It’s been ten months since I first remember meeting Brandon, but, according to the rest of the world, he and I became a couple three years ago.

It all started after the surgery. When I awoke from my anesthesia-induced sleep, I nodded groggily as the doctor listed common post-operative symptoms – like drowsiness, dizziness, and disorientation. Then, two nurses wheeled me down an elevator, through the main lobby, and outside the hospital.

Even though I’d arranged for my friend Mae to pick me up, the car that arrived was not her black sedan but, instead, an unfamiliar silver SUV. The stranger who emerged from it was a tall, well-built man with hazy green eyes and tousled red hair.

Panic rushed through me as he squeezed my hand and told me in a firm, deep voice that he was so glad that the operation had been a success, and that he’d be taking good care of me while I recovered.

I tried to scream. I tried to explain to the nurses that they were delivering me into the arms of an abductor. But, in my weakened state, all I could manage were weak whimpers and incoherent mumbles that the man and nurses dismissed as “side effects” and “temporary confusion” as they lifted me into the car.

The ignition started. As the hospital faded into the distance, I tried to beg the man to free me. With immense effort, I managed to croak words like “please,” “don’t,” and “stop,” but to no avail. If the man heard me, he gave no sign of it.

Meanwhile, a sense of absolute exhaustion gradually descended over me. The last thing I remember before darkness overcame me was the man’s loving smile, and three words that haunted the frightening dreams that followed: I love you.

When I awoke the next morning, I found myself, to my immense relief, in the familiar location of the bedroom of my townhouse. For a moment, I wrote off what had happened as a dream, or a hallucination brought on by my semi-conscious state. Maybe Mae had picked me up after all.

Soon enough, however, the same man stepped into my room. He placed a tray with two slices of toast and a small fruit smoothie on a bedside table and, upon seeing that I was awake, asked me how I was feeling.

The scream I uttered left him flustered and pale-faced. “April, what’s wrong?” he asked.

He knew my name. “Get out, get out, now!” I hollered.

“Okay…” he said quietly as he backed out of my room.

I mustered what energy I had to leap out of bed and lock the door. I found my phone in its usual place atop a dresser.

The photo that displayed on the background of the phone screen caused me to drop it. A nauseous feeling ran through me as I picked it up and stared, wide-eyed, at the image of the stranger and me, smiling and holding hands. The sight of an ornate diamond ring on my finger in the picture – one that matched the gold band that he wore – made me dizzy.

With trembling hands, I dialed 911.

When the police arrived, the man – who identified himself as Brandon Harrison – spoke calmly as the officers interrogated him.

Everything he said checked out. He produced a marriage license, and his driver’s license listed my home address. He showed the officers the numerous photos of us together that were displayed around the house. “I’m just worried about April. She’s never been like this before.”

“Don’t listen to him,” I begged. “He’s lying.”

“How about you and I go upstairs,” said one of the officers, who proceeded to lead me to my bedroom while her partner stayed with Brandon.

When I started to ramble again, she cut me off. “Look, ma’am, please try to see this from my perspective. You’re still recovering from a medical procedure, and this man has everything – and I mean everything – to prove that he is, in fact, your husband, and that he lives here with you.”

“You can’t be serious. You’re not going to leave me alone with this man-”

“Has he hurt you? Threatened you in any way?”

“Well, no, but…” My voice drifted off. “But, officer, I have friends, and family…they’ll confirm what I’m telling you.”

The officers left after my friends and family did the opposite. Every person I contacted swore to the same version of events: that I married Brandon almost a year ago, and that we’d been living together as a couple for even longer.

My own social media pages were consistent with the happy pictures of us displayed around the house. Post after post reflected us living and traveling together. My phone and text message histories, meanwhile, were filled with corresponding communications.

All of it left me absolutely baffled and confounded. I had no idea what to do. I just knew that I did not feel safe having Brandon in the house with me.

“It’s my house too, you know,” he replied when I asked him to leave. “But, fine, I’ll go to a friend’s place, or a hotel, or somewhere else until you figure out whatever is happening to you, if you promise to see a doctor in the meantime. I’m so worried about you.”

