“I need to talk to my Aunt Memory,” I said, trying to sound calm, reasonable, unfazed. My voice shook. I sounded terrified.
The guard tilted his head to the side, studying me. I studied him back. He was older than the other guard. Hints of gray shone through his blue-black hair and streaked his beard.
Blue-black hair. I’d never met anyone with hair like mine before, but his was. My heart thumped. The hair proved something; this guard and I were connected somehow. But was he my bodyguard or my jailer? That was the more important question.
“You stay” the guard finally said. “There.” He pointed, as if he didn’t trust me to understand his English. “I go. Get her.’
I retreated, not willing to test them. I saw no evidence that either of them carried a gun, but there were two of them and one of me. If I tried to make a run for it, I probably wouldn’t even make it to the stairs.
“Okay,” I said. “Could you please hurry?”
The older guard started walking down the hall, glancing back cautiously every few paces. I did not shut the door. I looked at the other guard.
“You are Crythian, right?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Do you understand when I speak in English?” I asked.
“Understand, yes,” he said. “Make words me, bad.”
It took me a while to interpret that. His apologetic expression helped.
“You mean, you can understand English better than you can speak it?”
He nodded again. This was not very helpful.
“I don’t remember any Crythian,” I said.
He shrugged. A red blush crept up his cheeks, a strange sight. He was embarrassed for me. Good grief. He was acting like he’d seen me naked or something.
“Could you teach me some Crythian words?” I asked.
Now he shifted on his feet and looked around, as if longing for the other guard to come back.
“It is easy to learn,” he said. “It is hard to forget.”
Why would I bother learning it if I wanted to forget?
I didn’t know what to say after that, and the guard didn’t seem to either. He stared straight ahead, his eyes fixed on a point on the opposite wall. If Aunt Memory was right, he was going to remember that little patch of rose wallpaper the rest of his life.
Ridiculous.
I heard footsteps on the stairs then. The older guard was coming back, with Aunt Memory walking regally behind him.
When they reached my doorway, the guard humbly stepped back, letting her past. She looked at me coldly.
“Well?” she said.
“I have questions,” I said. “I need to know—everything. You told me that after the speech you would explain—” I stopped. It was hard to keep talking to someone whose face was so set.
Aunt Memory looked from one guard to the other. She frowned warningly at them, then stepped into my room and shut the door behind us. I went to sit at the small round table where we’d had breakfast, but she kept standing. After a moment I stood back up too.
“Crythians do not ask questions,” she said. “It is not proper. You are a disgrace to Crythe.”
“How was I to know?” I begged. “I wasn’t raised in Crythe. It’s natural for me to wonder”
“I told you what you needed to know last night,” she said. “I tolerated your questions then, because of your ignorance. But after this morning—” She gave me a bitter grin. “Why should I answer your questions when you do not believe me?”
“I didn’t say that!” I protested.
“‘All I have to go on is what you told me,’” she said, exactly mimicking the words I’d spoken barely an hour earlier.
“I didn’t—that’s not what I meant,” I said lamely. “It’s just … you didn’t tell me enough. I need to know all about Crythe and the people here, so I can think about it, figure out my own viewpoint, make my own decisions.”
I could tell making your own decisions was about as popular in Crythe as asking questions. Aunt Memory had stiffened even more, if that was possible.
“Tell me about Mom. Sophia,” I said quickly. “Who was she in Crythe? Did she know my parents? How did she kidnap me? Why?”
“Give the speech first,” Aunt Memory said. “The proper speech I prepared for you.”
“Why is it so important that I say those exact words?” I asked.
Aunt Memory just looked at me. Waiting.
I am not a resolute person. I’m not the type to stand up for myself. I’ve mostly glided through life doing what people expect me to do. Why had I picked today to develop backbone?
Maybe it was because of that patronizing way Aunt Memory kept looking at me. I didn’t want to be the kind of person who deserved that look.
