The Memory Theater

by Karin Tidbeck

  “Walpurgis doesn’t want her,” Thistle added.

  Ghorbi looked down at Thistle. “Who are you, little page?”

  “This is Thistle,” Dora said. “I call him my brother.”

  “And why doesn’t Walpurgis want you, Dora?” Ghorbi asked.

  Dora looked down at her feet.

  Ghorbi frowned. “Your father made a promise,” she said. “If he didn’t keep it, the deal is off. I fetched him his daughter, against payment and his promise to care for her. If he didn’t, she would be free.”

  “Free?” Dora asked.

  “I can show you the way out,” Ghorbi said. “You can take care of yourself.”

  “I won’t leave without Thistle,” Dora said. “Augusta has his name.”

  Ghorbi tilted her head and frowned. “I can’t do much about that,” she said. “Thistle’s case is none of my business. I’m sorry.”

  “Is there nothing you can do?” Thistle asked. “There must be something.”

  “I’m a trader, child,” Ghorbi said. “I don’t take sides. I can’t interfere with an agreement that I’m not a part of, as much as it may sadden me. There are many terrible things in the multiverse, and it’s not in my power to save everyone and everything.”

  “Have you seen what they do to us?” Thistle asked. “Have you really?”

  “What do you mean?” Ghorbi said.

  “They cut us,” Thistle said. “Then they kill us and eat us. And Augusta is the worst of them. I will be next.”

  Ghorbi was quiet for a long moment, and the flame in her gaze intensified. Then she said, “I didn’t know it was that bad.”

  “So do something,” Thistle said. “Help us.”

  “I will listen and learn,” Ghorbi said. “And see what I can see.”

  She patted Thistle’s shoulder. “I must go. The lady Mnemosyne will be waking up soon.”

  The sharp note of a flute cut through the air: the first servant had woken up and signaled to the rest that it was time to prepare the next feast.

  4

  Lady Augusta straightened her coat and flipped her curled hair over her shoulders. She was standing with the others in the statuary grove where tonight’s feast had been laid out. On the marble dais at the center, Mnemosyne sat on her throne. A high-backed chair stood next to the throne, on which sat that strange purple-faced woman, Ghorbi, wrapped in her shadowy robes. She and Mnemosyne were engaged in quiet conversation, heads leaning toward each other. Every so often, Ghorbi would look at the gathered nobles and flash them a jagged smile.

  Everyone else was uncharacteristically quiet. They just didn’t know what to say. Walpurgis fidgeted and drank from a bottle in his hand; Cymbeline and Virgilia were fiddling with each other’s dresses; Euterpe was nervously clearing her throat. Mnemosyne acted as if Ghorbi was a regular guest, and she did seem familiar…but at the same time profoundly alien.

  Eventually, Mnemosyne drew away from Ghorbi and clapped her hands.

  “My darlings!” she said. “It is time to dance. Let us show our guest how we celebrate youth and beauty.”

  As one, the crowd divided into two lines. A lively beat began to play, and the dancers joined hands across the divide. The party had begun.

  * * *

  —

  All through the dance and the revels, Augusta kept an eye on Ghorbi. The traveler stayed in her seat next to the throne, watching the revelers with an expression that seemed amused and contemptuous at the same time. She knew things. Augusta was sure of it. Strange things. She must know about “time.” As Mnemosyne left the dais to join the dance and the others gathered around her in a circle, Augusta walked away from the crowd and sidled up to the dais.

  Ghorbi turned her face toward Augusta, and the pupils of her eyes reflected the lantern light.

  “Who might you be, then?” she asked.

  “I am the lady Augusta Prima,” Augusta said, and inclined her head.

  Ghorbi narrowed her eyes. “Augusta Prima. Your reputation precedes you.”

  Augusta smiled in satisfaction. “Of course.”

  “And what is on your mind, Augusta Prima?”

  “I would like to have a conversation,” Augusta said. “About things that you might know.”

  “Aha,” Ghorbi replied.

  Augusta looked at the dancers. “But not here. Would you come to my pavilion?”

  Ghorbi nodded. “Yes.”