“Fine. Just go, please.”

Over the next few days, I met with practitioner after practitioner. Many had records or notes reflecting my marriage to Brandon, such as me mentioning him in response to routine questions, and none could clearly explain what was happening. They all agreed that I exhibited no signs of mental or physical illness that could explain why three years of memories of my husband had somehow vanished from my mind.

“Regardless of what’s causing this,” said the surgeon who’d performed the operation, “whether it’s a truly novel side effect of the surgery, or a psychological breakdown of some kind – what’s unequivocal is that you are, in fact, married to Mr. Harrison, and that you’ve known him for several years.”

I was sitting on my living room couch, tall glass of red wine in hand, when Brandon called. I hit ‘decline,’ took a big gulp of my drink, and leaned my head back against the wall.

What the fuck do I do now? I thought. The whole world was telling me something that I knew wasn’t true. During a long call with my parents, my mother had insisted that I invite Brandon back, and my father had even implied that I was deliberately lying about losing my memories of him.

Logically, the only answer is that, somehow, everyone else was correct – this man really was my husband, and I was losing my mind, or in denial, or something. As much as I felt otherwise, no other explanation was possible.

And Brandon wasn’t acting maliciously. Instead, he was complying with everything I asked of him, to the point that he was living out of a hotel despite having the legal right to reside with me here, in a house he apparently co-owned. If it were all some elaborate lie, then what was he gaining from it?

I downed another glass of wine and called him back. He answered right away.

We talked for hours. He asked about my health and the results of my recent appointments.

I asked him about how we met. He related how he’d used his old red pickup truck to pull my car out of a ditch during a blizzard. By coincidence, we’d run into each other at a bar a few weeks later, where I’d insisted on buying him a drink as a token of appreciation. We’d hit it off quickly and made plans together to meet again. Before long, we considered ourselves a couple.

He described leaving his apartment to move in with me, proposing to me in a park by the harbor, and planning our small wedding. He told me I’d never been as beautiful as I was when he saw me approach the altar.

“I don’t know what’s happening, April,” he told me, “but I love you with all my heart, and I know we can work through this. We were happy together, and we can be happy together again.”

I realized I was crying. He sounded so sincere, and I could sense real emotion behind his words. “I believe you,” I said. “But try to imagine what it’s like for me. To just be told, by everyone, that so much of my life happened differently from what I remember.”

“Take your time,” he responded. “As long as you need. When you’re ready to see me again let me know.”

I tossed and turned all night. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was living a life that wasn’t mine, like I’d slipped from one reality to another – one where I didn’t belong.

Because no matter how patient and understanding Brandon acted…I couldn’t change the fact that I didn’t feel anything for him. I barely knew him, much less loved him. I thought about the pain he must be feeling, for his whole life to just be inexplicably upended one day, and I couldn’t help but feel like I was somehow responsible.

I decided to call my mother again. “Honey,” she told me. “I would never lie to you, ever, and you know that. So listen to me when I say this: Brandon is your husband, and you need to let him back into your life.”

An hour later, I called Brandon and told him that I was alright with him moving back in, so long as he stayed in the guest room in the basement.

Months passed with us living together like roommates. At first, we handled our own meals, but after a while, we started cooking for each other. Sometimes we’d sit at opposite ends of the couch and watch tv.

I asked him questions about our time together, and he supplied me with plenty of stories – the early date during which I’d putted a golf ball so badly that it went spiraling over a fence and onto a nearby highway, the time he’d carried me for nearly half a mile after I injured myself during a jog, and our honeymoon on an Alaskan cruise. We had a natural chemistry, and he often made me laugh. At the end of the night, he’d retire to the pull-out couch downstairs.

We took many walks together at a nearby public park. These outings were generally uneventful, except for one occasion when Brandon intervened to stop a crazed woman from harassing me.

