Escape from Memory (9 page)

“What about bad memories?” I challenged. “What if you only want to experience something once?”

Finally, finally, Aunt Memory glanced away from me. But it wasn’t long enough. I didn’t even have time to reach for an apple before her gaze was back on my face.

“Even that which is not enjoyable must be relived,” she said sternly. “You will still learn from it.”

I squirmed. I wished Lynne were out with me, asking the questions. I didn’t care about all this memory stuff. There was too much else I needed to understand.

“Could you—I mean, would you explain more, like what you were telling me last night?” I asked. “I still don’t know how I can get the kidnappers to release Mom.”

“Oh, but that’s all taken care of. I have your speech right here,” Aunt Memory said, patting her pocket. “I’ll give it to you after breakfast.”

This bothered me, that Aunt Memory expected me to say whatever she told me to say. Like a puppet. I didn’t know how to complain, though. Another problem occurred to me too.

“Will there be a translator?” I asked.

“Oh, no. All Crythians have learned English.”

I thought of the pilot I’d assumed could not understand me. Maybe I should have appealed to him. Or asked him
questions. Maybe it would have done some good.

But I was so ignorant, I didn’t even know the questions to ask. Unlike Lynne, I had no faith in being able to tell when people were lying. I was totally the wrong person to be here in this strange place, trying to decipher this strange woman’s cryptic comments.

I was beginning to feel panicky. I pushed my plate of food away.

“Full already?” Aunt Memory said. Of course she’d noticed how little I’d eaten.

“I’m getting nervous about the speech,” I said, which was true, if not the entire truth. “But I might be hungry later. Could I keep this bowl of fruit in my room?”

Inspired
, I thought. Lynne should be proud.

I’d already picked up the bowl of fruit and was carrying it over to the nightstand beside the bed before Aunt Memory answered.

“Oh, you won’t be spending much time in your room today,” she said. “I assure you, you can eat anytime you want. Leaving food in your room is so—so messy’

Strategically, I tripped on the rug and dropped the bowl. At least two apples and an orange rolled under the bed. I only pretended to retrieve them.

I hoped Lynne appreciated what I’d gone through to get her breakfast.

A
UNT
M
EMORY DIDN’T LEAVE MY ROOM EVEN TO LET ME CHANGE
into the ceremonial dress. She slipped it over my head for me and began murmuring, “And don’t you look lovely,” even before it had completely settled on my shoulders. The dress fit okay but I didn’t feel right with it on. I felt like a woman from the past. This dress was not nearly as confining as, say a hoopskirt and corsets, but every step set off a wave of ripples in all the layers of fabric. It would have been impossible to walk quickly in this dress.

“That’s it! Time to go!” Aunt Memory said as I took my first few experimental steps around the room.

“But—my speech—,” I protested. “I haven’t even looked at it.”

“Oh, you can read it on the spot” Aunt Memory said. “Here it is. Come on!”

She thrust pages into my hand and hurried me out the door. I tried to look at the speech, but the carpet was uneven and I almost tripped. The guards or sentries or whatever they were saluted as I went past.

“Come, come,” Aunt Memory urged me on. “The people are waiting.”

And then we burst out the front door, back to the street we’d driven on the night before. But now the street was completely blocked by a throng of people. The women did indeed wear kerchiefs and full peasant skirts. The men were in rough woven pants and billowy shirts. I saw no children. I stood hesitantly in the doorway blinking in the sunlight. Aunt Memory stepped to the side, exposing me to the entire crowd. Immediately a hush fell over them. They stared at me. And then they began cheering.

“The child has returned!” someone yelled.

“Kira Landanova is back,” someone else hollered. And then the whole crowd began chanting along: “She is back! Kira Landanova is back!”

I felt my cheeks turning red, then redder still. The people before me kept chanting.

Who was I, to be greeted like this? Bewildered and overwhelmed, I looked down at the papers in my hand, hoping they’d give some clue.

