“Well, if you think about it, Tabula Rasa is not a natural process even though it feels like it is. Every four years, we lose our memories and we rebuild our lives. We all accept it as the way life works.”
Aris ponders a life without Tabula Rasa. A life with continuous memories of people and places. Of relationships forged over the span of one’s lifetime, not one’s cycle. Enough time to build foundations and layer them over and over again.
Then she remembers the images of the Last War. Of a world where people could harbor decades, if not centuries, of prejudices and hatred. Of a life unappreciated, because having almost a century can trick you into thinking that you have forever. A lifetime to accumulate and grow one’s ambitions and power. Enough time to develop the fear that you will lose what you have and a desire to protect it. A life of attachment.
“What do you think happens when we reset?” she asks.
“I don’t know. I’ve never read anything in any books about how it’s triggered,” he says, “You go to sleep one person and wake up as another.”
She wishes Benja were still here. It would be nice to talk to him about her situation. At the least, he would have some interesting things to say. Maybe even an “I told you so.” If he had been able to show her his dreams and make her a believer, he would not have been alone in his desperation. If only she had figured out the copper helmet sooner; she could have given him the ability to prove her wrong.
If only . . .
“What are you thinking?” he asks.
“Benja.”
Silence follows. She looks over her shoulder at him.
“Does that bother you?”
“A little. You love him. And I love you.”
“It’s not the same thing. He was my friend. You’re my—”
“Husband,” he says.
She shifts and feels Metis’s grip tighten around her waist. She is uncomfortable with the thought of being tied to a man she just met. A marriage is a decision two people make together, but she has no memory of making it. The strong feelings she has for him are undeniable. But why must they have any relevancy to their state of attachment?
“You don’t like being married,” he says.
“It’s just—I’m not sure. I don’t remember being married. Yesterday I wasn’t. And now I am. My brain is still trying to catch up.”
“I understand,” he says.
“Do you? Really?”
He chuckles. “I’m trying. At least I get credit for that, I hope.”
A veil of silence covers the room with thick, awkward air.
Metis breaks it. “I know I’m coming on really strong.” He sighs. “I will try to be good. I promise.”
“Define good,” she says.
He gently kisses the top of her head. “I’ll try to be understanding, patient, and respectful of your boundaries. It’s hard for me to be close to you and not want to touch you. But I will try my best.”
“Who says anything about not touching?”
She grabs his hands from her shoulders and wraps them around her waist.
“You don’t mind me touching you?”
She shakes her head. “I like it.”
“You only mind that we’re married?”
She shrugs. “It’s just that I don’t have a memory of it, so it’s like someone claiming I’ve dyed my hair purple and I don’t remember liking the color, let alone having it on my head.”
“So, marriage is like a bad hair decision,” he says.
“I don’t know how to better explain.”
He becomes so quiet she feels uneasy.
“How does Absinthe work?” she asks, feeling the need to keep the conversation going.
“I don’t really know the science of it. Maybe it serves as a bridge to parts of the brain locked by Tabula Rasa. Maybe it rebuilds the neuroconnections severed by it. What it does is . . . pure magic. I saw our past lives. Experienced it. The scent. The feel. Somehow it solidifies memories as dreams. It’s hard to explain.”
“Do you remember everything?”
“No, not everything. Only the strongest memories survived—the ones associated with deep emotions. That’s why most Dreamers remember our old lovers, and not, say, where we lived or worked.”
Aris thinks of her dream on the beach.
“How did I dream the past if I didn’t take Absinthe?” she asks.
“You’ve always had that dream—your memory—locked up inside you. Our dreams are the gate to the past. Absinthe widens that gate. But it won’t work without the dreams.”
“So, if your dreams are wiped . . .”
“Absinthe wouldn’t work,” he says.
Aris feels sadness descending on her. Its thick coating envelops her like candle wax.
“Benja told me about dreams and Absinthe, but I didn’t believe him,” she says.
“Some things are too difficult to believe. They’re best experienced.”
“What if there’s a way to make other people see what you see in your dreams?”
“What do you mean?”
“Have you ever seen Dreamcatcher? The machine the Interpreter Center uses to erase dreams?”
“No, I only know what it does. They used it on Bodie. Then Benja.”
Aris remembers the name Bodie. She had come across it while going through the reports in Professor Jacob’s briefcase. The name was associated with the angry man Officer Scylla arrested near the Natural History Museum.
“Bodie was another Dreamer?” she asks. Aris wonders if everyone on that report is a Dreamer. She does not remember seeing Metis on it.
“Yes, he was erased about five months ago,” Metis says.
“What happened to him after?” she asks.
“He moved back to Elara.”
“So, he’s still . . .”
“Yeah, he’s alive as far as I know.”
“Can we talk to him?”
“What are you thinking?”
“The Interpreter Center stole Benja’s dreams and lied to the police. I’m afraid they may have done the same thing to Bodie. Benja didn’t even remember being treated, so I couldn’t do anything about it. But maybe I can help Bodie.”
