The Curse of Mnemosyne

by Amy Stilgenbauer

  She knew her mother would angry with her for taking out the family grimoire without asking permission, but it was two in the morning. The house sat still for the first time Cerise could remember. No one was going to catch her.

  She flipped the pages of the book, feeling both nervous and hungry for knowledge all at once. Skimming over easy spells she’d long since memorized, she found herself more drawn to the margins where various handwriting - her mother’s included - decorated almost every available inch.

  Grave consequences to taste, a large loopy script had written next to a spell that was meant to speedily ripen vegetables.

  Don’t you dare forget the timing on this one. It’s quarter of one or nothing, said the same loopy letters beside an untitled list of herbs. Beneath them, her own mother’s tight hand with meticulous serif letters had printed, Remind me to listen to my mother.

  Cerise had to laugh. It was hard for her to imagine her stern, serious mother disobeying anything, let alone an edict set down in her precious book by Cerise’s grandmother. She flipped forward a few more pages until she got to a spell she found more to her interest: A Glimpse of True Love.

  Underneath the title, her mother had written utter bunk and useless to boot, but still Cerise felt a giddiness bubble up inside her when she thought of doing the spell. “What could it hurt?” she asked the still quiet night.

  No ancestors appeared from the book to answer or stop her, so she figured it couldn’t be all that bad just to try.

  As the spell requested, she gathered up an apple from the fridge and began to peel it, trying her best to do so in one unbroken string. When she had finished, she thought hard about the words written on the page, closed her eyes and threw the apple peel behind her. When she turned, hoping to see the name of her future husband spelled out, all she saw was a blob of apple peel bunched up on the living room rug, not single a discernable letter in the mess.

  “Utter bunk and useless to boot,” she repeated, returning to the grimoire. She felt more than silly...ridiculous, a fool perhaps.

  She continued to flip forward through the book, less inclined to actually try anything now for fear of looking all the more foolish. She knew magic was real. Her mother had been training and practicing with her from a very young age. The failed spell didn’t change what she knew; it didn’t jade her or make her cynical, but still, she felt betrayed by it.

  “The tricky part of magic,” she remembered her mother saying once, “is that things never quite work out the way you expect them to, especially when you’re young. And, when it comes to magic...we’re all young.”

  Cerise shook her head, forcing the memory away. She never understood her mother when she said things like that. When it comes to magic, we’re all young. What was nonsense like that supposed to mean?

  What was any of it supposed to mean? On the page before her now were some equally cryptic words: All ends in winter. Cerise had no idea what to make of them, and from the long-winded writings in the margins, neither did any of her ancestors. The scribbled tangents amused her: it was instantly clear that none of them knew what they were talking about.

  Earlier prophetic lines indicate a war between harvest and decay. This seems to reference our eventual loss in this war. One wrote.

  Cerise laughed louder than she meant to. If there was anything about magic she didn’t hold with, it was divining. Trying to tell the future was for fools. Utter bunk and useless to boot, just as her mother had written. It amused her that so many of her ancestors had spent so much time pondering this single sentence. Until, of course, she saw her mother’s handwriting cramped in at the bottom. The letters were so tiny; if it hadn’t been for her incessant use of serifs, Cerise would never have recognized them. Still, it was hard to make out any actual words. She brought the book closer to her nose, trying to gather meaning from the oddly fresh looking scribbles.

  A loud crash of breaking glass came from the kitchen.

  Cerise leapt to her feet, setting the ancient tome aside, and rushed to the other room. There she found her father, swearing to himself as he wiped up a shattered jar of butter pickles. “Dad?” She whispered, worry gathering in her gut. He was usually up early, but never this early.

  “Don’t come in here, Cherry. There’s glass everywhere.” He kept his voice low, presumably so he wouldn’t wake her mother and brother, but Cerise felt something else in his tone, something conspiratorial.

  “Daddy, what are you doing up so late?”

  He looked up at her with an eyebrow raised. It clearly read, “I could ask you the same question.”

