The Memory Keepers

by Natasha Ngan

  One more day!

  She didn’t know how she’d manage.

  Whenever she thought of Seven, Alba saw him in the dusky, night-time places of last Saturday: walking towards her under the shadows of the elms in her garden, or a flame-lit figure ahead of her in that awful sewer tunnel, his outline yellow and glowing. How he’d frozen as she’d asked him if he’d take her surfing again and she’d thought for a split-second he was going to say no, and the fast, spiralling feeling that had wound through her chest then, a rush of emotions she couldn’t quite place.

  Seven had only let her surf the one memory that night, worried about getting her back to North before it got light. One memory wasn’t nearly enough. Alba wanted more. Hundreds more. She wanted to surf his entire collection, and even then it wouldn’t be enough.

  She’d been to a tropical rainforest, swam naked in the azure water of its pools, while her parents and Dolly and everyone else in her house had been here, just sleeping. They might have been dreaming, but dreaming was nothing like memory-surfing. Surfing was so much more. It was like living moments from the most beautiful, sparkling life.

  And there was the problem. Now Alba had had a taste of freedom, she couldn’t bear the thought of it being taken away.

  Dolly was getting Alba ready for bed when there was a knock on the door. It opened before they could answer, Oxana stepping into the room in a cloud of too-sweet perfume and bustling silks.

  ‘Mistress White!’ Dolly gave a polite bow, still holding the brush she’d been using to comb through Alba’s hair.

  Alba pulled her silk dressing gown tighter around her, face paling. Even though it had been a week since the night her mother had hit her, the memory of it still felt fresh. Raw. She had spent the week avoiding looking into her mother’s eyes because every time she did, there it was again: the snap of her wrist; coldness of the marble floor against her cheek; wine on her mother’s breath; the ugly look on her face as she’d said, I’m done with you.

  For the past few days, it’d seemed Oxana was keeping to her words. Apart from dinner every night and their weekly Sunday church visit, Alba hadn’t seen her mother, and even when they were together her mother hadn’t pressed her to talk.

  Now she was here in her bedroom, and there was nowhere Alba could escape to.

  ‘Dolly,’ Oxana said, smiling, clasping her hands in front of her. She was still wearing her dinner outfit from earlier. The long green dress skated over her curves like a dark emerald waterfall, picking out the colour of her eyes. Her blonde hair was slicked back in a sleek ponytail. ‘May I have a few moments alone with my daughter?’

  ‘Of course, Mistress White.’ Giving Alba an encouraging smile, Dolly squeezed her shoulder and left the room.

  Alba stared down at her lap, fiddling with the tie of her dressing gown. Her stomach flipped dizzily. For one terrible moment she could barely breathe, because she truly thought her mother was about to tell her she knew what had happened last week.

  That she knew about Seven.

  It was strange, but the two nights Alba had shared with that weird, awkward boy from South seemed more binding than if they’d grown up together, spending years in each other’s company. She felt as though they were tethered together now. Tethered by their shared secrets, yes, and what they’d overheard between her father and Pearson, but also bound by the gift that Seven had given her.

  Because that’s what it felt like to Alba; a gift. And she had no idea what she’d done to deserve it.

  Then her mother said in a gentle voice, ‘I want to apologise for the other night, my darling,’ and all Alba’s fears suddenly spun away.

  She jerked her head up. Before she could say anything, her mother walked over and took her hands, leading her from the dressing table to the bed.

  Oxana let out a slow huff of breath as they sat on the edge of the mattress. ‘I’m so sorry for what happened, my darling. I really am. It was abhorrent of me. I never should have said those things, or acted the way I did.’ She stopped, mouth tightening, and reached out to tuck a stray lock of hair behind Alba’s ear. ‘I have felt horrible about it all week,’ she went on. ‘But your father and I – we need you to understand the truth about South. It is a dark place, Little Alba. Darker than you can imagine.’

