Chapter 15
We were on our way to the junkyard not even an hour after we finally went to our rooms. I’d never bathed faster in my life, but all that sweat had to come off, or I was going to feel uncomfortable.
I was sitting by the door, finishing the mechanical eye I’d started to draw—how I imagined the Labyrinth’s eye would look if it had one. The eye that was always watching.
I’d never drawn things like this before. It felt…strange. So far out of my comfort zone, which was why I pushed myself to finish it.
When I heard doors opening in the hallway, I stepped out of my room, too.
A few of the Hands were ready, but we had to wait a few more minutes until all were out. Then, as silently as possible—more silently than ever before—we made our way down the stairs and outside The Ever and didn’t say a single word until we were in the junkyard, standing by the giant lantern.
Then everybody started talking at the same time.
Something’s going on—those workouts killed me—I can’t believe the queens didn’t come talk to us yet even though we won—what is up with Calren?
—what exactly happened at breakfast?—are we lying now, to the queens and to the whole world?
—guys, why aren’t we talking to anyone?—why hasn’t anybody come to talk to us?
On and on we went for a little while.
Then Reggie called, “Everybody—shut up!”
His voice echoed in the tall ceiling. We all fell silent.
We were standing in a circle in front of the lantern, some of us were hyper, some scared, some confused.
“You made us lie at breakfast.” Russ was pointing at Silas, and at March standing right next to me.
“We did. It sounded like the Timekeeper didn’t know that we had each other’s memories still,” March said.
Shivers rushed down my back.
“So why lie?” Mimi asked.
“Because if we keep these memories, we don’t lose them. We can tell each other what we gave away,” Silas said.
“Are you saying that if they knew, they’d…what, take them from us?” Seth.
“Or maybe they would give them back,” said Anika, shaking her head. “We shouldn’t have lied…”
“They wouldn’t. You all heard Calren. He said the game would keep the memories,” I reminded her.
“Guys…they wouldn’t just come take our memories, would they?” Cook said, a dumbfounded smile on his face. “I mean, that’s illegal. It would be…”
“Everything that goes on here is illegal in the rest of the realm,” Silas said. “There’s a very good chance they’d extract our memories of each other if they knew.”
“Nobody is allowed to say a single word about it,” March said. “I want to know what memories I gave. I want to remember.” He looked at me. “You can tell me mine, and I can tell you yours.”
I nodded. “Yes.” I wanted to know what I lost, too. I had to—those were my memories.
“A hundred percent,” Reggie said. “We won’t say a word about this.” And he sat on the ground. “C’mon, then. Sit down. Let’s tell each other what we know.”
So, we did.
A few of the others weren’t entirely certain that they wanted to keep this secret, I thought. The Diamonds, all three of them—and Mimi looked confused, too. But I did believe March and Silas. I did believe that they’d take the memories away if keeping them really wasn’t allowed.
It was best if Calren and the queens and everyone else didn’t know at all.
We were all sitting close to the people we’d exchanged masks with at the masquerade. Mimi and Cook. Seth and Erith. Anika and Helen. Reggie and Silas. Levana and Russ. Me and March.
“Tell me,” he said when the others began to whisper. “What did I lose?”
“Glass,” I said, dragging myself a little closer.
They were right to whisper—these memories were private.
I didn’t want everyone to know mine, either.
Not until I knew what I’d given up, at least. “You were in this workshop, and there was a furnace, a big fire burning in it. It smelled of ashes, and it was really hot, and you had this rod in your hands. You spun it around, and there was molten glass on the other end of it, basically in the fire,” I said as the memory replayed in the center of my mind like a projection. Like a memory of my own.
March listened intently, absorbed every word I said, his eyes glazed over as he tried to remember but couldn’t. The memory wasn’t in his mind anymore—it was in mine.
“You were happy,” I said. “You were so proud.”
“Yes,” he said with a nod. “I love working with glass. I’ve been doing it since I was a kid.”
Suddenly I could almost see little March in my mind, in awe of what he saw, and my smile was automatic. “I felt it.”
He sighed deeply, but it wasn’t relief. “And the other? I had one good memory and one bad.” He licked his lips and I tried not to flinch. “What was the other?”