  “I couldn’t sleep,” she answered without any prompting.

  “Me neither,” he confessed. “I kept thinking about those sheep. You know how... irresponsible they can be. I’ve got to get out there and make sure none of them are caught in the snow or something else awful.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Cerise offered, looking forward to getting out of the house and getting some cold air into her lungs.

  Her father shook his head, dropping the rag covered in vinegar and collected glass into the trash and going back to the cupboard.

  “Come on, it’s not like I’m going to have school tomorrow. There’s enough snow out there, it looks like the end of the world.”

  “Exactly,” her father replied. He reached into the back of the cupboard and with some effort pulled out a small bag. Cerise could only guess at its contents. “Look, Cherry. I know you’re strong enough. It’s not that. It’s just...I’ve got the whole thing planned out, Cherry. You have to stay here with your mother.”

  It wasn’t until a few weeks later, when he still hadn’t returned that Cerise finally understood what her father had meant.

  5.

  December 24, 1972. Paint Twp, Ohio.

  Deep down, Cerise knew that thirteen was a little old to still believe in Santa Claus. Most of her schoolmates mocked her for it around Christmas time. Granted, most of her schoolmates mocked her for any number of reasons. She paid them little mind. Besides, if there were any day of the year that a thirteen year old was allowed to believe in Santa Claus, it was Christmas Eve.

  The dark house felt peaceful as she crept down the stairs from her bedroom toward the living area, bedecked with its sparkling tree. The lights were still on and they cast a soft multicolored glow into the hall. Outside, just as it did in the storybooks and every year of her childhood so far, snow was drifting down from the sky. She held herself close for a moment to hold back the squeal of joy that threatened to well up inside her.

  “You’re don’t know what you’re messing with, Opaline!” Her father’s voice boomed from the living room. Cerise stopped in her tracks and ducked down. The banister would not hide her entirely, but in the darkness she hoped it would be enough.

  “Abe, hush, you’ll wake the children,” her mother replied. There was a coldness in her voice, something Cerise was used to, but had never really heard used with her father before.

  “You keep coming up with excuses not to discuss this...”

  “I don’t know what there is to discuss.”

  “This fern flower business. You...you said you wouldn’t get obsessed with this. This... you promised me...”

  “That’s rich coming from you.”

  “Opaline...”

  “No, Abe, no. You and your obsession with controlling time. That’s far more dangerous than what I’ve been doing and you know it. People have -died-, Abe. People have destroyed whole towns in the pursuit of controlling time. I’m just trying to grow a specific flower. I grow flowers all the time and not. a. soul. has ever died.”

  Cerise allowed herself to creep a touch further down the stairs. She was still far too afraid to get close. Her parent had never argued before. At least, she had never heard them argue before...and what was this about her father trying to control time? That wasn’t a power a Harvest witch could have. Her books said so. Her books said trying to manipulate time and such things was very dark magic and very, ver
y wrong to do.

  “What are you going to tell the children if they find out about the fern flower?”

  “What are you going to tell them if they find out about your time travel attempts? Abe, they’re children!”

  Cerise felt a slight indignation rise up inside her stomach, but she tempered it down.

  “You said yourself you’re worried Clarissa is related to the prophecy...”

  “Then why try to stop me? Unless there’s something dark about your magic, Abe? Unless you’re Underland and you want this to happen?”

  Silence followed. For a moment, Cerise wondered if they had started whispering, if she had been discovered, then she heard her mother speaking again in a much more hesitant and quiet voice. She had to strain to hear her.

  “Abe? For God’s sake, Abe, deny it. Tell me I’m being irrational.”

  Cerise couldn’t hear whether or not her father answered. She could only hear her mother begin to cry. A strange dread began to fill her; the feeling that she had just learned something she was never supposed to know. She turned and fled up the stairs.

  6.

  March 21, 1964. Paint Twp, Ohio.

