The Memory Theater

by Karin Tidbeck

  Augusta swung her club with flair; Thistle had to duck several times to avoid getting smacked. He fetched drinks when asked to and mopped the sweat from Augusta’s brow with a small handkerchief.

  Dora almost ran out across the lawn when Lord Tempestis landed his ball in the face of Euterpe’s little page, Calla, but she knew she mustn’t. It would make things worse. Calla bled all over her doublet and spat something into her hand.

  At cake break, they punished Hyssop for dropping the tray. Virgilia took his jacket and shirt off. Two flower stems reached up along Hyssop’s shoulder blades, and more of them meandered down his arms. Each servant had their special art, carved into them with teeth and nails: hyssop, calla, vetch, foxglove, others. And thistle.

  Walpurgis and Cymbeline took each of Hyssop’s arms. Virgilia sank one of her long fingernails into her page’s right shoulder. Dora forced herself to watch. Hyssop deserved her bearing witness, at least. She had barged in, once, to defend a page. The lords and ladies had reacted quickly. They wouldn’t strike her like they would a servant; instead, they had immobilized her with their words, but not before Dora had knocked Cymbeline to the ground and made her cry. And for Dora’s rebellion, they had hurt Thistle.

  Eventually, Virgilia stepped back and licked at her bloodied hand. Dora lost sight of Hyssop as the other nobles crowded in to inspect Virgilia’s work and mumble their appreciation.

  “His pattern is done,” Walpurgis announced over the murmur.

  “A hunt!” Virgilia shouted. “I call for a hunt!”

  “Excellent,” Mnemosyne said from her throne. “We shall have a hunt when this game is complete. Come here, little Hyssop, and sit at my feet.”

  Hyssop shambled over to the dais and sank down on his knees. Dora could see his face now, twisted and tearful. He knew what awaited him. So did Dora. And there was nothing she could do. Hyssop was all grown up, and his flower was finished, and so he must die.

  Walpurgis waved off all the servants except Thistle, who was ordered to move the hoops around. Then Walpurgis clapped his hands, and the game resumed.

  Cymbeline and Virgilia gripped their club together and swung it. Their ball hit Augusta’s so hard that it rolled into the woods. The others jeered. They continued the game as Augusta walked in among the trees. She walked past the spot where Dora was hiding and deeper into the woods. She was gone for a long moment.

  When Augusta came back, she was carrying a small locket in one hand and her ball in the other. She paused at the edge of the trees and peered at the people on the lawn. From where Dora was crouching, she could see the sweat that scored a pink trail down Augusta’s temple. Augusta flipped the locket open. She froze, staring at whatever it was she saw, and frowned.

  “I know what this is,” she muttered. “What is it?”

  Then she closed the locket again and slipped it into a pocket on her waistcoat. She glanced briefly over her shoulder, shrugged, and returned to the lawn.

  Dora walked back the way Augusta had come. It wasn’t far to the dog-rose bush where a dead man lay on the ground, faceup. He looked different: his face was lined and his hair salt-and-pepper. He was old. His clothes looked strange, the black coat oddly cut. Dora had never seen anything like this before. Children had wandered into the Gardens. Never a full-grown man. How had he gotten here? Had someone let him in? Dora left the dead man as he was.

  * * *

  —

  Dora had sat down by the conservatory again when Thistle came wandering between the trees.

  “There you are,” he said.

  He sank to the ground next to her. His kohl was running.

  “Hyssop is gone,” he said. “They chased him into the woods and killed him.”

  “I know,” Dora said.

  “The servants are not real people to them. Just playthings.”

  “Maybe you could run away again,” Dora said.

  Thistle looked at her. “You know what happens. We walk into the forest, and walk and walk, and then we end up in the orchard again.”