“No,” I said. “I can’t give that speech until I understand what it means. And if it means something I don’t agree with … well, then, I’m sorry.”
“Sophia’s life is not worth anything to you?”
“No, I didn’t say that,” I wailed. “But the way you’re setting this up—it isn’t fair. It’s blackmail.”
“I see,” Aunt Memory said quietly. “Come with me, then.”
I followed her out of the room, past the guards, down the hall. I didn’t know where we were going, and I didn’t ask. I felt like I’d won our little war of words, though. I almost expected to be led into a library, lined with shelves of books titled Secrets of Crythe. And soon I would know all those secrets.
Aunt Memory began climbing down the stairs, with me on her heels. The carpet was soft and plush and luxurious; either the Crythians had had a lot of money when they’d left their old village, or they’d made a lot once they came to California. But what was there to make money at, out here in the middle of nowhere?
We were on the first floor now. Aunt Memory didn’t speak. She led me back to the kitchen and to a strange door. I thought perhaps it led to the backyard, but stairs gaped up at us as soon as she opened the door. Aunt Memory began climbing down, into a basement. She pulled the chain hanging from a single lightbulb overhead. The basement was huge but bare, totally empty, just cinder-block walls and a concrete floor. I looked around, bewildered, wondering why she’d brought me here. There wasn’t a single Secrets of Crythe book in sight.
Aunt Memory motioned me over to a door on the far wall.
“What—,” I started to ask, but she put her finger to her lips.
She unlocked the door with a key she drew out from her skirt pocket. It was dark beyond the door, but Aunt Memory gave me a little shove forward. I stumbled into the darkness. Aunt Memory switched on the light.
And there, lying on the floor, was Mom.
Twenty-One
SHE SEEMED TO BE SLEEPING, HER HEAD ON A PILLOW ON THE FLOOR, her gray hair loose and flowing over her shoulders like a blanket.
“You found her!” I raved. “You got her back from the kidnappers! How?” I didn’t wait for an answer. “Mom! Mom! Are you okay? Wake up! I’m here! Kira! You’re safe now!”
I could have done a dance, right there on the concrete, I was so overjoyed. Mom and I were together again, we could go back to Willistown now, never have to worry about crazy Crythe again. I didn’t care anymore about the past or my real parents or my—what had Aunt Memory called it?—my heritage. It was all too confusing, and it didn’t seem to matter much. Not to me, anyway.
Mom’s eyelids fluttered, and the sight sent a jolt of relief through my body. Belatedly, I realized: Lying like that, she could have been dead. But she wasn’t; she was opening her eyes now, staring up at me. Why was she lying on the floor in this little room? I didn’t want to think about it. I bent over and grabbed her hand—never mind that neither of us was big on all that touchy-feely stuff. I grabbed her hand and practically clutched it. Mom’s eyes focused on my face.
“Oh no,” she said. “You.”
The words chilled me. I didn’t want to understand them.
“Now, that’s a fine greeting,” I chided her jokingly. “I come all this way to rescu
e you, and that’s the thanks I get?”
Mom kept staring at me.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s get you out of here.” I put my arm under her neck and started to lift her up. I don’t know what I had in mind—maybe one of those hero moments, a firefighter carrying an unconscious victim out of a burning building, a police officer pulling an injured child from a car wreck. I just knew: Aunt Memory and I were going to save Mom.
That’s when I heard the click of the door latch behind me. And then … a key in the lock, turning. Locking us in.
“No!” I wailed.
I sprang back to the door, grabbed the handle, turned with all my might. Or tried to. It didn’t give. I pounded my fists on the door, screamed as loud as I could, “Aunt Memory! Aunt Memory! Let us out!”
I went hoarse, screaming. I don’t know when I would have stopped, except that I felt Mom’s hand on my head, stroking my hair.
“Oh, Kira,” she said. “Oh, Kira.”
I slumped against the door. Mom sat beside me, both of our backs against the unyielding metal.
“We’re both prisoners now, aren’t we?” I whispered.