  “Follow the servant,” Augusta said.

  * * *

  —

  Some servant Augusta couldn’t name stood at the edge of the dance floor with a tray in his hand. He twitched as Augusta came close.

  “You will show the traveler to my bower,” Augusta said. “Take a detour. I don’t want the others to know where you’re going. I will be waiting there for you.”

  “Yes, my lady,” the servant said with his eyes fixed on the tray.

  Augusta smoothed a stray lock of hair out of his face. “You look nice,” she said. “Good.”

  “Thank you, my lady,” the servant said.

  Augusta flipped his tray over and left the dance floor.

  * * *

  —

  It wasn’t long before Ghorbi arrived. Standing up, she filled the doorway.

  “What do you want to talk about?” she asked.

  Augusta dug the locket out of her pocket and opened it. “This.”

  “Yes?” Ghorbi said.

  “This is a watch.”

  “Yes.”

  “I have been trying to measure time here and there. Sometimes it passes, and sometimes it does not. Or perhaps it is the watch. I don’t know.”

  Ghorbi was quiet for a second. Then she said, “Ah.”

  Augusta looked up at her. “I want you to tell me the truth about time and the world.”

  Ghorbi’s mouth twisted into a smirk. “You might get in trouble.”

  “I need to know,” Augusta said. “I cannot bear not knowing.”

  “Let me ask you for some information in return,” Ghorbi said. “That is my price.”

  “Ask,” Augusta replied.

  “Thistle,” Ghorbi said. “And the other children. Do you torture them?”

  Augusta blinked. “Torture?”

  “Torture,” Ghorbi said. “Do you cut them?”

  Augusta shrugged. “Of course. But it’s not torture. It’s art.”

  Ghorbi pursed her lips. “Does it not bother you that they are children?”

  “They’re servants,” Augusta replied. “They belong to us.”

  “I see,” Ghorbi said. “Very well. I have what I need.”

  “Your turn,” Augusta said.

  “Indeed,” Ghorbi said, and beckoned Augusta closer. “Listen carefully.”

  * * *

  —

  When Ghorbi had left, Augusta felt faint. She sat down at her desk and grabbed a sheet of paper and a pen. She was in such a rush that she dribbled ink all over the paper. She filled sheet after sheet, everything she could find. When she had obliterated the pen nib, she grabbed a stick of charcoal and drew images of what Ghorbi had told her. It was all there. It all made sense.

  “Augusta,” someone said behind her. “My child.”

  Augusta twisted around in her chair. Mnemosyne stood in the middle of the room. Her ivy dress fluttered around her like branches in a breeze; the laurel wreath was tangled in her honey-colored hair. Never before had the lady visited Augusta’s bower.

  Augusta stood up. “My lady.”

  Mnemosyne regarded her in silence. Then she said, “This is a paradise, is it not?”

  “It is, my lady,” Augusta replied.

  “It is,” Mnemosyne echoed. She tilted her head. “Then why are the apples going bad, Augusta?”

  Augusta faltered. “
I haven’t noticed, my lady.”

  “I have. My mind…is not quite always there. But I see it.”

  “I don’t understand, my lady.”

  “Ghorbi told me, you see,” Mnemosyne said. “She came to me and told me. What you have been doing. She said you wanted to know about the world outside. And time. Why do you want to know about those things, Augusta?”

  “I…” Augusta gestured at the pile of paper behind her. “I was curious.”

  Mnemosyne took a step forward. Augusta saw now that her round face was streaked with tears.

  “You helped me build this place. That fact will never leave my mind. So it is like tearing my own heart out, Augusta,” she said. “But you must go.”

  She laid a hand on Augusta’s forehead.

  “I will not let anything threaten this realm. Farewell.”

  5

  Dora walked back through the orchard. The trees closest to the conservatory sagged with rotting fruit. Maggots fed on the fallen apples around their trunks. This had never happened before, not that Dora had ever seen.

  The conservatory’s thick glass had cracked in places; branches and vines had burst out to climb the broken surface. For the first time, the dome’s little door was ajar. The rich smell of cooking wafted out. Dora crouched down and crawled inside.

