I stop for a minute because how do I explain my place? I’m here because of my mother’s gift, and because Lucien caught me by chance with the hook of some memories. Mary interrupts my thought.
‘He has hearing, your moon-eye out there, you say? A good singing voice? And you’ll follow that voice to kingdom come? You’ve given him your word along with your heart, and you’ll keep it, come what may? And you go, the two of you, to meet another. A girl, you say. Not of the city?’
Her head twists, swivels, on her neck, up to the corner then back to me. Eyes slitted as if she’s willing something gone. ‘I hear the chime,’ she says to me, or to the invisible thing in the air.
I stand still. How to answer that?
‘I hear it. Oh, I hear it,’ she says, trying to silence the thing. ‘Don’t think I don’t hear it,’ she mutters.
I wait, confused. She hums again; then she sighs, as if I have forced her to explain a thing against her will.
‘Just a silly ditty. A fairytale for fools. Hope is made of feathers, I told them. And we all know what happened to feathered things.’
‘What are you talking about?’ I ask.
‘What they sang in the guild when it all fell down. Grasping at pieces. Trying to put it together again. One to sing and one to tend the plot, it went. One forgetting and the one forgot. One who hears and one who keeps the word. Two will come and join a third.’
The sound of it makes me laugh, though I don’t know why. Tend the plot. Whatever it means in her mind, it makes me think of our fields marked for planting, the bulbs with their secret of colour held close.
‘Tell me, lad,’ says Mary, and she looks at me sidelong. ‘How long have you been able to see others’ memories? When did you know you had the gift?’
‘I can’t,’ I say. ‘I can see my own, not those of others.’
Then something breaks between us, the thread of her attention perhaps. She stares at me as if I have slapped her. ‘What are you doing here, then?’ she cries. ‘You shouldn’t be here at all. You’re not the one in the forecast, are you?’
I feel hot and then cold. ‘I never said I was. I don’t even know what that means. I told you what I knew and I told you what we were going to do. I don’t need any more riddles,’ I spit.
She stares at me, like I’m a creature she’s never encountered before, and she mutters, shakes her head. Then after a while she smooths her hands over her face, pushing deep into her eyes as she does. As if an ache will heal an ache, I think.
‘Ah well. I’m sorry for that. But you’ve been a diversion, my dear. A bit of amusement.’ She looks up, a beaked half-smile. ‘How about you bring in your pretty friend, then? A long time since I’ve had company.’
I feel her focus slipping away. And something comes to me. The broken plate, the flash when I touched it. It seems a small and uncertain thing, but there is nothing to lose.
‘Maybe I can see others’ memories,’ I tell her. ‘At least, I saw one. A flash when I held it, and memory in her eyes, not mine.’
‘Really?’ She comes close again and studies me again. ‘Really? You’re not teasing Mary?’ She looks around her. ‘Well, then. Let’s see what you can do.’
I wonder at my stupidity. What possible point will this exercise have except to extend the time I spend in this cluttered room? She retrieves a nondescript mettle bowl with a deep lip and brings it back to me.
‘Here, my lovely. Touch it. Don’t be afraid. There’s nothing to be afraid of.’
I shake my head. ‘No, I can’t do that.’
Mary chuckles. The sound is unpleasant. ‘What do you think is going to happen, little fool? That the Order will break in here and take you? Why do you think the law is there anyway? To stop people like me and people like you. Those who can see, and those who might be able to stitch memories back together.’
‘It’s not that. It’s my stomach… I can’t.’ Just thinking about touching another’s memory makes my throat close and my gut clench.
‘Sick? It’s not in your stomach but in your mind, my darling. They’ve gone deep, haven’t they? Chimes almost had you. Thank Moon-eye there for pulling you out. Love goes deeper than hearing, does it not, dearling?’
I pull away in surprise. I look down at myself, pat my clothes. What memory has she touched without my knowing? How did she see what I feel for Lucien?
Her eyes are canny and shrewd and I realise that the nonsense bluster is like the cloak — something to put on or take off.
‘Nothing there gave you away.’ She taps her own face between hooded eyes. ‘It’s all right there. Bright and clear.’ She pauses. ‘For his sake, then.’
She takes my hand in her dry wrinkled one and places it on the mettle bowl. I wait, unsure what to do. I close my eyes. After a long, tacet pause I open them again. I am sitting in the cluttered room filled with moonlight. The old woman crouches wrapped in her cloak next to me.
‘Well?’ she asks. Her voice is eager. ‘What did you see?’
I look at her, the wrinkles, the clawlike hands, and fear fills me. I am not the person in the forecast. I am not the person Lucien thinks me. I am not meant to be here. I wonder if I could make something up, broider a tale to tell her.
‘I didn’t see anything.’
‘Didn’t hear anything either?’
‘No.’
Disappointment crosses her face and disappears.
‘But it takes a while. You have to be patient. You’ve only done it once before, you say?’
‘Yes, but it was only a moment. Maybe I imagined it.’
‘Another one, an easy one.’ She sweeps off again through stacks of memories. I watch her move back and forth between two piles, looking. She locates a mettle urn and holds it up to her eyes and shakes it. Then she empties its contents — old jewellery, coins, chess pieces — and uses a broken wooden peg to pick through. Finally she plucks out something and brings it back to me. I see from the look on her face that wheels are turning in her mind again.
She opens her palm and on it I see a roughmade bracelet. It is gold with a chip of red stone. For some reason it sets up a strange ringing inside me.
‘Here you go, darling. Better to start small.’ She nudges me. ‘London is waking. Daylight is breaking,’ she sings. ‘Ding dong the bells are going to chime. Quick smart now.’
I look at the bracelet and I know I have seen it before. Is that how it starts? I take it obediently, fight the rise of sickness in my throat. I squeeze my fingers tight around it and I push myself into it, into the story of it, the past of it. A small gold bracelet. A tiny dark red stone lit in its band.
A long while passes and I open my hand. I have pressed the bracelet into my hand so hard that it marks red then blue in the flesh of my palms. My fingers are numb. I have failed. But as I release it, I know where I have seen it before. The answer is simple and impossible. My mother had one just like it. A chip of red stone in a light gold setting.
‘It’s my mother’s,’ I say flatly. ‘How did it get here?’
She leans in. Her breath smells of strong tea. ‘Did you see? Did you see? Did you see?’
‘No. I didn’t see. I remembered it,’ I say. ‘Isn’t that enough? My mother used to wear it on Sundays. My father gave it to her. How in hell did it get here?’
‘Then you were right the first time,’ she says, and her face closes. ‘You are not the one after all. Not for the forecast and not to keep my memories.’
I feel angry. I am tired of questions, of being tested. I am sick of the very idea of ransacking memory, which is private and silent and should remain so.
‘It is my mother’s bracelet,’ I say into Mary’s face. I stand up. ‘I’m keeping it.’