“How?”
“I have this machine that looks just like the helmet on the Dreamcatcher. Maybe it was a prototype. I think it can look at dreams. I tested it on myself, but I was awake. I was hoping to use it on Benja. He told me he didn’t dream anymore—but maybe there were still some left in there the Interpreter didn’t get. I wanted to give his dreams back to him, but I was too late.”
She feels Metis’s grip.
“How did you get it?”
“The storage room at the Natural History Museum.”
“Does the Interpreter Center know you have it?”
“Of course not!”
“Aris, this isn’t good.”
“Nothing is good in this situation. My friend killed himself because his dreams were taken from him. What the Interpreter did was wrong.”
She stands up. Her skin feels the pricking of the chill in the air.
“Let’s go.”
Thane cannot believe his eyes. Aris is the last person he thought he would see coming out of the Victorian house. Metis is next to her, their hands clasped together.
Thane has been following Metis since he saw him leaving Benja’s apartment. When he found him on the walkway of Aris’s apartment, he decided to continue pursuing him. Once he knew where Metis lived, his name and identity easily followed.
The pianist is a mysterious man. He spends a lot of time inside Carnegie Hall. But he also goes to many places. A busy man. This is the first time Thane has seen him with another person.
Why Aris? he wonders. Does she know Metis watched her like a stalker?
As usual, Thane will lea
ve Aris off his report to the Interpreter Center. They do not need to know about her. She’s already connected to Benja. That is more than enough to make Thane uneasy. Apollina is ruthless. Who knows what she would do to Aris.
He follows them.
Aris looks up as they stroll through the park. It is nice to have a hand holding hers, guiding her so she does not have to worry about tripping and falling while not looking forward.
The trees are bare. The deep-brown trunks and branches stand like skeletons. Their anemic state makes her miss autumn.
The wind blows. She shrinks into the warmth of her jacket and ponders the kind of life she is heading toward. Just half a year ago she lived with a detachment that made her feel safe and secure in her place. Life then was but one finite period of digestible time. There were only two states of existence—cycle and recycle. Reason and logic drove her actions. Her view of the world was less complicated and more certain. She was transcending, shedding her human weakness for attachment.
Then she met Benja and found herself sliding down a rabbit hole so deep she did not know where she would end up. But she landed and found Metis next to her. The world is different now—she is different now. She’s not sure if she could ever go back to being the old Aris.
“Do you regret remembering?” he asks as they pass a pond with edges crusted over in ice.
“Why would you ask that?”
“I get the feeling you’re unsure, like Alice standing in the middle of Wonderland, expecting to wake up.”
She shakes her head “No, I don’t regret remembering. But I do feel a bit off center. Changed, somehow. I used to have my feet firmly planted on the ground, and now I feel as if the ground may cave in at any moment.”
“You won’t cave in. I’ll keep my arm around you always.”
She lets those words warm her in their embrace.
“We keep talking about me. How about you?” she asks.
“What about me?”
“Were you different? Have you changed by being with me?”
He smiles and shakes his head. “I’ve pretty much always been this way. Maybe it has to do with age. You’re younger than I am. Still growing, changing. Whereas I’m pretty set in my ways.”
She imagines him like a boulder, standing against wind and time. Waiting.
“But isn’t that unfair?” she asks.
“Why?”
“When I was out there experiencing life, you were stuck alone.”
He laughs. “You don’t seem to have a good outlook on monogamy. I did feel alone. But not stuck. I had my music and the Dreamers. I also had my quest. I was fueled by the hope of reuniting with you. My life was not full, but it was not intolerable either. I was not interested in just having someone to be a warm body next to me.
“This,” he says and squeezes her hand, “is infinitely better.”
They enter a train station and descend to the level where trains leave from Lysithea to Callisto. Aris remembers something.
“The red design on the train tunnels. Did you put them there?” she asks.
“I don’t know. Maybe. Like bread crumbs from my past self to follow. But I don’t have any memory of doing it.”
“Don’t you find that strange? If it wasn’t you who put it there, who did? For what purpose?”
“I don’t find anything strange anymore. I spent most of this cycle looking for you. I was so afraid of not finding you, then suddenly you appeared. Nothing is in our control. I’m just grateful.”
Sadness descends and drapes her with its gray veil.
“We have a month left,” she says.
“Thirty days.”
“That’s all.”
“Seven hundred and twenty-two hours. We’ll make each count.”
“You said the same thing to me in my dream.”
“I guess I haven’t changed,” he says.
“Do you think people do change?”
“Over time, we become a better or worse version of who we are. But I don’t think our cores change.”
“Benja believed people change over time.”
“Do you?”
She leans her head on his shoulder. “We may change our habits and the way we see the world. But I think our essence remains.”
“Here’s my stop,” she says.
They step off the train. First to her apartment for a change of clothes and the helmet. Then Bodie.
