Claire and the rest of the family decided to head down to the second floor sitting room, as to not disturb the crime scene. Will had sent one of the family servant’s to fetch the royal guard. Claire’s mom was hysterical, sobbing and holding Claire close to her. Claire didn’t like to see her mom so upset. “Please don’t cry mom, I’m fine. I’m still me.” Claire knew that revealing to her family that she was from a different world, probably would end her up in the loony bin, or whatever this world’s equivalent of that was. Claire decided to just lay low. “My poor girl” Susan bawled.

After a few minutes, a servant entered the sitting room and announced to them the arrival of the head of the royal guard, Garth. Garth entered the sitting room. He was dressed in a black suit, had a mess of black hair on his head, and an olive complexion. His most noticeable feature was that he was wearing an eye patch over his left eye. Gill entered, bowed, and immediately went to shake Will’s hand. “Hello old friend, so what exactly is going on? I’ve been told that one of your daughters had lost part of their memories due to an amnesia potion?” Garth said to Will. “Yes, that’s correct. My daughter Claire, you probably haven’t seen her in a decade, but here she is.” Will then gestured to Claire.

Garth walked over to Claire. “Ah, well nice to see you again Claire. You probably don’t remember because you were so young the last time we met, and also… because of the amnesia potion. I wish this meeting was was under better circumstances.” Garth gave Claire a hug and then started to comb through her hair with her hand. This made Claire very uncomfortable and she backed away. Garth seemed confused for a bit. He coughed and turned back to Will and asked if he had the empty vial with him.

Will handed the empty vial to Garth and said. “I don’t understand why anyone would do this to my girl. It just doesn’t make sense. Those potions are extremely rare and extremely expensive.”

After Garth intently looked at the empty vial and nodded he look at Will and said “Do you know anyone that would want to harm Claire?” He paused for a second and continued “Do you have any enemies Will?”

“Me, no, not that I can think of. I’m friendly with everyone! But then again, I don’t see how Claire could have such a powerful enemy at her age.”

Garth shrugged and said “Show me to the crime scene.” The whole family and Garth headed up the stairs to Claire’s room. Once they got there Garth started to search the room for any clues. “How did the assailant get in? I’m assuming Claire was sleeping when he poured the vial down her mouth.

“The Window was open!” Mel yelled as if she was answering a trivia question. Mel enthusiastically pointed to the window she had closed earlier. Garth opened the window and looked down. “Quite an aerobatic and nimble fellow if they had been able to enter through this window, we are on the third floor after all. But, it doesn’t seem impossible.

Garth closed the window, locked it, turned around and said “Well you should keep these windows locked from now on for good measure. This will be a tough case to solve, but I’ll see what I can do.”

Susan was still having bouts of crying and started to hug Claire again. “What are we going to do with her?”

“Is there some kind of rehabilitation process she can go through?” Will chimed in.

“Well, as you know, permanent amnesia potions are quite rare, but from what I know, the best thing you can do is to answer her questions, give her an explanation of the world and of her life, and carry on normally. Eventually she will relearn most of what she has lost.”

“What about her school? Should she return tomorrow?” Susan said.

“I would say yes, aren’t they graduating soon? I’ll head over to the school tomorrow morning and make the announcement in front of her class. Maybe the culprit is a classmate and will be easy to spot.” Garth coughed and continued.

“Well, I think that’s all I can do for now. I am quite a busy man. I’ll have one of my guards posted outside of your house for the next 24 hours. Good seeing you Will, and I’ll see you tomorrow morning at school Claire. Farewell everyone.”

As Garth exited the room he turned around, made sure only Claire was looking at him and gave her a thumbs up and raised both of his eyebrows. “What was that about? Was he trying to flirt with me?” Claire thought perplexed. “He was kind of touchy. Maybe I am over-reading it though?”

Susan was having another bout of sobbing, she stood by her husband now. “I think everything will be okay Susan. Try to get some sleep.” Will said trying to comfort his wife. Susan nodded, hugged Claire one more time and left the room. “And it’s bedtime for you Melissa, get to bed.” Melissa sighed, walked over to Claire and leaned in for a hug. She then whispered in Claire’s ear “We will talk later, I love you.” and then exited Claire’s bedroom. It was just Claire and her dad left in the room.