by Sara Beaman
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
“Things fall apart,” I say aloud, “the center cannot hold…”
I hear a knock. I get up, put the book down, and go to answer the door. It’s Jennifer.
“How are you doing?” she asks.
“Fine.”
“Haruko is awake,” she says. “She said she’d like to talk to you. Actually, she said she won’t talk to anyone until she can talk to you.”
“Oh,” I say, surprised. “Okay.”
“Will you come see her?”
“Sure.”
She nods. “I’ll take you there.”
“All right,” I say, stepping into the hallway. “Say, have we seen any sign of Aya?”
“Not yet,” she says. “But I’ve always had trouble tracking her.”
“I see,” I say, thinking about Richard's theory. Is she really a blood ascetic?
“I like your dress,” she says as she leads me down the hall.
***
Jennifer leads me to a suite I’ve never seen before. We walk through a smallish sitting room filled with dusty antiques and into a dimly-lit bedroom. Inside, Haruko sits on the bed, her back against the headboard, her arms folded across her chest. A square of gauze covers her left eye, and her right is closed, but I can tell from the tension in her shoulders and her face that she isn’t asleep.
“I’ll let you two talk,” Jennifer says, retreating into the sitting room and closing the door.
“Don’t just sit out there and listen in!” Haruko yells.
We listen. A few moments later I hear the door to the labyrinth open and close.
“Is she really gone?” Haruko asks.
I open the sitting room door a crack and peek through. “Yes.”
Haruko sighs and opens her eye.
“Well,” she says. “I’m glad you’re not dead. I mean—you know what I mean.”
“Thanks.”
“What the hell happened, though? What she told me doesn’t make any fucking sense.”
“Well, uh… there was a lot—“
“Just start from where Aya did this to me and go from there,” she says.
“Okay.” I take a breath. “You went down. Adam put Aya to sleep, and she went down too. Then Desmond chased us up the ramps. Adam and I just wanted to hide from him until we could get to the garage, but we couldn’t think of anywhere to hide but the panic room in his office.”
“You wanted to hide?” Haruko says, incredulous. “From a Warden?”
I scratch the back of my head. “We were under a lot of stress.”
“It’s all right,” Haruko says. “Let’s just blame Adam.”
I laugh anxiously. “Yeah. Well, um, then… uh… we were trying to get into Desmond’s office, but, well, before we could make it inside, he shot Adam in the head.”
“Desmond did what?”
“Haruko, you saw him! Was that what he normally acted like? I mean, I didn’t know him, but—“
“Is he dead?” she asks. “You’re talking about him like he’s dead.”
I cringe. There’s no point in stalling, no point in lying, but I hate to tell her the truth.
“Yes, he is,” I say.
For a while Haruko stares down at the duvet cover. Her expression is flat, impossible to read.
Eventually she says, “Go on.”
“All right,” I say, nervous. “So then I dragged Adam into the panic room, along with the box with the head, and I shut Desmond out. For a while he stood there, waiting, trying to bargain with me through the closed circuit TV he had set up in there. See, he knew I’d have to open the door eventually, or I’d die. You know, being a human.”
“Fuck…”
“Haruko, I was stuck. It was me or him.”
“Wait, what? You killed him?”
“Yeah. I did,” I say. “I’m really sorry…”
“How did you…?”
“I used Mnemosyne’s powers. Used her head. I gave the ghouls the pass code to the elevator so they could get into the underground complex, and then I used the ghouls to… eat Desmond.”
She gapes at me.
“I know it’s awful,” I say. “I just really didn’t want to die.”
“Didn’t he give you another option?”
“Well, yeah, I guess he did,” I admit. “He wanted me to give him Adam. He wanted Adam’s blood so he could open Mnemosyne’s tomb. But I didn’t trust that he’d keep his word and leave me alive after that.”
She covers her eyes with her hand.
“I know you must hate me right now,” I say. “What I did was horrible.”