  Alba swallowed, looking away. She thought of Seven, how he’d told her not to worry when she’d admitted she was nervous before memory-surfing, and the soft look then in his eyes.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  Her mother’s hand stiffened in hers. There was a long, heavy pause.

  ‘What do you mean, my darling?’ Oxana asked eventually, a hard thread running under her words.

  Alba took a deep breath. ‘I mean no.’ All of a sudden, her words fell out in a rush. ‘I know what you’re trying to tell me, Mother. What you and Father were saying the other night. But it’s not right. It’s not fair. Even if South is dark, that doesn’t mean all the people who live there are too. We shouldn’t judge them that way, when we don’t know anything about their lives or what they think and feel –’

  Alba bit her lip, falling abruptly silent. She’d been so close to mentioning Seven then. How she knew what he did was wrong, but he did it because he had no choice. Because memories were the only thing that made him feel free (they were the only thing that had ever made her feel free, too).

  Her mother let go of her hands. ‘But we do know,’ she said quietly, though her voice was icy. ‘Southers are dangerous.’

  ‘And Northers aren’t?’

  It came out sharper than Alba had meant it to. She saw her mother’s eyes click to her left wrist. It wasn’t in a bandage any more, and the pain had subsided, but there was a ring of purple bruising across the skin where the sprain had been. She knew her mother was thinking of the night when she’d hit her.

  Alba felt a surge of guilt, even though, as always, she knew she’d done nothing to deserve it. ‘I – I didn’t mean … ’

  Oxana clicked her tongue. She waved a hand, not quite meeting Alba’s eyes, and just like that Alba felt herself dismissed, and her mother hardening again.

  ‘It’s getting late. I should let you get to bed.’

  Standing, her mother smoothed down her dress. For a moment she watched Alba, some unreadable emotion passing across her face. Then she looked away.

  ‘We are trying to teach you about the world,’ Oxana said coolly. ‘So you don’t have to learn for yourself, the hard way. It is important you understand your place – and everyone else’s – in this society.’ She moved to leave the room, then paused at the door, turning back to Alba. ‘One day, my darling, if things go as planned, the world will look to you for guidance and wisdom. And you must be ready to show them the right path.’

  It was only after the door clicked shut that Alba took in her mother’s parting words. Her mind was spinning. What on earth was her mother talking about?

  ‘One day the whole world will look to me for guidance and wisdom?’ she murmured to herself. It sounded so ridiculous, but a shudder ran down her spine.

  Just who did her mother think she would become?

  25

  SEVEN

  Carpenter was conducting his meetings in Borough Market in a dimly lit corner of the hall. A row of stalls, their shutters locked for the night, hid them from the main crowds, though people were still milling by. Their voices put Seven on edge. He kept looking over his shoulder every time someone passed, wary they were listening.

  ‘Relax, S. They can’t hear us.’

  Carpenter was his usual calm self, sitting opposite Seven at one of the round tables, one leg propped up on his seat. His khaki-coloured shirt was rolled back at the elbows and open low down the front, revealing the dense forest of tattoos twined across his skin. There was a saw in there somewhere, Carpenter had once said – the same design that Seven and the rest of the crew had inked on their chests – but Seven had never been able to locate it (urgh. Maybe it was somewhere he didn’t want to locate).

  S
even picked at a piece of gum stuck to the table. ‘It’s just hard to relax after Murray and everything.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Everyone’s worried it’ll be them next.’

  ‘I know.’

  Seven sighed, running a hand through his hair. It was impossible to read Carpenter.

  A laughing group of men sauntered by. He glanced over to watch them pass when Carpenter spoke suddenly, making him turn back.

  ‘S. Listen to me.’

  Carpenter’s voice had changed. It was sharp now, an edge to his words.

  ‘The White memory. Did you surf it?’

  Seven’s cheeks flushed. ‘What d’you mean? I don’t –’

  ‘I know you copy all the skids you steal,’ Carpenter interrupted, ‘so don’t waste time telling me you haven’t. Just answer me. Have you surfed it yet?’

