The Memory Keeper

Chapter 11

"Remember at Coldton palace, when we danced, and I told you I had tried something with your memory that I should not have? And I could not tell you what it was?"

"Yes."

She felt her heart flapping around in her chest like a bird in its cage. "Well, I will try it now, but first I need your permission."

"You said you were not supposed to do it."

"If I do not do it, I think we may face a darker path." She took a deep breath. "Mr. Sheinfeld, do I have permission to keep your memories? Take them completely away, store them in my own mind?"

His eyes lit up, and slowly, not unlike an actual caress, he searched her face, every angle and plane of it. He whispered, "Yes, Natalie, yes you may. You have my permission. Take them all, and keep them for yourself. It's what I've wanted all along. I would rather you have them."

Without thinking on it further, she said, "Give me your hands."

Peter looked up, the rims of his eyes swollen and red, like he had lost a lot of sleep over this. She could not bare to watch him suffer. She was failing him. He reached for her hands, clasping them like they were life lines.

Natalie closed her eyes, and Peter did, too.

The memory fell into place, book shelf by book shelf, until Natalie found herself in a library. But not Coldton's library. She did not recognize this one. It smelled musty, the carpets weathered, and the wooden chairs looked uncomfortable and rickety. But thousands upon thousands of books were piled precariously all over the place. She heard laughter, and suddenly saw Peter skipping through the aisles of bookshelves with the woman he loved. She followed, tugging the collar of her coat over the sides of her face. They laughed, stumbling around a corner. She slipped to the other side, able to see them through spaces in the shelf where a book had been.

She saw Peter gently push her against the shelf, covering their faces with an open book, but it was clear to Natalie, spying from her chosen gap, that they were kissing. The woman giggled, playfully pushing Peter away, and turned her head from Natalie's direction just before the mind weaver could see her face, and twirled out of Peter's grasp, forcing him to chase her.

Natalie snatched a book as they came her way, and shoved her nose in it, spying from over the top, feeling her heart stretch and shrink as she watched Peter, dressed in his familiar suspenders and newsboy cap. She wanted to run to him, but knew she had to stay hidden.

So she followed, keeping the book over her face, until the room started to curl in, and she new the memory was coming to an end. It was time to take it. She focused, could almost feel Peter opening the door of his mind, releasing every detail like a cage of butterflies. They all went flying into her head, and she could feel them in almost every part of her body, from her hands, to her heart, like she had experienced it all for herself.

The laughter in her own throat, the thrumming of her own heart, the soft touch of skin, the delicate brush of lips. The only difference is, it was Peter's skin she felt, Peter's lips on hers. Tears sprung in her eyes even before she felt Peter's hands slip from hers, and her office weaved itself back into place.

A ripple in the tea cup on the table. The clock chiming the new hour. Peter blinking into Natalie's face. She took a deep, unsteady breath. "Finished." She knew that this was the first step to insanity, as Piper and Colette had warned. There was no waiting around. These sessions, she knew, would have to come a lot more frequently. And she told him so.

"I am going out of town tomorrow, to make a delivery, and it would be quite late in the day when I start to make my way back. Is there any chance you could come along, then, with me? So you can keep another one?"