Mom nodded. She wouldn’t look at me. She just kept staring out at the tiny, bleak room.
“For the last two days,” Mom said slowly, “the only thing that’s kept me going is thinking about you, safe at Lynne’s house. I’ve imagined you laughing and talking and eating those horrible Fritos and Chee-tos and M&M’s, and drinking Coke, and thinking the biggest worry in the world is what grade you got on your geometry quiz….”
“Mom,” I protested, “even if I’d gone to Lynne’s, I would have been worrying about you. I wouldn’t have been able to laugh at all.”
“Really?” Mom said, and she sounded surprised.
“Oh, Mom, of course,” I said. “You’re my mother.” The word echoed a little in the empty room. I froze. I’d forgotten what Aunt Memory had told me about my true parents. But how could I believe Aunt Memory now? Probably every word she’d spoken to me had been a lie. I wanted to ask Mom, just to be sure, but the words stuck in my throat.
Mom saw the confusion on my face.
“You know, don’t you?” she asked quietly.
“Know what?” I said automatically. This was the voice I used to cover all my transgressions: “Curfew? What curfew?” “The last cookie? I didn’t know there was only one left.” “Parental permission slip? Was I supposed to have one of those?”
My voice of fake innocence sounded unnatural and entirely out of place in this empty room. This cell.
Mom was shaking her head.
“I think it is time for both of us to stop pretending,” she said. “If I had told you the truth years ago …”
“What? I would have been prepared to be kidnapped?” I asked. “Hey, maybe you should have sent me to some sort of training, ‘How to Be a Good Kidnap Victim.’ I’m sure they offer it at the Willistown Y.” I wanted Mom to laugh, but I’d forgotten again that Mom was my original kidnapper. Mom only looked grim.
“Mom, I still don’t know much,” I said. “Just what Aunt Memory told me. But she didn’t like it when I asked questions, and I kept asking questions anyhow!”
That’s when Mom smiled.
“Good for you,” she said.
“Yeah, but that’s when she brought me here,” I said. “And I wouldn’t give the exact speech she wanted me to give, begging for your release.”
Now alarm crept over Mom’s face.
“What was in the speech?”
I told her everything I could remember. Mom just kept shaking her head.
“They’re playing quite a game here,” she murmured. “But you didn’t say any of it?”
I shook my head emphatically. I told her what I’d said instead. She looked embarrassed.
“Well, um, thank you,” she said, avoiding my eyes. “I didn’t really know that you, um, loved me.”
I got choked up and couldn’t answer.
“Kira?” Mom said. “I shouldn’t be, but I’m glad you’re here with me.”
And then I totally lost it and sobbed again, burying my face against Mom’s shoulder.
Mom patted my back and murmured, “There, there, everything’s okay,” which was a lie, and both of us knew it. But it was still exactly what I wanted to hear. I probably sobbed longer than I needed to, just so Mom would keep comforting me.
Then I realized she’d stopped saying, “There, there,” and was murmuring other words, practically to herself.
“… she had to have known that would hurt me most of all, pretending to be your Aunt Memory. To hear that name again, you screaming it, to her—”
“Mom?” I sat upright. “What are you talking about?”
“The lies you were told,” Mom said. “Kira, it is true that I’m not your mother. But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t have the right to take you away from Crythe. You see … I’m your real Aunt Memory”
Twenty-Two
I STARED INTO MOM’S FACE. NO—MY TRUE AUNT MEMORY’S FACE. No—Sophia’s. I didn’t know what to call her anymore, but this white, worried face in front of me was so familiar, I couldn’t believe that names mattered.
“Explain,” I said tersely.
Mom looked down at the concrete beneath us, and for a minute I was afraid that, after everything that had happened, she was still going to stonewall me. But then she looked straight at me and grimaced.
“I don’t know where to start,” she admitted.
