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“Poole,” said Odelia. “Odelia Poole. And I’m not holding you responsible, but lots of strange things have been happening since you set up shop in my town, so…”

“So now you’re blaming me for… what exactly?” asked Solange, her smile having been replaced by a slight look of annoyance.

“I’m not blaming you for anything. Just saying it’s an awfully strange coincidence, that’s all.”

Both women faced off for a moment, then the fortune teller said,“Fine. Wait here a moment, will you? I think I might be able to help you.” And abruptly she took off through another curtain and into a part of the trailer Odelia assumed were her private quarters. She heard Solange talking on the phone, and moments later the curtains through which Odelia had entered moved and a woman walked in. She looked a little like Solange, but was older and her face sported a hard look.

“Hi, I’m Solange’s sister Selena,” said the woman. “She told me you have some kind of complaint?”

“I have no complaint,” said Odelia as Solange joined them and now both women stared down at her, none too friendly. Suddenly she didn’t feel entirely safe anymore, and wished she hadn’t come.

Selena took a seat on Solange’s chair and said, “Now look here, Miss Poole…”

“Yes?” said Odelia, and made the mistake of looking straight into the woman’s eyes. They were a very dark green, she saw. And all of a sudden she was feeling a little weak. And before long a sense of nausea and dizziness started washing over her.

She was vaguely aware that the woman was talking to her, though for the life of her she couldn’t tell what she was saying.

And then the floor was racing up to her and darkness closed in from all sides…

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Dooley and I were more or less aimlessly wandering around the fairground. Our interviews with the animals making up the wild animal contingent of Circus Moonblood hadn’t exactly given us much to go on—if anything. And since we didn’t want to set paw inside Madame Solange’s trailer again, we decided to take a look around, hoping to stumble upon the kind of clue leading to the unraveling of this deepening mystery.

“Do you think Marge will get her memory back, Max?” asked Dooley.

“I hope so. It wouldn’t be nice if she didn’t.”

“She can’t even talk to us anymore. Which is really strange, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“What if Odelia also loses her memory? Or Gran? Then none of our humans would be able to talk to us.”

“That wouldn’t be good,” I agreed. “Though the chance of Odelia forgetting who we are is very slim, Dooley. Nonexistent, even.”

Just then, I suddenly thought I saw Odelia being ushered out of Madame Solange’s trailer, and so we both quickly made our way over to report—though really there wasn’t all that much to say.

“Odelia!” I said as we trailed after her. She was acting a little strange, I thought, not at all steady on her feet and staggering around like a drunken sailor.

She was leaning against another trailer, this one announcing it sold the most delicious caramel apples in the Western hemisphere, and the moment we caught up with her, Dooley happily said,“So did you get your fortune told, Odelia?”

Odelia stared at us for a moment, then said,“Oh, hi, cats. I like cats,” she announced, then promptly threw up right then and there!

“Looks like she ate a bad caramel apple,” Dooley said.

“So we talked to the lion and the elephant,” I said, “and they both say they haven’t seen Uncle Alec. They’re also not aware that anything out of the ordinary is going on.”

“I gotta get out of here,” Odelia muttered, wiping her lips. “Bye, cats.”

“Bye, Odelia,” I said, confused. Then, on a hunch, I added, “You can still understand us though, can’t you?”

But instead of responding, she just walked off!

So I quickly followed her and said,“Odelia? Talk to us, please?”

But she continued to simply ignore us!

“Odelia?” I said, concern making me a little anxious. “Is everything all right?”

Then, suddenly, she said,“What’s with all the meowing, cat? Can’t you see I have no food for you? Now get lost. Go back to your owner—if you have an owner.”

And with these words, she stumbled off.

Dooley and I shared a look of shock.

“She forgot about us, Max!” said Dooley, summing up the state of affairs very succinctly. “She’s completely forgotten that we exist!”

Chapter 43

Chase was starting to feel like an automaton after having shown the picture of that boxer type fellow to anyone he saw. All of the people working at the fair gave him the same reply:‘Never seen the guy before, Detective.’

They did it with a certain shifty-eyed cautiousness that made him think that they knew perfectly well who the guy was but were either too intimidated to tell him the truth or were simply circling the wagons and giving this nosy cop the runaround.

And he’d just walked away from an awkward encounter with a juggler who gave him a very unfriendly stare in response to his question when suddenly he found himself coming face to face with… Chief Alec!