I’d been giving her dog, a sweet ridgeback who’d run up to me, some scratches and pets, when she started to scream at me. As I backed away from the dog, she made a hostile, guttural sound, and I noticed what looked like narrow streams of blood running down from her eyes as she wailed. She charged at me, but Brandon intervened, shoving her off me and telling her to leave me alone. Another bystander restrained her as we hurried away, and I thanked Brandon for looking out for me.

Otherwise, life fell into a mundane routine. We were watching a tense movie once when I realized I’d been gripping Brandon’s hand. Afterwards, he told me his back was aching from all the nights he’d spent on the foldout downstairs.

I took a deep breath. “I’m being a jerk, keeping the bed all to myself. We should set up a rotation in terms of who stays there, and who is in the basement.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he replied. “I mean, yeah, the bed’s more comfortable, but I miss going to sleep with you.”

“I’m sorry, Brandon, I-.”

He continued. “I have nightmares sometimes. In them, you’re living your life without me. I try to talk to you, but it’s like I’m a ghost, and you can’t hear me or see me. When I wake up, I’m covered in sweat. You used to be there to comfort me, but now I’m all alone down in the dark basement. I miss you.”

“Brandon, I’m just not there yet.”

He sighed. “Okay.”

I finally asked him a question I’d been holding back for weeks. “Do you think I’m lying? About not remembering you?”

“No,” he responded, abruptly. “Not at all. I don’t know what it is – if it was some fluke side effect of the surgery, or some kind of undiagnosed condition – but I know that you would never lie about something like this. I wouldn’t have married you if I didn’t trust you completely.”

As much as I appreciated his words, the exchange left me feeling terrible. We were a married couple, after all,. I had to assume that we’d done plenty of things together. But, now, I didn’t even want to fall asleep in the same room as him.

The truth was that I continued to feel no meaningful attraction towards Brandon. I’d developed an affection for him, sure. He seemed polite, self-sacrificing, and protective of me. Perhaps he was good-looking, too, in an objective sense. But he sparked no romantic interest in me. It made me feel awful, given how kind and patient he was being to me.

Maybe that would change with time – maybe, eventually, I’d feel towards him the way I must have in the photos displayed around the house of us kissing or embracing. But what if that never happened? I couldn’t stay married to someone I didn’t love, no matter how good he was to me.

Still, I figured the least I could do was return some of the kindness he’d shown me by switching out our rooms as I’d offered. I wanted it to be a surprise for him.

After he left for work the next morning, I set about moving the belongings he’d brought to the basement back up to the bedroom. I decided to wash the sheets and pillowcase he’d been using as well.

When I lifted his pillow, I noticed a slight bulge in fabric where the mattress met the back of the couch. Reaching my hand under the fabric and up the backrest, I felt something solid. I gripped it and slowly pulled it out.

It was an old, tattered book. A pattern was infused into its otherwise blank mahogany leather cover. A golden triangle stood in its center. Three charcoal ovals lay over it, each intersecting with one of the triangle’s sides. At the top, just above the triangle’s pyramid tip, was a half-circle. Tiny, unrecognizable characters lined its thin, sepia perimeter.

Its aged, browned pages were of uneven sizes. Curious about their contents, I tried opening the book, only to discover that it was locked by a narrow, metal clasp with a tiny key hole.

I didn’t know what to make of it. I couldn’t find the key for it, and when I looked online, I couldn’t identify anything that matched the pattern on the cover.

It could just be something as innocuous as a vintage private diary, or a family heirloom. But the way Brandon had tucked it out of sight disturbed me. Clearly, he didn’t want me to find it, and this was the first time, to my knowledge, that he’d tried to hide something from me.

For the moment, I elected to leave the book where I’d found it and not mention it to Brandon while I gathered more information. I had a friend who might be able to help me, after all. I took a picture of the cover, texted it to Mae, and carefully put the book back in its place.

I pulled up to the house that Mae, her boyfriend Casey, and her roommate Olivia rented half of soon after. She led me away from the closed door to Olivia’s room, through the kitchen, and down the short hallway to where she and Casey, who was at work, stayed.

