CHAPTER 18:
Ch-ch-changes
"How old are you?" The doctor had been asking him basic questions more to check Clef's concentration than with any real concern for the answer.
"Nine hund..." he started honestly.
The doctor laughed dismissively. "More like twenty-nine by the looks of you. Look up."
He took out a pen light and shined it in Clef's eyes to check for any signs of head trauma showing in his eyes. Then the doctor instructed him to visually follow his index finger as he waived it in front of his face.
"How do you feel right now?"
"Tired in all ways possible," he admitted.
The doctor nodded. "It's a momentous thing to recover from amnesia. So you're certain you know who you are then?"
"Yes," Clef answered evasively, not yet ready to reveal all his secrets.
"Then the medical advice I prescribe to you is rest and lots of it. Contact any loved ones who may be out there any worrying about you! Three months is a long time to be missing someone. On the positive side, your leg looks great. You've got strong bones."
"It's all the calcium I get at the ranch. I've never had so much cows' milk," Clef commented, wondering why he'd never thought about it before. No, milk wasn't part of his regular diet in Cephiro, but for the school children it was essential.
"You're free to go," the doctor concluded before showing him out of the examining room.
Clef entered the waiting room where Patricia was reading a months-old copy of Ladies Home Journal. She saw him, nodded in understanding, and stood to leave.
"Thank you," Clef called out to the doctor's retreating back.
The rest of the weekend came and went with quiet solitude. Clef got his alone time that he'd been seeking, and he could certainly have been able to rest had his mind not been making endless circles of thought.
The first thing he knew was that he was not magical at all. Oh, yes, he realized that in the van on the way to the hospital, but the revelation continued to sink in and reveal itself to him in all its hideous glory.
He didn't know how to be who he was without magic. It had been like breathing for him all his life, and that life had been a long one, indeed. Maybe he did look as old as twenty-nine now, but he most certainly wasn't. In this new human body, he was not yet four months old! At home in Cephiro, he was ancient, and he liked it that way. A wizened mage was afforded some respect that no young pup could ever have.
So who was he if he wasn't Mage Clef? Yes, he was still Clef, and that included Harry's memories of a world Clef had never known nor really understood. He was in deep mental pain, he realized. His definition of self was completely gone, and he wasn't sure what to do in this world.
Was going back to Cephiro even an option for him? In this world only the Pillar had the power to do that. He'd have to find a way to talk to Hikaru. He'd have to ask Umi, but did he really have any reason to go back there? The land didn't need him anymore. People lived, and flowers grew. Magic remained, and other teachers found students.
He had only a limited time to decide what he was going to do. Umi was leaving soon to Japan, and he was not going to overstay his welcome with the Templeton family. They had helped him enough.
He sighed and thrashed in bed like a petulant child, but even that didn't bring him any true comfort. He turned his gaze and looked at his little betta fish Fyula swimming in his dish. It really had been such a kind gesture for Umi to give it to him.
He remembered how adorable she looked that day with the tendrils from her braid falling around her face and nearly all of her sprinkled with flour. Thinking of that moment was yet another indication that he cared about the Water Knight and always had. That basic desire for her, the same to him as having a heartbeat, so utterly and completely intrinsic, had always been there even in a new situation where he was an amnesiac called Harry.
Yes, he'd have to speak to her. The thought terrified him because there was absolutely no hiding any more. Then he remembered one more thing, one bright and shining glorious thing. She loved him.
She'd said as much when she'd hinted to him that she thought she knew who he was. Umi had loved him then in Cephiro despite the rocky starts, and she seemed to like who he was when he was Harry. He hadn't thought of that right away because he was too stuck in his pain to notice. It would take a while for him to come to terms with being so... mundane. His mouth twisted as if the mere thought of the word was distasteful.
The thought of her love gave him hope. Perhaps he could live in this world yet.
Several days later, Steve Ford was knocking on his door as if he were trying to splinter the wood into a thousand tiny toothpicks. "Let me in now, or I swear I'll get a battering ram and knock this off its hinges!"
Feeling perverse, Clef went to the door and pulled it open just a crack, letting just a blue eye and a lock of his wild hair be seen. "You could have just said, 'Please.'"
Steve swore under his breath and pushed the door open the rest of the way to let himself into Clef's room. It was decorated basically the same way it had been when he took up residence here back in March. It still had the austere Swedish look to it like it could have been an IKEA demonstration room. The personal touches besides Fyula swimming in his bowl were random gifts from the students and some of his magic trappings. There was, of course, the stack of books Joan had gotten him from the library as if he'd had the intentions of a medieval scholar.
Despite the fact that he looked the same as his friend Harry, Clef was different. His eyes were shrouded with secrets and warnings for things he would never share.
"Why have you been avoiding us? We're your friends. We want to help you." Steve demanded.
Clef smirked. "You don't mince words, do you? Always to the point."
"Since when have you had a problem with that?"
"Didn't say I did," he answered argumentatively.
After waging a miniature staring war with him, Steve asked, "Where did you go?"
Clef crossed his defensively arms in front of his chest. He had the fleeting thought that his body still surprised him. He'd been like a child so long, that it was strange, and even wonderful at times, to be a man. It's possible his choice he had made at the time long ago wasn't the right one, but the fact now was moot. He was an adult, and there was no changing on that.
"Just now? The bathroom. I didn't realize I needed to clear my 'movements' with you."
"You really are a jerk sometimes, you know that?" Steve retorted. "And I meant it metaphysically, I guess. Harry, the friend I knew, disappeared. I don't see how you can be such vastly different people. It's beyond my thinking that you could just change your basic character even if you didn't remember who you were!"
