8.
The next day, Bhask came back, calling out ahead as he tore up the stairs.
"Have I got a treasure for you! You're going to love me for this!"
"Like she ever stopped," Dorsey muttered. Bhask loaded a disc into the screen. It was filled with tv reports, newspaper clippings, and photos of everything public that I'd been involved in for the last decade. Alex being taken from his national park. The human voice project. The congress. The treaty talks. A picture of Alex and I getting married in the desert. The southern offensive. The peace rally, the plane crash, Ayasha's removal, the tropical cyclone over Cairns… the flood gates were unlocked. Just one day after escaping from my dreaded bed, I was voluntarily holed up there for hours, poring over everything, remembering.
"Having fun?" Alex said, lying down next to me.
"I'm remembering! It's really me!"
His hand rubbed the small of back affectionately. He scrolled down to our wedding photo.
"Tell me about that, then."
I laughed. "You didn't want to marry me. Gariagdy had to trick you into it!"
"You totally set me up!"
"I had no idea what was going on! You were the one who was translating for me!"
"The blind leading the blind," he grinned.
"Pretty much," I laughed.
Underneath the photo was the article about the plane crash in the north, and my smile melted away.
"That wasn't so much fun," I said quietly. He squeezed my shoulders.
"Good thing you didn't get on that flight, in the end. But such a shame you couldn't have seen that place. It was beautiful."
"I did see it, a little bit, in your memories."
"Oh right. Sort of."
"Besides, that's another Soul-free zone that takes the meaning fairly literally I think."
"Did they ever catch those guys?"
"No." I reminded myself to look up the file when we got home.
"Mummy," came a plaintive voice from the doorway, and I tore myself away to put Yash to bed. It was not an ordeal really, especially now that I could remember why it was so important to her that I did it. She had sat by her Daddy for much too long not to learn a healthy respect for the powers of sleep.
But when the ritual had been concluded and she was safely sleeping, I returned to Bhask's treasures, remembering late into the night.
***
The morning light was barely making it through the windows when Dorsey jumped on my bed. And kept jumping. I realized Alex must've got up to help with the farm, else he'd have done something about her by now.
"Ok, I'm awake. What."
"Bhask's girlfriend came over last night"
"What!" I was wide awake now, "Bhask has a girl?"
"Why do you think he goes running every day for? To impress you?"
"And she was here? Why didn't anyone get me! I couldn't even say hello?" I wondered if she was anti-Soul like the others here… surely no girlfriends of Bhask's could be like that?
"It wasn't that kind of a visit," and her eyes gleamed.
"Oh." Right. "But hang on, why don't I know anything about this? He hasn't said a word!"
"That's boys for you."
"But Bhask…"
"He's a boy, deal with it. Don't you want to know about the girl?"
"Yes!! Who is she?"
"Well, you know when Blackheath shot Bhask, during the war? There was this girl looking after him-"
"Oh, her! Yeah, um… Maddy. Maddison." I took a while to bring up her name, and I realized that I had not remembered everything. The parts of my life that weren't covered in the newspaper still lay shrouded and waiting for release.
Dorsey stared at me, horrified.
"You knew? I don't believe this. How am I the only person not to know?"
"He told me when he got back. You were going after Blackheath at the time."
"Right. Never mind. Anyway, I was wondering why Bhask never shacked up with anyone, not like long term anyway, and I figure maybe he was pining after an old flame, and I was talking to Blackheath about it, and he mentioned this Maddy girl."
"Maddison, yeah." The memory became clearer the more I concentrated; the afternoon sun, the grass beneath...
"Anyway, so I tracked her down, and turns out she's out here too. Lots of the Southern offensive people are, of course, so I arranged for them to meet-"
"Whoa, Dorse, slow down, you what?"
"Calm down, it's not like it was high tea. It turns out that Maddy was teaching a first aid course a few towns over, so I drove him down there on the pretext of some band, and 'happened' to get the night 'wrong'. So as we're searching for something else to do, we come upon this flier for the first aid course. And there was nothing else to do, so why not? We turn up with a few minutes to spare, and they are just staring at each other, like ZINGGG! There were practically sparks going between them, it was so sweet. I don't know how much first aid he learnt, but I'd bet he do that course again any day."
"So -"
"Hold your horses. So there was this meeting, and Blackheath knew her people would be there. That's why we couldn't come up straight away: we had to go and see if she was there, see what her people were like…"
"We?"
"I can't say I wasn't interested. And she was there, hanging off the arm of this total chimp, Diaz. Oh, but it was so cute to see Bhask trying to look all Anti-Soul tough, when if anyone had talked to him for a second…"
"No one talked to him?"
"It wasn't in his best interest. He wasn't there to talk to anyone anyway. You can get in a whole lot of trouble really quick by talking at one of those things."
"You know this from personal experience?"
"I was warned. Anyway, nothing happened but firey looks, right, and so we left to go meet you guys, and Bhask's all at a loss at what to do, and now she comes right on over!"
"But, she has a boyfriend…"
"Yeah, nasty piece of work, too. Chet Diaz. Blackheath's a total angel next to him."
"So…"
"Don't look at me! I don't know! But she came. So that says a lot, don't you think?"
"Maybe she came to say goodbye."
"Ever the optimist," Dorsey said, disgusted.
"But she's got a boyfriend!" I insisted.
"Doesn't mean she's stuck with him forever."
"A nasty piece of work boyfriend?"
"And Bhask has Blackheath behind him?"
"The total angel."
"Well… ok, so you wouldn't want to be on his bad side… This is good news Flame!"
But I couldn't help but feel this was trouble.
"Ugh, I don't why I bothered to tell you anything at all," Dorsey said, flouncing downstairs in a huff.
