Persistence of Vision

by Liesel K. Hill

  Marcus started toward where Maggie was standing, but Karl grabbed his arm, stopping him.

  “Wait. Maggie, come back this way, please.”

  “Why?”

  “Let’s make sure this is only a Concealment and not a cage. Make sure you can cross back over.”

  Maggie frowned. She hadn’t thought of that. She stepped toward them, half expecting to hit an unseen wall, but she didn’t. Marcus let his breath out when she stood beside him.

  “Maybe one of us should stay outside, just in case. If anything happens, they can run and get Doc and Nat to help.”

  “I’ll do that,” Clay said. “I don’t need to be with you to Conceal you. I can feel you all and will know if you’re in trouble. I’d like to take the time to study the boundary of the Concealment further.”

  Marcus nodded. They moved forward as one.

  They jumped lightly from rock to rock until they reached the sandbar. The sand was saturated, the ocean’s water continually flowing over and through it. Maggie feared it would collapse into the sea below them, but it didn’t. Their feet sunk several inches with each step as though they were walking through particularly gritty mud.

  At the end of the sandbar, an island rose up out of the ocean. This is what held the lighthouse, which, despite its magnificence, was in shambles. Chunks of brick were missing in various places around the main cylindrical structure, and an entire side had fallen away, landing on a squat, rectangular structure that probably served as the light keeper’s residence once. The black, spiral staircase that led to the upper light chamber could be seen clearly from the outside, and the door at the base hung crookedly on its hinges.

  Even the yard around the lighthouse, which looked to have once been seeded with grass, now grew only crab grass and weeds and was strewn with debris of every kind. Maggie thought she recognized some rusted car parts, which would have been truly ancient in this time period.

  When they reached the structures, Karl stopped. “How about if Joan and I look around in the…house…barn…whatever that little building is?”

  Marcus nodded. “Maggie and I will take the lighthouse. Meet you back here in fifteen?”

  Karl nodded, and the four of them went in separate directions. Marcus took Maggie’s hand, and she was glad of it. There was a queasiness in her stomach she couldn’t squelch. If she was this nervous in a situation that so far had posed no obvious danger, how much worse would it be when they reached the island?

  When they got through the askew door, they could hear the crackling of the fire above. The winding staircase was only wide enough for one person.

  The upper light chamber was small and, like the rest of the structure, in pieces. Large chunks of floor were missing around the spot where the fire was blazing, making it look like there were only a series of catwalks around the fire pit. Maggie could see the entire top chamber clearly, and it was vacant.

  Marcus scanned the top chamber as well, probably both with his eyes and with his other senses. He didn’t go up. Instead he pulled Maggie along toward one of the four doors on the ground floor.

  The first two were rooms, empty save for the skeletons of beds and some loose, random debris. The third door turned out to be a supply closet. The fourth revealed a staircase leading down. The staircase itself was dark and narrow, but there was light coming from the rooms below.

  Marcus turned to Maggie, arching an eyebrow. She shrugged.

  Checking his grip on her hand, he started down.

  The large room that made up the basement was well lit and well kept, especially considering the disrepair of the rest of the lighthouse. It was a crude setup with a fireplace, wood stove, palette of straw, and uneven, unsanded table, but it was also clean, uncluttered, and obviously looked after.

  Marcus and Maggie exchanged glances, but they could see all of the room at once; there was nowhere to hide. Maggie noticed a door on the far side of the room and pointed to it. Marcus crossed to it. He paused with his hand on the doorknob then threw the door open all in one motion to take anyone hiding inside by surprise. It was some kind of pantry or root cellar. A rush of cold air came from it—cold storage, then. This was probably below water level.

  Marcus stepped inside, but there wasn’t enough room for two, so Maggie didn’t try to follow him. He was knocking on the walls between shelves, trying to find any hollow spots. Maggie cast her mind out, looking for life. Obviously someone lived here. And earlier on the beach she thought she’d had a sense of someone. Now she sensed nothing.

