I found Matilda first, escorting a man and his mirror, both with shaggy red hair almost as fiery as hers, from the last room in the corridor.
When Mr. Gordon rounded the corner, I knew we had come full circle.
“I have someone with a leg cage I need help getting off,” I said.
“With everything else you’ve been learning, that’s something you should be able to do,” Mr. Gordon said.
“I can’t.”
“Did you try?”
Thinking back, I realized that I hadn’t—it was an assumption that it was beyond my current skill level. “No,” I finally said.
“You’ll never know until you try.”
“Okay,” I said and changed gears almost immediately. “What about Desiree’s mirror? Any luck?”
“It’s not here,” Matilda said.
“But they’re always here,” I snapped.
“Did you find her daediem?” Matilda asked Mr. Gordon, and received no better response. “I don’t know what to tell you, kid. Between the both of us, we checked every room. I’m sure Alex already planned for this, as a last slap in our collective faces before her inevitable return.”
We corralled everyone toward the cluster of elevators that led down and out of the asylum. In front of the semi-circle of elevators, Matilda created a door so we didn’t have to all exit through the main hospital. They were eager to file one by one through the door, not knowing where they were headed next, but knowing wherever it was it had to be better than Alexandria Lorne’s SUSY Asylum for the Criminally Insane.
I caught a glimpse of Older Oliver in line and he mouthed thank you to me with a still wave while he inched forward.
Mr. Gordon and I went back for Desiree and Logan, who were still sleeping soundly in the room with no door. The three patients we’d rescued from the operating room were waking up from the sedatives given to them by the orderlies. Matilda told them to join the others at the back of the line and to follow them to freedom.
“Where does it lead?” the twenties-something guy asked.
“To the edge of the river bank below,” Matilda said. “There are several towns within walking distance.”
“And then what?”
“You can find your way home.”
“We have no home to go back to,” the older woman with short bluish-black hair said. “As far as I can tell, the Great Providence of Er is gone.”
“You’re from Er?” Matilda asked.
“Where is there for us to go?”
“We need more people, don’t we?” I asked, readjusting Desiree’s dead weight in my arms.
“You can come with us,” Mr. Gordon said. “What are your names?”
“My name is Gloriana Hendershog,” the older woman said. “And these are my children, Micah and Isolde.”
We introduced ourselves, including the two unconscious members of our party.
The exodus of patients ended as a final mirror walked through the door.
“Are we going with them?” Isolde asked just as the door disappeared, which answered her question.
After a brief absence, another door appeared in its place.
Matilda held out a hand and revealed a small white orb that steadily rose to eye level and burst into flames. It hovered just long enough to catch everyone’s attention, and then shot forward like a bullet to the far end of the hallway, colliding into a wall and setting everything ablaze within a ten-foot radius. The flames spread toward us like a spiritual cleansing to erase all the horrors Alexandria and her staff had inflicted here.
No More.
The fire crept toward us along the walls and ceiling, and I wanted to watch them consume everything, but the heat and smoke soon became too much.
Matilda pushed us toward her new door, and I practically ran through after seeing a familiar profile freely pass by on the other side.
8
Remember Me
I leaned Desiree against one of the nearby gray buildings and ran to my mother. She met me with open arms and we squeezed each other tight. I couldn’t believe she was here in the new rebellion camp, which mimicked the one we’d lost in Doria Falls almost exactly. I could feel her body trembling as she sobbed into my shoulder.
“Richard...” she said, letting the name linger on her tongue.
“I know,” I said, so she wouldn’t have to continue her sentence.
We hugged even harder like we were all we had left in the world, and as our family dwindled, it was almost true.
“How are you?” I asked, letting her go even though she was reluctant to do the same.
“I’m well. He never hurt me,” she said. “What happened to Desiree?”
“Alexandria wiped her memory,” I started, but she looked confused. “Alexandria Lorne, one of Kafka’s loyalists, she erased Desiree’s memory so she’s a little confused right now. We put her to sleep to keep her calm.”
“Helen, it’s good to see you.” Mr. Gordon had placed Logan next to Desiree.
“Was his memory erased, too?”
“No, a hallucinogen,” Mr. Gordon said. “I’m glad you’re all right.”
“Thank you,” Mom said. “I still can’t believe all this is real. I’m still processing.”
“Remember, when you’re ready, Nicholae can unlock your memories and everything will make much more sense.” Mr. Gordon turned to see our three new companions standing by the wall, looking terribly out of place. “I’ll get them set up while you two catch up.”
“Welcome home,” Matilda said, placing a brief hand on Mom’s upper arm before walking away.
Mom was set up in the same barracks as I had lived for several weeks before returning home from Doria. We worked together to carry Desiree and Logan to the building as well, tucking them soundly into their bunks, allowing us more time to catch up.
“I dreamed of him,” she said, taking a seat at the round wooden table. “I always thought his face was a manifestation of my imagination—but it’s really him. He looks younger than I pictured him, but it’s definitely him.”
