17
Distillery Hospital, 26 February 1871
The typed letters on the page shouldn’t have such an effect on her, but hot wires of pain poked through Claire’s temples and went behind her eyes to her brain.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “I should know this young man, but the blocks in my head say I shouldn’t try to remember him.”
But then a mocking child’s melody came to mind—“Brycie curls, Brycie curls, he’s got hair just like a girl’s!”
I knew him. Should know him. Is he family? Why can’t I remember family?
She put her head in her hands and tried to quell the anxiety that rose on a wave of anger—had they taken her family from her? Why? Why was she not allowed to remember them?
Strong hands rested on her shoulders. “It’s all right. Just breathe.”
Claire straightened from her hunched p
