VICIOUS (II) : peter pan ouat

How to Find a Memory

He grins, but shrugs. "I'm better now that I've found people. I was walking in that forest alone for weeks."

Right he was. "Well, you had that other boy with you, right?"

"Rufio?" Jared asks. "That boy sure is an odd one. Knows who I am, but I've never seen him before in my whole life."

His southern accent is much stronger now that his memory is gone. It was probably worn away by all the years he spent here.

"He's an odd fellow." I tell him. "Seems to be convinced a lot of people are a lot of people. Maybe you look like a different boy."

"Named Jared?" He laughs. "Why, you people sure are funny."

I shrug. "You get used to it."

"You've got your own little slice of heaven, you know." He smiles. "Running around, just playing, no cares in the world. Sorry if I'm forward miss, but you are wearing pants and everything."

I wonder how old he is. He came just after Alex, who came between the titanic and the First World War. He must've came sometime in the early 1910s then, maybe only a year after Alex.

"We're a little bit different up here." I tell him.

"This is Canada, right?" He asks. "I've heard a lot about it up here you know. I knew that whites and coloured people were allowed to walk together free up here, but I didn't know woman could wear pants."

Woman didn't typically sport pants as fashion back in the 1910s in Canada either. That didn't happen until at the earliest the 1920s, but more so in the 1930s. No point in telling him that though.

His use of the word coloured makes me feel weird, but I understand it's from his time. There is no excuse for people back home to use that word, no matter how old they are. However, Jared is plucked directly out of the beginning of the 20th century, so I think it's forgivable.

"We normally say black people up here." I say. "Most people find it rude to be called coloured."

He wipes his hand on his sheets. "That's good. Your people worked hard to make them safe, and I can appreciate that. My grandfather helped with the Underground Railroad, you know."

That would've been pre the civil war, maybe early 1860s at the latest. Given that he's from the South, I'm a little surprised he's not a racist.

Maybe if I get him to figure out how he got here, it'll cure his memory. He'll be able to piece together the pieces and he'll remember me and all of this as well.

"Can I tell you a story?" I ask.

He nods, leaning forward for me to continue.

Now, to come up with a bullshit story. The best lies are woven in with the truth.

"I was a bastard child." I tell him. "My mother fled her home to safety. Her parents were going to kill me, you see. They didn't like my father see, and wouldn't give him my mother's hand, and when they found out she was with child..."

I don't continue, trying to play up the story. In truth, I don't know any of my family except my mother. She never told me what happened to any of them.

"She then married another man, who pretended I was his own child to keep face with the new place she lived. He and my mother had another child, my younger sister. She passed in childbirth."

I let my voice slip, giving way to a mid-western accent every few words. I grew up in Northern Michigan before we moved to Maine, and as such I sound more like your typical American than anything else. Being around so many mid-westerns, like Johnny, has made me able to imitate the accent with ease.