Redlisted

by Sara Beaman

  We were both silent for a long moment.

  “I wanted her to kill him,” he eventually continued. “I foolishly thought it would help her recover. I compelled him to submit to her, thinking this would allow her to avenge herself, but all she did was leave him for the sun. He disappeared that day. We have never seen nor heard of him since.”

  I shivered.

  “I have come to the conclusion that any initiates of my blood will be destined to this same dark fate,” Julian said. “Eleven times out of eleven, the results have been the same. It’s useless to consider any further attempts.”

  I stood up. “Wait, so... what are you saying?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean? Isn’t it clear?”

  “Am I supposed to expect the same thing to happen to me?”

  “Dear God, no.” He laughed a little. “Adam, have I ever called you my son?”

  I thought back and realized he hadn’t.

  “When I called Mnemosyne ‘our mother’, I wasn’t saying it in a figurative sense. You may be my ward, and you are certainly my responsibility, but it’s her blood that flows through your veins, not mine.”

  I brought a hand to my mouth.

  “You must not tell anyone that you are hers,” he continued. “If the Wardens find out, they’ll kill you for it. I’m sure the disparity in our strains has already garnered their attention.”

  Something in his tone struck me as self-serving. “Right. I get it.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “How can I be sure that you’re telling me the truth about all—about any of this?”

  He sighed. “Of course. I can no longer ask you to trust my word. I’ve forfeited that right.”

  “So... what now?”

  “If you wish, I would be willing to lower the wards on my mind, and you can find out for yourself whether or not I am being truthful.”

  I pinched my lower lip, considering. It made me nervous.

  “No,” I said. “That’s not necessary.”

  He shrugged. “In that case, seeing that you are safe, I suppose I should return her to her place,” he said. “There’s no reason for us to stay out here, and I’d like to get a change of clothing.” He walked back to the tomb and picked up Mnemosyne’s head in both hands. He carried her to the edge of the deep pool and stooped down as if to dive in again. The moonlight glittered on her wet cheekbones. I felt a pang of fascination, drawn to the head for reasons I couldn’t put into words.

  “Wait,” I said.

  “What is it?”

  “Are you going to put her—“ her?—“in there?” I didn’t want him to. “Why not put her in the tomb?”

  “I’m fairly certain she would heal herself and escape, were I to do that,” he said, standing.

  I walked over to his side. I wanted to look at the head, to touch it, to hold her.

  “Adam?” Julian looked at me through the corner of his eye, frowning.

  “Sorry, I’m just... curious. You were going to ask her questions? But she’s...” I trailed off, listening. In the back of my mind, I thought I could hear a voice coming from the head, but I couldn’t make out the words.

  “A disembodied head? Yes, well, nevertheless, she can hear us. It’s possible she may even choose to respond. This isn’t the first time I’ve sought her counsel.”

  “But why would she be willing to help you? You’re the one who beheaded her.”

  “She’s helped me in the past.” He shrugged. “Besides, who knows whether or not I was actually the one who attacked her? Who knows if I did anything at all? It could all be an elaborate conspiracy.” He stooped down and collected the shroud.

  Mnemosyne continued to speak, her voice a tickling whisper right at the base of my skull. I strained my ears to listen, but I couldn’t understand what she was saying. Julian draped the shroud over her head and moved back towards the water.

  “Hold on,” I said, frantic. The voice from the head was getting louder, but it was still muffled, as if I were hearing it through layers of cotton. I felt a pure and potent compulsion to grab the head from Julian, to bring her lips to my ear.

  “What now?”

  “Don’t you get it?” I said. “Julian, she knows.”

  “She knows what?”

  “She knows what happened in 1893. She knows who beheaded her. She must know.”

  Julian laughed. “Of course she does. That doesn’t mean she’s willing to tell me.”

  I hadn’t thought of that.

  He looked down at the head. “I suppose you could ask, Adam. Maybe she’d be willing to tell you.”