  It was true. Dora and Thistle had tried, many times, when everyone else was asleep. It was always the same: a long walk through the woods, in a seemingly straight line, and then in not too long the conservatory rising beyond the trees. As if the path turned back on itself. As long as Thistle was still in Lady Augusta’s service, as long as she kept his true name hidden from him, he could never find his way home. And because Dora was Walpurgis’s child, she was stuck, too. She wasn’t a servant, yet also not a lady. Just a reminder of failure and grief, free to exist but not to be a part of anything. Walpurgis renounced her every time he saw her. But perhaps not next time. Perhaps he loved her a little. Or so she hoped.

  “Thistle,” Dora said. “I found something.”

  Thistle cleared his throat. “What did you find?”

  “When they knocked the lady Augusta’s ball into the forest. I saw that. And Lady Augusta walked after it, and then…”

  Someone clapped their hands: once, twice. Calla was standing a little distance from the apple tree. Her mouth was still swollen from the ball that Lord Tempestis had shot into her face. She didn’t speak; she had no tongue. It had been cut out. Her mistress liked her page mute.

  Calla held her hand out to Thistle.

  “Please tell me later, Dora,” he said. “I have to go.”

  * * *

  —

  Dora followed a few steps behind Calla and Thistle. As they arrived at Augusta’s pavilion, Dora snuck around to the back, where she could peek between the lavender lengths of silk. A smell of musk and lily of the valley wafted out from the interior. Augusta sat by her desk, the shiny locket in her hand. Her curls were piled high on her head, strands of them tumbling down the sides of her face. Her eyes were such a light gray that they were almost translucent. She turned around when Thistle rang the little bell above the opening.

  “Boy,” she said in her hoarse voice, and stood up.

  Thistle looked her in the eyes; his jaw was clenched. Augusta slapped him. Thistle lowered his eyes and walked over to the bed, preparing to remove his coat. He must have been expecting her to carve him. Dora had seen it before. Thistle never complained, never asked Dora to intervene. Dora wondered how much Augusta would scream if Dora did the same to her.

  “No, not now,” Augusta said.

  Thistle turned around. Augusta tossed the locket at him. He caught it with both hands.

  “You will tell me what this is,” Augusta said.

  Thistle frowned at the locket and opened the lid.

  “It’s a watch,” he said. “I have seen one, maybe before…”

  “And what is a watch?” Augusta interrupted.

  “Mistress doesn’t know?”

  Augusta slapped him again. “Insolence.”

  Her nails bit into his jaw. Thistle’s eyes watered. His eyes met Dora’s. Dora stood up. Thistle shook his head faintly, and Dora sat down again.

  “You will tell me what a watch is,” Augusta repeated.

  Thistle sniffled. “It measures time.”

  “Show me,” Augusta said.

  She pulled Thistle down on the bed next to her, and put her arm around him as if she were his protector, not someone who might stick her thumbs into his eyes because he looked at her in the wrong way.

  Thistle pointed at the clockface. “This hand moves forward, and then the shorter one, and then the shortest. That knob winds it up to make it run.”

  As he spoke, Augusta shuddered and made a noise at the back of her throat.

  “I know it. Somehow, I know what this is,” Augusta said. “Does it measure time?” Augusta said. “Or does it just move forward and call that time?”

  Thistle blinked. “Time is time,” he said. “If it goes, it goes forward, from moment to moment.”

  Dora remembered time. She recalled
crawling out of the earth into a rosy dawn. The sun, traveling across the sky to set. Shifting light and darkness. Heat and cold. But here it was always an azure summer night, an eternal sunset tinting the western sky green and gold.

  Augusta twisted the little knob on the side of the locket. A ticking sound filled the air, faint and deafening all at once. The air trembled.

  “Very well,” Augusta said. “That is all.” Her voice echoed.

  Augusta let go of Thistle’s shoulders. Thistle stood up. When he was almost at the door, Augusta spoke.

  “This will be our little secret. Kneel.”

  Thistle did as he was told. Augusta picked up a long knife that lay on her vanity. She grabbed Thistle’s jaw and, with her other hand, held the knife against his throat. Dora stood up, prepared to leap through the curtains.

  Thistle spoke between Augusta’s fingers: “Wait!”

  Augusta blinked and released Thistle’s jaw. “You dare?”

