Duplicities (Imaginations Book 2)

by Tara Brown

  He lifted his wrist, shaking his head. “You asked about it. I told you it was a dumb thing I did when I was a kid. It was true then and it is now. I never wanted to be that person after I discovered what it entailed. But I wanted to live. So I chose my life over theirs.”

  I hated that about him. He had pushed pregnant women, probably Brooke and Beth even though they weren’t pregnant, out of the gates. He left them to suffer the way they had.

  I glanced ahead, seeing the lights of the fires burning in the kingdom where the builders and soldiers were sleeping and staying warm. I broke into a run. I didn't even know why. Something pulled at me. It called to me. It told me I needed to hurry. I listened, I didn't know why. My gut instinct, my magic, was strong in this place.

  I was huffing, carrying the bags I’d grabbed, when I reached the camp. One of the guards shouted, “HALT!”

  I lifted my hands. “I’m with the king. We’re here from The Lost City. Tell Michael it’s Gwyn.”

  “Okay!” he shouted back and I started running again. I ran past him, earning a strange look. I ran to the fire, stopping when I saw Michael’s face. He waved but there was something about it that made me uneasy. He got up quickly, looking over my shoulder as he approached. “Why are you here?”

  I shook my head, swallowing my breath. “The city wasn't safe. We decided to hedge our bets here.”

  He nudged me hard. “Talking like a city girl now.” He swallowed nervously, again looking over my shoulder. “There’s something you need to see.” He paused. “Is that Amber?”

  I nodded. “What do I need to see?” I knew there was something. Whatever it was, it was making my stomach go crazy. My insides were boiling with anxiety. He grabbed my hand and pulled me to another fire. Clary and Anna were at it. They waved and looked at a man with a bandage over his head. I didn't recognize him for a moment.

  Michael muttered, leading me there, “We found him wandering the rubble when we got here. The back of his head was brutally wounded and his memory is completely gone. Didn't even know his name.”

  My jaw dropped when I saw the blue eyes meet mine. He blinked, not even cracking a smile but I ran as hard as I could for him. I nearly tripped as I leapt at him. He shied away from me, completely confused on who I was.

  Clary stood, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Lyle, this is Gwyn. She was your—friend.” She looked at me, giving me a look.

  He nodded, smiling but I could see he wasn't there. “Hi, Gwyn.”

  Tears filled my eyes, trying to hide him from me but I blinked them away. “Hi, Lyle.” I couldn’t look away. He was thinner, bonier than I had ever seen him. He smiled and looked around, obviously feeling awkward by the way I was staring but I couldn't stop. I stepped into him, wrapping my arms around his neck and hugging. He didn't melt into me. He didn't recognize me at all.

  He hugged me back in the most horrible way. I’d had better hugs from perfect strangers. But then again, that's what we were, wasn't it?

  He pulled back before I was ready and walked to a spot where the rubble was cleared. He sat there, holding his knees to his chest.

  “He sits there all the time.”

  I watched him, completely baffled until I realized where he was. I looked back at the gates and wall that still surrounded the city and started to cry harder.

  “What is it?”

  I closed my eyes and hated myself ever doubting his being alive. “It’s the place we agreed to meet in case we were ever separated.” Only last time we were here, there was a bed instead of a pile of rubble.

  Anna lifted her hands to her lips and Clary cried with me. Lisle wrapped an arm around me. “I am so sorry, Gwyn.”

  I shook my head. “He’s alive.” I couldn't ask for more than that and I wouldn't dare. I had been selfish enough. It was time for me to love him enough for us both until he remembered me, or fell in love with me again.

  I walked and sat beside him, not even considering another single thing. I stacked rocks and listened to him breathe. Rodin came rushing over, dropping to his knees in front of us. “They said he fell a long ways and he doesn't recall anything.”

  “Yeah. He never had memory issues before this. He always remembered everything.”

  Murphy walked through the firelight, wincing when he saw the bandage. “You’re alive?”

