Waiting for the Moon

He didn't believe there was a her inside all that missing information. Inside that broken brain.

"I am a patient to you, am I not?"

"Of course you are."

"You think you will repair me?"

He wrote very quickly, as if afraid of missing a single word. "I don't know precisely what's wrong with you yet. Except, of course, that you're brain-damaged." He gave her a brief, heartless smile, then resumed writing.

Selena bit down on her lower lip and looked away. The dreams she'd spun so easily in the last weeks began unraveling, separating like strands of old silk. He was backward, but she couldn't tell him so. How could someone like her-broken and inexperienced-tell a great man of science that he needed to search for what was right with her, not what was wrong?

She picked up the small wooden spike and put it in the square hole.

He drew in a sharp breath and grinned at her. "Good." Back to the writing.

She felt none of the triumph she'd prepared herself to feel, none of the exhilaration. Instead, she felt vaguely sick and lonely.

He reached for the stack of pictures beside him and picked one up. "Can you name this item?" "Moon," she said dully. "And this one? Do you know what it is?" Selena looked at the stylized painting of a heart. "Yes," she said in a soft voice. "I know what it is. Do you, Ian?" He looked up, startled. "Of course I know what it is."

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"And do you have one?"

"No body can function without it, Selena. Now, what is it?" "A heart."

He didn't look up from his journal, just kept writing. "Its function?"

"It is the storehouse of a person's emotions and dreams and desires. Johann says your heart is the dwelling of the soul."

"Don't listen to Johann. The heart is simply an organ, like your kidneys or your liver. It pumps blood throughout your body. Emotions stem from certain places in the brain."

"I am proof that you are wrong." Ian looked up. "What do you mean?" "I have forgotten my name, my place of birth, everything about the life I once lived. This is caused by the damage to my brain." He wrote furiously. "Uh-huh." "But I remember my feelings. I can laugh and cry and love. And I can be hurt."

He frowned at her. "So you're saying that your emotions do reside in the heart. Empirically, not figuratively." He tapped the pen against his lips and stared past her. "Interestin

g. Very sophisticated logic, too, I might add. Though you probably don't know what I mean."

She tried to smile. Her eyes met his, pled silently for understanding. He had missed the point entirely. "I mean I can be hurt, Ian."

He stared at her for a long time, saying nothing, not writing. Anticipation tingled in her blood. He was seeing her this time, she was certain of it. He wasn't analyzing or cataloging or diagramming her. She'd said something that touched him. A smile tugged at one corner of her mouth. She leaned toward him, a little out of breath.

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Very slowly, he brought his pen back to the paper. "Everyone can be hurt, Selena."

She felt him fade away from her again, felt the moment of possibility disappear.

Lethe House was curiously alive. Ian stood in his study, sipping a warm glass of port, listening to the incredible din of voices in the hallway. There was laughter, for God's sake. He couldn't remember the last time he'd heard such genuine camaraderie among the residents of this place.

Selena had obviously worked her magic on all of them. From the moment she'd first appeared here, battered and bloodied and nameless, she'd struck at the very heart of every person under this roof. He could feel the enchantment in the air, hear it in the muted strains of laughter. She was drawing the inmates together, making a family out of strangers, turning a collection of lost and lonely souls into friends.

Yesterday he mightn't have noticed.

Today he was a doctor again. A doctor who wanted to understand every facet of his patient. She'd shown a remarkable retention today, an ability to reason that surprised him. He had so many more questions to ask her. As soon as she'd eaten her supper, he wanted to test her again.

Someone knocked on the door.

"Come in."