Chapter 7
7 October, 1957 Watermead, Aylesbury
Dorcas saw her patient to the door and, with a sigh of relief, returned to her office to prepare for Theresa Allen's session in fifteen minutes. She'd had to steady her breathing and the anxious feeling that kept creeping into her chest, every time her mind wandered from the petty problems of the woman on her couch, blubbering about abandonment issues and a boyfriend who, after two years' steady dating, was showing the telltale sign of being a commitment-phobe. Ordinarily, Dorcas could compartmentalize her patients' needs, listen to them, and even empathize with them.
But today, she was feeling terrible about her inability to concentrate on what felt like a trivial issue. Trivial, that is, compared with Theresa's situation. Theresa believed that she'd accidentally killed her husband while her son watched. Her memory was being altered. She was being lied to, being made to feel as if what happened was her fault. Dorcas wouldn't know the whole story until she used the elixir.
Dorcas and Cal developed the Ex-Nebulae Elixir six years earlier. They had lived and worked in the US at the time. Dorcas first proposed the idea when she was working with a patient who was clearly dealing with some childhood trauma. Trauma that had been buried under a pleasant, average, rural Midwestern upbringing. She, of course, understood that Memory Charms were used by the unscrupulous witch or wizard to manipulate others. But there was really no way of knowing if this was the case with a patient.
She and Cal had tested countless ingredients and combinations of spells for years. They tested potions on themselves, tweaking recipes, and painstakingly repeating the process. Dorcas smiled as she recalled those formative years in their marriage. They had really learned how to work as a team, how to trust one another implicitly.
"Dr. Meadowes?" Dorcas heard her name spoken from the sitting room. Knowing she was the only one at home today, this made her jump.
She heard her name called again.
Stepping out of her office and into the sitting room, she came around the sofa and found the voice in her fireplace. The flames had roared to life on their own and the image of a face was just visible in them.
It was Theresa's solicitor.
"Counselor Prewett," Dorcas said in recognition, settling herself in front of the hearth, arranging her skirt to cover her knees.
"Please call me, Gideon." His smile was friendly.
Dorcas nodded and spoke to the face licked by flames. "Has the hearing been set?"
"Yes, next Tuesday at nine o'clock," Gideon provided. "You will be expected to give testimony. It will be the standard line of questioning from the Wizengamot prosecutor. But it will be a smaller court. Because we're not arguing Theresa's criminal case, merely petitioning the court for her son back, it will just be the Wizengamot Family Court."
He seemed to be trying to reassure her. She did not need it.
"I have testified in all kinds of cases in court in America; criminal, family, business. You don't need to worry about me. I know how it's done, Gideon." She remembered many occasions on which she'd entered the Woolworth Building to testify on behalf of one client or another in the courts of MACUSA.
"Right. Of course, Dr. Meadowes."
"It's Dorcas. I'll be ready by next Tuesday. You can depend upon it."
Dorcas wondered if she should share her suspicions before they were confirmed by Theresa after today's meeting.
"Listen, I'm about to meet with Theresa in about," she checked her wristwatch, "ten minutes. Like I said in your office, I think I know who altered Theresa's memories. Only, if I'm right, then Jim's killer is someone close to Theresa." She hesitated to say that the person she suspected often came with Theresa to her sessions with Dorcas.
Gideon seemed to sense that she wanted to say more. "What are you not telling me, Dorcas?"
"The cologne and the cigarettes. I know who that is. That smell was in every one of Theresa's memories. He was there. Even during the memory of Jim's death. It's Theresa's new beau. He comes to her sessions sometimes. He waits outside."
Gideon seemed to consider what Dorcas had disclosed to him. "If he's there today, he'll know something's wrong once you and Theresa recover her true memory."
Dorcas nodded, relieved that he had come to the same realization as she had. She was beginning to convince herself that she was being dramatic. Having someone else voice her reservations lent them credence.
