The Memory Thief

by Sarina Dorie

  Michi lingered in the corner, weaving a basket as the others filed out.

  “You too, daughter,” Taishi said.

  Only when the room was empty did I see her. She wore a poor imitation of off-world finery. Tanuki hides had been sewn to resemble puff sleeves and a fitted waist. Her skirt was long and covered her ankles. Her long blonde hair obscured half her face. She was still beautiful, more beautiful than I had ever been, though she was now older than I. She bit her lip, more pensive than pleased to see me.

  I threw my arms around her and kissed her. Whatever had happened, I knew I could forgive her. I was so relieved to see her at last. For the first time since returning to Aynu-Mosir, I allowed myself to cry freely. “All these years I thought you were dead. I wanted to see you as soon as I found out you were alive but—” As I pulled away, I noticed what her loose hair obscured. The right side of her face sagged and was pink with lumpy scars. Her eyelid drooped so low I wasn’t sure she could even see out of it. The shock must have shown on my face.

  She turned away. “I am a disappointment,” she said.

  “No, no, not at all. You’re my sister. We can be together again.” I kissed her smooth cheek and then her scarred one. “What happened? Is this why you didn’t come to see me when I first arrived?” I touched her cheek. “Why did you stay here instead of returning home?”

  She looked over my shoulder. “Haven’t you shared with her?”

  Taishi shook his head. “She wouldn’t let me. She saw Michi and . . . I think you must explain to your sister what happened after the attack.”

  “Who is to blame? Did Lord Klark do this?” I asked.

  “No.” She looked down. “You did.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Trust takes years to build, seconds to break, and forever to repair.

  —Ancient Jomon proverb

  My sister, once the younger, more beautiful one, kneeled beside me aged and scarred. She took my hands in hers. “There is so much to tell, I don’t know where to begin. With the first attack, or the second that resulted in this.” She waved at her disfigured face. “Or with Taishi. . . .”

  With just the two of us alone in her remote chamber, I felt as though time was meaningless. I pulled the long chain of the pocket watch from my skirt pockets and placed it in my sister’s hands.

  I closed my palms around hers. “Tell me what happened to you, to us—about Michi. Tell me everything.”

  She took a long moment to collect herself. “The meeting of the elders was supposed to be a celebration day. You, Taishi and I didn’t get to celebrate with the other children because we were translators for the adults. Poppy’s team had been learning the language, but they were little help. To make matters worse, Mr. Price disappeared and Miss Osborn was beside herself with worry.

  “Do you remember how Poppy hoped to help the Jomon come to an agreement about whether they would permit trade amongst our two peoples? He thought that coming up with these rules and helping them set limits to the ways their lands could be used would be to their advantage.”

  This noble man didn’t sound like the father I remembered, but I held my tongue for once. This was not my story to tell.

  “The meeting had only just begun when I smelled that funny odor of ozone from lasers. At first I didn’t understand what the hiss and crackle noise was, but then the roof of the tree house exploded in fire. I knew I had to get away. Poppy stood and shouted. I couldn’t even hear him over the screams. One moment he was there, the next he was this sizzling mass of cinders.

  “Everything was on fire and we were being shot at. I was frozen with fear and I probably would have died if you hadn’t thrown me through the hole in the wall to outside. We fell onto the ground below and I hurt my shoulder, but you picked me up and made me run. I think you hurt something in your foot, at least that’s what you told me later, but you didn’t feel it then. Taishi came running after us, directing us to the stream that flowed away from the village. There was so much smoke I was blind and choking. It smelled like burning human hair, and at one point I stepped on someone’s charred skull. It caved in and squished.”

  I cringed at the image. I recalled the beauty of the elegant houses hidden in the boughs of trees. The branches and greenery they were made from blended them in so well with the jungle that I still hadn’t seen them the first time Taishi had pointed to them out to me. Only now in my mind, I saw it all aflame and being destroyed.

