She was sitting beside him now, on the bench, writing, it seemed, on the sheet of paper he had just read.
He twisted his head to watch ... and found himself staring in fascination.
The pen in the girl's hand glided rapidly over the page. Everything normal except that it began at the bottom of the page, moving from end to the beginning of the message, erasing as it went! One by one the letters and words disappeared under the swift strokes of the pen until the sheet was clean and unblemished. Then the girl placed it in her bag.
Darrel relaxed. "What the devil...." There! It happened again. A ball of paper, defying all familiar physical laws, leaped from the ground beside the bench and flew into the girl's outstretched hand. It unfolded as her hand opened, and she held it out, smiling sadly all the while.
"It is true then," the note said. "You have forgotten. I am Leyloon."
Leyloon? Leyloon? Her name, of course. Darrel strained to remember a Leyloon. There was no such name in his memory tract. He looked hard at the girl, at Leyloon. She was ethereal. He would like to have memories of her. He didn't though.
But he was supposed to remember her. Leyloon, Leyloon. No ... his brain held no recollections of this girl except that yesterday she came up to the ship and ... but yesterday, the first note had said, he had understood perfectly.
He scratched his head furiously.
Yesterday he had been more completely at a loss than he was today! He hadn't known of this city, where everything went in reverse, he hadn't known the girl's name ... he hadn't known anything!
The girl erased the note with reverse writing strokes of the pen. She smiled strangely, said, "Noolyel," and nodded.