“The entire situation is horrible.” She sounds like she might cry, or set fire to the furniture, or both. “Desmond is dead. Adam is gone. And Julian knew that Jen was alive? And he never told me?” Her voice is growing hoarse. “How the fuck did she get involved in all this, anyway?”
“I… I sent her a text message.”
“What? You knew about her too? How is that even possible?”
“I mean, I did, but I didn’t. I knew her, but I didn’t know who she was…”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“We met back when I was working at SpiraCom,” I explain. “She was trying to gather information about Mirabel. She gave me her card and told me to call her if I ever got in any trouble. I didn’t know her name, though. I didn’t even know she was a vampire. Revenant. Whatever.”
“All right. So you texted her, and she and Julian came to get us. So what happened to Adam in the meantime?” she asks.
What do I tell her? Why don’t I hear Mnemosyne’s voice in my head telling me what to do?
“Kate?”
Mnemosyne said I might be able to trust her…
“Kate, what happened?”
“I’ll tell you,” I say, lowering my voice to a near-whisper, “but please, don’t tell Jennifer or Julian. I don’t know if we can trust them.”
“All right,” she says, apathetic.
“Do you promise?”
She rolls her eyes a little.
“You have to promise,” I insist.
“Okay. I promise.”
“Mnemosyne took him.”
“Mnemosyne?” Haruko frowns. “The headless corpse?”
“First she made me resurrect her,” I explain. “Then she killed me. And took Adam.”
“So you’re saying you’re Mnemosyne’s daughter?”
I make a face. “Yes.”
“That’s… let’s not even talk about that,” she says. “Jen said Aya took Adam.”
“That’s what it looked like on the security tapes, yeah. But I know it’s a lie. Mnemosyne used an illusion. Whether or not Jennifer knows that is up for debate.”
“How are you so sure about all this?”
“Mnemosyne told me. In a dream.” It feels so good to talk to someone, I just keep going. “Adam is with her. I mean, he’s working with her. Has been this entire time. Maybe she’s forcing him to do it. I’m not sure.”
“What? Really?”
“Yes.”
She shakes her head, incredulous. “So I guess we don’t actually need to find Aya?”
“Uh… shit. Okay, this is where the conversation gets awkward.”
Haruko lifts an eyebrow.
“I have to find Aya,” I tell her. “Mnemosyne’s orders.”
“Great. You’re working with her now?”
“I don’t really have a choice in the—”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”
“No, listen, I… I actually think that finding Aya is important. Mnemosyne said that she has this amulet, and that we need to find it before Mirabel does—“
“What kind of amulet?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“Is it an emulator?”
“I don’t know. It hides its wearer from the Wardens,” I say. “And it probably does other things t
oo.”
Haruko’s expression softens, grows thoughtful.
“What is it?” I ask her.
“I’ve never been able to sense Aya,” she says. “I always thought it was something Julian did to protect her from Markham or something, but…” She doesn’t finish her thought.
“Haruko, I know I can’t trust Mnemosyne,” I say. “But I don’t think she would send me after Aya for no reason.”
“You don’t know that! Why would she use you for something important? You died, like, a few hours ago. She’s probably using you as a decoy, or as bait, or—I don’t know.”
“I don’t think so,” I say. “She gave me a tutor.”
“That’s enough to make you trust her?”
“I don’t trust her! That’s why I’m telling you this,” I say. “At this point you’re the only one who hasn’t lied to me, and I don’t want to lie to you.”
“Kate, calm down. Back up. We barely know each other.”
“Still…”
She turns away. “So Adam’s a real dyed-in-the-wool Mnemonic?”
“Yeah.”
“And Desmond is dead.”
“Yeah.”
“And Mnemosyne is awake.”
“Uh-huh…”
“So. Is there anything else you’d like to tell me? You know, to make my life even worse?”
“I kissed Adam,” I blurt out.