  “My pattern isn’t done,” Thistle said. “You’re not allowed to kill me until it is.”

  “I can finish it now, if you like,” Augusta replied in a sweet voice. “Undress.”

  “You have to call a hunt, too,” Thistle said. “It’s the way of the lords and ladies.”

  “Then I shall do so, dear,” Augusta said.

  “But you just had one.” Thistle’s voice broke. “You’re not finished dining on Hyssop. The lady Mnemosyne will be angry.”

  “Mouthy little shit. I regret taking you at all.”

  “You could give me my name back,” Thistle said quickly, “and I would go away and be gone from here. I would never trouble you again.”

  “Give it back? Go away?” Augusta smiled. “There’s no leaving this place, boy.”

  Thistle looked at the ground.

  “Take that jacket off now,” Augusta said. “And your shirt.”

  Thistle did as he was told, folding his clothing beside him. The flower stems Augusta had carved up his arms and over his chest were raised welts against his skin. Augusta bent down and trailed the sharp nails of her right hand across his chest. Thistle froze as she pressed her index finger against his left clavicle. He gasped as her nail bit into his skin.

  “Almost done,” Augusta whispered. “Nearly there.”

  She dropped her hand and straightened. “Leave me.”

  Thistle stood up, blood running down his chest. He rushed to gather his things and stepped outside. Dora watched as he left, then backed away before she could be noticed. If anyone caught her, Thistle’s pattern would be finished for sure.

  Dora began to head to the conservatory. She passed the dining tables, where some of the servants were busy cleaning up. The food heaped on the tables was returning to its original state: moss, bark, toads. It happened at the end of a party, when the lords and ladies had left to sink back into their stupor. All but the bones sitting in the middle of the center table. They would be buried.

  Walpurgis sat in a corner of the dance floor, overseeing the cleaning procedure, wine bottle in hand. He looked up at Dora as she went past. Her heart beat stronger for a second. Perhaps this would be the day the story came true and he took her back.

  “Hey!” he shouted. “Your face, cretin.”

  Dora quickly pulled the veil over her face. She had forgotten.

  Something hit her leg: the wine bottle. It didn’t break but spilled its contents over Dora’s feet.

  “Your fault,” Walpurgis mumbled. “It’s all your fault.”

  Every time he happened to see Dora, he said the same thing, over and over again. Your fault.

  “Father,” Dora whispered.

  “Not your father!” Walpurgis shouted. “No. Not your father. I don’t care what Mnemosyne says. You’re not mine.”

  He said that each time as if it were the first. Dora raised her veil slightly and looked at him where he sat. He was weeping.

  “Then where do I go?” she said.

  “I don’t care,” Walpurgis replied. “Don’t show your face here.”

  * * *

  —

  Dora found Thistle under their tree. He was curled up, seemingly asleep, a blotch of blood on his shirt. Dora wrapped herself around him. He mumbled and shifted a little against her chest.

  “He still says he’s not my father,” Dora whispered to Thistle’s sleeping form. “But I will always be his daughter.”

  As they lay there, the lady Augusta came walking through the orchard, the pocket watch swinging from her hand. Dora stiffened, ready to defend Thistle if needed. But Augusta didn’t seem to notice them at all. She walked up to the conservatory, rubbed a sleeve over one of the panes, and looked inside. Staring at the watch in her hand, she twisted the little knob on the side. There was that ticking noise again, and a sense of something shifting, a twitch in the air.

  “Look at that,” Augusta murmured.

  3

  Dora ruffled Thistle’s hair and stood up. Thistle was dreaming now, eyes moving behind his eyelids. She looked down at him. He should be allowed to sleep for as long as he could. She walked back through the orchard, after Augusta. Augusta would finish Thistle’s pattern soon. What if Dora could find his name? Maybe there was somewhere Thistle hadn’t looked.

  As Dora passed through the apple trees, they smelled different, sweeter somehow. Dora touched a red apple hanging from the nearest tree branch. It fell to the ground with a thud. She picked it up. It was bruised, and a worm crawled out of a hole it had made. Dora dropped the apple and continued out of the orchard. The swish of grass against her skirts was loud in the still air.