As we sat together on her bed, I noticed that Mae’s once-small collection of cacti had expanded into an indoor garden that filled at least a third of the room.

“I still name them after people, you know,” she said with a smirk. She pointed to a potted cactus by her desk. “Guess what I call that one?”

“I dunno. ‘April’?”

“No, silly,” she said with a laugh. “It wouldn’t feel right naming one after you. This one’s Brandon.”

“What?” Compared to the cacti and succulents around it, Brandon was smaller in size. Yet, on a closer look, I discerned that the clusters of spines that covered it appeared particularly long and jagged. “You’re ridiculous, Mae.”

She giggled. “That’s what people keep telling me. But, anyway, I assume you’re here about that picture you sent me?”

I started to explain how I’d found it hidden away in the couch Brandon had been sleeping on when Mae interrupted me. “Wait, so you still don’t remember him?”

I nodded. I hated the concerned expression on Mae’s face. It was the same look of pity I’d seen on so many people.

“And, let me guess, your current theory is that this book has something to do with you forgetting all about Brandon?”

“I know how it sounds, Mae. I just don’t know what else to think. You used to be obsessed with the occult, and I thought maybe you’d recognize the symbols on the front.” I felt my face grow red with embarrassment as I realized how unhinged I must have been sounding.

Mae put her arm around me. “April, I’m glad you came to me. Don’t ever be afraid to talk to me, okay? Olivia and I have both seen some strange things ourselves, things that most people think are impossible. So believe me, I’m not dismissing your theory offhand. But I don’t recognize the image you sent me, and I turned up nothing when I researched it this morning. My best guess is that it’s just a fancy diary of some kind. Nothing more.”

We talked for a while about other subjects – the local band Casey played drums in, Olivia’s ongoing lawsuit against her former employer, and their landlord’s efforts to find them all in breach of the contract that kept their rent at the same level since 2017 - and I felt better the longer we chatted.

I was about to leave when Mae stopped me. “Wait,” she croaked in a strangely pained, hollow voice.

“Yes?”

Mae got to her feet and moved slowly toward her desk. Her steps were shaky and erratic, like her body was navigating contradictory commands. She removed a small business card from a drawer and tossed it in my direction. It flew past me and landed on the ground. As I turned to pick it up, I heard a tumbling sound, followed by a sharp cry of pain.

When I looked back, Mae’s hand was covered in blood. To my shock, I realized it was stuck in a tight grip around cactus Brandon, with dozens of its needles protruding all the way through her palm and out the other side of her hand.

“What the hell!” I shrieked. “Mae, let me help-”

Her face had grown pale, and her expression was understandably agonized. “911. Call. Now. Fuck this hurts!”

Olivia and I followed the instructions the 911 operator gave us as we waited for assistance. When paramedics arrived, Mae repeated to them what she told us: that she’d slipped and fallen, and, when she tried to catch herself, her hand had landed on the cactus.

As they carted her away for treatment, I examined the card Mae had thrown at me. It displayed a name and an address: Monsieur Herrmann’s Occult Artifacts, 6681 Cheshire Lane.

I didn’t know what to make of it. I didn’t know what to make of a lot of things. But once Olivia assured me I didn’t need to wait at the hospital with her, I decided to follow this lead to its end.

Rainfall pounded at my umbrella as I hurried from my car to the door of 6681 Cheshire Lane. The store inside was lit primarily by scented candles that smelled vaguely of black cherry. Its shelves were lined with books with titles like Encyclopedia of Demonology or Dark Magic and Incantations separated by prop skulls and Baphomet statues.

I came across a bald man placing a book titled Crafting with Human Skin on a top shelf. “Excuse me,” I asked. “Do you work here?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he responded earnestly. “How can I help you?”

“I, um, there’s a symbol – a pattern – that I saw. I have a picture of it. I’m wondering if you might know what it means.”

“Certainly. I’m more than happy to take a look.”

I opened the picture I’d taken and handed him my phone.

“Oh,” he said, as he examined it. He looked at me, then back at the image.

