In a small office with only one dreary, rain-streaked window, sat a young woman with a small bouquet of blue flowers, perhaps in her late teens. Not a girl anymore, but not quite yet a woman. Her elbows were upon the cluttered desk in front of her, chin cupped in one hand. The walls shook as the train clattered down the tracks around Coldton's main square, the room darkening for a few moments as exhaust smoke filled the window.
Drops of rain slipped from a leak in the ceiling, catching the lamplight like little flames before breaking on the dull wooden floor.
After a sigh, she started to pluck the petals from the bouquet, letting them fall across the papers and books before her like little blue fingers pointing every which way. She did not know where it came from, but somehow it put her at odds.
Her name was Natalie Gorman, and she was what people in her world called a mind weaver, able to weave the memories of others, not unlike altering a gown or rearranging a doll house. If she had her choice, she would of preferred to have been a middle, someone able to see through the veil of the living to the dead, but that gift was inherited, as well as witchery. Mind weavers were far more rare, and that pebble seemed to have skipped across the pond of generations to land into her soul from the moment of her existence. Some would call it a curse, and there were more than enough moments Natalie thought of it that way, too.
But altering memories was not the hard part. Not for Natalie. It was like finding the loose thread and slowly pulling until the whole blanket unraveled. Then she was meant to sew it back, but in a completely different pattern. It was a skill she had since she could recall her own memories. No, the hard part for Natalie was snuffing those memories out completely, as in, destroying the artifacts brought to her by her clients. An old locket, perhaps. A pair of shoes or jacket or porcelain doll. Natalie always felt that in some way, a memory deserved to live on, if only through an object that became the focal point of it all, because in the end, it was only an object, not the memory itself. Which is why she kept a secret cabinet full of all kinds of things. Not to use, or treasure. But remember.
Colette, the mind weaver queen, did not agree, and that was why it was forbidden to keep anything a client left behind. It was for their protection, to snuff out anything they wished to rewrite in their own mind. And it was the mind weaver's job to do this.
Natalie was a very talented mind weaver. She just... broke too many rules.
And she was about to break the biggest one of all. She just did not know it yet.
***
Earlier that day Natalie felt content as a cat, the streets of Coldton unraveling like a ball of yarn as she skipped around others out to enjoy the breezy day, a cup of mint tea in her hand, heat roiling out of the mouth of the lid like the train's chimney, which clattered down the tracks around the square. As she made a short cut through the train station on her way home from some errands, and past the cawing merchants, who shouted and beckoned passersby to take advantage of their wares or fresh fish straight from the river of Winter Wells, someone clamped onto her shoulder. She had turned to see a young man of perhaps her age. He looked somewhat harried, as though she had been the one to seize him, but when their eyes met, he smiled. She searched his face for some sort of explanation.
"Sorry, sir, do I know you?"
His smile slowly faded, and he stepped back. "My apologies. I thought you were someone else."
There was a moment of quiet before he tilted his hat and walked away. Natalie continued at a brisk pace down a narrow cobblestone corner just off the main route. Other than the odd interruption, and scolding herself for thinking her face too common, despite how untrue that was, her morning had gone quite smoothly.
Smoke from the train wafted over the stout flint building she called home, with a dutch slate roof, rounded and chipped from years of weather and inattentive repair. She rented it from a balding man and his wife she was pretty sure wasn't much older than herself. It was a great deal under her budget, which was what she preferred. Far better to have only what was necessary, and save the rest. Her parents had taught her this before they died in a boating accident just off of Pemawick Cove, known for its dangerous tides despite its beauty. Newspapers had called it a Tragic Romantic Getaway.
She wished she could erase this knowledge from her own mind, but even if altering her own memories was not against Colette's law, it would never bring her parents back, only change her memories of losing them. Newspapers and letters would never let her forget that.
Sitting at her desk now, she pulled the last petal from its bud and stood, opening the cabinets behind her desk. She had a black smith make special locks for them, and only one key, which she wore around her wrist on a ribbon at all times. In the first cabinet were tattered photo albums, a porcelain doll, a few pieces of jewelry, handkerchief, and a baby's rattle. The other two cabinets held similar items, large or small, peculiar or beautiful. She was not supposed to keep them. Mind weavers were supposed burn them, but Natalie was no ordinary mind weaver.
These artifacts were all that was left of a memory, one she was asked to weave away. Day by day, month by month, they had become too much for a single box. Soon, even the cabinets would not be enough. She would need an entire room full of shelves, stacked one on top of the other like a cluttered antique store.
She placed the stems with their bare buds on top of an old tin lunch box and closed the cabinet. Plucking off the petals had become an absent-minded habit at her work table. She was not sure where the flowers had come from in the first place. They just started to show up, stuffed inside her mailbox, in her coffee cup, even her coat pocket, all with no note. Assuming it was an admirer, she kept them, if only to remember that someone out there found her pretty.
She pulled her hair into a bun and stuck a pencil through the knot, then got to work on the unorganized papers on her desk. They listed names, dates, and times. In a little section on the far right side of each was a little description like, 'Argument with sister', 'Fired from job', or 'Left her heartbroken'.
