go to the library.”

She left with the attitude of someone who could not conceive he wouldn’t follow. Her whole personality was absurdly different, almost as if she were someone else. Was she deceiving him somehow?

He felt suspicious, but followed her to the library, curious about the sudden change, and knowing there was no use in pondering about what he couldn’t remember. Maybe it was time to give up this childish cover-up.

The library was on the west wing, on the first floor. It was not a large room, but not small either. There was a table and chair for reading near a large globe fixed on a frame about four feet tall at the far side, between two shelves of books reaching up to the ceiling. A moving ladder leaned lonesome against the shelves for reaching the books far above. A painting of him hung on the wall beyond the table.

“Oliver does look quite like you, doesn’t he?” she said, gesturing daintily at it. “Compared to John, you’re much more like your father.”

“I suppose so.” Adam meandered about the books, and picked a book at random. It was the third volume of the history of the world. It looked brand-new, as if never read.

“Is everything all right with you?” she asked, the concern in her voice reminding him of Mary. “You’ve been acting a little…different today.”

He closed the book. “If I may ask, how have I been different?” he asked, sitting on the only chair available. A book lay on the table, leather-bound, worm and used.

Familiar.

Adam felt a cold tingle as his fingertips touched the cover. His mouth clamped shut. With effort, he managed to swallow. He knew this book.

“You act less bold, and don’t speak as much,” she said, then noticed his gaze upon the book. “It looks like one of the books from the secret room. I guess he was reading this one before dying?”

“Secret room?” he asked, surprised to hear about what he wanted from her.

“Yes, secret room.” She leaned over the table. “Forget that. Come here.” She slithered her arms around his neck, and, unexpectedly, pulled him to a kiss.

He reeled away, surprised.

“What is it?” she asked, suddenly wary and looked over her shoulder. She relaxed. “My husband is still in the dining room, he won’t come after me now. Your wife is not coming after you now, is she?”

Many thoughts raced through Adam’s mind. Mary, Alexandra, about the certificate in a secret room.

He understood. He and this woman were having an affair. Her previous behavior before her husband and Mary were just acting. He felt mortified, and ashamed. That was who he was: a murderer, a cheat, a criminal. He wondered if Mary knew. She probably did.

“No,” he said, feeling depressed. “But someone else could see us.”

She grinned, nonplussed and fixed a lock of hair out of place. “I did talk about a secret room before did I not? I’ll show it to you.”

She put her small hand over the globe and twirled it, until a small click. A nearby shelf moved inward, revealing a hidden room.

Adam felt baffled at the way things were happening. He followed her in. Inside, she pressed another button and the door moved back into place. A second later, the lights turned on, revealing a smaller room, filled with books, but considerably less than the library. At the very center stood a table and chair just like in the previous room. Above the table lay a scroll.

“Oliver put the older things here, I guess,” Alexandra said with a chuckle. “John showed me this place when we were dating. The rest of his family doesn’t even know it exists. Oh, sorry, I guess you wouldn’t want to talk about that.”

“It’s filled with books,” Adam said, approaching the table. He read the scroll above it. It taught one how to project an avatar in another plane of existence.

“There’s a panel in the ceiling. It leads to one of the rooms in the second floor.” She observed the scroll he was reading. “I wonder in what language this is written. Oliver liked to collect strange things. Well, that doesn’t matter.” She snaked her arms around him. “Now that we are together how about...we try something new?”

Rather flustered, though he hoped it was well-hidden, Adam asked, “here?”

She looked around, mildly disappointed, somewhat upset. “What is it now?”

“Don’t you think it’s a little too dusty for that?” he asked, gesturing at the room. He swept a finger over the table for emphasis.

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She looked around, frowning, and looked at her dress. “I guess it’s a little too dirty. John would notice if I dirtied my dress,” she complained, disappointed. She arched her eyebrow at him, but did not express her obvious suspicion.

Internally, Adam sighed in relief. He didn’t know why. He probably had slept with her before losing his memory anyhow, so it was really pointless not to do it again, and probably counterproductive. It was futile, really.

“So, what were you and Oliver doing in his last months of life?” she asked, probably trying to make conversation.

Suddenly she yelped, as though someone had hit her. She looked around as did Adam, but neither found anything. Upon realizing she blushed, frowning, displeased. Clearly she was not fond of being seen in embarrassment.

“I forgot,” he said, looking around the room.

He felt something inside of this room, as if he was supposed to know where things were, and as if he was supposed to know that things were currently out of place.

“You forgot? Ha! He used to say that all the time too, Oliver. And are you ready to tell how you plan to dispose of my husband?”

Adam stopped, mildly horrified. He arranged his thoughts, and tried to answer correctly. “I think I should wait until the inheritance is divided,” he said, carefully studying her reaction.

“Trying to avoid suspicion? Who would even investigate if something happened here? People disappear around the forest all the time.”

Adam wondered what he had done and said for things to reach this point. Was every woman involved with him a murderous psycho?

“They will investigate his family for sure. You, I and the rest of the family will all be suspects. Especially because of the inheritance.”

“If you say so,” she muttered, dropping the issue.

Suddenly, Adam felt cold. Almost, he could hear a voice whispering at his ears. It was so strange and yet so familiar.

