The Persistence of Memory | ✔

06

The address on Nina's phone matched the place she stood before at that moment. Still, Nina could hardly picture Fearnley living in the rundown building where she'd just arrived. He'd seemed like a neat, nearly timid man when she'd spoken to him in prison. Then again, there was much she didn't know about the man.

Appearances could be deceiving. That was one of the many things her profession had taught her over the years.

With that in mind, Nina walked into the building with no one to question her. The inside was marginally better than the outside. There was no peeling paint on the walls or badly drawn graffiti. Just plain off-white walls and cheap linoleum on the halls. The place had an old feeling. It made Nina think of the place where she'd lived when she was very young.

Back when she was no more than three and her parents were still getting used to their new life of being married with a child. They'd shared a small apartment on top of a shop—a beauty salon, she thought it was—with a threadbare carpet and a similar type of cheap linoleum as the one in Fearnley's building making up the kitchen floor. It was small, nearly cramped, but Nina had some good memories there. Back then, life had been simpler and her parents had been happy. Back then, she'd had her mother.

Nina tried not to dwell on that as she climbed the stairs, wary as the steps creaked with each one of the steps she took. It was cold inside the building, nearly as cold as it was outside and Nina found herself pulling her coat closer around her.

Fearnley lived on the top floor—the third one—and Nina made it there without running into so much as another soul. For a second, she found herself questioning whether anyone else even lived in that building, but she knew they did, had heard the faint sounds of people talking from behind closed doors. Even as she reached the third floor, Nina thought she heard people arguing somewhere in the building and told herself it was just a television set too loudly.

Nina tried to focus on what she was there to do, especially once she took that first step down the hall and felt as if the walls were closing in around her. For a brief moment, she thought she could smell jasmine and spice, thought she could hear a piano playing nearby and feel chestnut hair slipping over her shoulder.

The end of the hall grew closer and closer, the clacking of Nina's steps too loud for her own ears. A mirror waited at the end, Nina just knew.

And then, she was standing before a black door with a number in peeling gold letters on it. No green eyes stared back at her and Nina almost felt silly for having thought they would. The relief she felt seemed like a tidal wave washing over her, leaving only the cold realization of just how deeply Alice's memories seemed to have invaded her mind. She shook those thoughts out of her mind, at least for as long as she could, and attempted to stay in the moment.

With one last look around her to make sure no one was watching her, Nina got to work.

Maybe she should have felt guiltier than she did for what she was about to do, or maybe she should have known it was wrong and given up even before she'd shown up to that old apartment building. Still, she told herself it was important, that it was the only reason she was there. She told herself that for as long as it took to pick the scratched up lock of Fearnley's door.

The short time the task took felt like hours. Every sound was amplified, ever whisper of wind seeming like the breath of some nearby observer. Nina's paranoia worked against her, the nerves making her already inexperienced hands shake, but she managed it.

The door opened with a soft click and Nina hurried inside.

As soon as she entered, she noticed the staleness in the air and the dust clearly visible as it floated across the rays of sunlight filtering through the windows. A coffee table in the living room—a battered old thing that looked just about ready to collapse—had a book on it. When she approached, Nina could see that the pages were yellowed with age and the spine of it was creased from use. There was a thin layer of dust on the cover, not quite thick enough to hide the title.