  The next thing she felt was a warm hand settling on her shoulder. She inhaled loudly, whirling around and backing up at the same time. She backed hard into Marcus, who had burst out of the root cellar when he heard her gasp.

  Standing before them was perhaps the most beautiful woman Maggie had ever seen. She was tall and slender with dark hair and skin the color of pearls. Her features were perfect, and she moved with a lithe gracefulness that meant she was either a jungle cat in disguise or a yoga goddess.

  “I…I didn’t sense her,” Maggie whispered.

  “Neither did I,” Marcus answered. His stance was defensive.

  “Neither will your two friends.” The woman’s voice was deep, throaty, but somehow still feminine. “It’s meant to be that way.” Her smile was pleasant, and it seemed genuine.

  This was the woman from Maggie’s memory. She was sure of it.

  “Who are you?” Maggie asked.

  The woman’s smile faltered a bit, but it returned quickly. “So you’ve made your way back here, Maggie. I admit I didn’t think I would see you again so soon. You must tell me how you managed it without the aid of your memories.”

  Maggie frowned up at Marcus and saw her own expression mirrored in his face.

  The woman followed her gaze to him. “Is this your Marcus?”

  Maggie looked at her again. “What?”

  The woman cocked her head to the side but didn’t repeat herself.

  “His name is Marcus, yes,” Maggie said.

  The woman nodded. Her look was discerning, and Maggie got the feeling this woman knew more about Maggie’s relationship with Marcus than she herself did—not that that was uncommon.

  “Who are you?” Maggie said again.

  The woman stared at her for long moments before speaking. “What do you remember, Maggie?”

  Maggie knew she ought to be exasperated that the woman wasn’t answering her questions, but she had the feeling that this woman knew what had happened to her before, that she could give Maggie information that no one else could. In her urgency for answers, she forgot to be annoyed.

  “Very little. I have a flash of a memory of seeing you in front of this lighthouse at sunset. I think I was walking away from you.”

  The woman was nodding. “A true memory. Is that all?”

  “It’s…all that concerns you. There are other flashes, but you aren’t in them.”

  The woman nodded. “Your friends may as well come the rest of the way down. I can sense them lurking on the staircase.”

  Maggie turned to see Karl emerge from the stairway, looking chagrined. Joan was behind him.

  “There was nothing in the other building,” Karl said quietly, “so we came looking for you.”

  Maggie turned back to the woman, who was regarding them with perfect tranquility.

  “Who are you?” Maggie asked for the third time.

  She was having a hard time putting an age to the woman. Her eyes were like Doc’s—they spoke of infinite wisdom and a quiet knowledge that only those who’ve been through hell on earth can comprehend. Yet, there were no lines on her face, no white or gray in her hair, no stiffness in her body that would name her age. Maggie would have thought the woman younger than herself if not for those searching, brown eyes.

  The woman’s expression was utterly unreadable.

  “I am the Remembrancer.”

  “Remembrancer?” Maggie played the word over her tongue and sifted it through the caverns of her
mind, trying to decipher it’s meaning.

  “Yes. I am a keeper of memories.”

  “Meaning what?” Marcus asked. Though he stood behind Maggie, he had one hand wrapped protectively around her upper arm and had put one foot and one shoulder slightly in front of her.

  The woman walked slowly toward him. “Meaning,” she said as she moved, “that I can keep memories hidden or bring them to light. I can find memories you never knew you had.” She was standing in front of him now, her face inches from his. “Or”—she reached up with two fingers and touched him between the eyes—“bring memories to the surface that you’ve tried very hard to forget.”

  When she touched him, Marcus’s body shuddered violently. He staggered backward, slamming into the wall behind him.

  The woman hadn’t moved to follow him, but Maggie put herself between Marcus and the woman, shoving her back a few steps from him.

  “What are you doing?”