"Can you keep Theresa at your house tonight?" Gideon asked. "I know that's a terrible imposition. But I don't think it's safe for her to be alone. As for the boyfriend, let me deal with him."
Dorcas agreed to the plan. "It's no imposition at all."
She said goodbye to Gideon and pushed herself up into a standing position again. She returned to her office and readied a tray. It was laid with a sterile needle. The elixir that she'd developed with Cal was next to that, a transparent, violet liquid in a glass phial. And, just in case it was needed, a Sleeping Draught.
The Pensieve and Theresa's altered memories were arranged beside the tray on the coffee table. A new, empty tray of memory phails was also set out.
The doorbell rang.
Dorcas hurried to the door. Theresa smiled. She was wearing a light purple house dress and a cardigan with butterflies embroidered around the collar. Her light blond hair was arranged in a neat ponytail. She didn't have a coat with her though it was still chilly in the late morning. She was young, and Dorcas guessed, had once been rather pretty. She knew that Theresa's ordeal had altered her. She had worry lines and dark circles under her eyes.
"Come in, Mrs. Allen," Dorcas said. She had sympathy for Theresa, even felt that there was a shared connection between them somehow. She couldn't explain it, but she felt particularly tethered to Theresa's trauma.
Dorcas looked out into her garden and was relieved. Theresa's usual companion was not with her today. There was, however, a very large barn owl sitting on her garden fence. Its head swiveled and its yellow eyes met hers. Then the head swiveled away and the bird took flight to a nearby tree.
:::
17 November, 1939 Transfiguration Classroom, Second Floor, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Dorcas watched with avid interest as Professor Dumbledore transformed a chinchilla into a change purse. He demonstrated the incantation and the proper wand technique slowly three times.
Next to Dorcas, June Riley gasped audibly in delight each time.
Professor Dumbledore rewarded June's enthusiasm by allowing her to pass out a chinchilla to each pair of students. Then, with a mischievous smirk, he asked the students to find a new partner. Someone who was from a different house than their own.
There was a great shuffling of chairs and bodies as Ravenclaw and Slytherin students paired up. Dorcas was slow to react to the surprise instruction and feared for a moment that she would be the only student that had not done as the teacher had requested.
"Do you want to be my partner?" came a sullen voice from behind Dorcas.
She turned to face the speaker. A boy with close cropped black hair and green eyes was staring at her, waiting for a response. She recognized her cousin, Jonas Rackharrow. She had never spoken to him. Outside of Hogwarts, she had only ever seen him and his older sister Gemma at her grandfather's funeral.
Dorcas nodded and Jonas took June's seat. June handed them a chinchilla.
"Thank you, Miss Riley, for your assistance." Dumbledore pointed to the back of the room. "It looks as if Mr. Rookwood is in need of partnering." He pointed June to a small Slytherin boy in the last row and handed June the final chinchilla, taking the box from her.
Dorcas performed the incantation and the proper wand technique and the chinchilla stopped scurrying and transformed into a small black beaded purse with a clasp.
"Open it," Jonas encouraged her.
Dorcas shook her head. She couldn't help but wonder if the chinchilla could feel pain; if opening the purse's clasp and putting something inside would cause the creature torment.
"I will," Jonas said exasperatedly at her.
Before he could touch the change purse, she had slapped his hand away and turned the pouch back into a chinchilla.
"Nicely done, Miss Clerey," Professor Dumbledore congratulated her. "And now you, Mr. Rackharrow."
Jonas had some trouble with the transformation. His change purse had soft black fur and squeaked a little.
Dorcas decided to voice her concerns to Dumbledore.
"Sir, can the chinchilla feel when it becomes a change purse?"
Dumbledore thought for a moment. "Can a change purse feel?"
Dorcas shook her head, "No, sir."
Dumbledore smiled. "Quite right."
Dorcas nodded slowly considering this fact.
The professor corrected Jonas's wand technique and then returned to Dorcas. "This is not a satisfactory response to your query, I know. But what kind of teacher would I be if I gave you all of the answers? But you could tell me why this is so," Dumbledore said. "For extra credit."