  The only thing Cerise wanted for her fifth birthday was her very own horse. She knew, logically, that all the animals on the Mooreland farm had a purpose, but it was hard for her to except that a farm should remain horseless, especially a farm in Paint Township. Some of the girls she went to elementary school with were driven to class in carts pulled by horses. Her cousins went everywhere in carts pulled by horses. It seemed absurd to her that her branch of the Moorelands should go without.

  So when her mother woke her by demanding that she put on her coat and go outside, her heart leapt into her throat. Everything she had ever dreamed of was waiting outside in the pasture for her. She just knew it.

  It was not to be.

  Opaline led her daughter across the farm towards a cluster of woods toward the end of their property. Cerise had to hop most of the way to avoid piles of snow or worse, invisible icy spots and unexpected mud. With every step past the barn and toward the trees, she grew ever more wary that there was no horse to be found tied up with a bow, but the trek still felt like an adventure. Perhaps, she hoped, there is a scavenger hunt to find my pony.

  That was also not the case.

  When the pair arrived at the woods, Opaline instructed her daughter to sit on a stump and watch. Cerise couldn’t imagine what she was meant to be watching, but her mother stretched out her right hand, holding it parallel to the ground and then drew it up sharply. As she did so a small white, bell-shaped flower slowly rose up from the ground. Opaline continued to hold her hand aloft and the flower continued to grow, stretching out vines that more bell-shaped wintery flowers appeared on. Cerise held her breath, unable to breathe lest she disturb the moment and make the flowers disappear.

  Eventually, Opaline lowered her hand, but the flowers did not vanish. They remained, steadfast and true. Cerise gapped at them with wide eyed fascination.

  “What do you think?” Opaline asked, a smirk decorating her face.

  Cerise simply shook her head. She couldn’t think of a single word with which to answer her mother.

  “Would you like to learn magic too?”

  The vigorous nod that followed almost hurt Cerise’s neck. A thousand questions swam in her mind. Magic? Learn Magic? Her mother knew magic? She couldn’t wrap her mind around it all. Magic was the stuff of fairy tales and legends and she was starting upon the age where she didn’t quite believe in those things any more. Oh sure, she wanted to, but she was old enough now to see the world for what it was. It didn’t have those fairy tale qualities. Until a minute ago.

  “It’s all right to be shocked, Cerise. I was too when I was small. I know it seems like a lot, but we have to start early. There is far too much to learn to delay much longer.”

  Still she couldn’t speak. She held out her hand, trying to imitate her mother.

  “No, Cerise, darling, it takes more than...”

  Before Opaline could finish her sentence, Cerise sharply raised her hand and from the ground sprang a fully formed daffodil.

  Opaline gasped, covering her mouth with her hands. Cerise, however, looked at the flower in awe and wonder. She had done it. She had made the daffodil grow...but how? She held out her hand again to try for another, but this time the flower didn’t come. She shook her hand upward and downward violently, but nothing happened.

  After her shock wore off, Opaline grabbed for her daughter’s hand. “Don’t, you’ll cause an earthquake. I don’t doubt you have power enough for it.” There was a look of worry in her eyes that as a child Cerise hadn’t noticed, but as an adult, looking over her memories, it was plain as day.

  The pair went back to the house. It was still mid morning, but already guests had begun to arrive for the big birthday party. In front of the barn was a flashy new car. Cerise didn’t know anything about kinds of cars, but she did know it was the shiniest red car she had ever seen; the dusty back roads of Paint Township weren’t exactly conducive to bright, shiny red cars.

  Out of the car climbed a man in a rusty colored suit looking just as shiny and resplendent as his car. He tipped a hat toward Opaline and Cerise before going over to open the passenger door. The woman who stepped out of it glowed.

  Cerise had to take a step back. Even after what she had seen in the woods earlier, she knew that human beings were not supposed to glow. The light coming off of this woman, however, was practically blinding.