  “Yes,” I said, a little too eagerly. “So how does it work?”

  “The mechanism operates via contact,” he said, removing the shroud and holding the head out to me. “Whenever you are ready, place your hands against her temples.”

  I reached out towards Mnemosyne’s head and closed the circuit.

  I could feel a distinct shift in my consciousness as our senses began to merge. My vision doubled. Back in my body, I closed my eyes, but I could still hear through two sets of ears, smell through two noses, taste through two mouths. She spoke to me—and only me—without moving her lips. Her voice was like the crackle of electricity, searing and polarizing.

  I know who you are, Adam Fletcher, and I know what you intend to ask of me at your brother’s request.

  In her vision, Julian’s figure was shadowed and faint. He flickered in and out of view, perhaps due to the wards he’d erected against her influence. He looked younger to her than he did to me, and despite the fact that she found his features unobjectionable—perhaps even appealing—something beneath his skin was grotesque to her.

  I will not comply on his behalf...

  As she looked at my face, I felt a disconcerting surge of nostalgia and regret. If she had had hands, she would have caressed my cheek.

  But I will do it for you.

  “What do I need to do?” I asked, speaking the words aloud.

  Give him your blood.

  “I—but I don’t have a vessel.”

  I could feel her think of smiling. Don’t be silly, dear son. You are, yourself, a vessel—the very conduit for the Well of Memory.

  I shook my head, grimacing. I felt sick.

  First, command him to relinquish his wards for the duration, she insisted. You must be able to see what he sees.

  I opened my eyes and looked over at Julian. He was standing in a grave posture, as if in prayer.

  This dream is for you; my gift to you, a gift of knowledge, Mnemosyne continued. Make your request and make your offering. Do it here.

  Hands shaking, I walked to the tomb and placed her head down in the depression. I slowly retracted my hands from her temples.

  Do it now, she commanded me as her voice began to recede from my awareness.

  “Julian.” The electric shock of Mnemosyne’s voice issued from my lips as I spoke.

  “Yes?”

  “You will lower your wards.”

  He blinked, and for a moment I could almost hear him resisting, but then he nodded. He made a brief, deliberate gesture and his mental shields fell.

  A tidal wave of his emotions and thoughts immediately overwhelmed me. I was unprepared for it; I had become accustomed to Aya’s stiff, shallow sentimentality. Where Aya was a tinny old recording, Julian was a crashing symphony, all complexity and dissonance. Anxiety and regret and frustration and humiliation all roiled at his surface, but underneath was an earnest and crushing sense of hope in the face of profound alienation. He did and didn’t want me to look at him. He did and didn’t think I’d be willing to understand what I saw. For a moment I lost all focus, consumed by this odd communion, but I shook my head and forced myself to come to my senses.

  “Have you told me the truth?” we demanded in unison. He heard her voice as clearly as I did. Her will was a sledgehammer in my hands.

  “I have,” he swore, “to the best of my ability. Everything I’ve told you to
night has been true.” His need for my belief was staggering; it easily eclipsed the thousand other thoughts and emotions that flooded from his mind into mine.

  “All right,” I said with a sigh. As I relaxed, Mnemosyne’s power receded. My voice became normal again. “She wants you to drink my blood. She says I’m a conduit for the Well of Memory, whatever that means.” I looked away, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t need to see his face to know what he was feeling. He could barely contain his elation.

  “It—it’s that simple?” he stuttered, nonplussed. “I can hardly believe it. Very well. I will put the head back in its place, and we will return to the estate—“

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “No, she said to do it here.”

  He was taken aback for a moment, then nearly as embarrassed as I was. There was something he was forcing himself to keep at the back of his mind, and it was taking a monumental act of will for him to succeed. I thought of my own past misgivings, of the sickness I’d always felt at the idea of taking someone’s blood through their neck, of the presumption that I’d somehow insult them by doing so, deny them some dignity or autonomy.