Dorcas smiled and nodded, eager to solve the mystery for herself. She made a mental note to look up animal to object Transfigurations in the library after Herbology and lunch.
:::
Many hours later while most of the castle's inhabitants slept, Dorcas was lying on the floor of the Great Hall with Tom. They sprawled themselves between the house tables and the teachers' table up front.
Tom laid with his arms over his head, hands clasped behind it, providing a cushion from the hard flagstone floor. Dorcas was similarly splayed, head resting in the crook of Tom's arm, her hands playing with a thread from her jumper.
"And it comes out in the cellar of Honeydukes sweetshop," Tom explained.
"I want to go sometime," Dorcas said, fascinated.
She and Tom had spent many nights wandering the halls and corridors of the castle. Dorcas reluctantly restrained herself from meeting Tom out of bed every night. She looked forward to the times that they roamed the lonely classrooms and passages all evening, but it had caught up with her. She had fallen asleep in History of Magic a week and a half ago. Professor Binns did not give her a detention. Instead, he had given Dorcas a stern talking to. For Dorcas, that was punishment enough.
"I'll take you, Birdie."
They had both been careful to keep the conversation light. Dorcas had not brought up their disagreement in the library almost a month ago. Tom likewise, did not bring up Dorcas's peculiar ability again. Though Dorcas suspected on a few occasions that he had strongly resisted the temptation to do so.
But Dorcas was thinking more and more about the curious memory that Tom had forced into her mind. She realized that, though he was the person that she'd spent the most time with at school, and that he was one of the people she trusted most, she did not know that much about him.
She began to ask him about it several times on their nighttime walks, but she always stood down. Tonight she wanted to know. Had to know.
"Tom," Dorcas said, trying to choose her words carefully.
"Hmm?"
There was a pause. Dorcas watched the candles float lazily amid the enchanted ceiling, now black with flecks of silver and gold starlight.
Dorcas decided to plunge ahead. Her curiosity had gotten the better of her at last.
"The memory that you showed me," she took a deep breath.
"Yes?"
"I saw you, but a little younger. You were sitting among some tall grasses and there were kids playing in the background." Dorcas stifled a yawn.
Tom waited for her to continue.
"Something strange happened," Dorcas paused again. "It's going to sound weird. Maybe I don't know what I saw."
She felt herself shrinking away from the subject. She cast about in her mind for a change of topic.
"What did you see?" Tom asked the question encouragingly. He did not seem to want to change the subject; seemed almost eager for Dorcas to continue.
"Well, there was a snake that came up to you."
"Yes, I remember. It talked to me."
"Yeah," Dorcas propped herself up on her elbow in order to look into his eyes. "Did you talk back?"
"Yes, I answered it."
Dorcas stared at Tom. He returned her stare, not blinking.
"What did you say?" Dorcas thought of how absurd a response this was. If it wasn't for the darkness, Tom would have seen her color with embarrassment.
"The snake said, 'It's hot today." And I answered, 'Yes, it is.'"
"Oh."
Dorcas blinked. She guessed that some magical people had different and unusual abilities. After all, she was quite sure that only a few people could see into the minds of others. It was only natural, then, that others had talents like talking to animals.
"What other animals can you talk to?"
Tom furrowed his brow. "I can only talk to snakes."
Dorcas nodded in understanding and laid down again.
"Now you can hold on to a secret of mine and I'll keep one of yours," Tom said.
Dorcas nodded. She fell asleep sometime later.
"Birdie," Tom said, shaking her gently.
Dorcas felt his arms around her. She was comfortable despite laying on the cold stone floor for hours.
"Hmm?"
"It's getting lighter out," Tom said softly.
Dorcas's eyes fluttered open and she could see that the ceiling was showing navy blue and lighter on the eastern end, behind the teachers' table.
Standing, Dorcas stretched and felt stiff. Tom stood beside her.