“Aunt Memory—I mean, the woman who told me she was my Aunt Memory—she started with the Romans,” I said. All these switched identities were too confusing. I had a mom who wasn’t my mother, an Aunt Memory who wasn’t my aunt, a mom who really was my Aunt Memory…. And to think, some of my friends back home thought their families were complicated just because they had a stepparent or two.
“The Romans? She would,” Mom said bitterly. “Her real name is Rona Cummins, and she’s not even Crythian. Or wasn’t, to start out with.”
I must have looked confused already because Mom laughed.
“Okay” she said. “The Romans. That’s the legend, that Crythe was started by a noble, highly advanced group of Roman citizens fleeing the fall of the empire. But there’s no proof, of course, because it’s all oral history. Nothing was ever written down. I’ve suspected, since I left Crythe and became more, uh, cynical, that that’s just a story someone chose to tell. If you don’t know who your ancestors are, why not claim someone impressive, make yourself feel good?”
“But is it true or not?” I asked impatiently.
“Who knows?” Mom said. “The legend was passed down for generations, and so it’s what Crythians remembered about themselves. So maybe it sort of became true, for Crythians.”
I rubbed my forehead. Mom’s explanation was going to be hard to follow.
“Crythe—the original Crythe—was high up in the mountains,” she said. “It was achingly beautiful—oh, if you could see those peaks, covered in snow! Even a non-Crythian would not be able to forget Crythe. But it was not an easy place to live. For centuries, I think, people barely got by, barely managed to eke out an existence.”
“Why didn’t they just leave?” I asked.
“Oh, Kira, you are such an American,” Mom said scornfully.
I felt scolded, put down.
“It’s not my fault,” I protested. “You’re the one who made me an American. Right?”
Mom shook her head, but she looked amused.
“I deserve that,” she said. “But you are so much what you are that I’m not sure you can understand Crythians. Americans believe that if you’re not happy where you are, you pack up, you move, you go somewhere better. Or you go through a twelve-step program, you improve yourself. You leave the past behind. You think you’ve got a right to happiness, and you’re going to make yourself happy even if it kills you.”
“You’re an American too,” I pointed out.
Mom shrugged. “Maybe,” she said. “I t
hink I’m still more of a Crythian. Crythians believe in the past. They believe in memories. They do everything for memory, not for happiness.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” I said, not interested in all this philosophizing. What about my parents? What about my kidnapping? But I was still curious about one other detail. “Aunt Mem—I mean, Rona—told me Crythians remember everything that ever happens to them. But that’s not possible, is it?”
“Probably not,” Mom admitted. “From the beginning, I think there were always details that Crythians forgot. The things that nobody cared about—the angle at which each blade of grass grew, the exact placement of each button in a button box—what did it matter if we remembered or forgot? But Crythians did have good memories. One Crythian left early in the twentieth century, and he created quite a stir, out in the Soviet Union. He worked as a journalist, and he could remember every interview without taking a single note. He did vaudeville-type shows, memorizing long strings of numbers or words and reciting them back perfectly. What he did was nothing a five-year-old Crythian couldn’t do, but the rest of the world was amazed. He was written up in psychology texts. They called him ‘S.’” The problem was, once he’d memorized all those meaningless numbers and words, he couldn’t get them out of his mind. And so the psychologists taught him to forget.”
Mom looked sad all of a sudden, and I couldn’t think why.
“And then?” I prompted her. I was getting stiff sitting on the cold floor. I shifted around, trying to sit sideways, but there was no way to get comfortable on the bare concrete.
“S was probably the reason Crythe came to the attention of the Soviet government. Or maybe not. It was years later, during the height of the Cold War … When they came to Crythe, they didn’t explain. But since I left, I’ve done research. I read everything I could find about S. And I can just picture some Soviet leader coming across reports of his amazing feats, saying, ‘Eureka! This has military applications!’ Back then, that’s all the Soviets and the Americans ever thought about, the military and having better weapons than the other side.”
She was confusing me. “Since when is memory a weapon?” I asked.