  Faith inhaled and placed a deformed hand over her heart as if that could keep it from breaking. “We kept running and running and we only stopped when Taishi took us to a cave. We spent the night there shivering, despite the heat. We all had burns that we cooled in the river, but that could only do so much. We were alone and didn’t know what to do. Those who had survived had fled in all directions. Taishi led us to the Isepojin, a tribe that lived underground like the savanna’s rabbit-hogs we used to see in the valley. They gave us food and salves for our burns but they wouldn’t let us stay. They said you and I were bad luck and we’d brought death to their world. Taishi, they said, could remain with them.

  “He wouldn’t leave us, so we hid in the jungle. We stayed away from the men in their spaceships—ships that dwarfed the Santa Maria. We spied on Lord Klark’s men as they tried to get into the Santa Maria. They ended up cutting out the side to get in because they didn’t have the code. They stole the basket of red stones Shoko Nipa had given Poppy. We didn’t see that ourselves—Taishi told us. But there were quite a few times we lay hidden in hollowed logs or behind rocky ledges watching our enemies, holding our breaths that they would pass and wouldn’t find us. So many times you wanted to rush out and fight but we had nothing of consequence to fight with—only spears and rocks and Jomon tools. Everything about them is so primitive compared to millennia ago when they came to this world.

  “We traveled from tribe to tribe—or what was left of the Jomon tribes. Some of them offered us kindness for a time. One of the wise women gave you the tattoos. Another tribe married you and Taishi. But we weren’t welcome anywhere for long. We were foreigners without souls and bad luck.”

  Faith’s blonde hair fell over her face, hiding her blemished skin. For a moment I saw her as young and my little sister again. “You were so angry and so inconsolable, you sometimes scared me. But not Taishi. He always managed to calm you. He was the one who gave us hope that there would be better tomorrows . . . even when there weren’t.

  “The ship remained, vines growing over it in some places. It loomed like a tombstone over so much death. You had the idea to return to it, to see if there was anything of value that hadn’t been pillaged by the other foreigners. Much of the equipment was still there and we snuck out all manner of things. It was the laser that interested you the most. You knew the red diamonds could be used for lasers. Some of the ship computers still worked well enough for you to read up on light refraction. You thought you’d found the answer.

  “Many of the chiramantep had fled the valley, so it took a while before Taishi was able to find a chiramantep stone, but when he did, he brought it to you.”

  I leaned forward with interest. There had been something about Nipa’s questions that led me to believe he had meant something more than he let on. I had almost experienced a memory. Every word she uttered rang with truth.

  “You examined the red diamond under one of those monocles—or bionicals—as Poppy called them. You showed us how it wasn’t really smooth. It was faceted with a million tiny surfaces. And when you shone a dull light at the stone, it even focused into a red beam. You were convinced this would create a weapon we could use against the big ships. We had no way of testing it without drawing attention to ourselves, so we waited until one was directly overhead. You directed an intense beam of light into the diamond. Only it didn’t behave like an Earth-mined diamond or an Orion crystal or anything man-made. It created a hundred intense beams, most of which were directed upward. The ship in the sky did come crashing down, but we blew apart the Sa
nta Maria while we were trapped inside.”

  Her breath came out in a shudder. Mine mirrored her own. Faith shook her head. “I don’t blame you for getting him out first. I was buried under smoldering metal debris and you didn’t even know where I was, let alone if I was alive. Taishi was there and he was breathing. He was the father of your unborn child. I would have done the same.”

  My heart broke for her and I hugged her to my side.

  Her voice was high and frail, on the verge of tears as she had so often been as a child. “He was burned and there was a cut on his face—you can still see the scar today—the one on his cheek. He was only half conscious. You dragged him out and had to wait for the heat to die down before you came back in for me. I don’t know if it was the laser or the hot metal that melted my face off. Later I tried to tell you I didn’t blame you, but you always knew I did.

