Never Never

In the attic, Charlie finds sweet and suggestive love letters from Silas. She falls asleep and dreams of a woman sitting on a fiery throne of broken mirrors. Janette wakes her, and a friend named Amy picks her up for school. Charlie tries to get information about her relationship with Silas, but Amy accuses her of playing games. Before she enters the school, Brian accosts her and demands she choose between him and Silas; she chooses Silas. As they argue, Charlie notices a girl with pimples staring at her. The girl blushes bright red “like a shrimp” (95)—as she is the school “misfit” Cora, known as “The Shrimp.”

When Silas stops by the school’s administration office to see if he can get a copy of his schedule, he is stunned to learn he is having a physical relationship with a guidance counselor named Avril Ashley: “Her voice drips with sex. I can see how things must have started up with her, but it makes me feel shallow. It makes me hate who I was” (99). He then heads to his locker—where he finds a photo of Charlie inside. He spots Charlie talking to Brian. Silas interrupts their talk and leads Charlie away, to save her from Brian. Charlie questions his protectiveness, and he reveals his relationship with the guidance counselor.

After school, Silas heads to football practice. Above his assigned locker, he finds a small red box full of photos of him and Charlie through the years. There is also a letter, but before he can read it, the coach calls him. As practice starts, Silas realizes he has no idea what he is supposed to do. After failing a number of plays, he is sent home. He is relieved that Charlie is waiting for him in the parking lot, but she maintains a careful distance. Silas claims “I’m gonna make you fall in love with me again” (111).

Charlie tells Silas about her plan to visit the Bourbon Street diner from the receipt she found (in Part 1, Chapter 7). Silas asks for her theory regarding their amnesia. Charlie suggests they are in a fairy tale of sorts, cursed until they find a solution, like the rejuvenating kiss in “Sleeping Beauty.”

Bourbon Street is crowded with drunken revelers. Silas notices Charlie has a tattoo on her back—a silhouette of a line of trees. He is confused but admires the artwork. He and Charlie head to the diner. As they sit in a booth, Charlie frets over why they cannot remember anything. Impulsively, she takes a stunned Silas to the women’s bathroom. In a stall, she removes his shirt and finds what she suspects—a tattoo of a string of black pearls. The teens believe the tattoos must mean something. Back in their booth, Charlie researches the name “Silas”—which derives from the Greek word for “forest.” Silas researches Charlie’s middle name—Margaret—and it derives from the Greek word for “pearl.”

On the way back to the car, Charlie suggests stopping by one of the tarot shops. Silas cannot stop looking at her face. They pause in front of a closed tarot shop and briefly make out. As they kiss, Silas sees a “brand-new side of Charlie” (130), gentle and vulnerable. Charlie then heads across the street to an open tarot shop. In the shop, she sees a framed photo that matches a photo from Silas’s bedroom, a picture of a gate. A woman emerges from behind a beaded curtain and greets the teens. She escorts them to a small back room and lays out tarot cards for a reading. Charlie is uneasy over the woman’s eccentric performance, but Silas assures her it is all part of the show. When it comes time to reveal Charlie’s outcome card, the woman turns over a blank card. She claims there are no blank cards in a tarot deck.

Charlie and Silas leave the tarot shop and walk among the drunken revelers. She is distracted by Silas’s cologne. When Silas helps a fallen woman on the sidewalk, Charlie recognizes his kindness and speculates if she has a crush. The teens head back to the diner, but do not stay long. One of the servers identifies Silas as the boy who threw a punch at the diner’s owner and tossed a couple of tables the past Friday. The owner is Brian’s father, who apparently said he was going to give Charlie a job because she was “Brian’s girl” (142).

Back on the street, Charlie suggests she and Silas try kissing again, “like in the fairy tales” (142). They kiss, but nothing seemingly changes. Charlie arranges for a cab, and Silas drives back home.

Silas cannot sleep, bothered by Charlie’s feigned indifference to their kiss. The next morning, when Silas and Landon head to school, Silas discovers Charlie left her phone in his car. When he calls Janette to let Charlie know, Janette says Charlie never came home. Silas leaves school, avoiding an irritated Avril. He heads to Charlie’s house, and her irritated mother briefly lets him in but then demands he leave. Before he leaves, he swipes a letter addressed to Charlie from the kitchen table.

Silas drives away, but then pulls over, upset and worried about Charlie. He checks Charlie’s letter and sees it is marked “OPEN IMMEDIATELY.” The letter, signed by both Silas and Charlie, cautions that the amnesia loop is recurring, that every 48 hours at 11:00 am (now only a few minutes away), the pair lose their memory. To combat the amnesia loop, the pair have written information about their families, friends, and the impact of their amnesia: Their fathers once worked together, Charlie’s father Brett is now in prison, Charlie and Silas visited a tarot shop in New Orleans, and Charlie is in a relationship with Brian while Silas is involved with Avril. As 11:00 am approaches, Silas scrawls across the bottom of the letter that Charlie has disappeared. It is now 11:00 am.