These were the types of memories her clients came to her for.
She began to construct letters when there was a tap on the door. "One moment," she said, looking everywhere for the pencil she had forgotten was stabbed through the bun on her head. She gave up and laced her hands together on the desk, wishing she had locked the door, despite her 'Walk-ins Welcome' sign, which was not her idea.
A young woman of Natalie's age stepped in, hair like black silk curtains. She wore a wool coat and boots, holding a stack of envelopes. "You forgot to check your mail... again. Mostly junk, but you had a coupon for your favorite café, so..." In her other hand she held out a white sandwich bag like it was a lantern and smiled proudly. "I also brought you lunch."
"Piper, I thought you were a walk-in."
"You should be used to my random visits by now, Natalie. I am your assistant, am I not?" She grinned and plopped onto the cushions of the leather chair opposite the desk. Then her brows crinkled. "You still like tuna, right?"
Natalie pushed stray locks from her face, still looking for her pencil. "Yeah." She stood, the chair legs squeaking from the desk, and peered around her ankles. Unable to take it another minute, Piper stood, leaned over the desk, and plucked the pencil from Natalie's bun, sending her dark hair plummeting down to her shoulders.
She held it in front of Natalie's wide blue eyes and smiled. "What else is a witch here for, anyway?"
After Natalie took the pencil, face flushed, Piper then opened the lunch bag for her and sat the wrapped sandwich on top of the papers when she noticed the blue petals.
"Lovely color. Where is the rest of it?"
She did not wait for Natalie's answer before cupping her palm against the side of the desk and brushing the petals into it with her other hand. "Tomorrow morning I will buy you breakfast, so long as you remember to meet with me at the merchants' market before the fresh cinnamon buns are all sold out."
"I was in the middle of writing welcome letters and appointments for tomorrow morning when you walked in," Natalie said, unwrapping her lunch and sniffing it. "I have to call the client who argued with her sister. She wants to forget she had slapped her, and stepped on her foot. Lost her temper, is all." Over her first mouthful she added, "I believe it was all over a silly boy."
Piper fiddled with the newton's cradle on the side table next to the leather chair, and watched like a cat as the iron balls on either side swung and collided, clicking until Natalie looked up.
"I memorized the motto." With a sheepish smile, she waited for her friend's response.
Piper whistled. "Impressive. All one line."
Natalie threw the sandwich wrapper at her, but it hardly made it across the desk, and fluttered downward like a snow flake.
"That is surely how you treat a friend out to prevent your starvation!" Piper laughed, then mumbled, "And perhaps sanity." Unrolling a sheet of parchment from her coat pocket, she eyed what looked to be a list. "Still need an antidote for the client who ran into a horse's carriage? I can stop the headaches, make it easier to forget it ever happened." She made a sound of disapproval and made way for the door. "Some of your clients are basket cases, did you know?"
Natalie stood and wiped the crumbs from her dress sleeves, answering only Piper's first question. "Yes, that would be lovely, actually. It really should wrap up sessions with that one."
Piper saluted, the bracelets of healing stones around her wrists clinking like the iron balls on the table. "You got it, then. Call me if you need anything else, perhaps an extra pencil or two. I am heading to Winter Wells. Running low on special herbs, but should be back by tonight. Have to pass that damn Coldton palace. I swear to you, they built it on the main stretch of road so anyone leaving or coming into the city will have to see it." She made a gesture like a thought escaping her head. "Don't forget a storm is rolling in. Did you set up buckets under all the leaks in this old place?"
"I plan to close up early today to do that, actually. No appointments, and I thought I would purchase paint for these walls. How does aqua sound?"
"I thought you liked daisy yellow, or ancient burgundy?"
The young man who had stopped her in the square earlier that day stepped into her line of thought. "I don't know. Aqua suddenly just stands out in my mind."
Piper scratched her chin and looked around. "A bit of personalization would do this place some serious good. You wouldn't want someone to walk in feeling like they are about to trade their soul for a handful of spider webs and dust motes, would you?"
"Pete's sake," Natalie said, and Piper stiffened for a second, watching her closely. "I do not believe trading a memory is anything like trading your very own soul. Piper, you are much too dramatic sometimes."
Piper offered a nervous chuckle as Natalie made a few more marks on the paper she had studied earlier, and then picked up the phone, shaking the cord to untangle it from around the arm rest of her chair while she waited. "Yes, hello, this is Natalie Gorman. Sorry for the delay. Does tomorrow, say eight O'clock, work for you?" There was a short pause. "Great. We will work on weaving this memory. Do not forget to bring the pair of shoes you wore that day." Natalie frowned. "Yes, I am afraid giving them up will help disband the memory. No, thank you. Look forward to your visit."
Piper twirled toward the door, pointing at the ceiling and mouthing the word, "Buckets."
"Well, that depends how you look at it." Before Natalie hung up, she quoted the motto every mind weaver was required to repeat to their clients. "Remember fate shall you forget memories taken like thorns." She did not know what the motto meant, but perhaps one day she would find out.