Tabula Rasa(10)

When I got back, Trevor was in the tower reading a book. “Find anything interesting?” he asked, indicating my bag as if I’d just been out shopping or something.

“More creepy than interesting,” I said. I wasn’t willing to get into a discussion about my hoarding. I took the bag to the bathroom and stashed it under the sink and locked the bathroom door. I was right, my period had started. I quickly took care of things and went back out into the main suite where Trevor sat with a curious expression on his face.

There was no way I was talking about this directly, but I did need information. What I’d collected would last several months, but I was sure there had to be a storeroom somewhere, probably here in the castle. If it was in the castle, I was set and could worry about what happened when that ran out way in the future.

“Umm, Trevor?”

He looked up from his book. “Yes, dear?”

I wished he wouldn’t call me that, but I let it go. “So, I know we don’t have running water, but surely if there’s a stock room in the castle, we have soap and shampoo at least.”

He seemed almost disappointed that I’d figured that out. What an *.

“Yeah, there’s a stock room on the second floor. Do you want me to go with you?”

“No. I’ve got it, thanks,” I said.

He shrugged and went back to reading.

When I reached the second floor, I found the stock room hidden away at the end of a hallway—something I’d overlooked in my previous exploration because it was so nondescript. I let out a relieved sigh when I discovered the door was unlocked. Inside was a wondrous bounty of little hotel soaps and shampoos, towels, toilet paper, paper towels, cleaning products, and... jackpot... feminine protection. Endless boxes of pads and tampons. It was the happiest I’d been since waking up in that pirate ship. These were things that made me feel halfway civilized.

I didn’t bother relocating any of it up to the tower. It was enough that I knew it was there. And with the drawbridge coming up each night, I didn’t have to worry someone would wander in and take anything. I was, somehow disturbed Trevor hadn’t already shown me this stuff. Wouldn’t he realize how important soap and shampoo and all the rest would be to me?

Didn’t he care?

I went back up to the tower.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” he asked.

“Yeah. Where’d you get a book?” I asked. I’d been preoccupied before but now that I was thinking about it, I couldn’t imagine Trevor had traveled with books while the world was dying. And if he had, he’d probably read it so many times he could have it memorized by now.

“There were a whole bunch of them in the office below us when we got here. We relocated them to the cabinet in the entertainment center. Check the side without the DVDs. You might like some of them. And without your memory, it’s all new again.”

“Yeah, thrilling. You’re such a silver lining kind of guy.”

Trevor frowned. “Are you going to be like this forever?”

“Like what?”

“Before you had that stupid fall you were optimistic, acclimating to our life. Things were good.”

I wrinkled my nose at that. “They were so good that we had a huge fight before the accident?”

A disturbing thought occurred to me. What if I hadn’t fallen at all? What if he’d pushed me? What if he’d tried to kill me during the fight? It would explain why he didn’t seem too upset about my memory loss.

Trevor slammed his book shut and stalked out of the suite, leaving me alone in the tower. I was hungry, but I was also exhausted, and I didn’t want to run into him again for a while, so I lay down on the bed for a nap.

I woke to find Trevor standing over me with a look I couldn’t quite translate into a coherent emotional state. Anticipatory maybe?

“I made you some dinner.”

“O-okay.” Had he poisoned it? Would this be his second murder attempt? He looked a bit too eager.

I followed him wearily down to the second floor to find that he’d picked wildflowers and lined the tables with them. Emergency candles were lit on the main table where the “king and queen” were supposed to sit.

“Cornish game hens?” I asked, looking at the small birds on the plates, surrounded by vegetables from a can. He must have been holding out on me with the frozen chicken nuggets.

“Actually, it’s a couple of the chickens. They were too small and fighting a lot, so I went ahead and slaughtered them.”

I shuddered. It must have been before today because when I’d been out by the kiddie rides, I hadn’t seen any smaller chickens running around.

He pulled out my chair for me and then disappeared into the kitchen. Music began to play over the sound system. It sounded like what you’d hear at a renaissance fair, but it was probably all that was available here. He returned a little while later with a bottle of wine. Where had that been stashed?

“The manager kept a few bottles in his office. We swore we wouldn’t open them except for special occasions.”

“And this is a special occasion?”

He shrugged. “Elodie, I don’t want to fight. I don’t know why this is so hard when you don’t even remember what we were fighting about.”

“What were we fighting about?”