  ‘But –’

  ‘I don’t give a bloody toss about you copying them, Seven!’

  He slammed a fist on the table so hard it shook, but it was the use of his full name that really got Seven’s attention.

  ‘All my crew do it,’ Carpenter said. ‘I do it. I wouldn’t expect anything less from a skid-thief. I just need to know about the White memory.’

  Twisting his hands in his lap, Seven shook his head. ‘Not yet,’ he answered.

  The truth was, he’d completely forgotten about Alastair White’s memory after everything that had happened with Alba. Seven had used Butler every day, but only to surf the memory she’d chosen that night, over and over, feeling each time as though he could somehow sense her in it, the ghost of her body imprinted in the memory-space, wanting to know how she’d felt when she’d been in the lush rainforest with its cascading waterfall, what she’d been thinking as her body plunged into the blue.

  Carpenter nodded and looked away. ‘I believe you.’ Then, speaking so quietly Seven almost couldn’t hear, he muttered, ‘I thought it would protect us. That I could protect us by having it. Use it as blackmail, if it ever came to it. Something to keep that White pig away. And after Murray … But it’s bigger than that. I should’ve left it alone.’

  Seven watched him warily. ‘What’re you talking about, Carpenter?’

  His crew leader’s eyes snapped back to him. In one sudden move, Carpenter dropped his leg down and leant across the table. His features were edged with panic. A muscle was twitching in his temple: a quick, frantic beat that made Seven’s own heart speed up.

  ‘S. This is important. This is your life we’re talking about.’

  There was a pulse of noise from deep in the hall. Seven broke Carpenter’s gaze, turning to look over his shoulder. Something seemed to be rousing the crowd. Shouts echoed off the domed roof.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he muttered, distracted.

  ‘S, listen to me!’ Carpenter’s voice was a growl, barely audible over the growing sea of noise behind them. ‘The White memory. Do not surf it.’

  Seven looked back round.

  ‘Promise me you’ll destroy it,’ Carpenter urged. ‘No one can ever find it, or know that you had it.’

  The panicky edge in his voice worried Seven.

  Carpenter was scared.

  He was never scared.

  A tentative grin snuck across Seven’s lips. ‘Come on, Carpenter … you’re weirding me out.’

  ‘FOR FUCK’S SAKE!’

  With a roar of frustration, Carpenter swung back, pushing up from the table so he was towering over Seven, his face a twisted shadow in the glow of the lights above.

  ‘This is important! Stop being a complete idiot and just fucking promise me –’

  Something whistled past Seven’s ear. A second later, Carpenter let out a soft hiss of breath. Surprise flitted across his features. He raised a hand to his neck then drew his fingers back. They were slick. Wet. Red.

  ‘Fuck,’ he muttered, blood bubbling up over his lip.

  And then Seven saw it –

  The dark hole in the side of his neck.

  Carpenter’s eyes swivelled, focusing on Seven. ‘The memory, S. Destroy it.’

  His eyes unfocused. A wave of sadness flushed his face, and it made him look young, as young as a child, lost and alone and scared of the darkness. Scared of the sounds in the night.

  ‘S-sorry.’ Carpenter forced the word out, voice thick and gurgling.

  More blood filled his mouth. His teeth were black with it.

  Seven couldn’t move, couldn’t think. All he could do was whisper, ‘C-Carpenter?’

  But his crew leader didn’t respond. His eyes just rolled up in their sockets, his face softening, and then he fell straight back with a thud to the floor.

  Before Seven had a chance to do anything – even think anything – the roar of the crowds swelled louder and suddenly there were people everywhere, a tide surging through the hall, bodies breaking against him in the rush, and above it all the hard, angry studs of gunfire, and screams, as more bullets found their mark.

  26

  ALBA

  Voices stirred her from sleep.

  Alba woke, disorientated, so twisted up in her duvet and sheets, pillows scattered around her, that she felt a rising thrum of panic. She was trapped. Trapped as she’d been in her dream. It took her a few moments to realise where she was.

