2
Remember to Forget
Ear-piercing shrieks rang across the long, narrow playground and echoed over the dry, grassy fields surrounding the small daycare center. Most of the preschoolers were clustered around something on the ground, near the base of the huge old live oak tree at the far end of the enclosure. I paused, broom in hand, and wondered what they found so fascinating. None of the daycare workers sprawled across the stubby, bright-yellow kiddie chairs showed much interest.
I thought I heard a childish cry of "Spider!" Anything with more than four legs was a spider to the kids, though. Maybe one of the adults would run the kids off and show some mercy to whatever poor insect or arachnid the brats had in their clutches.
Nope.
I sighed and kept sweeping the screened-in infant play area. I did most of the cleaning at the daycare center, since my seizures kept me from being able to be alone with the kids. I helped out during the day, floating from class to class, and did whatever random tasks the director needed handled. I hated my job, but I needed the paycheck, and in this tiny town in the middle of nowhere, Florida, I had to take what I could get. No other business owners wanted to take a chance with me and my unpredictable seizures and the bizarre memory loss that always accompanied them. For hours, sometimes days, and sometimes permanently, I lost all memory of who I was, including everything about my life. I kept notebooks full of notes to myself to I could figure things out.
So I could remember the important things, and forget the frighteningly insistent memories that would surface. If I left them alone, they went away. The more of my current life I remembered, the more of that weird, second, surreal life I forgot. It wasn't real, anyway. Magical kings, labyrinths, and twenty-six hour days didn't exist. The doctors I used to see told me the seizures weren't physical, they were mental, products of some sort of mental fracture, and the visions and 'memories' were symptoms of an impending psychotic break.
I sighed, as I always did when I thought about their whack-job diagnosis. Psychotic break. Yay. Something to look forward to.
The kids' shrieks grew a little more excited. Finished with the porch, I headed to the patio to sweep away the clumps of black dirt the kids tracked between the grassy area and the back door.
A sudden, heart-stopping shriek of pain shattered the relative peace of the playground. The four teachers jumped to their feet and ran for the kids, me on their heels. We plowed through the clusters of kids, picking them up, pushing them aside, whatever it took to move them so we could get through. As one, the four women froze and drew back. One started flapping her hands wildly in front of her face and stamping her feet in some crazy heebie-jeebie jig.
"Get it, get it get it get it," Casey chanted, pointing at the bizarre insect clinging to shrieking Vita's little face. "Oh God, get it off her!"
I searched around for a stick, anything to try and flick the hand-sized thing off the kid's face. Roughly the shape of a dragonfly sans wings, it had a segmented tail with a stinger on it, vaguely scorpion-like. Long legs clung to Vita's face, and oversized mandibles clicked rapidly. Stunted wings fanned faster than I could see, buzzing angrily.
Out of ideas, I lunged forward and plucked it off the four-year-old's face. The legs wrapped around my wrist, prickly and tickling as it searched for purchase. The tail waved back and forth, the stinger twitching. An amber drop of venom gathered at the barbed tip and dripped to my wrist. Instantly, it began to burn my skin.
I swung my arm at the tree. The instant before I made contact, the stinger plunged into the back of my hand. Fire raced through the veins, all the way up to my elbow, lightening fast. I bit back a scream and slammed by hand against the tree, over and over and over again, until the insect was nothing but mush and hard bits of chitin and exoskeleton.
My vision blurred and bright streaks of light flickered through the green oak leaves. Faces moved in the rough, nubby tree bark. Sound warped and fluctuated.
No, not now, not in front of the other teachers and all the kids. But the weird, finger-like sensation spread through my mind, taking over, my only warning of an impending seizure. I scrubbed the bug sludge off on my jeans and staggered away, through the crowd of curious, frightened kids. Vienna danced and did her wild jig, flapping at her hair in an attempt to dislodge whatever bug she thought had invaded her extravagant curly weave. I saw her in double vision, her body swathed by brilliant red and orange and yellow auras.
I made it inside and tripped over a doormat. I caught myself on my hands and knees, but the impact knocked the world sideways. I couldn't see straight. Angles and corners were wrong, and straight lines pointed in the wrong directions. Colors changed hues subtly. Bathroom. Had to get to the bathroom. Someplace quiet and dark and still.
I made it, somehow. I clawed the marker out of my pocket. My constant companion, that fuchsia permanent marker.
Sarah, I scrawled on my arm. Remember you forget.
Like inhaling, I slipped into the fugue state.
Time to come home, Sarah.