  Lyle nodded blankly. “That's what they tell me.”

  “How did you get here?” Murphy asked, obviously confused or mystified like I was.

  Lyle thought for a second. “I just knew this was where I needed to be. Like the most important thing in the world was here waiting for me.”

  I looked down at the ground, hearing nothing but the tears dripping from my eyes splashing on the rocks below.

  I remember you

  We cleared rock and logs and debris. We rebuilt the foundation for the inn and an infirmary. Rodin believed the first thing that needed to be cared for was the sick, just in case. He gathered medicines with some of the girls who were too weak to work.

  Lyle worked like a dog, slowly regaining his strength. I hadn’t wanted to help with the building but I needed to be close to him. He didn't recognize me, Amber, Clary, Anna, Lisle, Brooke, or Michael. But he knew Beth. Somehow.

  She brought him a drink and he looked at her and smiled. “Thanks, Beth.” She froze, giving me a look before answering. “You’re welcome, Lyle.”

  He drank and worked like it was nothing.

  I wanted to hate her. I wanted to scream at him for not remembering me. But I had to be patient. I had to be what he was for me. Murphy tossed a waterskin at me. “Drink before you choke.”

  I drank it back, hating something and everything for a whole minute.

  “Sort of a switch this time for you two, huh?” Murphy laughed and asked when Lyle took his waterskin back to Beth and gave her the smile with the dimple. He ran his hands through his hair, which was back to being thick and full and covered the scar on the back of his head.

  Beth looked nervously at me but she smiled and nodded at whatever he was saying.

  I felt more aggressive with my work that afternoon.

  Finally, at dinner he looked over at Brooke and frowned. “I remember you.” He paused. “Brooke.”

  “That's right.” She beamed at him, batting her lashes a little.

  Murphy choked on his food, giving me a sideways stare.

  I gave up the next day when Lyle nudged me and asked if I thought Brooke would consider him a suitable pairing. He spoke like he was a droid. I finally understood why they called us that.

  Nan almost punched him in the throat but I convinced her it didn't matter. He had seen me through worse and I would be the same person for him. I would find my loyalty and strength and be like him.

  She choked back anger and stalked off to help guard the grounds again.

  The night we finished the inn was a miraculous one. We put in the last shake on the roof and sat there, watching the sun go down. Murphy offered me a drink. I drank it back and passed it to Lyle. He sipped and sighed. “I think I have been dreaming. I think I’m starting to remember dreams in the morning. It's new. Or waking with them in the night.”

  I didn't even look at him. I had given up hope he would remember me. Especially since I had seen him kissing Brooke the day before. She giggled and he cupped her face the way he used to cup mine. The worst part about it was that it didn't hurt the way it should. It burned a little and broke off another little chunk of what was left of my battered heart, but it didn't kill me the way it should have.

  He sighed and looked up at the sky. “I had this dream I was walking in the desert, searching for something really important and I was starved. I was so thirsty I didn't think I would live.”

  It was a memory. I remembered it.

  He glanced at me and shrugged. “I can’t tell if it was a dream or a memory.”

  “A memory,” I said softly.

  “You know that?” I looked at him, saying the thing I had wanted to say from day o
ne. “You were looking for me. I was that important thing. I was something you loved more than anything. More than your own family. When they found you in the desert you were technically dead for a moment, I think. We brought you back to life.”

  “You saved me?”

  I nodded. “Not as many times as you saved me.” I got up and walked off, hating that the part of the conversation he had heard was that I had saved him and not that he had loved me.

  He and Murphy remained on the roof but I climbed down and went inside. The beds had been built and stuffed with dried grasses and hay they had harvested from the fields that weren’t burnt. Many rooms had full beds. The women had made blankets from wool and laid them across the beds. It wouldn't be the most comfortable sleep of our lives but it would be the most comfortable one in a long time.

  I found my parents in a room with Amber. She smiled up at me. “How’s he doing?”

