“You can read messages written in vinegar because they burn faster than the paper they are written on,” Lucy says. “You have to be very careful to heat the paper only just enough to reveal the message but not burn it.”
“How the hell am I supposed to do that?” Benja says, messing his hair with his hand.
“I don’t know. Just try,” Aris says.
“So if I fail, my crane will be ash?” he asks.
“First of all, I found the crane, so technically it’s mine. You’d be burning my crane, yeah. Just be careful.”
Benja looks at Aris with frustration in his eyes. “All right, give me fire.”
She goes to the restroom and brings out a candle she uses during baths. Benja is at her side at once. She places it on the table and lights it, sending the calming scent of lavender into the air.
Benja stares at the flame in dead silence as if seeing a vision in it.
“I can’t do it,” he says finally and thrusts the paper into her hand. “You do it.”
She has never seen him like this. He is usually fearless. She takes the piece of blue paper and holds it over the flame. Benja sucks in a breath. His eyes stare unblinking.
A corner of the paper curls and a burning smell rises. She raises the paper. She needs to find that perfect place between answer and ash. Brown lines slowly appear, one by one, until words form.
Spring flower.
Her breathing stumbles. She almost drops the paper. Benja reaches over with trembling hand and takes it from between her fingers. His face is alight with ecstasy.
“What does it mean?” he says, staring at the words as if they hold the meaning of life.
As Aris looks at him, apprehension rears its head from the pit of her stomach. Her friend’s fanciful fixation is crossing over to something much more intoxicating. Enticing. Real. She feels its strong pull.
“I found her!” Metis says. He can barely contain the excitement in his voice. It took him two weeks to trace her, but he finally did.
The Crone says nothing back. He looks at her, trying to read between the lines on her ancient face. Her ghostly image is the only source of light in the dim cottage—an ethereal being surrounded by dusty shelves and broken chairs. Her eyes are focused on the floor below. He follows her gaze. From this loft, it looks like a pit of darkness. Frustration builds inside him. He wants a reaction or an answer. Something.
“Don’t you have anything to say?” he asks.
Her wispy figure glides to him. Her face betrays no feelings.
“We will need a new Sandman.”
“Why can’t it still be me?” he says.
“Where the past and the present converge, there is pain.”
“You said that but there’s no proof. Why can’t I make it work?”
The Crone studies his face, the same way she does whenever she knows there is more he has left unsaid. “She doesn’t remember, and you want her to take Absinthe, is that right?”
Her aura brightens. He knows he is treading on dangerous ground.
“Just as the Interpreter Center has no right to take away someone’s memory against their will, we have no right to make someone remember,” she says. “If you want her, you must go to her as Metis, the pianist, and leave the rest of you behind. Convince her to fall in love with you, just as you are. It is you who must give up. The past, Absinthe, being the Sandman.”
Metis doesn’t know what to say. He has not even spoken to his wife—her name only recently ceased to be a mystery. Would she—could she—love him without her memories of their life together? He is nothing to her.
The Crone closes the gap between them. “You’re not the first Sandman to be in this predicament. I’ve seen it all before and I know what’s coming. You have to make a choice. The past or the present. You cannot have both or you will risk exposing us all. You know the rule.”
He knows what choice he would make. It would always be Aris—or whatever other identity she will have in the future. Even if there is no guarantee that she would choose him too.
He nods. It is a gesture so slight it could easily be missed. But the Crone knows her Sandman has made his decision.
Chapter Eight
Fall has painted the trees in shades of red, yellow, gold, and brown. Leaves litter the walking path, making it look like an impressionist painting. Aris sits on a bench next to Thane in the park. Across the street from them is the museum, gray like a typical October sky.
“I forgot to ask how your date at Griselda went,” she says. Unless asked, Thane doesn’t share his personal life with her. She wonders if he has friends he talks freely with.
“It was—Let’s just say we weren’t compatible,” Thane says.
“How? The app never fails me.”
“I didn’t use the app,” he says.
“Why not?”
“It just feels so unnatural.”
“It’s a time saver,” she says.
The app makes calculations based on personality and proclivity results from all the tests a person has taken during their lifespan. It matches each person across the entire database of all citizens in all the cities. Then it provides options to pick from, ranking by percentage of compatibility and availability. Easy.
“It just never really worked for me,” Thane says.
“What? Explain.”
“It always wants to match me up with some old scientist/mathematician type.”
“What’s wrong with the scientist/mathematician type?” Aris asks, offended.
“Well, let’s just say you’re an exception.”
“There are plenty of attractive scientists.”
“You’re going to have to introduce me to them then because, obviously, we’re not frequenting the same places.”
“Was she an artist?” Aris asks. Thane had let it slip once that, like her, he has an affinity for the creative type. Perhaps it’s their way of adding unpredictability to their lives.
“A sculptor.”
“Intense?”
He nods.
“We talked about her work for the first half hour,” he says. “Then she refused to discuss the possibility that Rodin’s Thinker
