I grimaced, then steeled my stomach for what was to come. Closing my eyes, I tossed the otherworldly grub into my mouth and bit into its writhing body. I almost gagged when I squelched through its flesh. Putrid oozing gunk exploded, but it was tempered slightly by a saffron flavor, and a crackle of magic zinged along my teeth.
“It’s gross,” I complained, chewing as fast as I could.
Mom only returned a mock look of sympathy, patting my upper arm. “It’ll be over soon, and we’ll go get an ice cream.” Letting go of me, she rounded to stand in front. Leaning down, she looked me dead in the eye. Her features tightened into a serious expression. “Now, I need you to think about this place and Florin. Can you do that for me, Graysen?”
I nodded, glancing up and around. It was a grotto of enchantment. Cave-like but filled with creepily weird and seriously cool items. The prices stated on their tags were so high—more than what I earned as pocket money—I’d never be able to afford them. Even after being caught out, my fingers itched to continue pocketing a few more rarities. There were some things here that hailed from Zrenyth’s time.
However, I did as my mother asked and brought into my mind’s eye this place and Florin. And my memories slipped backward in time…
…wandering around unattended, stealthily slipping fascinating things into my pockets, and hiding them in my suit, while Mom eased her friend’s pain. The reason why our outing in Ascendria had taken a strange and harried turn. Mom’s voice floating from the office glowing bright with wavering threads of power, as she scolded him for not calling on her sooner…
…to the lair’s gigantic door and the bell ringing—tink, tink, tink—as we entered the place…
…gripping my mother’s hand tight as we walked down an ancient staircase with power flailing against my skin and whipping through my hair…
The magic coursed through my body, razoring straight to my head, the sensation much like thousands of tiny insect feet crawling across my brain. It threaded its way through all the memories connected to this place and Florin, pulling them in like a fishing net with a haul of flapping herrings.
However, as the magic continued its work, I focused on the here and now.
My mother walked away to put back all the things I’d stolen. As she strolled through the vibrant den, rounding enormous sculptures, she spoke with Florin. No one knew she was friends with a Horned God. I didn’t think I’d ever heard her speak of Florin at home, and I had a feeling that even Dad didn’t know.
I listened in on their conversation as the world around me took on a filmy quality.
Florin approached with ponderous footsteps while she put back the Bog Booghie’s sword with the rest of the miniature weapons. She cleaned the nearby row of jars with a quick swish of her duster, readjusting them with the tip of her finger so they sat perfectly aligned. She craned her neck to look up at him. “Will it work?”
Florin leaned heavily on his walking cane, standing beside a cracked and worn stone carving of Brangwene. “It won’t erase the memory completely, but it will bury it down deep.”
She spun around on her heels, smoothing a hand over the duster, its nylon fronds gathering within her fist before flaring free when she released them. “Will it stay buried down there?”
At that mention, a pinching sensation erupted inside my skull, as if the grub was burying itself deep inside my brain.
“There’s no guarantee it won’t unearth itself. If it does, it won’t come back in its entirety all at once, just in small, confusing pockets.”
My mother glanced at me with curiosity before her gaze returned to the Horned God. A notch formed between her brows. “Have you used it before?”
“Only once or twice.”
My mother’s mouth pursed. “Have you used it on me?”
“What would you have to forget, little thief?”
She flashed a grin, the freckles dusting her nose and cheeks sparkling, and her body relaxed. “Nothing, I’m sure.” And then her tone became thoughtful, slow and careful. “I suppose I wouldn’t remember if you had used it on me or not.”
A beat of silence. “Indeed.”
His pause gave me pause too. I tasted something wrong on my tongue, like a dusting of snow, cold and sharp and numbing.
Startlement had my spine stiffening.
Florin had used it before on my mother, but she didn’t know. Didn’t remember, obviously.
And then my mother’s face blurred at the edges as the world rippled and warped in a way that reminded me of when my aunt had tossed a solvent at one of her canvases. All the oil paint had melted away into dribbles of color, taking the picture along with it. And that was what seemed to happen around me, inside my mind too. This strange place that I’d entered not so long ago and wandered amongst all its wonders, melted away. I turned in a dizzying circle and glimpsed a wooden sign hanging above the door, catching only a single word written in silver—PURVEYOR—before my vision dotted as if I were looking through a veil of lace. Then my mind went blank and the world went black.
Suddenly I was blinking into a bright light, surrounded by walls painted in vivid colors, the sound of chattering customersaround me just as loud. In my hand, I held an ice cream with pastel swirls of pinks and chocolates and greens. My mother leaned an elbow on the white table, ice cream coated her tongue in apricot as she licked her cone. She beamed at me and winked.
And the memory-dream shifted into something else…
A strange sensation, from the here and now in the tower’s bedroom, of my body being pushed. Shunted. Rolled. Before I was tugged back down like a scuttled ship dragged beneath the surface of an endless ocean, and I fell into a deep sleep where I dreamed of nothing. Time passed slowly and quickly, as slumber always seemed to do.