  The voices were coming from outside her room, scratching in the night-time silence. Easing out of the tangle of sheets, she padded across the room and opened the door.

  There were lights on in a room down the corridor. On this floor, that end of the house was Alba’s parents’ private wing, a part she was forbidden to enter unless invited by one of them, which was rare. The lights were on now in her father’s office. Their yellow glow spilled out into the hallway, shifting shadows thrown across the floor as figures moved inside.

  The voices were male, gruff, tense. Alba couldn’t make out what they were saying from here; their sentences were shapeless, only noises. Then she heard a single word that made her body run cold –

  Memory-thief.

  ‘Seven,’ she breathed.

  Heart thudding, Alba tiptoed down the hall. She kept close to the wall, touching her fingertips to the velvety wallpaper engraved with soft, swirling patterns lost in the darkness. She stopped a short way from the open door to the office, close enough now to hear snatches of conversations inside.

  ‘ … the raid … ’

  ‘ … Borough Market … ’

  ‘ … ten dead, and at least thirty more injured … ’

  ‘ … unconfirmed … ’

  ‘ … escaped … ’

  The men were talking over one another. It sounded like there’d been some sort of raid by the London Guard on a memory-thief meet-up. Alba remembered Seven mentioning something about these big events where all the thieving crews got together to do business.

  ‘The London Guard have been placed on high alert for suspected memory-thieves that might have escaped the raid.’

  Her father’s voice cut above the busy chatter. At once, the room fell silent. There was the rustling of suits, a chink of a glass being set down as the men gave Alastair White their full attention.

  ‘They have identified some of the tattoos marking out the different crews, and will be searching both South and North for people carrying those signifiers. Without any strong evidence or confessions, however, we are unable to ascertain how many memory-thieves have gone unapprehended.’

  There were jeers.

  ‘Give Interrogations a few hours. They’ll have those confessions in no time.’

  ‘South scum. What did they think – that they could keep taking our memories without any repercussions?’

  ‘Let’s see how they like a bullet in the head.’

  ‘Men. A little dignity, please.’ Her father’s voice quietened the room again. His tone was smug. ‘Remember, we are in North.’

  The room burst into laughter.

  Alba dashed back to her room. She’d heard enough. Pressing her back to the inside of her door sh
e heaved in deep, shaky breaths, listening to the footsteps of the men passing as they left a few minutes later. She stood there long after they’d gone, the slam of the grand front doors too loud in the stillness of the house, quiet now despite the storm of thoughts inside her mind.

  Raid.

  The London Guard.

  Memory-thieves.

  Interrogations.

  Bullets –

  Alba stuffed a hand over her mouth. She felt sick. How could those men – how could her father – talk so flippantly, so smugly, about the loss of lives? They’d even laughed about it.

  Laughed.

  Alba let the anger overtake her, let it rip through her in a roar of red, because the alternative was worse. Utter sadness over what was happening to those poor skid-thieves right now, and the horrible, sick fear that Seven might be one of them.

  27

  SEVEN

  He only just escaped, only just made it out alive.

  The market had turned into a wave, a chaotic, churning, surging swell of bodies, all straining to reach the shore where the hope of safety waited outside the glass-roofed hall, just metres but miles and whole lifetimes away.

  Seven was swept up along with the crowds. When it came to fighting, his scrawniness had always been a disadvantage; tonight it saved his life. He used elbows, bones, limbs to battle his way out of the crush of bodies, stop himself from going under. He slipped through gaps. He ran, crawled over others where he had to.

  And he had to, to live.

  Because he wanted to live. So badly. He might wonder why the hell he bothered most of the time, but right at this minute, on this night, after seeing one single bullet fell Carpenter like a chainsaw to a tree, Seven had to live.

  Death roared around him and he fought his way from it.

  It felt like he was running for hours. He only let himself slow when he realised he couldn’t hear gunshots any more, that he was alone on a dimly lit street, gulping for air.