  In that moment I felt some of my revulsion begin to die—perhaps due to Mnemosyne’s influence, or perhaps due to the startling affinity I suddenly felt with Julian. We were equals; we were brothers. It seemed ridiculous to be ashamed any longer. I turned my head to the side, tilting my jaw toward the sky.

  “It’s nothing,” I said, trying to persuade the both of us to believe me. “It doesn’t matter. Go ahead.”

  He nodded, swallowing hard. He was trying to remember I was just Adam Fletcher, the dispossessed brain trauma specialist, born in 1954 in the United States—not the other, dead and gone, whose face I nearly shared. He would do his best to make this straightforward and dispassionate. It was nothing. Les affaires sont les affaires.

  “I apologize in advance if I hurt you,” he whispered.

  He placed his hands on my biceps, leaned in towards me, and pierced my neck with his teeth. Just two of them, his canines, just enough to call forth a slow trickle of blood. I barely felt the injury. It seemed scarcely more than an insect sting, neither painful nor pleasant. I couldn’t help but appreciate his efficiency.

  As my blood passed through his lips and down his throat, the world began to shift. His hidden memory unfolded like a knot from a rope, or an origami crane being undone, and as it was revealed, my own sense of self diminished.

  We fell into the darkness, into the abyss that was the Well of Memory, to awaken ninety-nine years in the past.

  25

  1893

  {Julian Radcliffe}

  A shiver ran up my spine as I approached the hotel.

  A strong wind was blowing off the lake, this was true, but the weather was temperate; it was midsummer, just after sunset. The reflex had nothing to do with the climate. No—as much as I hated to admit it, I was nervous to face my daughter once again, and doubly so to meet her in such an imposing setting.

  I pulled out the calling card and reviewed the address. Seventeen East Monroe Street—yes, this was it, this was where she was spending her days. How could she afford to stay somewhere like this, amongst dignitaries and barons of industry? Even the façade of the seven-story structure made me feel inadequate—impoverished, disenfranchised, underdressed.

  I tucked the card back inside my pocket and walked up to the front doors with forced nonchalance. As much as I was glad to be out from under the Wardens’ watchful gaze for a few weeks, I wished they had sent me on some other assignment. I’d have preferred to go somewhere that wasn’t so crowded, to spy on someone who wasn’t Mirabel. At least this time they’d send me with a sizeable stipend; in the past, they’d always assumed that someone with my abilities could easily manage without that kind of help. But even given their financial assistance, I didn’t imagine I could afford to spend my daylight hours here, at the Palmer House Hotel.

  As I entered the gaslit lobby, I caught a glimpse of Mirabel’s slender form from the back. I noticed her peculiar hair color first; then, as I drew closer, winding my way through a loose crowd of guests, her delicate features came into view. She remained engrossed in conversation, speaking with a mortal man I didn’t recognize, giving no indication she’d spotted me.

  I stood several feet away, folded my hands behind my back and pretended to admire a garish still-life on the wall while waiting for the two of them to finish.

  Eventually the two of them exchanged cards; the man excused himself. I turned and took a few steps towards her, the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end. As she noticed me, a look of panic flashed across her face, but it melted away as quickly as it appeared, fading into a warm smile.

  “Julian!” She rushed to my side. “What a singular pleasure! Why didn’t you tell me you’d be visiting?”

  I bared my teeth at her, amused that I’d been able to catch her off guard. “I certainly would have, my dear, but I didn’t have time to send a letter, and these newer means of communication honestly escape me.”

  “Have you been in the city long?”

  “I just arrived a few hours ago.” This was true. “I’ve been contracted for some portrait work, but it’ll be a few days before my supplies arrive.” This was also true, although I hadn’t sought the contract myself; the Wardens had set it up for me. “I heard you were in Chicago for the Exposition. I suppose my curiosity got the best of me. I do hope I’m not imposing on you.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” She grinned. “Where are you staying?”

  “Oh, I’ll be staying at my patron’s estate. It’s not far from here.”