The commuters weave through each other as they head toward their destinations. She feels a tug at her hand and turns. Metis is rooted to a spot on the platform. He pulls her to him and places his hands on her shoulders.
“Wait,” he says.
People walk around them. Aris feels as if they are a permanent part of the station, like a tree or a statue.
“I need to tell you something,” he says.
“Here?” She looks at him, puzzled.
“In the past, I had planned to ask you to marry me at Strawberry Field, but I looked over at you, and you were so beautiful. And I couldn’t help myself. The words just fell out of my mouth. We were standing here.”
Aris looks down at the circle around her feet—her favorite circle. It makes sense now.
“How did you ask?” she asks.
“I don’t remember the details. It was kind of an existential moment.”
Metis looks unsure and nervous, like a young man asking a girl out on a first date. The self-assured genius pianist is, for the moment, missing.
“How would you ask me now?” she asks.
His eyes change. A deep pool of feelings stirs in them.
“I would say . . .” He takes her hand. “A year, four years, a lifetime, or an eternity is but a marker in this life. But when I am with you, those markers fall away. Everything falls away. Time stretches and bends in ways that render it insignificant. I know you worry about what’s to come, but all I want is to just hold your hand. For as long as we both shall live. Would you please be my wife?”
Aris feels as if her heart is floating above her. She looks at him and knows that for as long as he dreams of them, he will try to find her through all the cycles to come. Love is no longer pointless if it spans a lifetime.
“Yes,” she whispers, and the word vibrates in her bones.
Aris does not remember how they got to her apartment. The only thing she is aware of is Metis’s warm lips crushing hers. His palms move from her sides to the neck of her blouse, stretching it over her shoulders.
“Let me help,” she says and pulls the top over her head. Her long hair sprays over her back.
His hands are on her bare skin. Hot and urgent. He pulls her forward as his lips travel down to the crook of her neck, nibbling and tasting as they go, tickling her. She is reminded of a documentary she once saw where a lion was feeding on a young gazelle.
She giggles and says, “Wait. Let’s talk some more.”
He makes a frustrated noise in his throat. “You’re joking.”
“Yeah, I am. Wouldn’t it be funny if I wasn’t?”
“No, it wouldn’t,” he says and flips her against a wall.
She is blinded by its whiteness. His hands move to her hips, slowly releasing her pants, then her undergarments. She feels the softness of silk around her ankles.
The heat of his breath is on the small of her back. His hot tongue travels up the canyon of her spine, sending shivers through her. His long-fingered hands knead and caress the plains of her body. She is clay.
“Do you want to go to the bedroom?” she asks, her voice trembling.
He answers with the sound of his belt unbuckling. She hears his clothes dropping to the floor. His warmth spreads over her. She wants to collapse onto the floor like his discarded clothes, and would but for the vice-like hands holding her up.
His breath is at her ear. She feels the nip of his te
eth on her lobe. She wants to scream. A sound escapes him. Or was it from her? She feels like a balloon being filled, stretched to its limit. She wants release, but she is between the hardness of the wall and him. There is no escape. Her body is melding into his, changing.
The floor is hard on her back, but Aris makes no move to get up. She looks over to Metis. His cheeks are pink. His chest moves up and down from exertion. A light smile decorates his face. He looks content. Her heart swells knowing she put it there.
She realizes now it is he whom she has been missing. The reason for the unexplained moments of sadness. The melancholy she learned to live with this cycle—the “emptiness”—is gone.
“I love you,” she says and kisses his shoulder.
He turns to her. The spot between his eyebrows scrunches together. His eyes have an indecipherable expression in them. He pulls her to his chest and kisses her hair.
“And I love you. Always. No matter what. Remember that.”
She hopes she can.
Chapter Twenty-One
Although small, downtown Elara at night shines brightly. The low-slung buildings are lit with twinkling lights on all sides, making them look as if encrusted with stars.
Fast-tempo music surrounds them, sending tremors through the ground. Bars and restaurants line both sides of the street. They are all filled to the brim with people—mostly young. Some overflow to the sidewalks. They sit on curbs and lean against walls, chatting energetically with each other. Everyone is out furiously spending the last of their entertainment points.
A squad of young women staggers out of one bar. They make their way across the street to another. One trips and falls. Her friends rush to her side and pick her up, laughing all the while. The scene makes Aris smile.
“Is it heavy? I can take it if you want,” she says of the backpack on Metis’s shoulders. In it are the helmet and computer. She does not know if Bodie will let them use the helmet on him, but the least they can do is ask. She pats her jacket and feels the vial of Absinthe Benja had given her. A failsafe.
“No, I’m fine,” he says and brings her hand up for a kiss.
They walk past the bright downtown area and up the dark hill. The image is a big contrast to the place they just left. The land is barren but for the shadows of scraggly shrubs and sun-scorched balls of tumbleweed. Wooden homes climb up the winding road. All dark. Everyone is downtown.
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