The Medium of Memory | ONC2020

9. The Betrayal

Charlotte was uncharacteristically grave and silent while I started a fire and set up a picnic on a woollen blanket on the floor. Our discovery had clearly rattled her. As for myself, I felt more at ease than I had in days.

But it was like a calm before a storm—electric, full of energy and waiting.

I had harnessed my powers, used them, controlled them. I had succeeded.

The rain pelted the house furiously. The skeleton was in its resting place in the cellar, but the simple knowledge of its existence felt like another presence in the room.

Charlotte paced back and forth slowly, as I sat on the blanket in the warm glow of the fireside.

I spread blackberry jam on a piece of crusty bread. "You don't seem pleased," I ventured. "It seems we found what you were looking for. She was haunted by the loss of her child."

"But it doesn't make sense!" she wailed, stopping in her constant back and forth.

I shrugged. "If people and objects and trees can all hold memories, then I'm sure human remains can."

"No, I mean..." She began pacing again. "It raises so many more questions! How could she have a baby? She was never married. She lived with her mother and then she was alone."

I snorted at her apparent naivete. "Well, she got a baby from somewhere."

Charlotte ran her fingers through her hair, having released it so that it fell about her shoulders. She threw a rapid list of questions into the air. "But... did her mother know? She must have. Or was it after her mother died? Why doesn't the younger sister know? Why didn't she reach out to her sister for help?" She stopped and gaped at me. "How can you eat at a time like this?"

I set down my slice of bread. I thought back to the two women I'd seen on our first day at the house—the mother and elder daughter. "The mother knew," I said. "They fought about the pregnancy."

I watched the flames lick the air. They reminded me of all my fireside chats with Mrs. B. But they reminded me of other times too, times that weren't my own but someone else's, times seated in the chair by this very fireplace, alone and lost in my own thoughts and unwilling to let go of my memories.

"Oh Lord!" Charlotte exclaimed suddenly. "Did she kill it? Did she kill her own baby?"

"No!" I said adamantly. I don't know how I knew, but I was sure. I had an affinity with the elder sister now. I had felt what she felt, and I was certain that she had done nothing of the sort. "She was heartbroken when he died." He... I somehow knew that too—it was a boy child.

"This is so beyond anything I expected," she said, flopping down on the floor next to me. "How did the baby die? Why is it enshrined in the cellar? This is madness!"

My link to the memories of this house now made me the bearer of knowledge, the one who might hold the answers to so many questions.

I saw Charlotte for the first time as just like one of my séance clients, who came to me for answers and assurances. Now she was the one who wanted the past tied up neatly with a bow, no loose ends. No dangling questions.

It disappointed me.

The flames crackled and the rain pounded. Memories buzzed. Strange shadows slid and crawled around the room like living things.

She moved closer to me, wrapping her arm around mine. "It's just dreadful," she said, more to herself than to me, and I felt her shiver. "A sad life."

I could have been her friend, could have shared anything with her at that moment. About the orphanage, about my losses and regrets, about my own sadness. But I didn't.

"What will we do now? About the baby?" I asked. "What will you tell your client?"

She looked at me for a moment, puzzled. "Oh," she said. "I... I'm not sure. I don't normally deal with... human remains. I need time to think."

"I suppose we should leave it where it is, until you notify her. I think it will come as quite a shock to find out there's a dead child in the basement! I would imagine she'll want to have a funeral."

Charlotte rested her head against my shoulder. "Yes, I think you're probably right." She sighed. "It will be quite a shock indeed."

-----

We didn't say much after that. I tried to chat with her about trifles, but she seemed moody and reluctant to talk. Eventually she dozed off on the blanket beside me. I found a frivolous romance on the bookshelf and stayed up reading by the firelight, hoping that the rain would stop before late evening. Maybe we could still make it back to town.

In a short time, my exhaustion also got the better of me and I fell into a fitful sleep on the blanket next to Charlotte. When I woke, the fire had dwindled and she was still asleep beside me. For a moment, I was unsure if I was truly awake or dreaming.

I got up and wandered to the windows. It was still raining and the deep dark of night had fallen. I regretted letting myself drift off, but I had woken with new clarity, as sometimes happens after you sleep upon a problem.

From the beginning, I had felt I needed Charlotte to help me understand my powers. Now she needed me much more than I needed her. She wanted answers that only I could find.

I was in control. It was a comfortable and familiar feeling, one I'd sorely been missing.

She slept on the floor, her head resting on one outstretched arm. Her auburn hair fell about her face. I had started to believe I could make a connection with her, that we were kindred spirits. I watched her for several moments.

And then I did something awful.

 I closed my eyes and let my mind dissolve at the edges, melting into the ether until it found hers. It was so easy. Perhaps because she was exhausted and off guard; perhaps because my power had grown.

I pushed through a hazy grey mist and saw the house—this house—with fresh paint and a flower garden along the side. Two little girls played croquet in the yard. Though they were younger, I recognized them both.

One was the elder daughter from my visions. The other was a young Charlotte.

Pushing further, I now felt sadness and apprehension. I was being sent away to boarding school because of my unruly behavior. My consciousness shifted between being Charlotte and seeing her. I watched a young Charlotte sink to the floor of a bedroom, sobbing and holding in her hands a bracelet with square amethyst stones—a keepsake from her elder sister. I recognized that bracelet, too.

Suddenly, I was standing on the porch. I was older. I'd been gone a long time. "Clara, please! You aren't going to let me in the house?" I heard myself saying. "Not even now, after Mama's funeral?"

"You can't. You can't come into this house. I'm sorry!" My elder sister's eyes streamed tears. "Write to me if you like. I'll be here. I'll always be here." She unceremoniously shut the door in my face.

I bolted out of my trance, and out of Charlotte's memories. She was still asleep, her chest rising and falling slowly. She looked different to me, and I now saw the sisterly resemblance to that face in the mirror.

She was the younger sister. She owned this house now. And she was finally returning home after a very long time.

Now that I knew this about her past, and who she was, I felt that she was a stranger. In fact, I felt that I didn't know her at all.