Genesis - Keith R. A. DeCandido [36]
That didn't make sense—she could identify marble, a faucet, a shower, tell the difference between a tub and a stall, yet she hadn't the first clue who or where she was.
Gingerly, she got up. Her right shoulder and the right side of her face both still ached, but the ache was already receding. Just residual pain from falling down.
Assuming she had fallen down.
The evidence, at least, supported that. The way she was sprawled on the shower floor, the way the curtain had been ripped down with her—all of that pointed to her falling down, probably grabbing the curtain for support as she fell.
This only served to confuse her more. For whatever reason, she was having no trouble analyzing her situation, even drawing conclusions.
Yet she couldn't recall her name, her favorite color, what she liked to eat, how old she was, what her mother's maiden name was.
No, wait. Her mother's maiden name was Ferrara.
Why the hell did she remember that?
She turned the water off, which draped the bathroom in an eerie quiet. The dripping from the showerhead echoed throughout the massive bathroom, and only then did she appreciate just how big the place was.
From the looks of it, whoever lived here—her?—was quite well off. Top-of-the-line furnishings made of brass and marble, expensive toiletries, and the room was spotless. Either she was a neat freak, or had a good cleaning service. Or both. And the bath products were not the kind you found at your local CVS.
(More confusion: she remembered a national drugstore chain, but nothing about herself.)
The mirror was covered in condensation from the hot water. She walked up to it and wiped it away with her right hand.
A very attractive woman with neck-length straight dirty-blond hair, light blue eyes, and pale unblemished skin stared back at her.
Almost unblemished. Her right shoulder was bruised, probably from falling in the shower, and there was a scar along her left shoulder. That didn't come from the fall, though. As best she could tell, the scar was several years old.
She wondered what caused it.
On a hook on the wall to her right sat a white piece of cloth. It looked like some kind of jacket, with a rope-like belt at the waist. She grabbed it and put it on. It felt like silk. Or maybe satin. She wasn't sure what the difference between them was. And she couldn't remember what this article of clothing was called, but she knew it had a name.
Slowly, she padded out into the next room.
Any doubts she had that she was loaded evaporated as she stepped into the bedroom. She imagined that several inner-city apartments could fit into this one bedroom. Everything in it was in the most pristine shape, yet there was a sense of age—that everything in this room was older than she was.
Of course, she had no idea how old she was. She wasn't even sure how old she looked even after looking at herself in the mirror.
Tying the belt—no, sash—of the whatever-it-was-she-was-wearing, she walked through the bedroom. A dark red dress lay neatly on the bed. She guessed that it was something she was supposed to wear when she got out of the shower.
It was a double bed with two sets of pillows. Did she live here alone?
Only then did she acknowledge the extra weight on her left hand. Aside from the white thing, she did wear one other item: a gold ring. The ring symbolized—something. It didn't appear to have any kind of design, just a flat ribbon of gold wrapped around her third finger. It meant something, though, she knew that much, and it had something to do with whether or not she lived alone. But she couldn't put the pieces together. Yet.
She walked over to the window. Pushing aside the thick curtains with the odd patterns on them, she saw a forest. Most of the trees were bereft of leaves, and those that were still intact were yellow, red, or brown. That meant it was autumn.
Thrilled to add another