Greetings. I am Kira Landanova, daughter of Alexei and Victoriana
, the first page began. I stopped on my mother’s name. Victoriana … No wonder I’d thought the term “Victorian houses” sounded familiar all those years ago. My real mother. The crowd still cheered, but somehow I could barely hear them. My mind was in a whirl. Alexei and Victoriana. They were the ones I belonged to. Not Mom. But my mind was a traitor: Suddenly all I could think about was how Mom had taken care of me for the last thirteen years. She’d cleaned up my vomit when I’d gotten sick. She’d cut up my meat for me
when I was too little to handle knives. She’d held my hand crossing streets on my first day of school….

I remembered that I was here to rescue Mom, not to be cheered and praised. I glanced down at the rest of the speech. Phrases jumped out at me:
We must return to our old traditions … My parents would have wanted you to obey your leaders … What my parents stood for was Crythe at its finest …
It was a political speech. How was this supposed to help Mom?

Aunt Memory nudged me with her elbow.

“You must begin,” she said, but I could barely hear her over the crowd and the ringing in my ears.

“Greetings” I began. I was certain it was hopeless trying to make myself heard. But by the time I got to “Kira Landanova,” the entire crowd was silent, waiting for my next word. It was eerie, the attention they all gave me. Every eye bored straight into mine. Even if I hadn’t known a thing about Crythe, I still would have felt like every syllable I uttered was being instantly memorized and treasured. Not even a bird sang to interrupt me.

I stumbled over the next words, “… daughter of Alexei and—and Victoriana—”

And then I stopped. The next sentence on Aunt Memory’s paper said,
In the name of my parents, I ask you to turn your back on the rash decisions of the past thirteen years
. But I didn’t know what those decisions were. I didn’t know what my parents would have wanted me to say. I didn’t even know what Mom would want me to say. All I had to go on was Aunt Memory’s explanations.

I thought about what Lynne had said the night before, about figuring out if anything Aunt Memory said was true. I wished I had Lynne here with me now, to tell me what to do. I’d
say just about anything to help Mom. But the way the people were watching me, the way Aunt Memory was watching me—none of this was about Mom.

It had been a long time now since I’d said my last word. If a speaker was silent this long at a school assembly back home in Willistown, everyone would be whispering now, muttering,
What an idiot!
and
Who wanted to hear her, anyway?
But this crowd in Crythe stayed quiet, kept waiting. A slight breeze blew down the street, ruffling kerchiefs, lifting locks of hair. But the people kept still, like statues who expected me to bring them back to life.

I dropped Aunt Memory’s speech.

“I—I am Kira Landon,” I repeated, only barely conscious that I’d truncated the name Aunt Memory had assigned me and turned it back into the name I’d used for as long as I could remember. “I’m told that my parents were Alexei and Victoriana. I want to believe that, because I am eager to find out about my past. I had not even heard of Crythe until yesterday. I don’t know your customs or your history or—or your struggles right now. All I know is that the woman who raised me disappeared yesterday. I believe she was kidnapped and brought here. And, whoever took her, please set her free. She is very—I mean … I love her. I miss her.’

I had nothing else to say. I stepped back. The pages of Aunt Memory’s speech lay scattered at my feet. They rustled in the breeze.

I dared to turn toward Aunt Memory. She looked as though I’d slapped her. Fury shone in her eyes. I peered back out at the crowd, expecting—I don’t know. Questions, maybe. But they still weren’t speaking or moving. Then I saw that they were—they
were moving only their eyes and, ever so slightly their heads. They were exchanging furtive, fearful glances.

I could not understand these people. I didn’t know what they wanted from me.

Aunt Memory stepped in front of me. With one hand, she reached back and clutched my right wrist, her fingers tight as a vise. I would have felt less trapped in handcuffs.

“All honor to Kira Landanova, daughter of Alexei and Victoriana!” she proclaimed, raising her fist. The crowd obediently repeated her words. Then Aunt Memory let out a stream of Crythian words. She did not sound angry. She sounded proud, excited, triumphant. Maybe she was giving the speech she’d written for me. But every time her voice crescendoed, she squeezed my wrist tighter.

Had I made a mistake, angering Aunt Memory? Would it have mattered if I’d spoken the words she’d wanted to put in my mouth? Had I endangered Mom?