They walked in silence out of the Great Hall. Dorcas headed for the stairs and Tom, to the left and toward the dungeons. She looked back and waved at him. He smiled and waved.
:::
7 October, Watermead, Aylesbury
Dorcas helped Theresa to sit up and take a sip of water.
"It's exhausting, I know," Dorcas said with a sympathetic hand on Theresa's arm. "But we have just three memories to go."
Theresa looked at Dorcas with determination in her eyes. She nodded and laid back on the couch once more. Taking a sharply inhaled breath, she closed her eyes.
Dorcas took the syringe, filled with the iridescent purple liquid, swabbing Theresa's bicep with alcohol, and injected the memory elixir into her bloodstream. A bruise was already beginning to develop where Theresa had been injected three times previously.
Dorcas placed the empty syringe on the tray and, taking Theresa's wrist, checked her pulse. Confirming on her wrist watch that Theresa's heart rate was slowing, Dorcas began to prompt her.
"Now, find the memory from the night Jim came home drunk. The night that he gave you the concussion."
Theresa nodded. "I was wearing a red jumper. William was playing in the yard."
"That's the one," Dorcas encouraged.
"Now, imagine taking your right hand and moving a curtain aside."
Theresa not only imagined this, she mimicked the motions. She was becoming more familiar with the procedure and was activating the elixir's effects almost before Dorcas gave the instructions.
This memory was always a painful one for Theresa. She had recounted it for Dorcas several times. Dorcas had also witnessed it in the Pensieve twice.
She knew that Theresa had seen Jim, coming home, breath thick with drink. He was angry about something that was never distinct, never clear. Dorcas knew that if it hadn't been articulated clearly to Theresa, then it couldn't be clear in the memory.
Jim had pushed her. Theresa was imploring Jim to be quiet, that William was in the back yard and would hear. He interrupted her pleas by bringing a vase full of flowers down on her head.
Theresa's eyes popped open a moment later. "Steven. It's always Steven."
Between each memory, as a new comprehension dawned on Theresa, she became both angered and horrified that her past and her relationships had been altered so completely.
As Dorcas had suspected, Theresa's relationship with Steven was not as new as Theresa thought. She had been seeing Steven secretly for nearly two years.
Dorcas handed the fourth empty phial to Theresa. Closing her eyes tightly and concentrating, Theresa picked up the wand resting in her lap and placed it to her temple.
:::
2 December, 1939 Seventh Floor Corridor, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Dorcas was out of breath. After wandering the sixth floor and a couple of shortcuts hidden behind tapestries, Dorcas and Tom found themselves in front of a large gargoyle. This was the entrance to Professor Dippet's office. Dorcas felt a kind of brazen daring to be out of bounds so near the headmaster's chambers.
She and Tom had taken up a comical waltz, stifling laughter and humming a three-quarter-time tune softly.
Now they lay in the middle of the left hand corridor staring up at a tapestry depicting a daft-looking wizard teaching ballet to trolls.
They took turns inventing voices for the wizard and the trolls, creating an entire, absurd conversation for them.
Heavy footfalls echoed at the other end of the darkened hall.
Dorcas and Tom stood and ran to the nearest hiding place, the statue of a witch with an open book in her hands. There was a small niche behind it.
They sat huddled together for some time without saying a word to each other. They were abundantly cautious when someone was approaching. Both of them knew that their nighttime jaunts could disappear quickly if anyone were to suspect them of wandering the castle at night.
No voices or footsteps echoed for a long time.
Tom and Dorcas arranged themselves into more comfortable positions in the niche. They sat side by side with backs against the wall and feet propped on the witch's dais.
Dorcas thought of asking something that she had been curious about.
"Tom?"
He laughed softly next to her.
Dorcas paused, looking at him in the faint moonlight coming from a window opposite them.
"Why are you laughing?"
"Because you always start out by saying my name when you're about to ask me something that you've been holding on to for a while."
Dorcas looked down at her hands. She guessed he was right.
"What do you want to know?"
Dorcas didn't speak.
