The rain hammered against the reinforced glass of Samuel’s third-story office window, each drop a tiny fist against the city’s grime. Inside, the only sounds were the hum of an old server and the slow drip of water from his own soaked coat hanging by the door. He worked in echoes, in the psychic residue people left on things and on each other. Most cases were simple—a touch of a hand, a flash of infidelity; a grip on a doorknob, a glimpse of a thief’s face. He was a memory thief, and business was good.

Then she walked in.

She didn’t command the room or fill the space. She just… was. Brown coat, damp at the shoulders, hair the color of dark honey pulled back in a simple knot, and eyes the grey of a storm-tossed sea. She looked entirely, frustratingly normal.

“Mr. Croft?” Her voice was steady, a low melody that cut through the drone of the rain. “My name is Nora Vance. I was told you find things.”

He gestured to the worn leather chair opposite his desk. “Sometimes. What’s lost?”

“A locket.” She sat, placing her worn leather bag in her lap, her hands folded neatly on top. “Silver. Engraved with a nightingale. It was my great-grandmother’s.” Her gaze was direct, unwavering. It made the hairs on his arms stand up.

He leaned forward, steepling his fingers. “Tell me about the last time you saw it.” This was the preamble. The dance before the touch. He needed context to sift through the memories he would pluck from her mind.

“It was in my mother’s jewelry box. She passed away last month, and we were sorting through her things. My sister and I both remember seeing it. Now, it’s gone.”

“You suspect a family member?”

A flicker of something—pain, maybe—crossed her face before it smoothed over. “I don’t want to. But I need to know.”

“My process is… unconventional,” he said, the same line he used every time. “It requires a point of contact. To establish a connection to the object’s history.” He pushed his chair back and stood, circling the desk. He extended a hand. “May I?”

Nora looked at his open palm, then back to his face. There was no suspicion in her eyes, only a quiet compliance. She placed her hand in his. Her skin was cool, smooth.

He closed his eyes and braced for the familiar rush—the cascade of images, sounds, and emotions that would wash over him. He reached for the memory of the jewelry box, for the glint of silver, for the feeling of loss.

Instead, he got a scream.

Not a sound, but a feeling. A silent, mind-tearing shriek of pure white static. Blinding light exploded behind his eyelids, a high-frequency whine drilling directly into his skull. It was agonizing, an electric fence wrapped around her entire being. There were no images, no memories, no past. Just a violent, psychic void.

Samuel snatched his hand back as if burned, stumbling away from her. A sharp pain lanced through his temple. He gasped, pressing his palm to his eye. “Ah—”

“Mr. Croft? Are you all right?” Nora was on her feet, her expression a mixture of surprise and concern. She took a step toward him.

“Don’t!” The word was sharper than he intended. He forced a breath, leaning against the filing cabinet. “Fine. Just… a sudden migraine.” He lied through his teeth, his heart hammering against his ribs. The static still echoed in his head, a phantom ringing.

She stopped, her hands fluttering awkwardly in the air before she pulled them back. “I’m sorry. Should I come back another time?”

He straightened up, forcing his features into a mask of professional calm, though his nerves felt shredded. He’d never felt anything like it. It wasn’t a block; it was a weaponized emptiness. “No. No, I… I have enough.” Another lie. He had nothing. Less than nothing. But he couldn’t let her walk out that door. She was an impossibility, a locked room in a world where he had the key to every door. The missing locket was suddenly the least interesting mystery in the room.

“I’ll take the case,” he said, his voice raspy. “I’ll be in touch.”

After she left, he sank into his chair, the scent of her perfume—something clean, like rain on stone—lingering in the air. He stared at his hand, the one that had touched her. It tingled with the memory of that psychic agony. For the first time in a decade, he was completely blind. And completely captivated.

The next day, Samuel drove to the Vance family home, a stately colonial that had settled into its bones with quiet dignity. Without his gift, he felt like a fraud. He had to rely on things he hadn’t used in years: observation, deduction, the tedious art of conversation. Nora met him at the door, her expression guarded. Her presence felt like a low hum in the air, a constant pressure against his senses that kept his abilities dampened and useless.

“This was my mother’s room,” she said, leading him upstairs. The room was immaculate, scented with lavender and cedar. He ran a hand along the polished wood of a tallboy dresser, trying to coax an echo from it. Nothing. He touched the brass handle on the closet door. Silence.

He turned to the jewelry box on the vanity. It was ornate, inlaid with mother-of-pearl. “This is it?”

Nora nodded. “My sister, Claire, was the last one to close it.”

He carefully opened the lid, his fingertips tracing the velvet lining where the locket used to be. Not a flicker. It was like trying to see in a pitch-black room. His frustration was a physical thing, a knot tightening in his gut. He was an artist without his eyes, a musician without his ears.

He spent the afternoon interviewing Nora’s sister, a tense woman with sharp eyes who seemed to view him as a necessary inconvenience. He spoke to their uncle, who smelled of pipe tobacco and old grudges. He learned of family squabbles over the inheritance, of whispered resentments. It was all standard, boring human drama. Without the shortcut of a stolen memory, he was just another PI chasing shadows.

Later, he sat with Nora in the quiet sunroom, a stack of old family photo albums between them on a glass table. She pointed out faces, telling him stories of a childhood that sounded idyllic on the surface.

“That’s me,” she said, tapping a photo of a small, gap-toothed girl holding a dandelion. “And that’s my mother.”

He watched her hands, her expressions, the way a stray strand of hair fell across her cheek. He was learning to read her in a different way, through the cadence of her voice and the subtle shifts in her posture. He found himself drawn into the quiet rhythm of her, the steadfastness in her stormy grey eyes. He was supposed to be investigating a theft, but he was studying her, mapping the contours of the mystery she presented.