She laughs. “Whatever. I don’t care. That was your mistake to make.”
“And he’s, uh… I guess he’s dating Jennifer, or something.”
Her fingers hyperextend, then curl into fists.
“I shouldn’t have told you,” I say. “God! I’m an idiot. Haruko, I’m sorry. I just thought you should—“
“Kate.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s cool. I’m fine.”
“Okay…”
“I think I’d like to be alone for a while, though.”
I nod and turn to leave.
“Hold on,” she says. “I’ll help you find Aya. And this amulet. If it exists.”
“You will?”
“On one condition.”
“What?”
“You tell me everything you hear,” she says. “Obviously all these idiots underestimate you, and we’re going to use that for all it’s worth.”
I nod.
Queen of the Fairies
{Adam}
Mnemosyne sits, legs crossed at the ankle, on top of her sarcophagus in the middle of the clearing with the twin pools. She stares up at the moon, smiling slightly. She doesn’t look over at me as I approach. Over the years I’ve found that eye contact is something Mnemosyne reserves for purposes of decorum or intimidation. She can easily see you from any angle, even with her back turned. We call this power Clairsentience. It’s one of the nine strains of the House of Mnemosyne. One the Line of Thalia shares. Aya had it.
Has it, that is. She isn’t dead.
Looking at Mnemosyne’s paper-white throat as she gazes at the sky, I mildly interject, “Mother. You summoned me.”
“Yes.” She breaks away from her reverie and gives me a smile which may or may not be genuine. “Come. We should talk about your mission.”
She slides down from the sarcophagus. Then, turning, she pushes it away with a single hand, revealing the entrance to her labyrinth. I follow her down the narrow staircase into a corridor full of grey light which seems to emanate from nowhere at all. In waking life, this labyrinth functions much the same as Julian’s, I’ve heard. I imagine he designed his to emulate hers. In dreams, however, her corridors always form a counterclockwise spiral of featureless stone.
“You should know that this is just a temporary assignment,” Mnemosyne says as we coil our way through the halls, working toward the center.
“It is?”
“I never leave my lieutenants at this post for long.”
“May I ask why?”
“Mirabel is an unknown quantity.”
Is she admitting ignorance of something? I want to laugh. Or shudder.
“I hope I am not out of bounds, but you spent some time with Mirabel recently, didn’t you?” I ask.
“My severed head did,” she says. “Though not as much time as you might imagine.”
I frown.
“You will recall that Richard was your keeper for much of the last year,” she continues.
“Right.”
“Certainly you deduced that I could not enter the oneiroxis during that time.”
“I assumed as much, yes.”
“The vault Mirabel kept my head in was sealed and warded,” Mnemosyne says. “I saw very little of her. More often I saw her doubles, but I refused to speak with them. Disgusting things. I don’t know why she keeps them. Such a strange girl…”
“Didn’t she want to learn to emulate your manifestations?” I ask, confused. “Wasn’t that why she had your head stolen in the first place?”
“It seems she took what she wanted from me in the little time we spent together,” Mnemosyne says. “Which was but a few night-long rituals, nothing more. Even during the rituals, she tried to shut me out of her mind.”
“Tried to? So she failed?”
“I would have had greater access to her subconscious if she hadn’t taken her precautions,” Mnemosyne says with a shrug. “But yes, by and large, she failed.”
“When you say she tried to shut you out, do you mean as a Warden would?”
“No, no, just as any other Mnemonic might,” she says. “I gather she has had many tutors.”
“Tutors? Rogue Mnemonics, you mean?”
“Among others.”
I don’t like where this is going.
“At first, as you may recall, she had the ability to manifest but a single strain. Compulsion.”
“Right,” I say.
“Just as Julian had but two. Compulsion and Illusion.”
“Right…”
“Julian was able to choose his third strain. Warding.”
Now I really don’t like where this is going.
