The Forgetting

by Sharon Cameron

  “I think you should be cautious,” she says.

  I take her meaning. It’s what everyone is telling me today, even myself. I jerk the blue dress back over my head. Jonathan is older than Liliya, much older. He can’t be serious. And he can be cruel. Which means everything that I worried about with the glassblower’s son is still fair game for worrying. More so, and with greater consequences. I think of the fear I saw on Liliya’s face, and the new possible source for her anxiety about Mother. I sit down on the bench, still drying my legs.

  “Rose, have you heard anything that … ” I stop to think, rephrase. “If someone had a malfunction that was more … in their head, is there anything that would make that person need to be … concerned?” I don’t even know how to ask what I’m asking.

  Rose frowns while she thinks. “You’re speaking of your mother?” She waves a hand again. “Please. Rose knows everything. But the answer is no, though I’d say you have a reason for asking.”

  “Would you listen for me? And if you do hear anything that would be important to someone … like my mother, would you tell me?”

  Rose smiles her answer. And then she says, “If I could say something without offense … ”

  I stop in the act of slipping on my sandals. Rose is sitting on the bench beside me now, folding and refolding the extra towel.

  “I’m glad that what I first told you about your sister was not true,” she says. “Gray is dear to me, and I’m glad he chose differently.”

  I put on embarrassment in the same way I put on Liliya’s dress. It clings to my skin. Rose has overshot the mark, like everyone has, but I care much more about what she thinks than Imogene. At the same time, saying that she would prefer me as a choice has me questioning her intelligence, so in the end, the only word that comes out of my mouth is “Why?”

  Rose’s wrinkles go deep, spreading curving lines around her cheeks and outward from her eyes. I think she’s laughing at me. “Because you had to ask,” she says, “and because you do. That is your answer. Now, you’re in a hurry. Come and let Rose fix your hair.”

  She doesn’t wait for me to come, she just does, so I let her. She rubs my hair until it is only damp, not dripping, running her fingers through the long tendrils until it’s as good as brushed. What a funny, strange, odd, and remarkable thing this is. Last week, I wouldn’t have allowed it. This week I close my eyes and am comforted. I can’t decide if this is a new weakness or a strength.

  Before I can puzzle it out she has my damp hair braided up and pinned, and from somewhere in her smock she has produced a long string. She crisscrosses the string over my shoulders and across my chest, tucks, folds, ties, and when I look down the loose blue dress has become something different. The belt goes on, so I can tie my tether, and when I leave the baths, I have kissed Rose’s cheek and I’m not exactly sure who I am.

  I wait for Gray at the water clock, on the opposite side of the speaking platform, the clang of the seventh bell long faded from my ears. The sky is a beautiful, deep red, a red that, if you look carefully, varies in waves from a hint of pink to the color of old blood. I know most people miss the light, but I love the sunsetting almost as much as I love the dark day moons. What I do not love is waiting, especially when I am so incredibly, obviously waiting, with my hair so incredibly and obviously done.

  I remember a story that the little girls used to tell in the learning room, about how Janis had a place inside the clock tower, high up, where you couldn’t see her but she could see you. Follow the rules, or Janis would see. I always thought this story had its roots in my schoolmates’ imaginations, or maybe our teacher’s fear of showing Janis our test scores. But now I’m left with the uncomfortable feeling that even the Head of Council of Canaan is somewhere just above, watching me be abandoned at the water clock.

  A pair of women cross the green that is the low end of the amphitheater, one of them Essie the Wheelmaker, her baby on her back, banging its fists, a small book dangling from its jumper. The woman walking with Essie looks me over, and they whisper. I think of that regretful expression right before I ran off with Genivee. Rose’s room was like some kind of separate existence. Now that we’ve reentered our worlds, maybe Gray has decided to leave that existence to the Lost. Maybe I’m going to steal this book without his help. The “without” hurts more than I’d anticipated, no matter what my good intentions at the Archives, and I’m irritated and a little frightened that it does.

