Chapter 18

February
Lucy's Age: 19

Every single aspect of my life seemed to be defined by how conflicted I was about the things that were the most important to me. Venice had completely disappeared. I'd gone back to Grand Central Station, but the door to the room where Venice had tried to kill me was locked now. I'd tried texting her and calling her, but her number was disconnected now, which just made me feel even worse.

I couldn't just forget the look on her face as she'd tried to kill me, but I likewise couldn't stop missing her. Part of me was convinced that I'd gone too easy on her, that I should have just killed her while she was vulnerable, before she could hurt someone else, but mostly I was just worried that I hadn't done enough, that I should have helped her more than I had.

My feelings for Geoffrey complicated the situation even more. It was impossible for me to think of Venice as some kind of animal that needed to be put down and yet remain convinced that Geoffrey was redeemable.

Either they were both worth saving or neither of them was.

My birthday came and went without another appearance by Geoffrey, which was both good and bad. It was good because I'd realized that I needed some time and space from him if I was going to be able to sort out my thoughts, but bad because I missed him even more than I'd expected to.

I was flying completely blind now. I didn't know if Venice was dead or if she was alive and Imastious was only seconds away from breaking her and setting out to find me. For all I knew Geoffrey was the one on Imastious' torture table.

The only communication I got from either of them arrived the day of my birthday and consisted of a card from Geoffrey. On it he wished me a happy birthday and then at the bottom of the card it had an account number, a password, and a single word of explanation, 'college.'

The account turned out to be one that Geoffrey had set up in my name, and it had half a million dollars in it, which was more than enough to see me through graduate school at any institution I might want to attend.

The money had just muddied the waters for me even more, but I knew that I needed to get some clarity around my situation soon, so I'd done the only other thing I could think of. I'd withdrawn thirty thousand dollars from my secret bank account, the one that Geoffrey didn't know about, and hired a private investigator.

I'd actually considered trying to hunt down Mrs. Agosti before, but had always shied away from the idea for multiple reasons. The payment to the PI nearly wiped out the balance in my account, which was part of it, but mostly it came down to the fact that I was worried I wouldn't like what I'd find out.

Geoffrey had always told me that Mrs. Agosti was alive and happy somewhere else. I was about to find out whether or not he'd lied to me. There were two things that he'd done to me so far that I'd never been able to quite forgive him for. Taking Renworst away from me was the most recent, but it was the one that I already knew I couldn't get resolution on. Renworst was dead, and nothing I could do would bring him back, but Mrs. Agosti was another matter entirely.

She might be dead too, but if she wasn't then I wanted to find her and ask her what Geoffrey had offered her to keep her away from me for all of these years.

The PI found her after only a couple of days. He sent her address over and then all that remained to be done was for me to make the trip.

My freedom to come and go wasn't what it once was, not since Geoffrey had started coming by the apartment so regularly to review the results of my research. Mrs. Phelps had standing orders to tell him that I was in my room napping if he stopped by while I was out, but there was still a pretty good chance that if he did come by unexpectedly that he'd knock on my door and then figure out that I'd gone out the window.

I'd risked a few quick trips lately, but nothing more than an hour or so, nothing even approaching the eight-hour trip that would be required to make it to Mrs. Agosti's house in upstate New York and then return home.

I delayed the trip for two whole days after I knew where she lived. I told myself that I needed to arrange a car, but the truth was that I was scared. Not just of Geoffrey visiting my apartment and figuring out that I was gone, but scared of what I'd find at Mrs. Agosti's place.

The fact that the PI had found her seemed to indicate that she hadn't been killed. That in turn begged the question as to why she'd moved away from the city and never even tried to look for me.

On the morning of the third day I rolled out of bed, told myself to suck it up, and called the car service. Less than an hour later I was on my way upstate.

The drive up took nearly four hours, but I spent the whole time wishing that there was a way to prolong it and put off the time when I'd actually have to confront her. My wishes were just as ineffective as they usually were, and a little after noon the driver dropped me off in front of her house.

Her place was comfortable-looking. It wasn't overly ritzy or ostentatious, but it had a nice feel to it. I knocked on the door and then braced myself when I heard her footsteps make their slow way towards me.

"Yes? Can I help you?"

It was her. She was older than I remembered, in fact it looked like there wasn't much more than willpower and inertia keeping her moving, but it was her. I stared into her eyes, but there was no sign of recognition there.

"You don't recognize me, do you, Mrs. Agosti?"

"No, I'm afraid I don't. Should I?"

My bottom lip started to tremble and there were tears gathering in the corner of each eye, but I shook my head. "No. I don't suppose that you should recognize me. I'm sorry to have bothered you, Mrs. Agosti."

I turned to go, but she reached forward with surprising speed and stopped me. "What's your name, young lady?"

I didn't want to answer her. I had my answer. She hadn't come looking for me because she hadn't remembered me. Geoffrey had destroyed her memories of me just like he destroyed his own emotions whenever they became inconvenient. From Geoffrey's perspective he'd probably been pleased that he'd been able to keep her alive and yet avoided the complications of having her looking for me at some later date.

From my perspective it still felt like he'd killed her. Her body was still walking and talking, and she probably had the same kindly, stubborn nature, but she didn't have any memories of me. The person who'd been my mother for those first few years after Geoffrey had taken me in was dead.

"My name is Lucy."

I tried to pull free of her grasp, but she held on with astonishing strength. "Your name is Lucy? Can you tell me your father's name?"

"It's Geoffrey, his name is Geoffrey."

Her eyes went wide in astonishment and she released my arm, but I no longer felt any inclination to leave.

"It is you. After all this time, you're really here on my doorstep."

