The Memory Keeper

Chapter 12

"This is beautiful."

A wax seal stamp with a brass handle sat in a velvet box on a table in Coldton's best restaurant, all black and white marble, crystal chandeliers, and a painted mural on the ceiling of interwoven tree branches and ivy. Across from each other at that table sat Natalie and Colette.

"I thought you would be pleased. Every great mind weaver needs this stamp to properly send out her letters."

Natalie lifted the stamp from the box, blinking at the engravings. It was the official mind weaver symbol; hands around a sphere with a pair of eyes inside, surrounded by intricate loops and curls. She could not stop smiling. "I don't know what to say."

Colette crossed her legs, stressing the white silk dress she wore, and cupped her cheeks, elbows on the table as she watched Natalie enjoy her well-deserved gift. "You do not need to say anything. Just keep working as hard as you are."

Their dinner arrived shortly, and while they ate, Natalie said, "Colette. I have a question. One I did not think to ask during my time in Cape Colette, when I was qualified..." She shook her head. "It did not truly occur to me until recently."

The queen mind weaver twirled pasta around her fork. "Ask away, then."

"You said we should not keep memories. But, even if we do not keep them, we still have to experience them while weaving a new memory, therefore, they stay with us long after the session had been over."

"This is true." She offered a clandestine smile.

Natalie shook her head. "What if we do not want them?"

Colette's brow knotted. "Well, that is why you burn the items given to you."

She could not admit that she did not destroy any of the items offered up by her clients. So far, she never felt like she needed to destroy them. So far, the memories had been as petty as her school days. Until she met Peter. Until she went to Coldton Palace. Thinking of something to say, she stuttered, "What if I still remember?"

"Piper is supposed to put a spell on the items, connect the client's memory to it, so that when you destroy it, the memory is destroyed right along with it, no longer a threat to the client, nor to you, for that matter."

"I must have forgotten the spell." She smiled nervously and picked up her spoon, dipping it in her bowl of turkey and potato soup.

Colette spoke wistfully. "I saw you and the young man dancing together at the palace. He is quite handsome. Does he court you?"

Natalie looked up, surprised. She had been sure that Colette had not noticed she and Peter. That she had been too wrapped up in everyone's attention, perhaps tipsy on the endless flutes of wine. "No, we aren't courting..."

There was a knowing smile, one that did not believe the young mind weaver for a second. "The way he looked at you. I had never seen a man look at a woman that way." Before Natalie could correct her, Colette whispered, "Let it be a secret, then, but it does not matter if you are a mind weaver."

***

Like a map, night unrolled over the sky, sprinkling with stars. Everything in Natalie's office was still stacked in the middle. The second coat of paint was still drying, and she sat with her sleeves rolled at the elbows, coffee cup balanced on one knee.

Soon the clock would chime midnight, and Peter Sheinfeld would come knocking at the door. She had taken more of Piper's pills, to help relax her. Her coffee went cold before she could finish it, so she set it aside, and curled her legs up into the chair beneath her, tucking her chin to her knee. She did not hear the knocks, wrapped in dreams she would not remember later on.