  I push off the clock tower and go. I should be home anyway. Tending to Mother. Taking care of Genivee. Enduring Liliya, trying to understand why she would make the choice of position and power when Jonathan of the Council comes with it. Or does she think he’ll forget and she can make him into someone else? But I think he liked seeing Hedda flogged, and cruelty is a trait that doesn’t get unmade in the Forgetting.

  I’m more than halfway home, ducking beneath the tree buds on Meridian, when I look up and see the glassblower’s son crossing Third Bridge, striding fast, his back to me. I track him with my eyes. Now I’m more than irritated. I’m mad. I had things to tell him. I did tedious work. Maybe found where the First Book is kept. Put up with gossiping women. I even fixed my hair. I pick up my pace and follow him.

  I see Gray lift a hand to someone, turn left onto Einstein, then dodge into the alley between two houses. I start to trot, stepping over moonflowers in their pots by the doors. He’s taking the shortcut to Jin’s. To the wall. When we’re almost to the Archives again, I slow, letting him get farther ahead, and then I stop, watching as he crosses to the other side of Copernicus. But instead of going up the garden stairs, Gray knocks on Jin’s front door. Yellow lamplight flares as the door opens, is extinguished as it shuts. Gray is inside.

  I stand, awkward, across the street. There aren’t many people in this back corner of Canaan, even during the waking hours. I lean against a wall, pack in hand, as if I’m digging through it, avoiding the eyes of one or two passersby, positioned exactly where I can see Gray sitting at the table through Jin’s front window. Jin sits beside Gray, hair pure white, thinner than the last time I saw him, an oil lamp hanging overhead. I watch Gray opening a book, dipping a pen.

  I forget to dig in my pack. Gray was writing in a book with a brown cover last resting, I’m sure of it, the one he wears in the open, strapped across his chest. This book is a deep sky red. Is that Jin’s book Gray is writing in? Has Jin grown too feeble to write? Who’s been making his signs, then? I think I might know the answer to that, too, and how I was caught coming over the wall. I watch Jin’s hands moving through the air as he talks. Gray has his hair tied back, out of his face, and he pauses once, to ask a question, then Jin pushes himself up, hobbling toward the window.

  I remember where I am and start moving again. When I glance over my shoulder, I’m halfway down the street, and Jin has pulled the curtain, shutting them inside. I stop walking. I don’t want to go home and tend and take care of things and endure. Not yet. And what, exactly, was stopping Gray from coming to the clock? From telling me he had something else to do? And I’m tired of being told to be careful. Especially by myself. I turn around, march back to Jin’s, and knock on his front door. Before I can change my mind. I have about half a minute to consider whether this is a mistake before Gray answers. His brows go up a little.

  “Hey,” he says.

  The table has been rearranged, I see. Or the people. Now the red book, and the pen and ink, are directly in front of Jin. I suppose it’s still against the rules to write in someone else’s book, even if they ask you to. I look to Jin, to see if he minds my presence, and the man is waving his hands again, beckoning me inside. Gray is still staring at me. I walk past him and sit down at the table. Jin leans across and grabs my hand and shakes it. Over and over. I’m getting good at shaking hands. Gray shuts the door.

  “Welcome,” Jin says, much too loud. “Welcome! You are a Dyer’s daughter. Which … ”

  “Nadia,” I whisper. Gray drops into the chair beside Jin. Jin squin
ts, wrinkles his forehead. He’s still shaking my hand.

  “This is Nadia,” Gray says, much louder than I did. His eyes are on me.

  “Yes!” Jin agrees. “I’ll get you water. Or tea. Do you like tea?”

  I nod.

  “The water is hot!” Jin shouts. He shambles off toward his storeroom, so happy I feel guilty for not knocking on his door forty times before now. I look around. Most of the houses in Canaan have the same, basic floor plan, with one or two rearrangements. But Jin has hung pieces of cloth in shades of red and gold all over the walls. It makes his sitting room warmer, cozy. Gray crosses his arms, leans back in the chair, a bit of his smirk lurking.

  “You followed me,” he says.

  “You didn’t come to the clock.”

  “You look nice.”

  “Rose did my hair.”