  The woman remained calm, utterly unaffected by Maggie’s anger. “I’m not hurting him.”

  “Could’ve fooled me.” Karl snarled at her from behind Maggie. He’d crossed to Marcus’s side and was helping him to his feet.

  Joan had come to stand by Maggie’s side between the strange woman and the two men. The woman made no move toward them and seemed content to simply stare.

  Maggie looked over her shoulder at Marcus. He was on his feet now but was jerking his head from side to side.

  “Are you all right, Marcus?”

  He blinked rapidly and put a hand to his forehead. After a minute, he was able to look down at her. His gaze went to the woman, and a look of awe stole over him. Then he looked back at Maggie. “I’m fine.”

  Maggie turned back to the woman. “What did you do?”

  “I brought a memory to the surface that he’d tried to bury. Sometimes the emotional impact of such memories can be rather…shocking.”

  “If he tried to forget it, it was probably unpleasant. Why would you force him to remember it?” Maggie was shouting. That the woman remained utterly calm made Maggie want to kick her in the shin.

  “Because our unpleasant memories are usually the most important ones we have. They shape us in more profound ways than all our happy memories combined, much as we all hate to admit it.”

  Maggie dropped her head, rubbing the bridge of her nose. This was getting them nowhere. Was this woman incapable of giving a straight answer? Was she required to speak in riddles for some reason?

  “Are you going to tell me who you are or not?” Maggie asked. “I recognize you. I’ve been here before. Please tell me when and why.”

  She looked steadily at Maggie for a moment. “Do you know what the law of conservation of energy is, Maggie?”

  Maggie ground her teeth but forced herself to remain calm. “Yes. It says that energy can be neither created nor destroyed. It only changes form.”

  “That’s true of all things, Maggie, not just energy. All things human, all things in the universe are eternal. They cannot be created or destroyed.”

  “So you’re saying that my memories are still…around, but they’re just in a different form?”

  “Or location,” Karl said from behind her.

  The woman looked up at him.

  “Doc and Marcus scanned her extensively. Her memories are not in her head.”

  The woman smiled. “That’s true, but they haven’t been eradicated either.” She looked back at Maggie. “Once something comes into existence, it becomes part of the fabric of the universe. It cannot be destroyed. This is especially true of memories.”

  Maggie could feel a ball of tension accumulating between her eyes. “David said the collectives wouldn’t have taken my memories. They would have invaded my mind and tried to take over or simply killed me, but they wouldn’t have taken my memories and then let me go. So”—she stepped toward the woman—“did you steal my memories?”

  The woman surprised Maggie by laughing out loud. Her laugh wasn’t evil or mocking but had genuine delight.

  “I’m sorry, Maggie,” she said when she’d gotten control of herself. “I should be offended by such a question, but the truth is that it’s been so long since I’ve spoken to anyone that even false accusations are kind of…fun.”

  Frowning, Maggie looked back at her other team members. Karl was looking at the woman like she’d just asked if there were fish in the sea. Marcus was still staring at her with a mixture of awe and curiosity. Joan showed less emotion. Her eyes weighed and calculated the strange, beautiful woman, but her face showed no hint of what she was feeling.

  Maggie strove to be like Joan.

  She turned back to the woman, trying to keep her face tranquil and not at all sure she was succeeding.

  The woman had become stoic once more.

  “I didn’t steal your memories, Maggie. You gave them to me.”

  Chapter 26: The Strangeness of Roses

  Maggie felt her stomach bottom out. “What?” she whispered. She swallowed the metal lump in her throat. “Why would I do that?”

  “You didn’t give me a specific reason.”

  “No, I mean, why…how…this is just something you do for people?”

  “I’ve done it for many people. You are one of the few to return, though, and certainly the soonest.”

  “How many is many more?” Karl asked.

  She looked up at him over Maggie’s head. “Dozens.”

  “So,” Maggie said, her head hurting again. “How does it work? I gave you my memories and then…?”

