The Memory Keeper

Chapter 24

Piper and Natalie sat in the same compartment on the train ride home. Instead of watching the blur of white and brown out the window this time, Natalie scribbled in her journal a plan. She would cancel any other appointments she had made, and spend the full three days on Peter's side of town, even if she had to rent out a cabin in Stagwood. She would worry with all other errands later and would not focus on she and Peter's friendship. It was not about that now. Of course she cared, but she had to worry with herself. Colette's words had hooked themselves in her mind. "In all of these revelations, I learned that you have made other bold moves in the past. One in particular no mind weaver should be able to withstand."

Natalie knew she had made bold moves. For one, her cabinets, though Colette did not seem to worry with them like she had feared. This move she made apparently was one no mind weaver should be able to withstand. Surely it was not simply keeping Peter's memories. A mind weaver could certainly withstand that, it was the client they fretted over, and it was only advised to avoid it, albeit severely. And what did she mean about receiving all she had lost? She knew if she asked Piper, she would receive no answer. It was as if everyone knew more about her than she did herself, unless they were lies.

Piper lay across the seats on her side of the compartment, and was snoring loudly, a half finished crab cake in her hand.

Natalie pushed her notebook across the seat next to her and tapped the front, thinking. Perhaps allowing herself to dream a little of she and Peter. Perhaps it was the rocking, lulling train, lack of sleep, or a bit of Cape Colette's wine still in her blood, but Peter came to her in her mind, pressing her to that post on the corner of the main road, this time his eyes flashing with a kind of selfish passion, his lips crushing hers until they felt frost bite. She allowed her mind to conjure the touch of his hands, gripping the fabric of her skirt, the heat of his breath in the smog, his towering frame like her very own castle, his chest a shield.

She blinked when a vendor stopped at their compartment door. It slid open with a series of squeaks, and Natalie ordered she and Piper coffees. The vendor poured two cups, not particularly smiley, but polite enough, and then left. Once, when Natalie was about twelve, she convinced herself that she would work on Cape Colette's train when she became an adult, so she could visit all of the towns every day. Eventually she would visit the world outside of Cape Colette. She heard there were cities much larger, so that it took days for their train to make it to each one, and buildings the size of Cape Colette's castle, with lights that from a hilltop resembled cages of fireflies.

She loved eavesdropping on hearsay, about people who spoke differently or practiced beliefs as separate as middles, mind weavers, and witches in Cape Colette. Oceans between them so vast, they had to take boats across. When Natalie found herself on the cliff side in Pemawick Cove, she would often wonder what life was like in those other worlds. Were they tied down by rules like she was? Did people hate each other over differences? What traditions did they celebrate?

At the end of the year here in Cape Colette, people gathered at the river in Winter Wells with bottles, in which they put whatever they wanted, to honor the new year. Some wrote themselves a letter, mostly about what they wanted to achieve or experience in the new year; witches would charm them so that at the end of the new year, the bottles with their letters would come back to them. Others put a trinket from that year in their bottle; if it was a special item, it was supposed to grant them a new special trinket for the next year. If it was something they wanted to forget, it was supposed to offer a sense of renewal. That was the cheaper, and more natural way to move on, without the need of a mind weaver.

Then there were other ideas that were not so popular, like the middles' tradition. They would trap a spirit in their bottles, mostly bad ones, to keep them from hooking onto their summoner. The witches liked to put spells in theirs, mostly good ones, like love, fortune, or beauty, so a person might find it washed up on a beach far, far away.