His voice wraps around me, deep and mellow. Somehow, I know he has been singing, and he has the sort of voice that would make a woman melt. His hands close around my shoulders.
"You have to figure out the right words soon, Sarah. Divided we fall. And we're falling."
"What words? Tell me and I'll say them." Clenching my eyes closed, I turn swiftly and slide my arms beneath his leather jacket and around his warm, solid chest. I bury my face in his shoulder. He's home, and I can't bear to be separated from him.
He makes a sound, a hopeless little half-sob. "It doesn't work that way. I can't do any more than I do now."
"How am I supposed to figure this out on my own?"
"You've done it before."
I want to look up at him, see who this man is that I love so fiercely. His last statement puzzles me. Not being able to read his face, see his eyes leaves me feeling handicapped somehow. His hands rub my back gently. His touch excites me on a primal level. I turn my face and kiss his neck. He wraps one hand in my hair. "Think, Sarah," he urges me. "Remember the last time we were together."
"I can't. I forget everything as soon as you send me back."
He kisses the top of my head, over and over again, and holds me tighter. "It's the magic. You've been out of the Underground for so long. Your mortal body can't handle it."
"You have to try. You have to remember. You have to find your guardian. He's our last resort."
"Who is he?"
He shrugs. "I don't know who yours is. He's someone close to you, someone you've known for as long as you can remember."
I shake my head against his shoulder. My hair rubs against his leather jacket and creates a gentle layer of static electricity. "I don't remember anyone. Every time I see you, I forget my entire life. I write myself notes every day, just to remember who I am. I don't remember anything from before I turned fifteen."
"I'm so sorry, precious thing. There has to be someone in your life, some constant. Look for him now, before you remember to forget again. He'll guide you back to me"
The back of my head tingles, the signal that his magic is wearing thin. I cling to him tighter. "Don't let me go."
"Find me," he says into my hair. I look up, unable to stop myself. I catch a glimpse of his eyes before I exhale and blow away the last of the magic.
Pounding on the door drew me back to full consciousness. My head buzzed and my muscles twitched and shuddered. Air stuck in my throat. I had to force my lungs to work.
The room I awoke in meant nothing to me. I lay between a cold porcelain toilet and a wall, curled into a C. One hand lay under my hip, the other arm bent behind my back. My legs were tangled together, painfully.
A woman outside the door yelled, her words muffled. She kept on with her incessant pounding. I pushed myself into an upright position and groaned aloud as the blood rushed back into my hands and my head. My forehead felt tender and puffy. I must have hit it when I fell. I managed to get up on the toilet. My knees felt too rubbery and my legs shook too badly to try and stand.
The woman outside wanted to know if I was okay. "Yeah," I croaked. I wasn't sure if she heard me, and I wasn't sure I cared. Why couldn't I remember anything? It freaked me out, not knowing my name, where I was, or what had happened.
Words scrawled on my arm caught my attention. I pushed my hair out of my eyes. Sarah.
A name? My name?
Below the name were the words Remember you forget.
Remember you forget.
I forget…
Tiny bits of information struggled through the thick wall of nothingness in my mind. Seizures. Crescent-shaped medallion.
A world that was real, but impossible.
A labyrinth of black stone and golden hedges. Castles, some real, some for decoration, some to distract both enemies and natives alike. I couldn't breathe suddenly, because I couldn't remember what was real and what were the products of my faulty brain.
The woman began to beat again, angrily. I rose and took the short step towards the door. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.
The wrong woman stared back at me. Clear skin, sparkling chocolate-brown eyes, and hair the color of mahogony made the reflection that of a stranger. My hair was dull brown, so dark it was nearly black. My eyes seemed faded, and my skin was dry and splotchy. I blinked, and so did she. I touched my nose, and she touched hers.
Did I have hallucinations after the seizures? I told him I had to write myself notes. I remembered that clearly.
The chick on the other side of the door wasn't letting up. She threatened to get the key to the door. Sighing, I leaned over the sink and splashed water in my face. When I straightened back up, a sense of relief flooded me. The reflection in the mirror was one that was inherently familiar. My usual stringy darker hair, the plain eyes, even the blemishes and flaws were there.
Odd, how I missed that other face. A tiny little part of me protested the loss. Memories crowded against the back of my mind, but try as I might, I couldn't grasp more than a glimpse of blue skies, pennants flying in the breeze, and the taste of spent magic on the back of my tongue like the last bite of sweet potato pie.