  “You had me remove your memories for safe keeping.”

  “So you can restore them?”

  The woman shook her head. “It’s not that simple. You came to me in desperation, but what you did was dangerous. There was no guarantee it would work—that you would be able to regain your memories. There was no guarantee you would survive it, and there was certainly no guarantee that you’d make it back to where you wanted to be before your memories seeped away. I have no idea how you fared after you left here. Can you tell me?”

  “I made it back to where my friends would find me, but I never got to tell them what I’d done. And now even I don’t remember.”

  The woman nodded. “An unfortunate side effect.”

  “Can you reverse it?” Marcus growled over Maggie’s shoulder.

  The woman hesitated before responding. “I can start the process. But it’s different for everyone. Maggie’s memories may come back or they may not. If they do, they may come back in a day, a year, or a decade. They may seep back little by little or come back all at once. I told you this was a dangerous thing to do. It does little bodily harm, but there are those who’ve gone mad from the effects of it.”

  Maggie felt herself recoiling. “Why?”

  “Because you’ll never know if your memory is whole or if there’s more you’ve not yet remembered. Some go mad waiting for memories to return that never do.”

  Maggie considered for a moment. “Do it anyway. Try to bring them back. Slim chance of their returning is better than none any day.”

  “Maggie.” Marcus stepped toward them from where he still stood against the wall. “Maybe we should talk—”

  But before he could finish, the woman put the palms of her hands over Maggie’s temples and shut her eyes. Her face was inches from Maggie’s, and Maggie watched it contort through every possible emotion for a full minute. In contrast, her body was rigidly still—a perfectly toned marble sculpture. The woman’s face smoothed out, and she opened her eyes, dropping her hands from Maggie’s head.

  “How do you feel?” Joan asked, taking Maggie’s arm.

  Maggie shrugged. “No different, really.”

  The other three were staring either at Maggie or the strange woman, and an awkward silence descended.

  “Okay,” Maggie stepped toward the woman. “Tell me everything that happened last time I was here. Tell me everything I said to you. What reason did I give for wanting to do such a thing to myself, and how di
d I find you? Tell me.”

  The woman studied Maggie’s face for several seconds before nodding. “I will, but only to you.” Maggie started to object, but the woman talked over her. “This is sensitive information. When you leave here you can tell anyone you want, but for now I will only speak of what happened before when we have privacy.” With that she turned and walked calmly to the fire.

  With a sigh, Maggie turned toward her friends.

  “I’m not leaving you down here alone, Maggie,” Marcus whispered, taking her arm. “We can’t sense her. What if she whisks you away from here? What if it’s all a lie and she works for the collectives?”

  “Marcus, can you sense me?”

  He looked taken aback. “Yes.”

  “Then you’ll know if I’m in trouble. This may be the only way to find out what happened to me during those unaccounted-for hours. I have to hear what she knows.”

  “And if it’s a lie?”

  She shrugged. “That’s a chance I’ll have to take. Please?”

  Marcus looked back and forth between her and the woman. Reluctantly, he nodded. “We’ll be at the top of the stairs.”

  The three of them ascended, casting angry glances at the woman over their shoulders.

  When they were gone, Maggie went to stand by the woman in front of the fire.

  “Maggie,” she said, “I don’t have all the answers you want.”

  Maggie’s shoulders slumped. “What?”

  “I can only tell you what you told me, and it wasn’t a complete picture of your motives. I think you found me by accident. You didn’t seem to know who I was, but when I explained what I could do, you jumped to do it as though it were the solution to your problems.”

  “How could I accidentally find a place and person hidden by Concealment?”

  The woman smiled cryptically. “There are ways.”

  Maggie’s eyebrows went up. “Like?”

  The woman shook her head. “That’s a different issue. What do you want to know?”

  “Everything. You said dumping my memories was dangerous, but then you also said it does little bodily harm. Which is it?”