  The Aunts looked strange where they lay on their couches. They looked lumpy, sunken in on themselves. As Dora crept closer, it became clear that these were not the Aunts. It was just their skin, neatly peeled off their bodies and laid out. Swaddled in the skins lay the three Nieces, fast asleep. On the floor next to each couch sat a human-shaped cake on a small porcelain plate. They looked like the little figures the Nieces otherwise would scoop out from the Aunts’ chests, but they weren’t moving.

  Dora picked up a cake. It smelled of meat pie, and she was reminded that she hadn’t eaten in a long time. Dora bent over the nearest Niece to listen for her breath and heard none. She would not need this cake. Dora ate it. It tasted of lard and salt. She ate the second one, too, and the third, then sat down. The cakes made her sleepy. The conservatory was very quiet, so quiet that her ears buzzed. Dora made her mind empty.

  Someone knocked on the glass. It was Thistle. Dora opened the door, and Thistle wrinkled his nose and waved a hand in front of his face as she stepped outside.

  “What are you doing in here?” he asked.

  “The Aunts aren’t growing back,” Dora said.

  Thistle frowned. “They always grow back.”

  “Augusta was here when you were sleeping,” Dora said. “She had that locket. I think she did something to them.”

  “She did indeed.” Ghorbi stood a few steps away, gazing past Dora into the conservatory.

  “What’s going on?” Thistle asked.

  Ghorbi looked amused more than anything.

  “Change,” Ghorbi said. She walked up to the dome and ran a hand down the glass. “Augusta called on me while I was meeting with Lady Mnemosyne. It seems she has been experimenting, with interesting results. Time has begun to pass again.”

  “What happens now?” Thistle asked.

  “Augusta damaged this world,” Ghorbi said. “She and her little contraption have been cast out so that the place can heal.”

  Thistle looked stricken. “She’s gone?”

  Ghorbi nodded.

  “She can’t be,” Thistle said.

  “I thought you’d be pleased,” Ghorbi said. “She can’t hurt you now. She is not here, so you are no longer under her sway. You can go anywhere you wish.”

  “But she still has my name,” Thistle said. “I can’t find my way back home until I have my name. I have to go after her.”

  Ghorbi frowned. “And get it from her…how exactly? She’s a dangerous woman and even out of here has powerful magic.”

  “I don’t know!” Thistle shouted. “There has to be a way.”

  Ghorbi looked over Dora’s shoulder and raised her eyebrows at what she saw.

  “Ah,” she said.

  They came walking through the apple trees: Cymbeline, Virgilia, Walpurgis, Tempestis, and Euterpe. Their powdered faces were almost luminescent in the gloom, their rich silks and satins rustling like the wind in the trees.

  “Thistle,” Walpurgis said, and his voice was oily. “Your mistress is gone, and we are hungry.”

  Next to him, Cymbeline raised a curved knife. “We can’t have stray servants running about.”

  Dora stepped in front of Thistle. “You can’t have him.”

  Walpurgis laughed. “Oh, but we can. Get out of the way, monster.”

  Dora felt herself moving aside against her will.

  “Enough,” Ghorbi said.

  Virgilia fixed her eyes on Ghorbi. “Don’t meddle in our affairs, outsider. You don’t belong here.”

  Ghorbi grabbed Dora and Thistle by the hand. “With me.”

  * * *

  —

  Behind them, a shrill cry went up, followed by a chorus of baying voices. Ghorbi ran with impossibly long steps, so fast that Dora had to push herself to keep up. As they ran, Ghorbi opened her mouth. A long, low note grew in her chest and emerged from her lips. It reverberated in the air and somehow harmonized with itself, then became a word, two syllables repeated over and over again. The note climbed higher, and the air trembled. A breeze stirred.

  As they reached the pine trees that guarded the edge of the orchard, the wind intensified, nearly drowning out the sound of Ghorbi’s voice. The cold air raked at Dora’s face like needles. It occurred to her that it wasn’t just wind but sand, and it obscured the trees from view. A whirling inferno of sand enveloped them. Then the wind died down, and Ghorbi’s song faded, and with a thud, they landed on something solid.