"You remember me then?"

She shook her head and then looked past me as though worried that someone would see us together. "Come inside, dear. Come inside where it's safe and I'll tell you all about it."

I followed her into her front room and took a seat on the cream-colored couch as she disappeared into what looked like a bedroom.

"I don't remember you, Lucy. There is a period of approximately three or four years where I don't remember anything from my life. I essentially woke up in a hospital one day and realized that I didn't know how I got there or what I'd been doing with myself for months."

She came back out of the bedroom with a thin, leather-bound book in her arms. "I was able to track down a few old friends and a niece who said that I'd talked to them during the block of time that I no longer remembered, but they weren't able to tell me much other than that I'd taken a job caring for a young girl and that I'd been more secretive than normal."

I accepted the book as she handed it to me, but didn't open it, instead waiting for her to finish talking.

"The doctors told me it was possible that I might regain some of my memories as time went by, but I knew that wouldn't be the case. Even back then I knew that something outside of the normal had happened to me."

She looked incredibly sad. I started to reach out to comfort her like she'd comforted me, but then I remembered that she didn't know me anymore, that she wouldn't welcome comfort from a stranger who had just shown up on her doorstep out of the blue.

"I thought that I'd go through my life without any additional clues as to what had happened during those missing years, but then a few weeks after I got out of the hospital, that book was left on my doorstep. Go ahead, open it."

I wasn't really sure what to expect, but the book still somehow managed to surprise me. It appeared to be a journal, one that was at least a couple of decades old. I flipped through the first half of the book or so, unsure what to expect, and then realized that there was a huge chunk of missing pages in the middle of the book.

"What you see there is how it was delivered to me. I haven't removed those pages, someone else did."

I looked at the last of the entries from the front and did some quick math. Someone, Geoffrey almost certainly, had left the pages from before Mrs. Agosti came to live with us, but had cut out the pages that had covered the time that she had been taking care of me.

I looked at the jagged forest of paper protruding less than a quarter of an inch from the binding and felt tears start to try and work their way free of my eyes again. He might not have meant his gesture to be a quiet form of torture, but it had been. To return Mrs. Agosti's journal after excising all of the sheets that had talked about me was cruel. He'd shown her that there had been written records of her missing time, and then in the same motion he'd snatched those records away.

I flipped to the back third of the journal, expecting to find nothing but blank pages, but there was a single entry just after the section of the book that had been destroyed.

I no longer know what day it is. Sometimes I'm not even sure that I'm still alive. It seems inconceivable that a loving God would let a monster like Geoffrey continue to starve me, to torture me, and to violate my mind like this, but I gave up denying what was happening to me a long time ago.

Geoffrey has stolen Lucy away from me and locked me up, but my efforts to sneak this journal into my cage with me have paid off handsomely. He's doing something to my mind, making it harder and harder to remember her, but I've stretched that process out for weeks by poring over my journal entries whenever he isn't around. Reading about her has helped keep my memories of her alive, but I fear that even so I won't last much longer.

Geoffrey's anger grows in step with the passage of time. He won't release me as long as I can still remember Lucy, and I won't stop fighting his efforts for as long as there is still breath left in my body. At some point in the next few days I suspect that he'll abandon his attempts to wipe out my memory and he'll just kill me. Heaven knows I never expected for him to wait this long.

It strains the limits of believability to think that an inhuman monster like Geoffrey could have any part in raising an angel like Lucy, but I was there and I saw it. As much as I'd like to take all of the credit for Lucy, I can't. Some of her goodness was an inherent part of her nature, and there was some small part that I helped nurture, but she was always happiest and best behaved when Geoffrey spent time with her.

Of all of my regrets in life, taking this job isn't one of them. I only regret that I wasn't able to get Lucy out when I started to suspect just how terrible Geoffrey could be when angered.

I may not get the chance to write another entry, and even assuming that Geoffrey doesn't find my journal after I'm dead, there is still little chance that this book will ever make it into your hands, but if by some miracle it does, know that I loved you.

You were the daughter I never had and I couldn't be more proud of the strides you made during the time you were under my care. It was obvious that you'd suffered a terrible tragedy, but you never let that stop you from loving.

Your innocent heart is your greatest strength and I hope that you grow into being a woman without losing your ability to love, even those who may not deserve it, even tired old women who take nanny jobs with no intention of ever loving another child. You redeemed me, and for a brief time I thought you might even redeem your father.

I looked up from the page with tears in my eyes and found matching drops of moisture running down Mrs. Agosti's cheeks.

"Did I get my wish? You're a beautiful young woman, but have you retained your ability to love?"

"I'm not sure. I think so, but how do I know whether or not it's right to love somebody?"

She shrugged and smiled. "I don't know you anymore, Lucy. All I know of you is what's found on that one worn-out, tired, old page. I don't know your situation, and anything you could tell me would only be colored by what you want to believe."

I opened my mouth to argue with her, to plead for her advice, but she shook her head at me. "I do know this though, Lucy. In all my years, this cynical old woman has never written in such a fashion about anyone or anything else. If Michelangelo walked up to you and asked whether or not it was a good idea to begin a certain project, it would be the height of hubris to tell him yes or no. There is a level of genius that defies any mere mortal to instruct the holder in their use."

She reached out and took my hand in one of hers as she reached into her pocket with the other and pulled out an envelope which she pressed into my fingers. "Take this home with you. As much as I'd love to stay and spend more time with you, I've got somewhere I'm supposed to be soon. You'll know your path as it's placed before you; and like all great artists, you'll create something exquisite where others see nothing but the mundane. I can't direct you in your efforts any more than I would want to distract you from them."