The Incrementalists (20 page)

I tried to read the looping, sloping hand unrolled before me. I could pick out letters: a capital A, the word
you,
but it distracted me from the memory seeping, not in images or smells, but in clumps of fact, into my awareness. Celeste preferred a swan quill. Phil lived alone in rented accommodations. It had taken extraordinary cunning to meet him here, at night, alone. Even before the flaming stake, Celeste hadn’t been certain she would survive the night.

She didn’t remember the ritual any more than I did, but Phil had carried a white, two-handled milk pot to her from the fireplace when she first woke, and had alternately fed her posset and answered her questions. And I knew I could keep telescoping down into the memory until I knew every question verbatim and its answer. This was Celeste’s memory; it would never become something I experienced, only something I knew, unless I got the rest of her stub. I closed my eyes.

I knew Celeste had worn her new shoes with cork heels, but I tried to see my mudflats. I knew Celeste had stepped in something foul on the way up the back stairs, and for a moment, the stairs were muddy. But it felt like trying to imagine Cinderella while your dad reads
Treasure Island
aloud. Or the trick I’d seen on a science museum wall once when I’d gone with my little brother. They had painted the color names—red, blue, green, black—on the wall, but in different colors. The word red in blue paint, green in yellow, with the instruction to say what color the letters were, not read the word they spelled. I’d laughed that he couldn’t do it, he was such a good reader, even then, but I couldn’t do it either, and I remember realizing then that I had no idea how my brain did anything, saw color, or read words.

Or remember Celeste, or feel Phil beside me, even with my eyes closed.

I must have been chewing my lip with the effort, hard enough to have bitten it to bleeding. It tasted like hot wine in pewter tankards, blood on the sides of my tongue. But the smell was of cloying spice and fruit. Pomander. I’d found Celeste’s sense triggers: blood and pomander.

Phil

“What now?” I said, just to be saying something.

“Let’s look around,” said Ray.

“Just pick the first memory you come to.”

“Celeste must have been an apothecary,” Ren said, eyeing the wooden counters and row upon row of wooden tubs, glass bottles and stoneware jars. Above that, dried herbs, flowers and moss hung on strings from the ceiling.

“Not necessarily,” I told her. “My Garden is a merchant’s villa, and I was a shoemaker.”

“And I’m guessing you didn’t come from the swamp,” Oskar said.

“Yeah, okay,” Ren said. “Is everything in here a memory?”

I felt a flash of anger at Celeste. Ren should know this by now. This all ought to have come back. It was like she’d been blinded.

I said, “Yes, in one way or another. You can create anything you want in your Garden, if it amuses you. But only three things remain when you’re gone: seeds, stubs, and hedges. Seeds are memories you or someone else deliberately put there, stubs are the memories of a Primary waiting for a new Second, and hedges are information that just made its way into the Garden from some other source. The hedges are what you use—”

“—for finding switches,” she said. “It’s coming back. And you can tell the difference by looking at them or touching them. These are all seeds.”

I smiled. “Yes,” I said. “Good.”

“And that’s Jimmy’s skill, isn’t it? Grazing hedges to find what he’s looking for?”

“We can all do it, but he’s especially fast. I’m glad you’re remembering.”

I realized that everyone was standing around waiting for me to finish talking. I said, “Jesus, guys. Just grab one. Any one.”

“The same one, maybe?” said Ray.

“Why?”

“Better control,” he said. “So we get the same data to work with, the same time.”

“All right,” I said. “Here’s one. This jar, the blue one with white designs. Let’s do it.”

“I’ll remind you,” said Oskar, “that it’s different when you graze in someone else’s Garden.”

I stopped, my hand just above the jar. “Remind me more.”

“It’s like grazing your own seed. You don’t just get the facts. You relive it. I was there at your meal with the Praetorian, like I lived it.”

“That could be interesting,” I said, and put my hand in the jar and let it happen.

Stupid move.

I sat there and let it play out, living it, living Celeste. Everyone else experienced it, too. They all saw us argue, saw my eyes abstract and twitch, running the Fibonacci sequence. They all saw Celeste’s imagination paint a bull’s-eye on my forehead.

Not my best day.

But, okay, it was over, and no one has ever died of embarrassment.

Jimmy said, “She really did a number on you, didn’t she, my friend?”