My smile was gone. Now I felt like I was sitting on needles. “The other was…in a kitchen,” I started, and my heart beat like a drum already. I’d rather not tell him that at all, but how could I keep it to myself?
“A kitchen?”
I nodded. Swallowed hard. “Red-and-white tiles and cupboards. And…and…” That muffled scream was there, filling my ears, and my lips moved but my voice was stuck still.
“And?” March urged.
“And there was a scream.” I closed my eyes—it would be easier if I didn’t see his face, I thought. “Other people were there, but I didn’t see them—you were focused on the man. The…the…the man who was shouting.”
“What man?” Except this time his voice was more hushed, like he already knew.
“I don’t know. He looked like you. Older. Taller. He…he was shouting something and then he grabbed a knife and you raised your arm and…”
My throat burned. The words begged to remain inside my mouth.
My hands shook when I reached out for his left arm, and pulled up the sleeve of his red shirt.
Tears pricked the back of my eyes when I touched the scar half hidden by the hair of his forearm, then turned it over to see the other scar just below his elbow, where the knife had gone through first before coming out on the other side.
The scar tissue was old, pale, less than two inches long, but it was there.
“March.” He was looking down at his arm, and it was clear to see he was in shock as he ran his fingers over the scar tissue, one then the other.
“I…remember seeing these before, but I don’t know how I got them. I forgot they were there.”
My heart broke into a million pieces.
I’m sorry, I thought, but couldn’t say it. I just pulled my knees up and wrapped my arms around them and gave him as long as he needed to get himself together.
The others whispered.
I kept my eyes on the floor, didn’t want to pry. Didn’t want to hear things that were private to them, and it was easy to do when the thoughts in my head were screaming.
Pain. So much pain had been in March in that second memory. I felt so incredibly sorry for him, but it was also a wakeup call for me.
Since Jinx died, I’d self-isolated so much because I’d felt like nobody could possibly know or understand what it was like under my skin. Nobody had felt the pain I’d felt. Nobody knew how hollowed out I really was on the inside, and how full of all things bad at the same time.
But March’s pain was in me now. It was a different flavor, but just as intense. It was raw and it had consumed him completely—not the physical pain, no. That one was a different thing altogether.
It was the other pain, the shock, the confusion, the panic he’d experienced when hearing those screams, when he’d stepped in front of that man who could very well be his own father, to protect…whom? He’d gotten in front of someone—those two people, the silhouettes he hadn’t focused on.
It made me realize that I wasn’t all alone in the world and in my pain like I thought.
It made me realize that other people had pain, too, each their own, and the Hands who were crying around me were more than enough proof.
A handful of them were in tears as they listened to the others tell them about the memories they lost.
How curious. I’d come to this place to run away, but in just a few days, I’d already gotten so much more than I could have ever dreamed of.
Then it was my turn.
“You’re in a forest somewhere. The trees are dense and it’s pretty dark. It’s daylight but the canopy barely lets the sun through. You’re alone.”
All these words March said in a whisper, and I didn’t dare turn to even look at him yet.
Two bad, one neutral. He had two bad memories of mine.
I braced myself.
“You’re…you’re crying. Sobbing. Screaming.”
Every tick found me a little less than the last.
“You’re kicking trees, I think. You barely feel the pain of it. You just feel…”
The word he was looking for was one I knew well. “Empty.” And I knew exactly what he was talking about, because I’d done that same thing again and again. Not once or twice, possibly over twenty times.
I’d told my parents I was going to see my friends, and I’d told my friends I’d be spending the day with my parents—they had this nasty habit of not letting me be by myself since Jinx, and it was difficult to sneak away from everyone most days.
But some, I managed. Some, I hid away in the forest, deep where nobody wandered, and I let it all out.
The tears and the pain and the rage, until I was completely empty.
I wondered which memory I’d given away. I wondered if something different had happened then that I would never remember now.
“Then there were your parents.”
My eyes closed. I’d had tears in them, it seemed, because they slid down my cheeks right away.
“What…what about my parents?” I said, and I sounded like I was choking.
“Nothing. They were…they were hugging you. Kissing your cheeks.”
I stopped. Turned and looked at him. “I had two bad memories.” I never had to give away a good one.
The look in March’s eyes, though. The sorry he screamed at me through them.