Chapter 35
Griffin lay on the leather pallet of his ancient bed in the secret room underneath the garden. A stream of sunlight shone through the solitary window, and he studied the dust motes floating in the sunlight.
It wouldn’t be easy to reassemble his memory, but he hadto do it without crutches—or in this case, a live cell phone that belonged to Clare Hart.
Oh, yes, he’d opened it and typed in the code engraved on his tattoo, but he shut it as soon as he realized it had photos and notes.
He didn’t want to manufacture memories from them. He wanted to experience the emotions he had when the memories had been created, and to do that, he had to letthem float naturally into his mind.
All his life, or at least the life he had under Pierce’s tutelage involved memorizing facts, events, reading random entries in the annals, and watching videos.
What he wanted with Clare was the real memory. The one with voice and feeling, recognition and immersion. He wanted the taste, the scent, the tactile feel, but more importantly, the actualmeaning of the experiences for each scene.
One didn’t get that by looking at snapshots, or reading a hundred-forty-character notes. Even soundbites did not suffice. No video could take the place of presence in three dimensions, actually four, if time was involved.
Nope. The only memories he wanted were the ones taken moment by moment. Rich, deep, meaningful—the difference betweenreally knowing someone versus knowing a list of their personality traits.
Clare was too special to him to relegate into name, birthdate, physical characteristics, Myers-Briggs personality code, and a list of her likes and dislikes.
So, Griffin dreamed, and after each dream, he captured the feelings, and he wrote them down, piece by piece.
He gathered fragments of memory andfit them, and in between his naps, he worked on the fairy city puzzle. As he twisted and turned the puzzle pieces, the fragments in his mind snapped together.
He took breaks for exercise, and he walked the trails on the headlands overlooking the ocean. The heather was blooming and green shoots of grass waved over the cliffside trails. He let his face turn toward the ocean and feel the calmingspray. He squinted at the shadowy island of Inishtrahull, and he kissed the breeze floating in the air currents above the confluence of land and sea.
Even though he was alone, he felt Clare at his side, first meeting him on the airplane as an impudent and challenging woman, then appearing on the craggy trail of the Inishowen Peninsula, pretending to be Brigid O’Brien.
Piece by piececlicked into place, as long as he didn’t stress or get anxious. Many times, he simply walked and let images, scents, and feelings enter him—without judgment, without analysis, and most of all, without criticism.
Day by day, he strengthened both his body and mind. He’d breakfast with his grandfather, who didn’t want to talk because he was gathering his own memories. Griffin understood exactlywhy they didn’t speak.
No one wanted the other to influence him in any form. But still, the companionship was heaven sent, and the fact there was no nosy butler like Pierce to jog their memories was even better.
Of course, he’d had to hire help to replace the two he lost. Hulda, the chief of security, had to be let go in her role of helping Pierce kidnap Clare—for Griffin was nowconvinced the beautiful woman who played Brigid in the bedchamber and arose as the resurrected fairy queen was Clare.
How stupid of him not to recognize her when he’d had the chance. She’d escaped his crazy castle and had taken the Heart of Brigid with her. But he no longer cared about that treasure.
It had been lost for hundreds of years. At least now it was in the hands of thewoman he loved. That part of the myth had come true. The Heart of Brigid led him to his true love.
Every day, he recharged Clare’s phone, but he refused to look at it or use it. His own phone was broken, and he was in no hurry to get connected. He didn’t check the news. He didn’t watch television. He was content to let his memories sift into his mind like fine flour dusting a pastry.
When he wasn’t walking or dreaming, he wrote his memoir, and he worked on the puzzle. At first, everything was incoherent as he tried to fit bits and pieces together. But as the structure took shape, and he filled emotions and feelings between the lines, he began to dream vividly. She was so real, he could taste her, touch her, and sense her spirit.
Days turned into weeks, and weeksturned into months, and every day, Griffin remembered and he wrote.
One day, a package appeared in the mail.
Griffin tore it open and found a green plastic-covered spiral-bound notebook. He’d left it in the rideshare that fateful night of the vernal equinox. He’d read it and memorized it, believing it included his fate. But it had been a pack of lies, legends, and myths.
A card fell out of the notebook as he was putting it away. It was an appointment reminder from the Poddle Neurological Institute. He’d missed it, but another fragment clicked in place.
He’d promised something important under a wooden cross behind the stained-glass windows of the hospital chapel.
“Would one coherent mortal life be worth more than thousands of fractured lives?” she’dasked him then.
He now had the answer. “Definitely. One complete mortal life with her.”
And then he remembered. He’d promised to get treatment for his memory loss.