“Yeah, that wasn’t a good day.”

“I don’t mean that day,” he said. “I meant what it’s done to you.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

He said, “Matsu? Think you can try? He trusts you.”

I did, now that Jimmy mentioned it. I trust Matt more than, perhaps, anyone else. Odd that I’d never thought about it.

Matt said, “You’ve spent long enough as Celeste’s target, Phil, don’t you think?”

“What the hell—”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“I really don’t.”

“Who are you, Phil?”

“That’s a stupid question.”

“Maybe, but you’re the one with Celeste’s arrows in you. And now they’ve hooked us all. Who are you?”

“The sum total of all that I’ve done, all that I haven’t done, all that I’ve wished I’ve done, all that I’m sorry I did—”

“Who did Celeste think you were?”

I wanted to say, “The center of her concentric universes,” but that wouldn’t have helped. I said, “Evidently, she thought of me as something to take aim and fire at.”

“She defined you in terms of your relationship to her.”

“Don’t we all do that?”

“Yes,” he said. “But the other person doesn’t usually accept it and make it part of his own identity.”

Oh. That’s what Jimmy had meant. And I could answer Matt now, too. I was comfort for Celeste. A soft, marked hay bale, a familiar destination. Comfort, in the sense of having things stay the same, of knowing she could count on her life from year to year, and day to day, anchored in me. And she had rejected me because I was always moving, and it’s hard to hit a moving target, but she had kept me around, because knowing I was there made her comfortable.

I turned to look at Ren, and she was looking back at me, steadily, and a little sadly.

“What would you like me to be?” I said.

“We’re still working that out,” and I mentally kicked myself, because now everyone was looking at her and she was getting a little red. But she held my eyes, and took my hand, squeezed it, and held on. Fibonacci, you have no clue.

Ren

“So how do we find Celeste’s last memory in all this mess?” I asked, still holding Phil’s hand. We were standing around a broad, raised wooden table, cluttered with brass scales, Pyrex beakers, empty gelatin capsules, stone mortars, and knives ranging from dull copper to surgical steel—clearly Celeste’s lab bench. On either side of us wooden shelves reached to the ceiling without any sign of organization by historical period, or material, or size. Unless they were arranged by use, they just weren’t arranged. It made me impatient. How would you find anything in such a jumble?

“Celeste’s memories were always recorded like recipes,” Jimmy said. “Or an alchemist’s notes.”

“Ray?” said Phil.

Ramon shrugged. “That was long ago. And no two alchemists kept notes the same way.”

“Anyone remember the formula she gave for the
kithara
?” Phil asked.

“It was a rosemary bush in my castle garden,” mused Jimmy. “For remembrance.”

“As she gave it?” Matsu clarified Phil’s question. “Yes. It was, ‘Decant four gils of brandy, having crushed together some oil, some bitumen and a pinch of cinnamon with four drachmas earth of Chios. Having melted chocolate, spread upon it the earth of Chios and stir in such a way as to mix them. Burn it on wood of juniper and extinguish in some buttermilk slightly thick. Season with salt to taste.’ I grazed for it before I followed you here.”

“Right then.” Jimmy was back in charge. “Let’s each just pick a spot and work outward searching for anything on that list.”

I said, “But, why would anything on the list be here, if these are all memories?”

“They won’t,” said Phil. “Nothing on the list will be here. But if you concentrate on looking for those items, you’ll notice any seed that embodied any of them when she created it. Does that make sense?”

“I think so.”

“All right. Then let’s start looking.”

“Maybe we should stick together,” I said.

It all felt too Disney-spooky, with the dust-mote sunbeams streaming in from high, opaque windows to risk flaunting the horror movie rules.

“We are together,” Phil reminded me. “We’re all still standing in my living room.”

“It’s bad,” Oskar said with a chuckle, “when Vegas is your safe place.”

But Phil stayed near me, even in my imagination, and we struck off together, down one narrow corridor of bookcases. “I imagine she’d keep the oldest memories here,” Phil said as we walked. “Like my scroll vault.”

I nodded.

“I’m sorry if I embarrassed you back there,” he said.

“You didn’t.”

“You were blushing.”

“I wasn’t!” We reached the end of our row and turned the corner to find Matsu reading spines in the next row. We walked over to the next aisle and started up it, watching for anything hidden in the shelves.