“Well?” I asked.

To my surprise, he chuckled. “It’s meaningless. There’s a craftsman out of San Antonio who makes blank notebooks with this cover and sells them online. It’s vaguely meant to recall some pagan symbols but it doesn’t have any particular meaning. Anything else I can do for you?”

“No,” I said, a mix of puzzlement and relief running through me, “I think not.”

~

I didn’t mention the day’s events to Brandon. After we switched beds that night, I noticed that the book had disappeared from the couch downstairs. I decided it was likely just a diary Brandon wished to keep private and decided not to press him on it.

Mae left the hospital before long, albeit with an array of bandages around her hand. When I mentioned Monsieur Herrmann’s Occult Artifacts, she indicated that she’d been there plenty of times before but insisted that she didn’t remember giving me a card.

Over the next few weeks, the episode slipped from my mind. Brandon continued to be kind and supportive, even giving me rides to and from work when my car needed minor repairs. I began to feel even closer and more comfortable around him.

One Friday night, he prepared a fancy candlelight dinner. “It’s the anniversary of when we first met,” he explained. I tried to picture the story he told me – me, stranded by the side of the road, and him driving up in his red truck to save the day. It was a good story, and I was ready to accept it was true.

We sat together after the meal. “So, April,” he said, “I was wondering how you felt about coming upstairs and staying with me. It doesn’t have to be anything more than that. Just us sleeping in the same bed again.”

I gripped his hand. “Yes, I’m okay with that. Brandon, I’m so sorry for what I’m putting you through. I just wish I knew why-”

“It’s okay, April. Really.”

“Brandon, were we…did we have plans? Like, life plans moving forward?”

“Yeah,” he responded. “We were trying to have a kid. We had it all planned out, names and everything: Hannah for a girl, Martin for a boy. But, don’t worry about that. We can take things one step at a time.”

I felt secure enough around him that I fell asleep quickly that night. I awoke several hours later to the sounds of Brandon having a nightmare. He was sweating, shaking, and making low, panicked murmurs.

I put my arms around him and whispered, “Brandon, it’s okay, you’re just having a bad dream.”

He calmed down quickly. For a moment, he seemed to wake up, ever so slightly. “Thank you. I love you, April.”

“I love you too,” I whispered back.

He quickly went back to sleep as I realized what I’d said. I’d finally spoken those words, and I’d done so spontaneously. Maybe things really are going to work out, I thought as I dozed off again.

The next morning, I waited for the dealership’s shuttle to arrive to take me to pick up my car. As I climbed inside the van, I saw that it had a different driver than before. I slowly realized, to my surprise, that it was the same bald man who’d assisted me at the Occult store.

As he drove, he spoke to me in a frantic voice. “April, I need you to listen to me very carefully. We don’t have much time.”

“What are you doing here? How do you know my name?” I pulled out my phone.

“No, no, put that away!” he said. I realized he was driving at a dangerously fast speed in the opposite direction of the dealership. “You want answers, don’t you? Well, I have them.”

“Look, if you want to talk, lets pull over, and-”

“We don’t have time!” He yelled. “Hear me out. Please. Please. There’s a reason Mae sent you to me.”

That got my attention. “Start talking.”

“You have no idea how hard I’ve worked to pull this off. We only have a brief window before he catches on. If we’re lucky, it’ll be just enough time to get to Emma, and then the two of you need to get as far away from here as possible.”

“Emma? Who the hell is Emma?”

“One second,” he said, as he merged the van onto the interstate. He then reached into the glove box and removed a polaroid photo, which he passed to me.

In the picture, I was in an orange sundress in a park by the harbor with a beaming expression of joy on my face. A woman I vaguely recognized was kneeling before me. In one hand, she held a leash that connected to a ridgeback puppy. In her other, she held out a beautiful golden ring.

“That’s Emma, your wife,” the man said. “She and the pup - Tessa - are waiting for us at a deserted motel, a place where you may be safe for a little while.”

“My what?” No, no, it couldn’t be…

“I believe you ran into her a little while ago.”