  Gray shakes his head. “What do you girls do over there on that side? The men just get clean.”

  “And shove each other and jump into the pools.”

  “You’ve been?” The smile is pulling his mouth upward now.

  “You didn’t come to the clock,” I repeat.

  Smile gone.

  “You like it sweet?” Jin’s shout from the doorway of the storeroom makes me jump. I nod at him again. He smiles, waves his hands in the air for no reason I can think of, and goes back in the other room. I look at Gray.

  “The clock?”

  Gray leans forward, like Jin could hear us if he didn’t talk low. “I was going to come by your house after this, on the way back, to explain. See, the fact is, I’ve been asked … told not to see you anymore.”

  I sit back. “Oh.”

  “Not,” Gray continues, “like that’s going to have anything to do with what actually happens, you understand.”

  “Oh?”

  “You see, I didn’t come home two restings in a row and everyone in this city thinks they know what I was up to and who with.”

  “I had the same problem.”

  “Did you? There’s a coincidence. And what did your mother have to say about it?”

  Not much. She just stuck a knife in her arm.

  “Mine had plenty. You’re an odd one, Delia says, and so’s your mother. And ever since the potter’s wife saw you come by the shop, I haven’t been myself. You’re what they call a bad influence. That’s what Delia the Planter says.”

  I look him over. “You don’t seem too upset about it.” What he seems is amused.

  “I’m having a hard time being annoyed with either one of my parents right now. I found out we share the same biology. And anyway, I like being influenced for the worse. Usually it’s the other way around.”

  Jin comes in then with a steaming cup of tea, offering it to me with two hands like a sunrise celebration cake. I blow, take a tiny sip, give Jin a weak smile. It tastes almost exactly like a sunrise celebration cake.

  “Jin,” Gray says, full voice, “can Nadia wait on your roof until we’ve finished our talk?” Gray glances once at me and I nod. If he’s writing in Jin’s book for him, they’ll want some privacy.

  “Yes, yes,” says Jin, shooing me away, his grin huge.

  I take my sweet tea and climb the stairs to the garden, stand at the edge on the far end, where I can see down the street. The whole city is blushing pink in the light. I watch a Lost man cleaning out the hanging lamps outside the Archives, getting ready for the dark days. After a long while, Gray comes and stands next to me.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asks.

  I really don’t want to tell him.

  “Come on, Dyer’s daughter. Talk.”

  I keep my eyes straight ahead. “If I do, you’ll owe me thirty-seven answers.”

  “And how many answers do you owe me again?”

  “Four.” I’m making this up and we both know it.

  “I’ll take it,” he says.

  I tilt my head toward the Archives. “I was thinking about going through that roof. I could get on it easy enough, just drop down from the wall, though bare feet might be better than sandals. I’m not sure how slippery it is. And I’d need a knife, to cut my way in, and a light that I could hide until it was time to use it. But there’s a ceiling below that thatch, maybe stone, I couldn’t tell, everything’s painted, so even if I get through I’m not sure it would work. And there’s getting back up and out and down again. So … ”

  When I glance over Gray is looking at me, really looking, like at the waterfall. He says, “I should’ve gotten you talking a long time ago. Once you get going, the most interesting things come out of your head.”

  I drink the now cold sweet tea and put my eyes on the street. Because I don’t know what else to do.

  “So I take it you were in the Archives today?”

  “I work there now. It was my sister’s doing … ” Or was it Jonathan’s? I think suddenly. “But I might know where the book is.” And I tell him about Gretchen, and the locked door, and how they protect the books. “So even if I could get in the locked door, I don’t know if I could get out with the book. It might have to be read in place.”

  “Which you won’t have time to do.”

  “And if we do take it out, it will either have to be returned before the Dark Days Festival, for Janis’s reading, or we’ll have to wait and steal it after. I’d rather no one ever knew it was gone.”

  Gray rubs his chin.

  “So if I’m caught,” I go on, “it’s going to be red-handed. Or they’re going to know it was me. Only Gretchen and I go in the big room, except for Reese and Li, and that’s to check on me. And Deming sleeps in the waiting area, and maybe Gretchen in her workspace. That’s why I think your parents have a good idea. You shouldn’t be seen with me.”