“Nicholae?” I asked.
“Yes. He’s really alive—and he’s really here.”
“And he really came for you—for both of us.”
“I don’t know how to feel. It’s like a dream come true and a nightmare all at the same time.”
“I know,” I said. It had only been a few months since my world had been turned upside-down—a moment in time and an eternity—I felt like a completely different person. “It feels good to be able to talk about it with you now. It was such a revelation and a burden to keep to myself. At least I had Jeremy to talk to for a while.”
Then I wondered if she knew, but the change in her expression said it all.
“Jeremy.” Her eyes welled up and a plump tear rolled down her cheek. “Did he suffer?”
“No,” I said, causing my eyes to blur as tears built up. “He—it was fast.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know where we were, but Nicholae can take us. He doesn’t deserve to be alone.”
“Come here,” she said, leaning forward in her chair.
I wrapped my arms around her and rested my cheek on her shoulder.
“I’m so proud of you,” she said.
“I’ve caused more problems than anything else.”
“Listen to me,” she said, forcing me to meet her gaze. “I’m so proud of you. As was Richard. This has been absolutely overwhelming for me. I can’t imagine how you felt with being thrown into all this—this forgotten family history, these new dimensions, this ongoing war. I wish I could have been there to help you through it from the beginning.”
“You were,” I said.
“I was, but I wasn’t. And it wasn’t fair to you.”
“I had Jeremy—and Mr. Gordon.”
“Yes...Mr. Gordon. Daniel.” She stared off into space. “He seems to be your guardian angel.”
“Something like that,” I said, allowing a smile to spread across my li
ps. If only she knew the half of it, and maybe one day she would.
“He really cares about you.”
“I know.”
We were interrupted when Nicholae entered the room. He still looked about Jeremy’s age, but lacked his physical attributes—more of how I was going to look in three to four years, but better. He was trying to grow a beard like Kafka, but all he’d managed so far was a five o’clock shadow. He wore a black V-neck T-shirt, showing off his full-sleeve tattoos. With all of the intersecting pictures and obscure words covering his skin, none of them stood out more than the gaping-jawed wolf head by his right hand, a hand he rested on the butt of his low slinging pistol.
“It’s so quiet in here,” he said, slowly approaching us.
“We were just talking,” I said.
“Quietly,” Mom added. “Not wanting to wake the others.” She pointed to the occupied bunks where Desiree and Logan slept soundly.
And we all remained quiet for quite some time. Nicholae and Mom stared at each other and I split my gaze between the both of them.
“This is so weird,” I said, breaking the silence. “Having both of you in the same room together.”
“I didn’t know if this day would ever come,” Nicholae said without removing his eyes from Mom.
“I didn’t know this was actually real,” she said. “You two look so much alike. It’s kind of scary. Nicholae, I know there’s so much I don’t know about you—about what you can do—but when I look at you, I see Oliver. You’re—you’re so young, and I’ve gotten so much older.”
“You’re beautiful,” Nicholae said. “Even more beautiful than the day we parted ten years ago. I didn’t intend for us to be apart for so long, but death has a tendency to do that.”
“Though that kind of separation is more permanent for most.”
“Nothing could keep me away from you forever—not even death.” Nicholae smiled and stepped closer to her.
Mom tensed up from his advance, closing herself off to him with folded arms and a concerned expression.
“I still have a lot to process,” she said shyly.
“I understand,” Nicholae answered. “And I can help. I can bring it all back.”
“Would I forget my time—my life with the boys and Richard?”
“No, you wouldn’t forget anything.” Nicholae sounded almost pained to say it. “I’d never want to take any of those happy memories from you.”
I watched her pensive consideration. Even if she didn’t forget Richard, would her feelings for him and his memory change? I knew she was plagued by her self-inflicted memory loss, but there were always things better off forgotten.
“Okay,” she finally said. “Do it.” She glanced my way. “I want to be able to better empathize with what you’ve been going through so you can feel like you can come to me. I want to remember everything about my boys—now, memories of Jeremy are all I have left. I need to have them all.”
“They’ll all be restored,” Nicholae said, stepping toward her again. He reached a hand out to her face, and again she recoiled. “I won’t hurt you. It may feel strange, but everything will quickly become clear.”
Her eyes were wide, not knowing what to anticipate.
Nicholae hadn’t needed to unlock the memories for me since my fusing with Nero seemed to do it naturally. They didn’t return in an instant wave, but a steady trickle over a few days’ time, which was fine by me.
Nicholae was not deterred by her apprehension and gently caressed her cheek. “I’m glad you took the pill. It allowed you to cut ties and move forward with your life, and look how well you did. You raised two amazing boys and found someone you could love and they could admire.”
“It wasn’t easy,” she said.
“It wasn’t easy waiting for you,” he answered. “Even as a young boy, I remembered and yearned for everything we shared. You never left my thoughts.”
Mom closed her eyes as she nestled into his touch.
Nicholae raised his other hand, pushed back her bangs, and placed it on her forehead.
