Sefina laughs and it’s such a clear and bright sound that I can almost forget the person my friend was when she first moved here. The one with the hollowness in her eyes and the yellowing edges of a bruise forming a half moon on her cheek. “They told Harriet they were green witches,” she says. Her black hair swings around her face, and her peacefulness is at odds with the other memory that rises—the one of Dad, his eyes narrowed and fist tight, standing over a man sprawled on the floor with a bleeding and broken nose. And Sefina, holding her little girls close to her sides, her face streaked in tears. That was years ago, but to me it feels recent because it’s part of the memories I retrieve quickly, the ones that stuck because they are from before. I don’t remember the—my eyes drift to my notebook . . . there it is, at the top of each page. Ten years since it happened. I don’t remember the days and months that made Sefina into the woman she is today. I blink against a wetness in my eyes. I can’t lie. It sucks to be me.

Their chatter moves around me, but I can’t recall the conversation. My gut twists and I shake my head, feel the fuzziness that muddles the present. This is why I take notes; this is why I’m organized, so they can’t see the real me, the woman who can’t remember shit. I’m breathing a little too rapidly, so I scan the notebook to anchor myself. Dinner Party. Harriet and renters. “So you had renters at the B & B?” I shake my head. No, that’s not a worthy conversation point. Of course Harriet had renters. I bite a nail, flip through my notes, which are extensive. I try to get everything I can down, so sifting through it to root myself in a conversation takes all my focus. They wait until I find what I’m looking for, and when I do, I say, “You had renters who were witches?”

Harriet nods. “They said they came to Whittier to worship nature in all her glory.”

“The witches?” I ask.

“That’s what they wanted to believe,” she says. “They were here to see the Buckner. Called it the building that had become one with nature.” Her eyes roll. “Their words, not mine.”

The Buckner Building once housed nearly a thousand military personnel, and much like BTI, it was a self-contained city under one roof. Now it’s just a decomposing building up on the hill that looks like something out of an apocalypse movie.

“They said they wanted to commune with the spirits.” Sefina laughs so hard her eyes close. “Then they pulled out a joint and asked Harriet for a light.”