“As for Mirabel, her—what is it you all say now?—portfolio has expanded quite a bit in recent years. If her internal monologue can be trusted—that is, if she isn’t completely delusional—it seems she has accumulated as many as thirteen strains,” Mnemosyne says matter-of-factly.
“Thirteen? What? Isn’t that—“
“Impossible?” Her smile deepens. “I myself have but nine, and none of my descendants have more than three. Save Mirabel.”
“Couldn’t she just be in the possession of multiple emulators?” I ask.
“That’s what she tells Carlyle,” Mnemosyne says. “I believe it to be a lie.”
“You think she’s actually added the strains to her blood somehow?”
“Yes.”
“Doesn’t that… I don’t know, worry you?”
“Why?”
“She… uh…”
“Thirteen is greater than nine?”
“Yes.”
Her smile is painted on now, still as stone. “Dr. Fletcher, I have millenia on my side.”
Dr. Fletcher. She only calls me that when she’s mocking me.
“I am not worried. I am…” She trails off. “Mirabel is everything I hoped Julian would be.”
I feel uneasy. Back in 1992, back in her sepulcher, didn’t she tell me that what she did to Julian at his initiation with the tainted strain of blood was her greatest mistake?
“I did indeed. But I was shortsighted.” Her eyes glimmer. “My failure with Julian was the bridge to Mirabel’s incredible success.”
Her success at our expense, I think to myself, setting my teeth. At humanity’s expense.
“I am giving you a month,” she says. “You will go to Mirabel in dreams. That’s where she spends her time, now, Richard tells me.”
“What am I trying to find?” I ask. Then, out of sheer desperation: “Am I just watching her, like Richard did?”
Mnemosyne shakes her head. “
No. I want you to do to Mirabel what you did to Guenevere, to Rachel, to Jessica.”
I shudder. Richard was right.
“And to Katherine,” she adds with a smirk.
“Mother,” I say, fighting down my disgust with her, my disgust with myself, “Mirabel hates you. You killed Lucien Verlinden.”
“Did I? Or do I have him trapped, somewhere, alive? Sealed within the oneiroxis, perhaps? Sleeping to dream?”
We’ve reached the end of the coiling corridor. Now we face a stone wall, solid and seamless. Without hesitation, Mnemosyne walks through it. I follow her. We emerge in a circular room with three hundred and sixty degrees of wooden shelves set into the walls—no doors, no ways of escape. The shelves are filled with all sorts of objects: pieces of jewelry, articles of clothing, books, bricks, utensils, letters, scraps of rugs and clothing, locks of hair—even withered fingers, ears and toes.
“What is all of this?” I ask.
“This room serves as an index system for my vast memory,” she says. “These objects are anchors in time.” She reaches for a high shelf and pulls down a silk flower, yellowing, moth-eaten and on the verge of disintegration. “This memory belonged to Mirabel. I drew it out of this ornament. Richard pilfered it for me.”
I nod, taking the flower.
“You will start your research here.”
“How?” I ask, confused. “If I was awake, I could put myself in a trance and dig out memories from the object, but I’ve never done that in a dream.”
“Try,” she says.
I clear my throat, anxious, then nod, close my eyes, and turn my gaze inward, toward the base of my skull.
***
I fall into a memory. Mirabel’s memory. Worn down to just the remnants of itself, like a pair of shoes with the soles worn through. I can feel her sentimental rumination hanging in the air like a cloud of too-sweet incense.
It begins in a narrow, stale-smelling hallway lined with gas lamps. Mirabel opens a door to a dressing room packed with actresses pulling diaphanous costumes over their corsets and petticoats. Dressing up as fairies. Titania’s court.
Mirabel pushes her way through the crowd. Josephine, the stage mistress, catches her eye and makes a clicking sound, tongue against teeth.
“Didn’t you speak with the director?” she asks in a nasal voice.
Mirabel shakes her head. “I was late, so—“
