CHAPTER EIGHT #3
“I take it that you still don’t remember anything?” I switch the topic, unwilling to confront that line of thought.
Valentin fiddles with her necklace. “I only woke up yesterday. I’ve spent it thinking, a lot, but it’s like someone’s taken an eraser to my brain. Even my name I’m barely certain of. But there is a feeling in my chest when I think it, like a warm candle on a winter night, so it feels right.”
“Like someone’s called it out to you before,” I say.
Hope brightens her cheeks. “Did you forget everything too?”
“No, but it’s been a while,” I reply. “The fair found me when I desperately needed help. I remember every bit of my old life, but it’s like a painting that’s been left in a humid room.
It’s morphed. Some days, the images are so clear, but if I think too hard, I can’t recall voices, names, faces.
But that was my price to pay. You were brought here by the carousel, as part of a larger problem we’ve been having. ”
“I saw,” she remarks, nodding towards the carousel. “That boy…Ender? He mentioned that you’ve been trying to fix it. But when I asked questions, he got distracted, said something about an assassin and manifesting himself.”
I smile ruefully. “You could say our rescue mission did not go according to plan.”
“What happens if you can’t fix it?”
“You saw what happens,” I tell her, worry creeping back in.
“Iris is only the beginning. But if left untended, the universe as we know it crumbles. The timelines start to fray, maybe fold into themselves, or stretch so far that they disappear. Everyone tied to the dimension would vanish too. I let things go too far once and the fair started…dying. The colors grew duller, our food quality deteriorated, and I was compelled to fix it.”
She frowns. “You’re forced to?”
“Not exactly.” I readjust my weight, unable to find a comfortable position.
“I had fallen into a deep depression, tired of being a pawn, and had lost all interest in performing this role I’d inherited.
Beam and the other ghosts begged me to fix it, helpless since Everest wasn’t around, and they can’t go into the carousel on their own.
But more than that, I could feel the carousel’s magic lessen.
I hadn’t realized how much it had bolstered me until that point.
It’s hard to describe – like my favorite blanket suddenly had holes in the most inconvenient of places. I’ve never let it get that far again.”
Valentin looks disturbed. I give her a comforting shoulder bump. “Good news for you is that we’ll make sure you get back, one way or another. Until then, well, welcome. There are worse places to be.”
“Have you tried to leave?”
I nod. “When I first got here. But there’s a boundary around this place, like I mentioned before.
I doubt you’ll find it unless you go looking, but you kind of just bounce back.
Hit an invisible wall, no matter how many times you ask the fair to let you cross it.
Only Everest and his siblings are able to, and the ghosts come in and out of the carousel.
The only place within the boundary that I haven’t gone is up the mountains, and all that’s out there is the bitter cold and Mother Time’s garden. ”
Valentin sits up straight. “Did you just say garden?”
“Yup, filled with magical plants.” I point at the highest, most treacherous peak, partly obscured by clouds.
“Apparently, it’s quite the perilous visit.
There’s no safe way for us to scale the mountains, and the garden itself may kill you.
There’s an infamous story about Everest’s brother, Cyrus, accidentally eating one of the plants and suffering a near-lethal poisoning. And he’s immortal.”
Wonder fills Valentin’s face. “What about the ghosts? Is this their afterlife?”
“No, I’m afraid not.” Her face falls. “It’s more like a resting place for those who have been touched by the carousel in some way.
Geneva, who you may remember, was the keeper before me.
Beam was not a keeper, obviously, but she…
Well, we don’t really know how she ended up here, but it isn’t a happy story.
And then we have cases like Ender, who was time-swallowed as a baby. ”
“Time-swallowed?” Valentin asks.
“Happens to living organisms sometimes,” I say.
“A thread gets caught around them and they’re sucked into a blip.
More likely to happen to smaller beings, pets and babies, thankfully, but we do get the occasional adult.
They’re the ones who’ll tell you about when they lost time and don’t realize how. ”
“That’s all of us; time slips away faster with each passing year,” Valentin says, then scowls. “I’m not sure where that came from. It’s almost like I remembered something for a second, but it’s gone.”
I grin at her. “That’s good; it’ll come back to you soon enough.”
“Thanks,” Valentin says, slipping her feet out of the spring. “So, what’s next for you?”
My heart twists at the question. I barely had a direction, let alone an answer.
“Figuring out how to save the world.”