He looked upon the scroll on the table and felt as if he had seen it before. Dreams, power, longevity. A sweet, melodious voice full of promises.

He imagined himself, sitting by this very chair, sifting through countless pages of ancient writings whose words he had yet to decipher. He wrote notes, countless notes. He poured his soul into it, hoping to reach...to reach what? And where were these notes now?

“Adam?”

He gazed somberly upon her worried face. The image rushed to his mind unbidden: a dark room, a disgusting flowery smell mixed with tobacco and sweat, and a faint smell of sulfur and wine. He drew a circle with his fingertips, then a triangle, feeling anger and repulse.

“Adam?”

Her voice brought him back to the moment. “Oh, sorry, I spaced out for a second.”

She frowned gently, touching his chest. “Maybe you should go to the hospital again about that accident.”

It was a rather contrasting show of concern. He almost laughed out loud, and his face twisted in a grin. It was almost as if he were watching a play. His life was the stage, him the audience, and the actor someone who did what he could not.

Acting on impulse, he pulled her close to him, and kissed her deeply. She answered in kind. When their lips parted, she seemed out of breath, a string of saliva dripping from her lips. She licked it away.

A dull sound startled them both.

Adam searched for the source and found a book had just dropped on the floor.

There was no reason for that book to drop.

“Weird,” Alexandra muttered under her breath.

“We don’t have time for playing around now,” he whispered on her ears, with natural ease. “Your husband will be searching for you soon.”

She pouted, but relented. With a sigh, she stood up and fixed her clothes.

Adam asked about the mechanism to open the secret door and she told him. It was a combination of coordinates on the globe.

Internally, Adam let out a sigh of relief at finishing this awkward encounter.

Both went back to the front hall.

Alexandra lit another cigarette. “I told John I was smoking,” she said, with a raised eyebrow. “So I need to smoke. Isn’t it nice of him to not complain about this vice of mine?”

Why would you compliment a man you want to murder? Adam wished to ask, but of course, said nothing. He raised his eyes to the ceiling, pondering whether there was any reason to remain around this woman.

He heard the footsteps of someone else come from the dining room.

It was the older of Evelynn’s daughters. She glared at him, spitefully.

He decided there was no reason to remain, and left.

§

Mary lay on the bed, reading a book. “I don’t remember you being so quick.” She did not raise her eyes at him.

Adam stopped at the doorway, startled at her tone. “I didn’t sleep with her,” he said, entering the room. He closed the door behind him.

Now, they were all alone.

“That’s what you said last time,” Mary said, flatly.

“Was I lying last time?” he asked.

She glared at him.

“I sincerely cannot remember,” he explained.

“What, you have amnesia now?” She laughed.

“Yes,” he said. “I can’t remember anything to do with Alexandra.”

She took it as a joke. Either way, she was mollified and glanced at him over her. “Take a bath. I don’t want you smelling like her.”

Adam appreciated the time away. He didn’t want to face her at the moment.

In the bath, he thought things over. What had been those memories? It was him, but different, reading countless pages of forgotten writing. Adam had been to the library before, but that room, something was different about that room.

He closed his eyes, relaxing in the bathtub, and tried to remember.

He recalled a room, like that one, but furnished with less books, messier, lighted by hand lanterns because he couldn’t get electrical wiring in it, or didn’t bother to. The placement was subtly different, but the table and chair were just the same.

It was not the same room, but a similar one.

In there, he sat before a table and compared fragments of texts, deciphered languages, and made annotations. Where were those annotations?

He drew a square with strange symbols at every edge. A dark greenish rock, ground into powder was mixed with a precise amount of fluid and poured over it. The room smelled of sulfur and wine. Mary stood there, her face blanched in fear. She placed a cloth around her nose, for the smell was terrible, but He was used to it.

He recited the words, almost lyrical, precise, mathematical. The powder and vital fluid eluted and became a small figure, like a bat. It immediately lunged at him but could not escape the circle. It fretted about, shrieking an agonizing, piercing screech that made his soul reel in terror. But it lifted his spirits even more to know that He succeeded!

He took a golden nail, inscribed with powerful signs, long prepared for this moment, and waited for the creature to tire itself. It was small, not yet strong. Now was the time to make it yield. After it flailed one last time and fell to the floor, He stuck the nail in its chest. It bit him then, but it was only a scratch, nothing to worry over. He assured Mary it was nothing, and continued the ritual.

He chanted another chant, longer, more complex. The creature thrashed for a while still, but eventually it fell under control.

With the excitement of success, he nearly forgot to take notes. He asked Mary for his notebook. Where was it? Oh, of course, it was with her, he had given it to her. She even took the notes for him. She was getting better at this.

In the bathtub, Adam opened his eyes.

“Adam?” Mary said, from the other side of the door.

“Sorry,” he said. “I fell asleep.”

“Okay,” she said. “Don’t take too long.”

Adam answered, not really paying attention to what she said. He remembered the notebook. It was a leather-bound book. At a glance, it appeared like any old book. It was the book above the table in the library.

His journal.

Outside, the moon was filling the sky, and a cold wind was blowing. He heard the sound of battering wings, and drifted away.