"Go on, Birdie," Tom coaxed, nudging her shoulder with his.
"When do you sleep?" Dorcas tucked her hands self-consciously into her jumper's sleeves. "I mean, you wander around every night. I only come out to meet you on the weekends."
She felt Tom shrug beside her. "I'm conditioned to go on very little sleep, I suppose."
"Conditioned?" Dorcas prompted.
Tom was silent for a moment. Dorcas thought he might not respond to her.
"I live in an orphanage when I'm not here."
Dorcas knew this, but felt a fresh wave of pity any time the subject came up.
"You have to watch out for the older and bigger kids in places like that. You learn not to sleep because that's when you're most vulnerable."
Dorcas didn't know how to respond to this. She imagined all sorts of horrible things that kids might do to one another without adults being aware.
"But you have magic," Dorcas began, writing a narrative in her own mind that made this unsettling news about Tom's life more palatable to her.
Tom nodded. "Yes, but I can't use it until I'm of age."
"So what do you do?"
Tom's breathing was rhythmic, comforting next to Dorcas. She was surprised to find that she had become protective of her friend, fiercely so. She felt a similar feeling toward him as she felt for her Uncle Morty, who was more like an older brother to her than an uncle.
"I sneak out."
"You sneak out?" Dorcas was fascinated by the idea.
"Yes," Tom continued. "I know London almost as well as I know this school."
Dorcas was impressed. She stifled a yawn behind her hand. She felt bad about the yawn for some reason, as if it was an admission that she'd lived a more privileged life than Tom had.
"You can rest your head on my shoulder if you're tired."
Dorcas did. Her breathing slowed. She thought about exploring London by night and fell asleep.
:::
7 October, 1957 Watermead, Aylesbury
Theresa was sitting with her arms wrapped around herself, rocking back and forth and crying.
"I think that it would be best if we save the final memory for tomorrow," Dorcas said.
She was sitting on the couch beside her client, rubbing her back comfortingly.
Theresa shook her head adamantly and leveled a defiant glare at Dorcas.
"No," she gasped between sobs. "I want to know it all. I want to know now."
"It's not a good idea," Dorcas continued, speaking calmly.
It was only natural that Theresa would become agitated by what she had seen. In a way, she was experiencing the trauma of losing her husband for the first time. Because her memories had been altered, she had never had to deal with the grief of someone she loved being taken from her. She had labored under the assumption that she had murdered him because he had attacked her repeatedly.
Peeling back the layers, painstakingly, one by one for each memory that Steven had tampered with had revealed a truth that Dorcas had not anticipated.
Steven, Theresa's boyfriend, had proven to be skilled in placing Memory Charms. Most people were only capable of making someone forget that something had occurred. But a true talent with them could invent another reality entirely, as Steven had.
He had taken opportunities over the past two years to create a new narrative in Theresa's life; one in which he replaced her devoted and loving husband with a drunk and violent one. The injuries that Theresa sustained-she thought at Jim's hands-were really inflicted by Steven.
"Theresa," Dorcas advised. "It is too important to get this right. The mind can take a lot of assault. But if we push too hard, you could lose any memory that is buried beneath the charm."
She took Theresa's hand. Dorcas was patient, but firm.
"We can continue tomorrow, after you've had time to rest."
Theresa looked ready to argue.
"How can I rest? How can I sleep? This is the first time that I've felt like I've been fully awake since…" She sobbed. "Since, Jim…" She tapered off, unable to maintain speech through her tears.
"You'll stay here tonight," Dorcas said. "I'm going to give you something to help you sleep."
Theresa shook her head. She opened her mouth to protest.
"Theresa. We can't get the answers we need when you're exhausted."
Theresa seemed to see the wisdom in this and finally submitted to Dorcas's ministrations. She took the small glass that Dorcas handed her. It contained about an ounce of a deep blue liquid. Sleeping Draught.
Theresa's ragged breaths began to even again.
Dorcas, a steadying arm around Theresa's shoulders, guided her to Ryann's room. It was already prepared with clean sheets and a nightgown of Dorcas's laid out.
