Page 86 of Light Up
“I had no idea it was broken.”
“What other injuries did you have?”
“Concussion. Bruises. I… I had to have my spleen taken out.”
“Your spleen! And you went back for my phone, my coat and jacket on the back seatandmy suitcase from the boot?”
Corey nodded. “Why let your stuff burn? I guess I was fired up on adrenaline.”
“Thank you, again.”
Corey wanted to hug him but he hugged himself instead.
“I found things in my suitcase last night and I don’t know if they got there accidentally or maybe you put them there.”
“What were they?”
“If I tell you, and you say you remember, how can I know you’re telling the truth.”
“I didn’t put anything in your suitcase. I didn’t open it. I did put my phone number in the pocket of your suit jacket.”
Tal exhaled. “Ah, I didn’t look there. I rang every hostel in this area trying to give them my number to give to you. Only this place took it.”
“Good thing you’re not a serial killer.”
“You made…that joke before.”
Corey nodded, his hope surging.
“I had a dream last night about a murder mystery party.”
Corey gaped at him. “But we didn’t do it.”
“No, we didn’t.”
“We were going to. It was the night after… You were… Do you remember who you were going to be? Let me write it down. You write it down too.” He found pieces of paper and one pencil, and let Tal use it first. Corey didn’t let him see what he’d written. He felt as if his heart was about to beat out of his chest. They exchanged the slips of paper. Tal had written True Brand. So had Corey.
It was hard to say which of them was the more shocked.
“Do you remember the hotel?” Corey asked.
“Called Solas Suas? A place that doesn’t exist? No, but I keep having flashes of awareness. The hotel name carved into stone.”
“It was. At the end of the drive. It’s all so clear in my head. So clear that I really thought it had all happened. We decorated Christmas biscuits and mine were awful. Yours were fantastic. We made snow sculptures. We won a bottle of champagne. We never drank it. Not that bottle anyway.”
Tal didn’t look as though he remembered any of it. Corey didn’t want to tell him too much. He wanted Tal to remember on his own.
“Did we paint?” Tal asked.
Corey nodded.“Reindeer. Yours was great, mine was terrible even though you’d given me your sketch. I turned it into Rudoph.”
“The antlers were good.”
Corey’s heart thumped hard. “That’s what you said to me. The tutor said I’d—”
“Used too much water. Oh God. But…” Tal rubbed his face. “The other things I found were silver.”
“Dice and reindeer cuff links. I got the cufflinks in a cracker. You got the dice.”