  * * *

  —

  They were elsewhere.

  Part II

  Outside

  6

  Augusta woke up with a stiff neck. She had fallen asleep sitting down, her head resting on a pile of scribbled notes. When she straightened, she found herself at her old drafting table, but it stood beneath a window in a small room with wooden walls. A narrow bed with tattered sheets filled the rest of the space. On the other side of the window stood a forest, bathed in light.

  A golden chain hung from her waistcoat pocket. She swung the locket into her hand. It was ticking in a steady rhythm, not haltingly like in the Gardens. Forward, ever forward.

  The sheets of paper that littered the desk were filled with inky blotches and random words in indigo and sepia. Augusta could not make sense of them. What was it Ghorbi had told her? It was difficult to think.

  Next to the desk was a door with a curled handle. Augusta got up from the chair and opened it. Unbearable light rushed over her. She backed inside and slammed the door. The sun. She was not in the Gardens anymore.

  Augusta crawled in under the covers on the bed. The blanket couldn’t quite block out the light, but at least Augusta’s eyes didn’t hurt. She lay there, listening to the ticking of the watch, until she lost count.

  * * *

  —

  Eventually, the light faded and that awful orb sank behind the treetops. Augusta waited until the darkness was almost complete. She stepped outside again and looked at the tiny cottage behind her. Where was she? The air was different here, cold and crisp. The warble of blackbirds had died down, and bright pinpricks filled the sky. Stars, where the sky ought to have been smooth and empty. And there, floating above the trees, a swollen moon. Bile rose in Augusta’s throat. Just like the sun, that thing was an aberration.

  A little track led into the depths of the forest. This was not so different from the forest that surrounded the Gardens. Perhaps she was close after all.

  She lost the trail almost immediately, stumbling over rocks and tree roots. The smell of the night forest filled her nos
e: pine needles, decomposing leaves, damp earth. Somewhere, an animal let out a barking noise. Nearby, something else hooted.

  “Euterpe!” she called. “Mnemosyne! Walpurgis!”

  * * *

  —

  At first it seemed that the light was just right, a familiar blue that erased all shadows, soft on the eye. Augusta thought that she could see the conservatory’s great dome just beyond the trees, and her heart lifted.

  “Euterpe!” she shouted. “I’m here!”

  She ran through the forest, her chest burning with every breath. Twigs whipped at her sides, and once she stumbled and scraped her knee. She got back up and forced herself to run faster, away from the world, toward safety.

  But then birds began to sing, and as the light grew, the tree trunks all around took on a hard silhouette. Then the trees abruptly ended. Before her, a great plain spread out, rolling fields that smelled of manure and dewy growth. Ahead, what she thought had been the conservatory’s dome. It was the top of a tower. On a hill in the middle of the plain sat a great castle, peachy pink in the morning light. Beyond the castle, the two tall spires of a cathedral soared into the sky. A city sprawled beneath them. It all tugged at something in Augusta’s mind. She had seen a city like this before, and she had loathed it.

  Augusta looked over her shoulder at the forest, backlit now by the rising sun. Mnemosyne had truly cast her out. How dare she?

  There must be a way back into the Gardens. Perhaps this place would have some answers. At least there would be food and drink. Augusta would return to the Gardens, and return in triumph. Nil desperandum. She began to walk.

  Augusta walked past fields and farms along a gravel road that eventually became a cobbled street. She continued in among one- and two-story stone houses that were occasionally interrupted by wooden cottages. Save for an odd roar in the distance, the street was quiet. A woman emerged from one of the houses and crossed the road in front of Augusta; she was wearing a knee-length coat of an odd, formless cut and a drab little hat. Her calves were scandalously bare. Even so, her posture and colors made Augusta think of wood lice. The woman glanced over her shoulder at Augusta and stumbled over her own feet. Augusta chuckled but was interrupted when she saw a man rolling down the street astride a wheeled contraption. A woman followed him on another thing just like it. Augusta stared at them in fascination. Then the aroma of baking bread hit her like a wave.