  “You hated yourself and blamed yourself for everything. I think you went mad with grief, and even Taishi couldn’t console you. He was afraid for you and afraid for your baby.”

  I thought about the girl I had met, the child whom I had assumed to be Faith’s. Could it be she truly was mine? But she looked too young. Then again, Faith and I had always looked younger than other children.

  I wanted Michi to be mine. Yet if she was, I had unjustly accused Taishi of marrying and bedding my sister. I hated myself for my rash words.

  Faith squeezed my hand, misreading my expression. “You have to understand that he wanted to do something for you so badly that he would have done anything. So when he asked if you would let him take away one of your painful memories, we saw it was the first relief you’d had in months. Then you asked him again and again. It weighed his heart down to take on your sorrows as well as his, but he did it because he loved you.

  “When you were birthing Michi, I didn’t know anything about delivering a baby. I wasn’t a midwife and I had no help except Taishi, who had birthed chiramanteps and watched animals birthing. I hated every minute of being on this wretched planet where there are no doctors, there’s no indoor plumbing and no electricity. Women actually die in childbirth on this world and I feared you would as well. Then where would I be? Alone on this horrible planet. I wasn’t like you, enjoying the customs and alien etiquette.

  “But I digress. Your labor was long and painful and you kept saying you wanted to die. The baby didn’t want to come out. Taishi told me I would have to cut you to make the opening bigger. I was so afraid. My hands were shaking and I didn’t know what I was doing. I was so afraid for you—and for me that I would do everything wrong and you would leave me.”

  My almost memories toward my sister made more sense now. I’d felt pity toward her because of her face. The anger that she had somehow hurt me, my feelings that I deserved it, and what the doctor had related to the maids about the knife were all because of childbirth, not because I’d been violated. I shook my head to clear it and focused on her words, on her pain and not my own.

  “After the baby you weren’t yourself. You grew ill with infection. Taishi distracted you from your pain with memory moss. He eased your burden. With every memory you gave him, your anguish was lighter and his heavier. I don’t know if you meant to give him all your memories or he took them on purpose. He only told me later than he intended to return them slowly so that you wouldn’t have to experience them all at once again.”

  I remembered how only days ago I had inadvertently given Taishi Nipa four memories instead of one. It was possible I had done the same before, only on a larger scale.

  Faith sucked in a quivering breath. “As it was, it was too much for Taishi. It drove him mad. I didn’t trust you with the baby so I held her. I dragged him out and kicked him into the stream to sober him up. Then he almost drowned because he was practically catatonic and I had to set the baby down to pull him out again. When the men from the starship came, it was everything I could do to keep him quiet. I prayed they wouldn’t find us. That they wouldn’t find you.

  “So much for prayers.

  “When Taishi was himself again, he asked for you.” She wept against my shoulder. “What kind of sister was I to let them take you? I told myself over and over I should have slit that boy’s throat before he screamed for his father.”

  I shook my head and shushed her. “No, Meriwether wasn’t to blame. Nor were you. You kept my daughter alive. And my husband as well.” I squeezed her hand in mine. When she said no more, I suspected she was done, yet I still had more questions. “I must ask one more thing of you. I want to know about this business with you being his geari wife.”

  She half choked, half laughed at that, but sobered seeing my serious countenance. “You misunderstand the meaning of such a relationship. He was never my husband in that sense. Even so, there was only once I tempted him, and I admit it was completely my fault. I was so sad and lonely after you left. As if it wasn’t bad enough that I was a gaijin, I also was deformed and ugly. Children were scared of me, and warriors dared each other talk to me or sit next to me because they thought I was so grotesque it would prove their bravery. Some of the women, the survivors who knew me, were kind. Taishi’s sister, for one. He was so happy when he found her among the Isepojin.

  “Perhaps my face would not have kept people away if I had learned to adapt and adopt their ways like you had. But I never was like you. I didn’t enjoy speaking the language or eating their foods. I didn’t find their customs charming and had no interest in learning about them at expense of losing myself. Taishi said I made myself an alien, but I didn’t care. I didn’t want to become Jomon.

