The Medium of Memory | ONC2020

3. The Candlestick

I arrived back home at Mrs. Barrowmore's late that afternoon with two rather simple-looking bronze candlesticks (purchased after popping back in to the curio shop) and much to consider.

I didn't tell Mrs. B about my meeting with Charlotte, nor the strange circumstances surrounding it. After dinner, I pled weariness from a busy day and retired to my room to read.

Yet after a few pages, it was clear that I could not keep my mind affixed to my book in any meaningful way. I kept thinking back to all that Charlotte had told me and my eyes drifted to the two new candlesticks I had placed upon the mantel of my bedroom fireplace.

 Leaving my book open and face-down upon my chair, I rose and approached them with something like trepidation. I reached out a hand to touch one candlestick and concentrated, letting my mind stretch and slowly expand.

Nothing happened.

I chided myself for my foolishness. How ridiculous that I would think, even for a moment, that an object could have memories—that I had some sort of exceptional mental power! I was embarrassed at my own gullibility.

As I turned to go back to my reading, I brushed my fingers against the other candlestick. Immediately, my vision was flooded with a hazy darkness and I heard a chorus of children singing. I knew enough to know the words were French, but I could not decipher their meaning. I tried to see where the sound was coming from, but everything was dim and the sound seemed to come from all around me, yet from a distance.

Abruptly, the sound was gone, everything was dark, and I felt myself collapsing to the floor. The candlestick, too, came clattering to the floor alongside me.

Fortunately, I had not passed out. My vision had simply gone dark for a moment and my knees buckled beneath me. I was sitting on the floor, still shaken and regaining my sight, when Mrs. B burst into my room and rushed to my side. "What happened? What was that noise?"

"I— I had a slight bout of dizziness, that's all, and dropped one of my new candlesticks."

She helped me to my feet and reached down to pick up the fallen item. I gasped, but she placed it upon the mantel next to its partner without incident. "What's the matter?" she asked. "Are you sure you're all right?"

I wasn't at all sure, for either I was succumbing to Charlotte's formidable powers of suggestion, or I really could read the memories of objects! Both seemed equally unlikely.

Mrs. B was the only person in my life whom I fully trusted and since I could no longer trust my own faculties, I said, "I have something important to tell you."

-----

A few minutes later, we were seated in our comfortable chairs before a dying fire. I had entreated Mrs. B to bring the offending candlestick (for I was afraid to touch it again so soon). She was puzzled, but obliged me. Now it sat on the small table between us, the firelight playing off its bronze surface.

I told her about my meeting with Charlotte and the strange information she had divulged. I told her about the bracelet, then about my unsettling experience upstairs with the candlestick. She listened to it all with that calm and leveled way I'd come to expect from her. At last, she said, "There's only one way to know for sure. Try it now. I'll be right here if something goes wrong."

Her presence emboldened me. I reached out and picked up the candlestick, feeling its smooth, cool metal, my hand trembling slightly despite my firm resolve to not be afraid.

Silence. Nothing happened.

I shook my head, relieved but also angry. Angry that Charlotte had so deftly manipulated me with preposterous notions, and that I had so easily succumbed to them.

Mrs. B was undeterred. "You said the first time you were really trying. Try it again."

If not for her insistence, I would have certainly given up in a fit of pique. Instead I closed my eyes, my hands wrapped around the object in question, and let my mind expand like a melting block of ice. At least that is how I often imagine it.

This time I felt my own psyche connect with something else. It was chill and smooth and... anchored... in a way that was entirely different than any human memory I'd encountered.

This was foreign. It lacked a mind behind it.

As the hazy darkness filled my vision, the singing began. A chorus of youthful voices. I looked around, in my mind's eye, and saw firelight flickering on stone walls. I rested in the comforting warmth which seemed to last for many minutes. Finally, the connection broke of its own accord, and I was released, slumping back in my chair with the feeling that I'd just awoken from a very long nap. I blinked a few times, clearing my blurred vision, and became conscious of the candlestick still in my hands.

"I can't believe it!" Mrs. B gasped. "I heard it! I heard them singing!"

This was yet another unexpected turn in a day laden with odd events, and I could hardly muster up the surprise this revelation warranted. "What do you mean? You heard the children?"

Mrs. B took the candlestick from me with a look of utter fascination. "When you went into that trance, I put my hand on your shoulder to steady you, in case you passed out, and then I heard it, coming from all around us. It was faint, but very distinct."

"I couldn't understand the words," I said.

"It was an old song. D'où viens-tu, bergère? Where are you coming from, shepherdess? It's a rather well-known carol. I recognized it immediately." She sang a portion of it then. "J'ai vu un miracle, ce soir arriver." It was indeed the song I'd heard from the candlestick. "I have seen a miracle come this eve."

The fact that she had, somehow, heard the memory too filled me with relief—that I was not going weak in my mind—but also with a new worry. This was an unknown psychic ability, with unknown and unexpected effects.

"What do I do now?" I could not have this strange new power bursting forth and wreaking havoc upon my sensibilities as it had already shown it could. I needed either to stop it, or if that could not be done, control it and use it at will.

Mrs. B laughed, still delighted at this uncanny and unexpected experience. "Why, you help this Charlotte, of course! Who knows what amazing things will come of it?"