“What is it then?” he asked. “Or do you enjoy making me guess?”

“I’m not being coy,” I said.

He cocked the wild eyebrow at me.

“I’m not!” I said, then realized I was. “I guess I just didn’t realize how much power she still has over you.”

“Celeste? She’s dead, you know,” he said, trying not to smile, but dimpling.

“So I’ve heard,” I said, feeling like I should drop it, but not quite able to. “But it was like you didn’t know who you were without her.”

“Matt’s question just took me off guard, and I answered it.”

“Right, but what you said, about being the sum total of everything you’ve done or not done, that’s not a self. That’s a jumble.”

“You’re critiquing my UI?”

“You kept being an object to her. You’re so much more alive than that.”

I was trailing my fingers over the dry spines of books and he took my hand and turned it over. He spread my palm open and placed a gentle kiss in its center. “Loving someone arms that person against you. I loved Celeste for lifetimes; she had a lot of time to pick up ammo.”

He pulled me against him, and I leaned into his chest.

“Quiet, everyone!” Ramon’s voice was cold and urgent. “There’s someone else here.”

Phil’s arm hardened behind my back. “Where are you, Ray?” he whispered.

Nothing.

“It’s Irina,” said Oskar. “Try not to let her see you. She must have had the same idea.”

“How do you know it’s her?” Jimmy asked.

“She’s the only other person Celeste taught to move through people’s Gardens.” Oskar’s voice was heavy with anger. “She’s down here trying to re-create Celeste’s last memory just like we are, only she’s doing it because she believes the memory will be of me killing Celeste, and seeding it properly will be enough to keep me out of Salt.”

“It doesn’t look like Irina,” Ramon said, keeping his voice low even though Irina’s actual ears were miles away at The Palms.

“Where are you, Ramon?” Phil asked again, something cold and wary in his voice.

“I was trying to find the outside,” Ramon whispered.

“Celeste’s Garden doesn’t have one,” Oskar said. “At least not that I’ve found. It’s all ladders and hatches.”

Ramon’s voice was a taut whisper. “I went through the back door,” he said. “From the workroom.”

“The door by the stacked barrels?” Phil was already headed back the way we had come.

“Phil?” I said, following him. Something in the set of his shoulders worried me. That he didn’t reply worried me more. “Phil,” I said again, touching his arm. He pulled up short and caught my face in his hands. My anxiety dissolved under his eyes’ warm scrutiny, until I thought he would kiss me. He dropped his forehead to mine. “I love you,” he whispered into my hair.

“Ramon, can you see what Irina is doing?” Jimmy asked.

The silver impact of Phil’s words slid over my breasts, clashing with the persistent gnawing in my belly that something was badly wrong.

“Yes,” Ramon whispered. “She’s stirring something in a pot.”

“Phil?” I said, looking for his eyes again.

“Wonderful!” Jimmy exclaimed. “Maybe she’s already done the work of collecting ingredients for us, and we can simply sweep in and eat the memory.”

“Phil?” Matsu’s voice was right beside me, but Phil was striding off across the dusty workroom floor.

As Phil and I stepped through the back door, I turned and caught a glimpse of Matsu sprinting noiselessly into the workroom. “Phil, wait!” Matsu whispered.

“Phil,” I said, “Matsu’s calling you.” I stopped to catch the door so it wouldn’t slam, and held it for Matsu. He came across the workroom floor with astonishing speed, still not making a sound, but when I turned back, Phil was gone.

“Wait,” I called, bypassing worried and afraid, and going straight into terrified. “Phil!”

Jimmy muttered, “Oh, God.”

“Fuck,” Oskar said.

“I’m on it.” Matsu stopped beside me. “Did you see which way he went?”

I shook my head.

“Ramon?” Matsu was motionless, his voice tight and brisk. “Think. Through the back door from the workroom, four stairs go down, then there’s a left and a right branch. Which?”

“Left.”

Matsu leapt over the stairs and vanished.

“I’m on my way,” Oskar said.

I ran after Matsu, but he wasn’t waiting for me. I didn’t want him to.

“There’s a raised hatch,” Matsu said.

Ramon was quick. “I went down it.”

Ahead of me, Matsu dropped out of sight.

“Phil.” Jimmy held his voice deliberately low and calm. “Phil, my friend, stop a moment and think what you are doing.”