  “Eventually Taishi came to be leader and was respected among his people. He convinced them I was to be kept in the tribe and that I brought a unique skill to his people—my art. Though I think for many, my being sister of his wife and raising his daughter was enough to make me his geari wife. It kept away the advances of women who assumed his love for his first wife had been replaced by a second—though I can assure you that was never the case.

  “When Taishi became leader, he was busy and I was even lonelier. Even so, each night he sat with me before the fire and put his arm around me. Sometimes we sat speaking of you, sometimes other matters. When we didn’t want anyone else to know our words, we spoke in English. As a result, he remained quite fluent. One night when we were all alone I kissed his cheek.” She blushed and looked down. “I knew he loved only you and wanted no other, but I would have given anything for him to love me. And you had left us both. We didn’t even know if you lived. I mean, I didn’t. He never lost hope.

  “He looked at me uncertainly. When I kissed him again and started to remove my blouse, he stopped me. He said, ‘Little sister, you are lonely, but you don’t want me. And you know me well enough to know there is only one woman I want.’ I cried and he bundled me up in a blanket and rocked me like a child. I thought for sure he would never speak to me again and I had lost my closest friend, but he came to me the next night and he sat by the fire as if nothing was amiss between us. He badgered the other men into talking to me, playing matchmaker and seeing if there was anyone who pleased me.

  “There were a few who could tolerate my face and would forgive me for being alien and for my strange ways, but none of them loved me. In truth, I didn’t let anyone get close enough to do so. I wanted the impossible. I wanted what you and Taishi had. I wanted a man who would take away my sorrows if he could.”

  Now I knew her sorrows as well as Taishi’s. But I hadn’t yet experienced my own.

  I spent the day with my sister, taking lunch with her and doting on her in the same manner I had when we were younger. Faith raised an eyebrow when Michi came in carrying a tray of tea. “You’re pushing your luck, little mei.” Faith used English for all her words but her endearment of “niece.”

  All the breath went out of me upon seeing her angelic face. I felt as though I were in a dream. For once it was a happy one.

  Michi responded in Jomon. “Poppy says I’m very good at that.” She bowed to me.
“Will you allow me to stay, Mother? I will sit and listen and promise to be quiet.”

  Faith snorted. “Your father often says you aren’t very good at that either.”

  Michi’s grin widened. “He says I’m like my mother.”

  She made me laugh in the same way he did. I bowed my head. I spoke in Jomon because that was what my daughter used. “I would be honored for you to have tea with us.”

  She bowed back, polite and formal. I threw my arms around her and embraced my daughter.

  It was settled we’d have a private dinner with Taishi Nipa, our daughter, my sister, Sumiko and Meriwether. I grudgingly asked Captain Ford to join us, but he insisted on guarding Charbonneau in the brig of his ship. In truth, I think he simply wanted his reserve of ship food again.

  I escorted Meriwether down the stairs and into the lower levels of the cliff palace. We passed uncovered windows. The evening sky was a dark azure. Snow levels had dropped and water dripped from icicles.

  With the two of us at last alone, it was time to speak to him of one of the matters on my mind. “I must warn you about my sister. . . .I have told you of her beauty, but she has been much changed. I don’t want you to say anything accidentally that will hurt her feelings.”

  He looked at me, puzzled. “Have I ever made a comment to a lady that would make her cry?”

  I smoothed a hand over my tanuki hide tunic. “Let’s see, there was the time Lady Ambrose was wearing that funny hat and you asked—”

  “I was seventeen!”

  “Then there was the time Duke Wellington introduced his daughter to you at a ball and you later told her you wouldn’t dance with a girl who kept stepping on your toes.”

  His cheeks turned scarlet. “I don’t recall.” He busied himself with straightening his cravat.

  “Oh, did someone steal your memories? What about the time you asked about my tattoos at that dinner party?”