My head was splitting, cracked open and raw, like a nerve laid bare. Desperately, I scoured my fractured memory for anything that might bring clarity, anything familiar. It was like flipping through old photographs—some blurred and indistinct, others startlingly crisp, too vivid to be real.
I remembered the night it all went dark, the night I lost my memory. Dad and I had gone camping, something we’d done countless times. The smell of woodsmoke lingered in the air, mingling with the sharp scents of wet leaves and earth. I could still see the sliver of moon hanging in the sky. I even remembered the wet, wild scent of the grizzly bear as it lumbered into the clearing. It had locked its small, dark eyes on us, probably seeing easy prey—helpless humans out in the woods. It hadn’t known my dad