  “Aine, Marty, what a pleasure,” Her mother forced out, even Cerise could sense the surprise in her voice. “I didn’t think either of you were coming.”

  “We weren’t planning on it,” the glowing woman admitted, turning her bright smile toward Cerise. “But then I thought, how on earth could I possibly miss the little lady’s special day?”

  She walked toward Cerise, who backed away a little further.

  “Shy thing,” the man in the suit observed.

  Opaline shook her head. “Not usually. She’s just had a pretty big day already.” She gestured back toward the woods. Much to the surprise of all, the path was slowly beginning to fill up with daffodils of varying shades of yellow, white, and cream.

  “Impressive,” The glowing woman observed.

  “Indeed,” Added the man.

  Their tones worried Cerise for reasons she never fully understood. Until now.

 

  7.

  When my body finally touches ground, the memories cease their replay. I expect pain, but none comes.

  The ground is soft, sandy, easy.

  The sky though. The sky is wrong. It’s red. Red and thick and it smells of metal. The air around me smells cold, and yet, burnt all at the same time like the remains of a long extinguished fire. While the ground beneath me feels like a tropical paradise, the sky above looks and smells like the depths of hell.

  “Where am I?” I ask the emptiness. The words feel thick and catch in my throat. I almost choke on them.

  No answer comes.

  “Where am I?” I call out again, desperate and wild. I can’t process this place. Have I died? Is this some location of eternal torment? It would indeed be my worst nightmare: a vast expanse of empty beach.

  As I struggle to my feet, I see that this place is indeed a beach. Beyond me lies a seemingless endless sea. It looks deep, even close to shore. There is no soft seafoam color or bright turquoise, not even the somewhat gritty, grey northern Atlantic blue. It’s midnight, so dark it’s almost black. For all I know just stepping one foot off shore will drop me down into a fathoms deep morass. I decide to walk along the beach instead.

  The sand is suddenly cold. It’s jarring to me, having spent my childhood running across blazing hot beaches and pavement. But it makes sense. I can see no sun in this place.

  All I can do is keep walking.

  Ahead, I see a woman. She looks as though she is dragging a rotten canoe toward the sea. When I reach her, how
ever, I find that she is made of dust. I know, almost as if by instinct, that if I touch her, she will disintegrate.

  I finally force myself to look back toward land. Countless people, all made of dust and ash, greet my eyes. Each appears more frantic than the last, frozen in their race for the ocean and doomed never to reach it. My heart aches for them.

  Why have I come here? I wonder yet again, still not knowing where here is. I can see no signs, only destruction.

  I want to turn around and walk away from the people. The panic in their eyes is too much for me. Instead, I force myself to walk on, to find a clue of some kind. I move toward what appears to be buildings, ancient in style and in time. They seem to have been decaying since time itself began.

  A wall has caved in on a house near the beach. I can see right into what looks like a little girl’s bedroom, filled with a vast collection of beautiful dolls. I can only wonder what happened to the little girl. Is she one of the dust people, pulled onward by her parents in their futile attempt to reach the sea before whatever terror came upon this place struck them?

  My eyes fill with tears as I think of Jaclyn, who had never much played with dolls, but had been a little girl all the same. I have failed her. I opened that door to save her, to bring her home, and I ended up here. If this is the Underland, all hope is lost. She can never be found.

  In the distance, pale blue smoke billows up over the buildings and I feel my heart catch at the sight of it: I’m not alone here. I start off toward it. The movement is almost involuntary, like an instinct, and I couldn’t stop myself, even if I wanted to.

  Inside the city, the buildings look more or less preserved, though clearly abandoned. Long forgotten memories of learning about the city of Pompeii in school begin to swirl around my mind, but they feel planted, as if the thoughts belong to someone other than me. When I finally reach my destination, a symbol carved into the fragile wood of the door stops me. It’s the blown out candle; the symbol of the Underland. Deep down, I known that I am walking through the Underland itself, so the symbol cannot harm me, but years of being taught to avoid it still stay my hand.