| |
FAKE MEMORIES
––––––––
GRIFFIN’S GAZE SENT shivers down her spine, along with everything else he had implied.
“So, you think I’m some mythical, missing child?” Savara thought back as far as she could, to the day she’d first arrived at her uncle’s house. Even the timeline fit. Supposing what Griffin said was true, it could be the reason she didn’t remember her childhood.
“It would at least explain what a child from this world was doing in that one,” he said. “Something which I can assure you is not common.”
“But it doesn’t explain why I can’t remember anything at all.” Savara frowned, irritated by what he was insinuating. Part of her resonated with the explanation, a part of her that called back the memory of her parent’s death. It came in flashes again—the rain, the shivers, the cold—and a new, menacing voice that whispered her name. Maybe there was more to the memory than she’d allowed herself to believe.
“I can’t speak to your loss of memory, but I might know where to find them. I believe if we take you back to the place where you grew up, we might be able to stimulate some sort of recognition.”
“I still don’t understand why I would be sent away. I mean, there must have been someone in this world that could’ve taken me in when they passed.”
Griffin avoided her gaze. Savara sensed a stray ripple of guilt drifting around him. “Your parents weren’t dead then, or at least not both of them.”
It took Savara a moment to process what he’d said, as though he’d spoken it in another tongue. All this time, she’d grown up thinking she was an orphan, when in fact, she was just unwanted. She had a family who sent her away. Her jaw slackened as she replayed his words over in her mind.
Frustration laced her voice as she spoke. “They sent me away...” she hissed, latching on to those words as though they were life preservers and she was drowning.
For the first time since they’d met, Griffin looked as though he understood pain, as though he too battled with demons, but he didn’t understand the ramifications of what he was saying.
“That doesn’t make sense. Why would parents send away their own child?” Savara recoiled, pushing herself further back into the chair. A fluster grew on her face. “What’s wrong with me?” Her parents had left her in the hands of a man she’d never met a world away from the only life she’d ever known and lied to her about how she’d come to be there. Savara found she could no longer meet his eyes without wanting to cry.
Griffin reached over for her hand again, this time patting it gently between his. “Your mother did it for your protection.” He pulled a letter from under one of the maps. “Here,” he said, resting it in her hands. “This explains what she did, sending her child away in hopes it would be protected from what she feared would become of this world and for the child’s own safety, in case something should happen to Hyrum and her child—you—needed to be brought back.”
“Protected?” she said in no more than a whisper.
Griffin nodded. “They made up the story of your parents’ death to keep you from wanting to return.”
Savara clenched her fists. The pressure building in her jaw could break through bone. “Has everything in my life just been one lie after another?” she spat. “Why make me believe I was all alone in the world? Why send me away?” Waves of anger rolled through her body.
“You were twelve, Savara. There were things you didn’t know—couldn’t know. If you had stayed, you would’ve been killed, or worse. Sooner or later, someone would’ve come for you. Is that the life you would’ve chosen for yourself? You should be happy.” The softness in his voice turned to bitterness while a vein pulsed steadily at his temple. “You were sent somewhere you could grow. Somewhere you could live unaffected by all of this. You were protected.”
“I didn’t ask to be protected!” she yelled. Somewhere in the darkness of the room, a bird ruffled its feathers. “Let’s stop pretending. I’ve heard enough lies to last a lifetime... And imagine, in my case, that’s not just a figure of speech.” Savara rolled her eyes and began to storm off when he caught her firmly by the wrist. She glowered furiously at him, waiting to be released.
“I apologise,” he said, releasing his grip. “They were wrong to have left you in the dark.” He searched for the words to ease her pain. “I would have given you the choice like I did when bringing you back.”
“Maybe Jasper was right. It wasn’t a choice at all.” Savara wanted her words to sting, for him to feel as rotten as she did, to hurt as she did. She knew it wasn’t his fault, but the people who made the decision in the first place were no longer around, and she needed to take it out on someone from this world. Some vicious part of her hoped it would make up for the anger, the frustration, the emptiness. It didn’t, it only hurt more.
“Savara, you don’t believe that.”
“Who are you to tell me what I believe?”
Griffin sighed. “No one, but I do know what it is to hurt, to let hatred fester and consume you. Whatever you may feel now has nothing to do with how you felt then, and back then, I saw a panicked girl with very few options. Be honest with yourself, knowing what you do now, would you have chosen differently?”
Savara didn’t answer. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of being right, but in her heart, she knew he was. He could’ve told her she’d be made to work picking up animal waste and she’d still have said yes, if only to escape that house, the corpses, and the life that no longer existed.
“Why am I here, Griffin?” Her eyes grew red holding back tears of anger that she wouldn’t let fall. Savara had no idea how much time had passed since she’d entered the tent, only that her very soul ached.
“Unlike what you must imagine, you weren’t unloved, quite the contrary. Your mother wouldn’t have sent you away for nothing. She was too smart, too cunning to have sent you away on the mere threat of an attack.”
“How would you know?”
“...I knew her, once,” but his explanation halted at that.
Savara searched his face for something more than the creative truths he spoke, but his mouth was a steel vault, and whatever more he had to say remained locked away in his mind, leaving her to wonder. Griffin, she realised, was a man of convenience—his own convenience. Men of convenience set her on edge because, like with Griffin, there was always more to the story than they would let on. This mixture of half-truths and evasions was beginning to make her dizzy.
“Why then would she send me away?”
Griffin pressed his lips into a fine line, a deep wrinkle forming between his brows. “I was hoping you might know.”
“I’ve already told you, Griffin, I don’t remember anything.”
I do, called a voice from somewhere across the room. The sound was so faint that Savara almost mistook it for the rustle of the tent walls. I do, it whispered again. Savara’s eyes fixated on the dagger—the glittering shadow blade embedded in the table. How easily it had pierced the wood, how easily it would pierce other things, she thought, though it worried her slightly that such a morbid thing should cross her mind. It didn’t entirely feel like her own thought, but it definitely happened in her head. The rage in her cooled, replaced by curiosity as the same sinister voice rang in her head, I see you, I feel you, take hold and I’ll heal you. Savara blinked, wondering if she’d truly heard it speak when the voice came again. I know you, I’ll show you, take hold and see what I do. Savara reached out to touch it, entranced by its strange calling, but Griffin stepped between, staring back at her with a furrowed brow.
“I figured a trip to your homeland might jog your memory,” he replied. The whisperings stopped abruptly as, behind his back, the knife disappeared.
“Again with this home thing,” she replied impatiently, trying to peer behind him to get another glimpse of it. He made irritatingly sure that she couldn’t see past him, that he should be the focus of the conversation. “How can you even be sure there’s anything to find?”
“I’m not. But it’s the only lead I have. It’s the only way you’ll truly get your answers.”
Answers. Savara met his eyes again. They looked sincere, but so did his frown. She knew she would have to confront her past eventually, but she feared what might come of it. She bit into her lip and sulked. What if she didn’t like who she turned out to be? Still, she needed to know. Even a world away she’d felt called to this place. Now, she just might find out why. But if she was going to trust him, there was one last question she had to ask. It hadn’t sat right with her from their first encounter, and it didn’t sit right with her now.
“Fine, I’ll go, but tell me one thing first.”
Griffin eased his shoulders and nodded; his unrelentingly blue eyes bore into her soul.
“The day I met you, you called me by my name. How did you know?”
A smile tugged at his lips. “I said I didn’t remember your divination. I never said I didn’t remember you.”