I flinched at the sight of sparks flickering between his palm and her skin, though she didn’t seem to notice. But then she began to waver on her feet. Nicholae removed the hand from her cheek and braced her as she became increasingly unsteady. When she lost consciousness altogether, Nicholae eased her to the floor with his one free hand—the one glued to her forehead never moved.
“Is she all right?” I asked, kneeling beside him.
“She’ll be fine,” he said and finally removed his palm from her forehead, which left a deep red print on her skin. “Returning thirty years of memories is too much to consciously conceive all at once. Her brain was momentarily overloaded. It’s like resetting a fuse. Everything will turn back on and work like it’s supposed to.”
And before he even finished speaking, Mom stirred and slowly opened her eyes. She rubbed her forehead and smiled.
“Never do that to me again,” she said, sitting up.
“Don’t try to get up too fast,” Nicholae warned.
“Now I don’t know which one was the dream—the last ten years or the previous twenty eight.”
“Neither,” I said.
“I know, Oliver. But it feels like I remember two completely separate lives. I remember living in the castle. I remember giving birth to you. I remember running away…saying goodbye in that city—that spectacular city—now with LA references to compare it to. There were no comparisons from our former lives in Er.”
“Now try multiplying those separate life memories by ten—or a hundred,” Nicholae said, more amused than I’d ever seen him. “They can be hard to separate over time.”
I couldn’t fully relate because my restored memories were from when I was five years old and younger—not the clearest memories in the bank.
Mom caught a drip of blood from her nose before it reached her lips. She tipped her head back and pinched her nostrils.
“Is this normal?” she asked.
Nicholae had already sprung to his feet to retrieve a towel from the bathroom. He handed it to her to place under her bleeding nose.
“It happens,” he said. “Don’t worry. It’s already stopping.”
She removed the towel and wiped the residual red smears. The towel was white and accentuated every red drop. Mom carefully got to her feet and retreated to the bathroom, meticulously examining her face in the mirror.
Nicholae and I both watched her every move, still curious with her reactions to her restored memories. Mom stepped out of the bathroom, finding us both staring at her.
“Did I miss anything?”
We both shook our heads.
“I can’t believe how old I look,” she said, returning to the middle of the room. “You look almost the same from when I first met you, and here I am, twenty years older—now looking like your mother.”
“You look lovelier than ever,” Nicholae said.
“I think it’s creepy,” I said.
Mom shot me a disapproving glare.
“How do you feel about Richard now?” I asked.
“Oh, honey,” she said, drawing me in. “My feelings for Richard haven’t changed. And if he was here right now—”
“You wouldn’t have agreed to restore your memory,” Nicholae said.
“No, that wasn’t what I was going to say,” she said, letting me go. “If he was here right now, he’d still be my husband, and I would continue to honor and love him. Nothing would have changed.”
“Nothing?” Nicholae asked with a raised eyebrow. “Luckily, this is all hypothetical.”
“No, luckily is not the word I would choose. I remember our fairytale past, but my feelings have changed—I’m not the same woman anymore. I still love you, of course, but my remembrance of our shared lives doesn’t quench my grieving. I still lost my husband, and that awful memory is so very fresh.”
“I can help with that, too,” Nicholae said.
“No—no, you will not rob me of my grief
,” Mom shot back. “I will honor him by remembering him, even in—especially in his final moments.”
“I wish there was something more I could do to help.”
“Patience,” she said. “That’s all I ask for.”
Nicholae plucked her hand from her side and lightly kissed her knuckles. “Time is something I’ve got.”
Becoming more aware of the bulge in my pocket, I pulled out the golden retriever stuffed animal of Frolics and placed him on my nightstand, one bed over from where we’d lain Desiree down.
“Is that?” Mom began, but I quickly nodded to answer her question. “I remember doing that to your old dog Frolics, our rambunctious cocker spaniel. Whatever happened to him?”
“He’s here,” I said. “I left him with a young girl in the camp to look after when I left with Nicholae the first time to find Kafka. I’ve let her keep him since. Maybe I’ll give her this one as well. She’s been taking good care of him and he makes her happy.”
“You should bring them back,” she said. “Let them run around here. Let them meet each other.”
“Maybe,” I said. “I don’t think they’d react well to the wolves.”
There was so much I wanted to know about our new family complications. What would family life be like when this was all over (if it ever would be)? Where would we call home? What role would Mr. Gordon have in my life going forward? I was anxious and confused, which was probably a huge understatement. And what about my future with…
“Desiree,” I said.
Nicholae had restored one woman’s memory today. Hopefully, he’d build on his first success.
“Yes, Matilda told me about your girlfriend,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do without her daediem.”
“But Mom—”
“Has her daediem, which for one, makes things easier. You saw what yours did for you. And two, I knew where her memories were locked because I manifested the pills.” Nicholae strolled over to the bed where Desiree lay sleeping, so peaceful and unaware. He knelt down and placed a palm on her forehead like he’d done to my mother mere minutes before.
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