  * * *

  —

  Dora snuck in behind Augusta’s bower and waited, watching through a crack in the curtains. Inside, the lady sat on the edge of her bed. She hummed a song to herself and drummed an uneven rhythm on the bed frame. Her eyelids were heavy. Eventually, she lay down on the bed without undressing, then crawled in under a rose-colored duvet and closed her eyes. When her breaths had lengthened, Dora went around to the entrance and stepped inside.

  Lady Augusta didn’t look so scary in her sleep, tucked under her duvet. Her eyebrows were drawn together, as if she were considering something very hard. The bower was a mess of furniture, clothes, strange ornaments. In the center, a sloped table with some papers. Dora picked one up. It was a sketch of something with bristles and angles. There were more drawings under the first one: contraptions, buildings, something with wings, other things Dora couldn’t name. A paper was covered in curlicued writing that must mean something. Perhaps it was important, but Dora couldn’t read much except for her own name and Thistle’s. None of them were there. She put the paper in her pinafore anyway and looked around. If it wasn’t written down on paper, there must be something else here, somewhere the lady kept Thistle’s name. Could it be engraved on a jewel in a box? Could it be as a breath in a jar? It must be kept very safe. But would she recognize it if she saw it? She had to try.

  Augusta shifted in her sleep. Dora gingerly opened the drawers on the vanity, looked under chairs, in the folds of the wall hangings, and even lifted a corner of the mattress on the lady’s bed. She found paint pots and little bird skulls and crystal ornaments, but nothing that looked like a name.

  “Dora,” a voice whispered.

  It was Thistle. He stood in the doorway and looked at her with wide eyes. He made a come-here motion with his hand. Dora picked her way through the mess and joined him. Thistle tugged at her sleeve. Behind them, Augusta stirred and mumbled something Dora couldn’t hear. Thistle broke into a run. Dora followed him.

  When they entered the birch grove, out of sight from the bower, Thistle grabbed Dora’s arms and stared up at her.

  “What were you doing?” he hissed.

  “I was looking for your name,” Dora said. “I couldn’t find it.”

  “I don’
t think it’s a thing. If it was a thing, I would have stolen it while she was asleep,” Thistle said. “I think I need her to speak it.”

  “Can we make her do that?” Dora asked.

  “Don’t you think I’ve tried?” Thistle replied. “I’ve tried to make her say it by accident. I’ve tried to bargain. I’ve tried everything.”

  “I could threaten her,” Dora said. “I’m strong. I would do it for you.”

  “No, you can’t,” Thistle said. “She would use her voice. She would hurt you.”

  “She’s not allowed to,” Dora replied. “They don’t hurt their own kind.”

  “She’d do something to you. Please don’t give her the chance.”

  Thistle’s eyes were tearing up. Dora could feel her own throat constrict.

  “I don’t want you to die. I would be all alone.”

  Thistle gave her a thin smile. “We’ll think of something.”

  “What will you think of?” someone said.

  Next to a birch tree stood a person who hadn’t been there moments before: a very tall woman wrapped in robes and a flowing headscarf that seemed made of shifting shadows. Her long face was the purple shade of storm clouds, and her eyes shone yellow. She smiled, and the smile was sharp and toothy, but not unfriendly.

  “Hello, Dora,” she said, with a deep voice that crackled.

  “Hello, Ghorbi,” Dora replied.

  Ghorbi walked over to where Dora and Thistle were standing. She raised one of her large hands and caressed Dora’s cheek. When she spoke, her breath was hot and dry.

  “I’m visiting the lady Mnemosyne on business, so I thought I’d have a look at you. You’re almost a woman now. Nearly as tall as I. Big and strong, hair like white feathers, eyes dark as the earth. Truly a daughter of the mountain.”

  Her smile waned as she looked Dora over.

  “You’re filthy,” she said. “Doesn’t your father take care of you?”

  “Thistle takes care of me,” Dora said.