Theresa sat down heavily on the corner of the bed.
Dorcas reached over to the nightstand and opened a children's book that always sat there. A Thousand and One Nights, was Dorcas's favorite growing up. This book was a battered relic from her childhood. Dorcas had enchanted it one night when Ryann couldn't sleep. Now, when it was opened, a light golden tree grew out of the place where the pages joined into the spine. Little goldfinches sprang up on the branches. Various tunes emanated softly from it. Currently, the dulcet melody of 'Beautiful Dreamer' could be heard.
Dorcas pulled down the pink covers of the bed. Theresa had pulled off the cardigan and dress and was trying to pull on the nightgown. Her movements were getting sluggish. The Sleeping Draught was taking effect.
She helped Theresa to finish dressing. When Theresa had settled into bed, Dorcas pulled the covers up to her chin, the way she had done countless times for Ryann.
Theresa's eyes closed and her breathing deepened almost at once.
:::
Dorcas lost track of time.
When she wanted to think things through, she would often come downstairs to the laboratory to get ahead of some of the more mundane tasks.
Cal would not be home for another hour yet. He would be picking Wren up from Anneliese and Beau's place on his way home from the hospital. And, based on the dosage of Sleeping Draught that she'd given Theresa, she would be out for the rest of the night.
Turning to the Hi-Fi behind her, she found the Billie Holiday album that usually soothed her and set the needle carefully onto the waxed grooves.
Cal had very clean habits in the laboratory. There was never a beaker out of place, never a messy workspace. Still, dust did collect here and there.
She went to the peg on the wall next to the stairs and grabbed her apron. Tying the ties at her waist she set about to remove the fine layer of dust that accumulated over jars that contained various dried and infused ingredients.
After she had ensured that every surface sparkled, she took up a clipboard and an inventory list and went over to the cupboard that held the stores of potions. Every one of the bottles gleaming from the shelves were proud accomplishments of hers and Cal's.
The Oculus Potion was a pet project of Cal's from his days doing fieldwork in Iraq along the Tigris River.
The Wideye Potion. Dorcas smiled. This one was meant as a joke, but turned out to be highly effective. She and Cal had thrown a bunch of stuff into a cauldron and applied the heat. It came in handy during all of Dorcas's many late nights at Columbia.
The Ex-Nebulae Elixir. This one had been a passion project. She had discovered during her formative years as a mental health professional that those who'd had memories that were tampered with had a greater risk of mind maladies. Wishing to help her patients peel back a false memory to reveal the true one, and to aid them in working through the damage caused, she'd embarked on the mission to develop this elixir with Cal.
The Blood-Replenishing Potion was running low. With trials for this new potion underway weekly at St. Mungo's, they would require a fresh stock.
Tallying the potions in the cabinet, Dorcas turned next to the ingredients.
The infusion of Star of Ishtar was low. Turning to the lab table behind her, she set a cauldron of water to boil and busied herself with finely chopping dried Star of Ishtar. This was a white, five-petaled flower with small, but sharp thorns.
The work was monotonous and just what she needed to let her mind wander freely over today's session with Theresa.
"Wren's asleep," Cal said sometime later.
Dorcas had not realized that the record was skipping and scratching with white noise. How long had it been signaling to be turned to the B side?
"How was your day?" She chopped and asked.
Cal came to stand next to her and kissed her cheek.
He shrugged. "Murtlap bite, doxy sting, the usual." He took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. "How was your day?"
Dorcas unloaded as much as she could about the events of Theresa's session, carefully navigating patient-client privilege.
"Do you think she's in danger?" Cal asked, taking up a knife and chopping Star of Ishtar alongside his wife. "Is that why she's asleep in Ryann's bed right now."
Dorcas rested her knife's blade on the cutting board and looked at Cal. "I think so."
Cal nodded in understanding. "Then we must do what we can to help."
A/N: Reviews are welcome and appreciated.