  “They’re family, I assume?” she asked, quirking an eyebrow.

  “Of course. Distant relatives.”

  “They live in the city, I take it? Most likely, we’re already acquainted...”

  “Perhaps,” I said. “I heard he’s a bit of a recluse, though, particularly for a city-dweller. His name is Zenas Markham.”

  “I believe I’ve heard of him, but we’ve never met. He’s a Son of Thalia, if I recall correctly?”

  “He is, indeed. But enough about my affairs—tell me, how have you been? It’s been too long since I saw you last.” I tried my best to unearth all the fondness I’d ever had for her, to infuse my words with that borrowed warmth. “If you’re not busy, I’d love to take you to dinner.”

  Her hazel eyes gleamed. “As nice as that sounds, I have a much better idea.”

  I allowed her to lead me into the street, where we hailed a cab. Mirabel whispered the address to the driver and we set off from the hotel.

  She spoke at length about her recent exploits. She had managed to secure some very lucrative consulting engagements with publishers and advertising agencies and the like here in Chicago. I was not surprised to hear of her professional success, even though she was a woman traveling and working alone; I knew from experience that she got just about whatever she wanted.

  I listened politely, anxious to determine where she was taking me. Most likely, wherever we were going, she had some ulterior motive in taking me there, some plan to twist the situation to her own ends. Nevertheless, I couldn’t very well begin my investigation by refusing to spend time with her. I’d have to force myself to endure whatever she had in store for me.

  As the Wheel appeared on the horizon, I surmised her intent.

  “We’re going to the White City? Isn’t it closed at this time of night?”

  Mirabel laughed. “Of course not. Besides, I can visit any time I like.”

  We stepped out of the cab at a side entrance. She produced a certificate from her purse and displayed it to a guard, who let us pass through the gate without comment. After slipping through a series of narrow hallways, we emerged in an otherworldly courtyard illuminated with thousands of tiny orbs, flameless and cool. Electric lights. They transformed the convocation of white plaster buildings into an ethereal landscape, a court fit for gods or ghosts. I stood transfixed, my jaw slackening.
>
  “I never thought a world traveler such as yourself would be impressed by a place like this,” Mirabel said, leading me towards the edge of a lagoon in the center of the courtyard.

  I smiled, still entranced by the spectacle of it all. Around us, young men and women darted in and out of the shadows in pairs, snippets of their whispered conversations floating on the breeze. Mirabel latched onto my forearm; I willed myself not to recoil from her touch.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she said. “It’s especially romantic at night, or so I hear.”

  I nodded, gazing down at the little lights dancing like fireflies on the surface of the water.

  “It will be our anniversary in a few days—yours and mine.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” I sighed. “Well, I’m sure Markham wouldn’t mind too terribly much, should you care to visit.”

  “I would like that,” she said.

  We stood quietly for a few moments.

  “Will you tell me the story of you and Lucien once more?” Her voice was uncharacteristically tender. “I’d like to imagine he’s here with us...”

  I closed my eyes, forcing a neutral expression, wondering if she knew even half the pain she caused me just by speaking his name.

  “Please, Julian?”

  Whether she was entreating me out of heartsickness, cruelty, or some combination of the two, I couldn’t tell—but in the case it was the former, who was I to deny her those memories?

  I opened my eyes and started the story in the same way I had so many times before:

  “I first met Lucien back in the forests of the Old World, down in the labyrinth beneath the twin pools...”

  ///

  My story finished, Mirabel took me back to the side entrance of the fair, where we parted ways. She hailed another cab; I traveled on foot towards the second address the Wardens had provided.

  The walk took me through a sporting district—the first chance at fresh blood I’d had since leaving New York. I took out the first of my stipend and looked for a donor. I always sought out the same type: someone who looked healthy, perhaps a little heavy-set, with red cheeks and lips—someone who could afford to give what I was taking. They were almost invariably women; the boys in these districts—and they were always boys, never men—were universally underfed.