The Memory Keeper

Chapter 2

The book case rattled as thunder pounded on the frail walls. Rain from the ceiling dripped into buckets like a hundred small drums. If one were to have stood on the jagged cobblestone street outside and looked up, they'd have seen Natalie's pale face on the other side of the rain speckled window pane, caught up in a daydream...

There was a time when Natalie did not want this kind of life. Growing up realizing she could take away memories, kids in school called her a memory thief. Slapping books out from her arms, they pulled her hair and spit on her shoes. Now and then, if she thinks back to these memories closely, she can still see their jeering faces. So many times her parents sent angry letters to the principal, but to no avail, until she stepped into finishing school a few years later deciding to flaunt her gift like it was the most fashionable hat or scarf a student could show off.

Under desks, between class periods, before and after school, Natalie clasped hands with fellow students, now old enough to know the weight of a memory, the mercy of her powers. The same students who called her names or pulled her hair came crashing down the hall toward her with envelopes full of their allowance or paychecks from after school jobs. Even teachers promised her perfect marks in exchange for a memory they did not want.

Natalie flourished in this attention until graduation day, when she looked out at the sea of her classmates from the podium, at a loss for words. She knew all of their heaviest secrets, but not a single student had become her friend for any other reason than her ability to ease their minds when they saw it fit. The requests had become as petty as slipping on a banana peel in the cafeteria, or wearing the same dress skirt as a nemesis. She had decided that they could all have lived with them, like she had lived with their taunts and slaps in grade school, remembering it every time she remembered who she was.

When she graduated, she told her parents she would never be a mind weaver. She would sew and alter gowns, clean houses, sweep a store front if she had to, but never would she repeat school, sitting either in a cubicle at Cape Colette's mind weaver bureau or freelancing in her own rented space, plucking and weaving memories as silly as ever from people rich enough to afford it and with no other reason than that.

Outside, wind howled like ghouls, and lightning lit the window like day. Taking her tea, now lukewarm, she stood and sipped it, lost in her stupor of past revelations, wondering how she had gotten from that mindset to this one, keen as a bumblebee out to collect honey. What to paint the walls, what kind of door mat or coat rack to purchase, her cabinets... She would have laughed at herself if she had not realized a forgotten leak. Downstairs by her desk. She turned and scoured her small apartment for something she could use to soak up the puddle, and settled, feeling clumsy as a bat, on the coverlet of her bed, then ran down the stairs.

No, she did not want this kind of life, hidden in Coldton's shadows, but had decided this route after she met Piper in a pub, who promised to be the best assistant a mind weaver could ask for as they sat in stools side by side, that she would keep all of Natalie's secrets so long as she never told anyone she was only half a witch, in need to be taken seriously. 

Hair pulled into a bun on her head, sleeves rolled to her elbows, Natalie worked to clip her feathered coverlet to the balcony, in the hope that it might dry before her day at work was over. A little frost from last night's storm clung like party glitter to the railings, and puddles of water claimed most of the cobblestone lane below. Bustling wind kept yanking the coverlet out of Natalie's hand like a playful, invisible toddler, before she could pin down the other side, and she took a deep breath, biting the inside of her bottom lip to keep from screaming out in frustration.

Her neighbor, an elderly lady who hacked and spat over the smoke of her pipe, chewed thoughtfully on the mouthpiece, and then motioned downward, smoke blowing from the bowl as though it were a train. "Why not take it to the cleaners, girl?"