  I rolled my eyes. “He had a dream the other night but it was a memory. Nothing about me though.”

  My father winced. “If you recall the shoe has been on the other foot with you two.”

  I sighed and slumped into the hay. “I know.” My eyes instantly closed when my head hit the bed. It was by far the comfiest thing I had been on.

  Dreams took me, abducting me instantly.

  Dreams of the time before when I was paired to Murphy, but it wasn't him I saw floating in my mind. It was Lyle. He was there, always there. He was the guard I spoke to, he was the man who gave me directions on the tramcar, and he was the apple picker who offered me his jacket when it was cold. He was there, always. But I didn't see him. I saw his attractiveness. I saw his beauty. I saw his dimple. But I didn't know who he was to me.

  When I woke the memories were still there. The room was mostly dark and it honestly took a second to realize where I was waking. A light came from the corner. I glanced over, seeing the blue eyes there, staring down on me. There was still no recognition but at least he was there with me.

  “We were paired?” Lyle asked softly.

  I nodded, not sure how long he had been watching me sleep or why he was in my room alone with me.

  “We were in love?”

  I scowled. “It isn’t something I mean to hold you to. I hated being told I had to love a certain person. I rebelled against it. I don't want that for you.”

  His face remained stoic. “But we were in love, real love? Regardless of the pairing?”

  “Yes.”

  His face changed, it shifted and he looked disgusted. “How?”

  That hurt expression and disbelief hurt more than being stabbed in the stomach. His words went right to the heart. “It started out that you remembered everything, you never reset like the rest of us.”

  “Reset?” he said as if he was oblivious to it. “Reset.”

  I sighed. His memory was gone in more than just a few ways. I sat forward, getting more comfortable. I smiled and told him a story, the story really, but I did it in the old way I had found in a few books in the library. “Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived a handsome prince. He grew up in a city where people didn't remember yesterday or the day before that or the day before that. They remembered the things they were taught to remember. They were controlled this way by an evil queen and her evil minions.”

  His eyes widened but he didn't speak.

  “The evil queen had come from another world, a world that had grown sick with a terrible disease. Her people couldn't fight the disease so they sent her to find a world where she could create beings so strong that they would fight the disease and she could repopulate her world with them.”

  He scowled. “That's absurd.”

  I nodded. “More than you know. But it’s just a story.”

  “Is there more?”

  He made me smile, I couldn't even fight it. “There is. The boy was one of the few who could remember everything. He never reset every night when he went to sleep like all the other people in his city. He remembered everything as far back as his mind would go. And instead of doing something remarkable with his memories, he loved a girl. He watched her and remembered her and loved her from afar. She didn't know he loved her. She didn't remember many things, only the things she was taught. But the boy wanted so badly to be with the girl that he made certain they would be chosen for a special job in the city together and be paired.”

  His eyes widened. “Am I the boy?”

  A slight chuckle slipped from my lips. “Do you want to be the boy?”

  He nodded.

  “Then you are the boy.”

  “What else happened?” He leaned forward even more, looking like a child with his huge eyes.

  “The girl and boy went to the city and became paired. The boy prepared the girl to become like him, a person who could remember yesterday and all the days after. He took her to see the gate in the wall that surrounded the city. The girl, for the first time, saw how bad it really was in the city. She got angry. She couldn't keep her curiosity and anger in check and nearly exposed them for being against the awful queen. So the girl had to leave the city. She pretended she didn't love the boy, even though deep down she did, and left the city to protect him.”

  “Is that the end?” He looked disappointed.

  I shrugged. “It sort of is.” And it was. The rest of the story wouldn't leave my lips. I couldn't bear to tell him my heart was broken.

  He sighed. “That's a terribly sad story.” A slow grin started across his lips and my eyes became captivated by them as the firelight flickered across his face. “I think perhaps you are a terrible storyteller. You had me in the beginning; the far, far away bit was excellent. After that though it sort of fell away. People like happy endings, Gwyn.”

