Gradually, the word "hallucination" vanished from his mind. He knew this was no illusion. Thinking back now on all the strange details that had surfaced beforehand, he realized they were indirectly confirming something. Whatever this was, it certainly was not a false vision.
Ruger leaned quietly against the Old Recliner, raised a hand, and smacked his head hard. Then he knocked on the side of it.
The blows seemed to clear his mind a little more.
At the same time, the woman's smile flashed through his mind. That teasing smile was just like the one he had shown others moments earlier, but now the tables had turned. Faced with it, he was even more helpless than the Wizards who had knocked on his door.
He blinked, then knocked unhurriedly on his head again.
How many times, exactly?
He silently repeated the question asked by the gaunt Wizard he had happened to encounter.
The lady's smile, and the teasing air she had displayed while leaning against the doorframe, kept making him feel that perhaps he had lost his memory more often than he imagined.
At least once more. He knocked hard on his head again.
In that case, his recovery periods had still lasted around six months, rather than growing longer as he had imagined. But then he remembered what Stray Hair One had said: he had only been seen slumping sideways while eating twice. If there had been another bout of memory loss, did that mean he had not been quite so exhausted on one occasion? No, perhaps he had been even more exhausted, collapsing into sleep before he could make it into the Bedroom Space, and only going there to eat and drink his fill after waking. That would mean Stray Hair One was right, and the timing would