“Can I see that one?” he asked, gesturing to a photo she was holding. As she passed it to him, his fingers brushed against hers. He’d braced himself, but it was still a shock. This time, the white static was laced with something else. A flash of heat. The scent of smoke. An image, fractured and terrifying—red and orange light devouring something, the silhouette of a tree against a blazing sky. Then the static roared back, a thousand times stronger, and the world went black for a second.

He came to with a jolt, a metallic taste in his mouth. Nora was kneeling in front of him, her hands hovering near his face, her own face pale with alarm. “Samuel! My God, your nose.”

He touched his top lip and his fingers came away crimson. He scrambled for a handkerchief, pressing it to his nose and tilting his head back. “I’m fine,” he mumbled, the words thick. “Told you. Neurological thing. Changes in pressure…”

“That’s not a migraine,” she said, her voice soft but firm. Her fear was palpable, but it was for him. It was a strange, unwelcome comfort. “You need to see a doctor.”

“The doctor can’t fix it,” he said, the truth of that statement more profound than she could ever know.

Her shield wasn’t passive. It wasn’t just a lock. It was a fortress with automated defenses, and he’d just run headfirst into the wall. The image of the fire, the smoke… it wasn’t random. It was a memory fragment, the first crack he’d found in her armor. And it was connected to the locket. He was sure of it.

Forgetting the family members, he shifted his focus. He spent two days buried in the town’s digital newspaper archives, cross-referencing the Vance family name with local incident reports. And then he found it. A small article from twenty-two years ago. ‘Minor Fire Contained at Vance Residence.’ It spoke of a small blaze in a backyard shed, caused by faulty wiring. No injuries. Case closed. But the date… it was just two weeks after Nora’s sixth birthday.

He printed the article, the cheap paper flimsy in his hand. This was it. The locket wasn’t stolen by a greedy relative. It was lost in the chaos of a trauma so deep, Nora’s own mind had buried it under a mountain of psychic static to protect her.

He found her in the garden behind the house, tending to a bed of wilting roses. She looked up as he approached, a smudge of dirt on her cheek. He didn’t know how to do this, how to defuse a bomb he couldn’t see.

“Nora,” he began, his voice softer than he intended. “We need to talk. Not about the locket. About this.” He held out the printed article.

She took it, her brow furrowing as she read. “The old shed fire? What does this have to do with anything?” She looked up at him, her confusion genuine. There was no recognition, no flicker of memory in her eyes.

“I don’t think the locket was stolen,” he said gently, taking a step closer. “I think you hid it. I think something happened that day, in that fire, and your mind… it just locked it away to keep you safe.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she whispered, but her hand holding the paper began to tremble. “It was faulty wiring. Everyone said so.”

“Was it?” he pressed, his gaze locked on hers. “Think, Nora. The heat. The smell of smoke.” He used the sensory triggers he’d glimpsed, a terrible gamble.

Her face went slack, her grey eyes widening. The air around them grew thick, charged with a sudden energy. He could feel her shield flickering, the static in his mind sputtering like a dying lightbulb. “I… I don’t…”

She swayed, and he reached out instinctively, his hands closing over her upper arms to steady her. This time, there was no backlash. No scream of white noise. The fortress gates swung open.

It wasn’t a memory he stole. It was one she gave. It flooded him, pouring from her mind into his. He was six years old, standing in the long summer grass behind the shed. The silver locket, a recent birthday gift, felt heavy and important around his/her neck. Another child—a neighborhood boy—was taunting him/her, trying to snatch it away. There was a shove. A fall. Then anger, hot and sharp and white, welled up inside the small girl. She screamed, a wordless cry of rage, and a wave of heat erupted from her small hands. The dry wood of the shed ignited instantly. Flames shot up, hungry and fast. The boy scrambled away, terrified. The locket grew scorching hot against her skin. She ripped it off, her fingers burning, and threw it into the dark, cool space beneath the porch steps before anyone saw. Then came the sirens, the shouting, and a deep, soul-crushing shame that she smothered, buried, and forgot entirely.

The vision receded, leaving Samuel breathless. He was still holding Nora, who was shaking, tears streaming down her face. The memory was hers again, raw and new. “I did that,” she choked out, her voice thick with horror. “Oh, God. I started the fire.”

“You were a child,” he said, his voice a low anchor in her storm. “You were scared, and you had a power you didn’t understand.”

He looked at her, really looked at her, and for the first time, he saw everything. Not a blank slate, but a woman of immense, terrifying power who had carried a hidden burden her entire life. He felt no fear, only a profound, aching tenderness.

Later, after the tears had subsided, she led him to the old porch steps. He pried away a loose board, and there, nestled in the dark, dusty earth, was a small, tarnished piece of silver. Nora picked it up, her fingers closing around it. It was just a locket now. The magic, the danger, the secret—it was all out in the open.

She turned to him, the locket clutched in her palm. The psychic static that had been a constant pressure in his mind was gone. In its place was a quiet hum, a warmth that resonated with something deep inside him. It was the feeling of her mind, open and unafraid, next to his.

“Thank you,” she said, her voice clear and strong. She reached out and took his hand, her fingers lacing with his. There was no pain. No void. There was just the simple, solid warmth of her touch. For the first time, contact with another person wasn't a transaction. It wasn't about taking something. It was about connection.

“You’re not alone in this, Nora,” he said, and he knew he wasn’t just talking about her dormant powers. He was talking about everything. The past, the future. Them.

The case was closed, but for Samuel, the real story had just begun. He had spent his life reading the pasts of others, but with the woman he could finally see, all he wanted was to build a future.

The Memory Thief