Rook

to say something else, and a vague recollection floated up—a tiny scrap of dying memory. “Good evening… my lady?” The lady nodded approvingly.
    “Well, apparently you have not forgotten
everything.
”
    S he woke up and fumbled by the side of the bed for the light switch. The clock told her that it was seven in the morning. Though she was exhausted, there was no chance she would be getting back to sleep. There were simply too many questions rushing through her head. What was the deal with the dreams? Should she be taking them seriously?
    It seemed a trifle unfair to place any more importance on the conversational dream than she did on the tongue-kissing dream. However, the conversational dream had been incredibly vivid. Did she believe that the dreams were subconscious messages? She was vaguely inclined to dismiss them as her brain’s sieving through the garbage of her thoughts while she slept, but she wasn’t really sure.
    And who was this Myfanwy Thomas person anyway? A rook?Wasn’t that some kind of bird? Clearly the dream could be discounted, since she was not a bird. The lack of feathers, she thought wryly, was just one indicator. As it was, she had no idea about anything. How old was she? Was she married? No rings on any fingers; no incriminating tan lines. Was she employed? She hadn’t thought to check the balance in the accounts earlier. She’d been too occupied with not freezing to death. Did she have family? Friends? With a sigh and then a few grunts of pain, she rolled out of her comfy bed and trudged gingerly over to the table where she’d thrown her jacket. Her scabbed knees hurt when she bent down, and her chest ached if she breathed too deeply. She was about to empty the pockets when her eye fell on the phone and the menu.
    “Hello, this is room five-five-three.”
    “Yes, good morning, Ms. Ryan,” said a polished and mercifully nonperky voice. “What can I do for you?”
    “Ooh, I would like to order some breakfast. Could I get a pot of coffee, some blueberry pancakes, some orange juice, some wheat toast, some marmalade, and two raw steaks?”
    Astonishingly, there was no stunned pause; the voice on the other end cheerfully agreed to send it all up.
    “I need the steaks for my eyes; I had an accident,” she felt the need to explain.
    “Of course, Ms. Ryan, we’ll be up soon.”
    She also asked if the hotel could quickly launder her only set of clothes, and the voice on the phone promised to dispatch a person immediately to pick them up.
    “Thank you,” she said as she looked out the window. The storm had passed overnight, and the sky was now cloudless. After a few minutes she wandered over to the doors that led to the balcony. She was about to open them when there was a discreet knock at the door.
Remember,
she thought,
someone beat the hell out of you, and someone is still after you
. She peeked through the peephole and saw that it was a diffident young fellow in a hotel uniform with an empty laundry bag. She eyed the crumpled and damp trail of clothing leading to the bathroom and dismissed her paranoia.
I’m willing to risk it for the sake ofclean clothes.
She opened the door, thanked the young man, and, flushing, hurriedly gathered up her bedraggled garments and dropped them into the waiting bag. Then, feeling guilty about the porter she hadn’t tipped the previous night, she lavishly overtipped him.
    She was watching the morning news and marveling at the lack of items about corpses in a park when breakfast arrived and was laid out carefully for her, prompting another disproportionate tip. She sat down, fished in the jacket pockets, and pulled out the envelope neatly labeled
2.
Just looking at it made her feel mildly irritated with the woman who’d written it, the woman who’d put her in this situation.
I’ll look at it in a sec,
she decided.
Once I’ve had some coffee.
She set it to one side, took out her wallet, and nibbled some toast as she looked through the cards. There were two driver’s licenses, one of which confirmed that she was indeed Myfanwy Alice Thomas. The address given triggered no memories at all, although she was intrigued to note that it appeared to be a house rather than a flat. It identified her hair as brown, her eyes as blue, and her age as thirty-one. She looked at her picture with disfavor. Ordinary features, pale, with independent-minded eyebrows.
    The wallet also contained several credit and ATM cards and a little hand-scribbled note that