A Victorian Tale: A Puppet Masters' of Time Novel

4. Returned Memories

Sleep would not come to her that night. Her stomach growled, reminding her of one more reason she was in a bad mood.

Her parents didn't take to her kindly showing back home after dark; hair tousled, shoeless, and worst of all, her new dress ruined from splatters of blood and mud that her mother angrily pointed out relentlessly would never come out. She told them she had gotten lost and had come across an injured animal that sadly died in her arms. Her eyes were downcast, but even so she could tell her father did not believe her story, but she knew for certain she could not tell them the truth. She was sent to bed with no dinner.

The day's events kept playing over and over in her mind's eye. So many impossible things happened today. She had helped a stranger when she was all alone. She walked the halls of an old playground and walked into a room that no longer existed. But seemingly the most impossible of all, she had regained her memories. Memories that had been lost since she was a small child of five. So many things suddenly had become clear to her. When she originally thought no, they instead were inspired by what she saw the first time she ever opened that strange door with the cogs and wheels upon it.

When she was five, she had been a stubborn and disobedient child, always climbing trees and skinning her knees and yelling and laughing as she slid down the main banister. She believed no one could stop her. She was unstoppable and free.

Then she found the ruins after running off after a certain nurse was particularly harsh with her after she had been found jumping on her bed.

Calliope couldn't help smiling as re-remembered the fun she had exploring the old ruins of a long-ago castle overgrown by the forest that surrounded it. She had fallen in the courtyard of the old castle tripping over a loose stone, and that's where she found the ornate key.

Calliope lifted the key from underneath her nightgown, tracing its intricate vine decorations while whispering, "So that's how I found you."

Calliope skipped through her recovered memories until she remembered once more the first time she came across the old cog metal door, so different from its surrounding crumbling stone walls. She remembered her curious hands touching every bit of the door she could reach until she found a lever and a small hole covered by a small leaf of metal. Her small fingers gripped her new treasure and viewed the new discovery, before trying to fit it into the lock at first it didn't seem to fit but as she pushed with all the might of her five-year-old self with a click the key went into the lock. It began to turn by itself, and as it did so, all the wheels on the door began to turn and with a squeal, the door opened before her.

The room her five-year-old self had walked into was indeed completely different from the one she had walked into earlier that day. It was smaller but wider in shape, with a sloping ceiling that sloped straight into a gigantic ornate clock on the opposing wall. At each time there was a small door, about the size of her head, next to the number; and a loud ticking sound was heard as the clock continued to tell time. Despite there being no one around to maintain it. Her curious little self cautiously walked over to the strange clock, timidly opening the first door at the five that was nearly at her head level. What she saw behind it took her breath away, great lumbering creatures with scaly skins lumbering across a forest that she had never seen before but knew the name for the stories her father told, a jungle. One of the creatures, a long one with large spikes along its back nearly the size of herself, turned its head towards her and bared its teeth at her; suddenly frightened, little Calliope hurriedly closed the tiny door.

After calming down, she opened every other little door she reached, places that she could never have been able to imagine were behind each door. Each one with another wonder that took her little breaths away; massive cities with flying machines in the skies, ice palaces with strange creatures waddling across the terrains, and large masses of people of all shapes and sizes off in a hurry with their heads covered by strange hats that gleamed in the light of a purple sun.

The dreams that plagued her every night made sense now. No longer were they just mysteries or nightmares, they suddenly became clear to Calliope... they were based on what she saw when she was five. But the shock of her experience had made her lose her memory.

Calliope remembered the surprise of the servants and nursemaids alike after they had found her petrified, staring out over the moor. Rumors and superstitions flew through the air as they always did when something with no explanation happened. But the sudden arrival of her little brother into the world quickly overshadowed the mysteriousness of the child's sudden silence, and soon the estate was in a rush to get the doctor and make sure their mistress would survive the night. Calliope hadn't understood then the reason her father had pushed her aside, because she didn't see the fear in his eyes. His previous wife, Calliope's birth mother, had passed away shortly after giving birth and as he paced the halls, he feared he would have to face the same pain once more.

But Calliope was young, and she was in shock, and the sudden feeling as if her father had alienated her only heightened her withdrawal from the world.

The elder Calliope sighed in contempt for her younger self. How could I have been so naïve back then? She shook her head. You were just a child; you knew no better.

The surrounding room was decorated differently each season. Her stepmother always wished to keep up with the latest trends. Nothing in her room felt like it was hers. It was devoid of anything personal. No portraits of family members, instead it held large paintings of landscapes and portraits of long-dead monarchs.

No, today would remain her secret. Even if she wished to tell, she wouldn't, for she knew she would be thought mad.

Calliope got up from her canopy bed, swiping some silk away to reach the end of the bed. She strode over to the floor-to-ceiling windows on the other side of the room, behind the curtains she saw the full moon high in the sky and it was then she caught her reflection in the crystal clear glass, her breath the only thing causing a mist over it.

She stared at her twin. "From here on out, nothing exciting is bound to happen."