  “Yes, they do, Lyle.” I smiled, wishing he were mocking me in the way he had done before.

  “So we were separated and that was it?”

  “And that was it.” I offered nothing else.

  He paused, processing it and nodded. “Thank you for telling me. I did wonder at your always being near me. That explains it.” He stood and walked from the room. “Goodnight.” He closed the door and left me with the candlelight to mock me with shadows and loneliness.

  I got up and walked down the hall in the dark. I walked to the front foyer and out the door into the cold night and sat on the grand front steps.

  “Plotting your escape?” A voice I knew broke my thoughts of running and finding the cliff Lyle had fallen from, in hopes of finding his brain at the bottom of it.

  “No.” I looked back, smiling at my brother. “What are you doing outside?”

  He stayed in the shadows, not coming any closer. “I am always outside.” His words were a whisper and it dawned on me then, he shouldn't be there. I jumped up, making him step back a bit. “Stay calm.”

  I shook my head. “You were dead. I touched you and you were dead.”

  He nodded. “I know. I was there. I stood there, watching you cry so hard I could feel the pain too.”

  I stepped closer again, feeling an instant chill as I neared him. “Are you here? Am I sleeping? Please be real. Are you real? I need you to be real.”

  He smiled wide. “I am here but not the same way you are. I am here because I need to be. I need to see her.”

  “And him.” I felt the tickle of a tear trickling down my left cheek. “Gregory, your son. Have you seen him yet?”

  Greg chuckled. “He’s been one of the few who have seen me thus far. He smiles when he does and I know he knows I’m there.”

  I reached forward but my fingertips instantly froze, making sparkling ice crystals form on them. I pulled my hand back, watching as the bluish crystals lifted from my fingers and danced in the dark air around us. The moonlight was our only way to see each other, and in its silver glow I noticed his eyes were no longer blue. They were silver like the moon. “You are dead still? A ghost, haunting me?”

  He lifted his fingers and traced a line of frost across my cheek. “I will always try to b
e here. There was a light when I died and I heard the voices of angels, calling to me to come to them. But I chose to stay so I could see you all.” His eyes darted to the inn. “So I could see her.”

  “I’m sorry I left the city. I’m sorry you came and you suffered and you died.”

  He shook his head. “I don't see it that way. You left, making me free myself from the tyranny and constant sorrow. You brought me Amber, and I loved enough for a whole lifetime, I promise you. When I married her here in the old way, I truly felt everything a person needs to feel before they die. When she found out she was pregnant, I felt more than my share. I died saving her. It was honor and duty and I can ask for nothing else.” He looked around us at the crystal-clear night. “This is some kind of miracle.”

  I sniffled a little. “Will you always be here?”

  He shook his head. “I don't know. I am here and then I am not, and I don't know where I go but I can tell Gregory is older when I return. But I will try to be here as much as I am able.”

  “Can I tell them I saw you?”

  He smiled. “You can but I don't imagine anyone but the king will believe you. He has seen me, once in a reflection. He spoke to me.”

  “Remarkable.”

  He shook his head. “Miracle.” Then, like the frost on my fingertips, he was gone, sparkling in the air but I heard his voice, “Something isn’t right, Gwyn. I can feel it. You’re in danger. You and Lyle.” And then he was gone and I was alone with that terrible warning.

  Danger, Gwyn Caddie, Danger

  Gregory and I smiled at each other from the chair the men had made from logs. Some had traveled to the traders on the outskirts of the city and found tools they needed and built a lumber mill. They had made a planer and were cutting boards from logs, but the furniture was still done in the old-fashioned way. I didn't care, it was comfortable.

  Gregory spit up a little and then giggled when I made a face. “Nasty.”

  Amber laughed and passed me a wool cloth. “Lucky the sheep and cows were still here.”

  I sat up and wiped him clean. My shirt smelled of baby vomit and stale milk even after wiping it. “You are exactly like your father, always wrecking my things.”