Suddenly, without warning, Aunt Memory finished her speech. She pulled me up beside her and raised my arm for me. I’m sure that, from the audience, it looked like I was willingly joining in the victorious gesture. We stood there for a long time, being admired. Maybe I could have broken away, run out into the crowd, assured them that, whatever Aunt Memory had said, she wasn’t speaking for me. But I was too dazed. And I didn’t expect what came next.

Just when my arm was beginning to ache from being held in the air for so long, Aunt Memory brought both of our arms down. Without relaxing her iron grip on my wrist, she bowed deeply, then stepped backward. She yanked me back into the castle with her. Instantly a guard swung the door shut behind me.

“What was that all about?” Aunt Memory hissed angrily at me.

“I just—I just said what I knew was right. The way they were looking at me—like they trusted what I said—I couldn’t say anything I wasn’t sure of. And Crythian politics—I don’t know anything about that. All I have to go on is what you told me.” I realized how that must have sounded. “No offense,” I added lamely.

Aunt Memory looked like she’d taken plenty of offense.

“You might have just killed Sophia” she said.

I went numb. Aunt Memory shoved me up the stairs and practically hurled me into my room. She stalked out, slamming the door behind her.

Sobbing, I crumbled to the floor in a heap of green and orange and yellow skirts.

I
DIDN’T THINK FOR A LONG TIME.
I
T WAS EASIER JUST TO SOB AND
sob and sob. But finally, I raised my head and whispered, “Lynne?”

No answer.

Shakily, I got to my feet and stumbled over to the bed. I peeked underneath. Two apple cores lay atop a neat pile of orange rinds. But there was no other evidence that Lynne had ever been here.

I looked in the bathtub, too, just in case, but it was empty.

I should have been delighted that she got out, that she was going for help right now. But I felt bereft. I wanted her there to tell me I’d done the right thing. To tell me I shouldn’t feel like I’d just killed the person who mattered most to me in all the world.

Funny, how I was thinking of Mom differently now.

Maybe they’d caught Lynne, too, when she was sneaking out, and she wasn’t getting help right now, she was being tortured. Maybe even killed. And that would also be my fault.

I sank onto the floor of the bathroom and cried some more. I was so scared.

“This is not my life,” I whimpered. “This is not where I belong. This is not
me
.”

If I hadn’t had tears streaming down my face, I would have bounced up right then and gone in search of Aunt Memory. I wanted to tell her she had the wrong person. I was Kira Landon, from dinky old Willistown. My mother was a librarian, for Pete’s sake. The biggest problem in my life was supposed to be that it was dull.

Lynne would have said I was seriously in denial.

But Lynne had also said that Aunt Memory lied.

I pulled a towel down from the rack beside me and wiped my eyes on it. I stood up and peered at my tear-splotched face in the mirror.

“Aunt Memory is not going to know what hit her,” I muttered to my reflected image. “I’m going to find out the truth.”

Five minutes later I was out of the confining ceremonial dress and back into my jeans and sweatshirt. That alone made me feel more like myself. I washed my face and combed my hair back into a neat ponytail. I pulled my tennis shoes back on and tied the laces with unusually precise loops. I felt like a soldier preparing for battle.

I opened the door. Once again, there were two men in uniforms standing there. They sprang to attention. I stepped out over the threshold.

“Oh, no, miss,” one said.

“
Stanahla
” the other said. “Honorable young lady—”

I drew back. I remembered Lynne’s questions the night before about the guards:
Who or what are they protecting you from? Or are they imprisoning you?
Well, I was about to find out. I forced
myself to step forward again. The guards flailed their arms and rushed toward me.

“Miss, miss, no,” the first one said. “Not safe.”

“What’s not safe?” I challenged.

“You come—coming—out,” the guard said. He put his arm out, firm against my waist, holding me back.

“I need to talk to my Aunt Memory,” I said, trying to sound calm, reasonable, unfazed. My voice shook. I sounded terrified.

The guard tilted his head to the side, studying me. I studied him back. He was older than the other guard. Hints of gray shone through his blue-black hair and streaked his beard.

Blue-black hair. I’d never met anyone with hair like mine before, but his was. My heart thumped. The hair proved something; this guard and I were connected somehow. But was he my bodyguard or my jailer? That was the more important question.

“You stay” the guard finally said. “There.” He pointed, as if he didn’t trust me to understand his English. “I go. Get her.’