"I'm still the same man," he spoke as he reached for his camera, which he had also because of Joan. Then Clef announced, "Come on. Let's walk. You can do all your yelling at me outside."
The former mage didn't say anything as he walked. Instead, he looked at the sky, so blue. It was like the skies of Cephiro, or the calming blue water aura of Umi's hair. He would have to face her eventually, he reminded himself. He should bite the bullet and do it sooner rather than later, his pragmatic self told him.
Focusing the camera, Clef took a picture of the landscape at the outskirts of the main campus. He realized as he took the photographs that he was happy here and had been happier as Harry than he had in a long time. It wasn't that being Harry was easy. Instead, it was that he had a group of friends who seemed to truly care. He'd had that before, and one of those times was when Umi had been in Cephiro.
Interrupting the reverie, Steve commented, "We missed you. Yes, of course we're happy you have your memory back, but we would have rather had you camping with us."
A wash of thoughts came to him, but he responded with a simple, "I'm sorry."
"I think Derrick and Will missed you the most, not that either one of them would admit it. Will is going to graduate, by the way. In fact, Umi is going to bake some cakes for the graduates as part of the end of year party. No one can resist one of her cakes."
That elicited a chuckle. He'd only had one of her cakes when he first arrived, but the delicious reputation was well-deserved.
"So let's cut to the chase. Do you want to tell me who you are?" Steve queried.
"I don't know," Clef admitted with an exhale of breath.
Ford stopped walking in his tracks and stared incredulously at him. "What a minute! I thought you got your memory back!"
"I did. But," he clarified as he faced his friend, "I don't know what my purpose in life is any more. I can't go home, and I don't know how to be anything other than what I was."
The surprise knit on Ford's brow. "Were you kicked out? Were you a criminal? I still don't understand what happened to you."
A rueful laughed followed escaped his lips. "I don't, either! Honestly. I was home tending my garden in the mid-afternoon. The next thing I knew, I was on a dark road in the middle of the night being run over by a metallic vehicle I had never seen before!"
Steve tried to figure him out. "There's something you're not telling me."
"There are lots of things I'm not telling you," he confirmed with a smirk.
"Don't you trust me?" he asked.
"You're my friend," was the answer, though it didn't directly answer the question.
"Fine. Fine. In your own time. I see how this is going to go," Steve said. "I'm not going to ask you any more, but if you want me, you do know where to find me. One last thing, though, Clef. Will you be at Will's graduation party? It would mean a lot to him, especially since you weren't part of the camping trip."
Adding pointedly, he said, "Not to beat a dead horse here, but this is a kid we're talking about. Don't let him down."
"I'll be there," he agreed and then surprised Steve by suddenly taking his photo. "For remembrance," Clef explained.
When more time had passed, he found himself pacing the yard in front of Umi's bungalow trying to get the courage to knock on the door. It hadn't been this difficult before, he complained to himself. Berating his inner monologues, which were too noisy lately anyway, Clef gave three succinct knocks on the door.
She must have opened the door without looking through the peep hole. When she saw him, she gasped in surprise. "Hello," she fumbled.
Dropping his head in respect and then giving a slight bow from the waist, he requested, "May I please come in?"
She stared dumbly at him, shocked to see him at her doorstep. In her fit of anger after he told her to stay away, she'd stayed far away as possible. She was still angry, and she felt like holding a grudge more than being kind-hearted. It had been days since he'd gotten his memory, and he hadn't spoken to her!
"Please," he asked again.
Giving him the evil eye, she opened so he could pass into her inner sanctum. When he got there, he saw that she was in the midst of packing. "Oh, you're going back to Japan," he stated obviously to himself.
"Soon," she conferred. "With nothing here left to stay for, I figured I should go as soon as possible."
He winced as he heard the censorious bite in her tone. "Thank you for all you did for me," he said quietly with his back turned to her. He appeared to be busily examining the figurines still on the mantelpiece, but he was only interested enough to observe that they didn't seem like her style at all.
"You're welcome," she replied neutrally. Never let it be said that she had no manners. Umi was kind even to her supposed enemies, as the princesses of Chizeta knew.
"I shouldn't waste your time," he apologized. In a bewildered tone, he asked, "Umi, how did I get here? To Earth. To… you."
"I thought you knew," she admitted with worry troubling her brow. She went into the kitchen to start tea as an aid to thinking.
"I promise you. I did nothing to get here. At least, nothing of which I'm aware," he added after she gave him a disbelieving look. "Have you talked to Hikaru about this?"
"Yes," she said as she prepared to settings for tea. "I did that weeks ago, and she doesn't know. Could it be another invasion? Is there a master mage stronger than you trying to take over the land?"
His mirthless laugh rumbled through his chest. "If only it were so. At least that would be interesting. Cephiro is a beautiful place, and life has gone on without you girls. I was starting to think it had gone on without me, too. Oh, I was needed at first and important to the rebuilding of our world and those of our friends. But it seems they don't need me any more."
"So you don't have anyone or anything waiting at home for you," she concluded.
"No," he said, walking slowly forward to take her hand. "But maybe I still have something here of value."
She glanced down at tips of her fingers held so carefully in his. Could she finally believe him and end the pretenses between them? They'd come so close before and still failed. She looked up to see his blue eyes watching hers, matching color for color as if the insides of their beings were the same.
Before Umi could open her mouth to speak, her cell phone rang, breaking the intimacy of the moment. "It's Hikaru," she breathed in complete surprise as she looked at the display.
Reverting to Japanese, she greeted her friend and was silenced yet again by the statement the former Magic Knight made. "Fuu is with me. We're in the airport on a layover, but we'll be there to see you in a matter of hours."
She dropped the phone from her hand as the tea kettle began to whistle.