I realized where I’d seen her. She was the crazy lady at the park, the one Brandon had protected me from. “But…why, if that’s true…”

“I’ve studied legends about an ancient cambion called Grousel. Until I saw you at the store, I thought they were just that – legends. I didn’t think he was real. But the symbol you showed me, and the text – it’s a book only he would have. Nobody knows for sure what’s inside of it, but the most common theory is that it’s where he records each alteration he makes.”

He continued as I tried to digest what he was saying. “Grousel casts illusions that are almost impossible to see through. And he can command people to do what he wants. It takes incredible willpower to even notice his influence, and even more to do anything about it. Even temporary resistance can only be achieved at the cost of severe physical punishment.”

I remembered the blood running down the woman’s – Emma’s – face as she scrambled after me. Had she been trying to tell me who she – and who I – really was? I thought, too, about Mae’s bloody ‘accident,’ just as she directed me to the one person who had the answers I was seeking.

“When you showed me the book cover,” he said, “I had to pretend I didn’t know anything about it. I arranged to pick you up, here, in circumstances that he wouldn’t view as suspicious. As far as he knows, you’re still on the way to the dealership. But as soon as he realizes you aren’t where you should be, he will search for us, and if we’re not far enough away from him, he’ll find us.”

“Okay, so, mister, um-”

“Call me Jean.”

“Fine, Jean. So, you’re telling me that this thing, whatever you called it, is making all of this happen? But why? And if he can fool everyone else, why can’t he just make me remember being married to him?”

“That’s how he harnesses his power,” said Jean, as he took an unfamiliar exit. “He latches onto a particular target, and there are limits on how much trickery he can use on that person. Sure, he can change pictures or legal documents, but he can’t go in and actually alter your memory to insert himself into your past. The more you choose, out of your own free will, to believe his lies, the stronger he becomes, and the more elaborate his illusions can become.”

“But why me, in particular?” I asked as the car turned down a dirt road that led through a thick forest.

“I can’t say for sure,” he replied. “But I suspect it’s because you’re a challenging target, for a lot of reasons. He could prey on the mentally unwell, or those easily susceptible to influence, but fooling them doesn’t give him the kind of power he craves. He chose you because he knew how skeptical you’d be. If he behaves as the texts describe, he’ll discard you in a few years, once he’s sucked all the life out of you, and then he’ll move on and find a new victim. April, I need to ask: how successful has he been so far?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, prior to this ride, how convinced were you that he was telling the truth? That you were, in fact, married to him?”

“I dunno. I…we haven’t done anything, really...But I was starting to believe it. Last night, I even told him…”

Jean turned to me, a worried expression on his face. “You told him what?”

“Watch out!” I cried, pointing to the road. But it was too late.

The red pickup truck that I’d just spotted speeding out from the woods sideswiped the van. Jean cried out as the world flipped upside down. I remember the smell of smoke and excruciating pain as I lost consciousness.

~

When I next opened my eyes, I found myself in a hospital bed. My vision was blurry, and I felt sore everywhere.

A doctor leaned over me. He told me that I’d undergone emergency surgery to address injuries I’d sustained in a serious car accident, and that I’d been unconscious for nearly three days. He said it would take months of healing and therapy before I could walk again but that, with any luck, I’d eventually be able to make a full recovery.

“You’re fortunate to have such a loving family,” he told me. “They’ve hardly left the hospital over the last few days. Do you mind if I let them come in to see you now that you’re awake?”

I’m not sure why the doctor asked, as I lacked the strength and muscle control to respond either way. The doctor got up, opened the door, and called into the hallway. “She can see you now.”

Brandon approached. He displayed a wide, toothy grin. “April, you have no idea how worried Martin and I were about you. It’s going to be okay, honey, I promise. I’ll take good care of you, for as long as it takes for you to get better.”

A small, auburn-haired child emerged from behind Brandon. Anguished tears flooded my eyes as he placed his hand gently on my face and spoke four words: “I love you, mommy.”