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SUMMARY: Part III of the story based on Radthorne's art

Dredging up memories thought safely tucked away did not brighten my day. Thinking again of Marissa, picturing her smile, hearing in memory her laughter, I spent too much time in self-indulgent misery. I hated myself for doing so, every time I did it.
Turning away from the garden, I stalked through the house to the entrance garden, across that path to the main gate and through the gate to the exterior feeling foolishly relieved that the path I arrived on was still there, sneaking off into the clouds. Behind me, Huilang's voice carried her question asking if I was planning on leaving. I had to think about my answer.
Why was I here, a question that immediately triggered memory of old the business meeting expediter: ‘why are we here and what do we hope to gain?' An internal laugh reassured me that I had not lost my composure completely; I still had my sense of humor. Time to engage same.
Taking Huilang's arm, I escorted her back into the house, saying as we pass through the gate: "No, I'm not leaving just yet. You've captured my curiosity and I must pursue a new line of investigation. I am a reporter, after all. How is it that you know so much of me and my life?"
"Why do you ask such a question?" she said. If I am any judge of character at all, she was genuinely surprised that I might do so.
"You know things about me, about Marissa, things even I have trouble remembering. How can this be?"
Amazement filled her eyes. "You still not do not know, then. That is the source of all this mystery."
"Still do not know WHAT?" That came out in a very ungentlemanly snarl, the emphasis on what an order of magnitude greater than the rest of the question. "WHAT this place is? WHAT you are? WHAT I am doing here? Is that the WHAT I still do not know?" How quickly my anger had returned stunned me. I am not an emotional guy. Usually, I am not an emotional guy, but now as I took her face in my hands. I was as much marveling at the anger boiling me as I was intending to ram my questions into her composure. I think I intended to make it impossible for her to hide from me.
"Tell me, Huilang, what it is I do not know." and then, I realized what I was doing and relented with: "Please, tell me."
She returned my gaze without answering my question but I didn't notice. What I now noticed could it possible have been the first time? - was that her eyes had no epicanthic fold, that her eyes reminded me of someone else's eyes. Her cheekbones were high and narrow, her nose straight and narrow as well. Her hair was black and that was wrong. Her skin was darker than I remembered as well but the face I remembered so very well: Marissa, Marissa very young, when we first met.
"Who are you?" I whispered.
"Who do you think I am?" she answered.
"You can't be Marissa. She died...horribly."
"Then, I am not Marissa." Matter of fact assertion, compassion in her eyes but no hint of her own feeling about this exchange of facts.
"Then, who are you?"
"I am who you need me to be," she said, removing my hands from her face, turning and walking to the main entrance.