  “That’s what you think, is it?”

  “I didn’t say you shouldn’t see me, just that you shouldn’t be seen.”

  He grins. I wonder if all this makes me more of a challenge. “Here’s what I think,” Gray says. “We go to the Dark Days Festival, we let Janis get going with her rule reading, then I give her a hard shove, you grab the book and go.” Gray glances over at me, smirk in place. “She’s not very fast.”

  “Oh, you’re full of excellent ideas.”

  Gray says, “You should go this time.”

  “To the festival? Why?” I’m amazed he knows I don’t.

  “You’re the only person in Canaan who would have to ask that. Because it’s fun, Nadia. You might like it. And think of all the opportunities for crime … ” But then Gray’s voice lowers, and he says, “Look.”

  I move my gaze back to the street and there is Jonathan, his black robes unmistakable in the red light, and he has Reese and Li with him, plus Rachel the Supervisor, also on the Council.

  Gray reaches out and takes my hand, with much less caution than in Rose’s room, this time using it to pull me down, out of any line of sight from the street. I go to my knees behind the low garden wall as he sits, still tall enough to see Jonathan and his group turn down Copernicus away from Jin’s, walking with purpose to a door four or five houses down. Jonathan knocks, and someone lets all of them in. Gray still has my hand. I pull it away, gently, and immediately wish I hadn’t. He doesn’t say anything. His gaze is fixed on the house the Council members have entered.

  I hear yelling from down the street. Doors open one by one, heads sticking out of windows, turning to the noise, and then Reese and Li half drag a man out of the house we’ve been watching. His hands are tied. I lean closer to Gray.

  “Who is it?” I whisper.

  “Rhaman the Fuelmaker.”

  “They’re taking him? What could he have done?” Rhaman’s yells are echoing all around us. I hear Jin open his door.

  “I saw him today,” Gray says, “just before the leaving bell. In the houses of the Lost.”

  “On the women’s side?”

  “Yes, but … It’s not always like that, you know. This is … it’s mutual.”

  And Gray would know. Is this what would happ
en if Jonathan found out Gray goes to the Lost? Even just to see Rose? “Has Rhaman seen you there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would he say anything?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Rhaman has quieted a little, and I can hear the buzz and whisper of talk from the gathering people as Jonathan drags him down the street. I wonder if any of those whisperers will be claiming their reward. The thought disgusts me.

  “But why now?” Gray is saying, voice held low. “Rhaman has been going down there for years. No one’s ever done anything about it before.” His gaze is sharp, focused by anger. “He,” Gray says, looking at Jonathan of the Council, “is trying to make us afraid. He wants us afraid.”

  When the group rounds the corner off Copernicus I say, “Rose told me today that Liliya is sitting with Jonathan of the Council.”

  Gray turns his face to me.

  “Rose says they have an understanding in secret, because Janis doesn’t approve.”

  “Does Liliya know you’ve been going over the wall?”

  “No. Or I don’t think so.”

  I hear him curse once beneath his breath. “Can you get out the window in your room?” I wrinkle my brow, and he doesn’t wait for me to speak. “Put something there to climb on, and if they come for you, get out, run to Jin’s, and go over the wall. Promise me you’ll do that.”

  “I will if you will.” We look at each other, and again I see an expression on Gray’s face that I don’t understand. Maybe it’s many things at once. I wonder why he’s sitting up here with me, instead of running around with Veronika, or Imogene, or one of the others.

  “Come here tomorrow,” he says. “To Jin’s roof. Come up when no one can see you.”

  He’s so still, except for his breath, except for that place in his jaw that’s clenched.

  “Come,” he says again. “And we’ll take that book, and we’ll find a way to make them remember.”

  And that’s when I have a revelation. Liliya isn’t going to turn me in to Jonathan, not even if she wants to, not even for a reward. Because I have something she wants: access to the Archives and the ability to make myself disappear, something I could never pull off tied to the plaque on the water clock. And now Liliya has access to something I want, too.