I opened the door and nearly got hammered in the face by the frenetic fist of the other woman. She gaped at me. "Holy shit, Sarah, you shouldn't have left the door unlocked. Geez, you could've cracked your head open or something."
"Sorry, I was a little distracted." I searched my mind for her name. I found a hundred other names, ones I knew didn't belong to anyone in this world, but not hers. Who was she? My boss? Beyond her, the bright blue walls cut through the dusky haze of the large classroom. The blinds were closed, and the light filtering through the closed blinds lent the room a surreal quality. Mobiles hung from the ceiling, created by little hands and huge imaginations.
A breeze blew through the room, stirring the planes, suns, and stars into flapping circles. I tasted it again, that nutmeg-like flavor in the back of my throat
"You are such a friggin' liability." The woman groaned.
Before I even realized what I was doing, I retorted, "And you are such a bitch." Nice. I couldn't even remember my name without it scrawled across my arm, and now I'd either called my boss a bitch, or started a fight with a coworker.
She narrowed her eyes. "The only reason I'm not kicking your crazy ass right now is because you're 'disabled'." She said the last word with enough venom to make her lip curl.
What's said is said. "I deeply appreciate your consideration," I muttered as I stepped around her and on into the large classroom. I worked in a daycare, apparently. Worked being the operative word. "Where did I put my bag?"
"Find it yourself. After I get done talking to Cherise, you might as well not even come back. She'll fire you."
"My, aren't you mature?" I wanted to go home and sleep off the foggy feeling stealing over my thoughts. I hadn't the vaguest clue where 'home' was, though. This woman was of no help, albeit of my own doing. I had the feeling, though, she wouldn't have been much help anyway. I saw a blue bag on a shelf, a canvas affair with a unicorn on the front. Mine. I knew it.
Find your constant. Do it now before you start to forget.
Before I start to forget…what?
Before I start to forget the taste of magic on the back of my tongue. Before I start to forget the castles and the labyrinth and before I start to forget the way the king's arms felt around me. Before I forget everything the king said.
How in the world would I search for my guide if I couldn't remember anything?
A thought struck me. If I forgot everything about myself right after the seizures, and I knew this previously, I would have written myself a note of some sort. Yes, I told the king I had to write myself notes. Outside, in the bright sunlight beaming down on the paved driveway of the daycare center, I plundered through my bag. A rumpled envelope with my name on it hung from a safety pin in the inside pocket. I plucked it free and took out the stained, tattered piece of paper.
Call now. Unless you want to forget. 555-690-4509.
I flipped the note over and found nothing but pencil marks and blotted lipstick. The half-sheet of notebook paper looked like it had been through some rough times. I needed to get home and find the other notes, and figure out what it was I was supposed to remember—or forget.
I dug through the purse until I found the wallet. A state ID card had my picture and my name. Sarah Williams. 84 and a 1/3 Henson Drive.
Not that I knew where Henson drive was.
Or where I was, for that matter.
After a moment of standing at the head of the driveway that led back to the daycare and staring at the tiny town blossoming maybe a quarter of a mile down the road. It looked like any small town in the country. Brick buildings mixed with wood-frame structures, bordered with sidewalks and separated by asphalt. It only seemed logical to head that way.
As I walked, I pulled a cell phone out of the bag and punched in the number on the note. After two rings, a pleasant-sounding woman answered. "Dr. Cadelio's office."
"Um." What did I say? Hi, I'm Sarah Williams, I had a seizure and I don't know who I am anymore. Do you? Oh. Well, actually, what else was there to say? "My name's Sarah Williams. I had a, um, seizure and I can't remember anything. I found this number—"
"Come on in as soon as you're ready," the woman said soothingly. "If you're ready to."
"Why wouldn't I be? I don't come in every time this happens?"
"The doctor will talk to you whenever you make it in, dear. He'll tell you everything you need to know." She paused. "We truly hope you'll decide to come in this time."
"Wh-where are you?"
Why wouldn't I go see this doctor, whose number I'd carried around for so long?
She gave me the address and when I told her where I was, how to get to the office. Fortunately, it was at the other end of the short Main Street strip, right next to Mailene's Bookstore.
I thought about finding home first, and reading all the notes I thought perhaps I'd left myself. Maybe there was a reason the lady on the phone had sounded so eager for me to visit the office.
Find your guide. Before you remember to forget.
I heard the king's voice in my head again. Did that mean I made myself forget?
It's the magic. You've been out of the Underground for so long, your mortal body can't handle it.
Magic. Right. I laughed to myself and kicked a rock across the sidewalk. I was crazy. Had to be it.