“A natural,” Aris murmurs.
She finds these “naturals” fascinating. They can do extraordinary things they do not remember learning to do. The gifts are usually with art and music. She wonders in which areas of the brain artistic ability resides and why it is safe from Tabula Rasa.
“When’s his next concert?” Aris asks.
“Friday, October third. At Carnegie Hall.”
“I’d like a ticket,” she says.
“It is mostly sold out.”
“Just get whatever’s still available,” she says and swallows the last of her bagel.
“Do you want to know how many entertainment points that costs before I get one?”
“No,” she says. Who cares. Only six months left.
The thought of the next cycle makes her heart flutter with both excitement and dread. A new home. A new life. Who will she be then? She hopes she will like her new name, whatever it may be.
The light from the rising sun hits the dune of salt at the edge of the city, making it shimmer like snow. The byproduct of ocean desalinization. She wonders if one day the mounds will grow tall enough to puncture through the atmosphere. Would she still be here to witness it?
Her watch beeps, tugging her out of melancholy, reminding her of the time.
The cottage smells musty, like fungus and moss—the scent of waterlogged forest floor. Moisture-soaked wallpaper separates from the walls like dirty bandages. The dilapidated roof is held up by vines and ivy. Despite all its faults, it is his sanctuary. Because it’s hers.
She is cloaked in a silvery gown that billows in a nonexistent wind. It looks like a combination of water and air. Her hair is pure white, and her face a landscape of cracked, parched earth. Four well-defined lines are etched like deep scars between her pale eyebrows.
“Hello,” he says, with the familiarity of an old friend.
“Hello, Metis,” the Crone greets, her voice high and whispery like the winter breeze. “How many days?”
It is the same question she asks him every time.
“It’s September twenty-second. One hundred and seventy-nine days before the next Tabula Rasa.”
In half a year, a new cycle will start. Metis feels like a fish in a glass with just enough water to not suffocate. Three and a half years gone. Squandered.
He reminds himself that he did not completely waste the past few years. He has spent them being the Sandman. A purpose that saved him.
“Are you ready for another Release?” the Crone asks.
“Yes,” he says. “But isn’t it cruel with so little time left?”
“There will never be enough time,” the Crone says. “Anyone who wants to remember should.”
“But what’s the point?”
“It’s not up to you to decide whether their memories are worth having.”
Metis knows. His responsibility, the same for all the Sandmen throughout the cycles, is to help those who want to free their dreams. To help them find their way to the Crone. To Absinthe. It is the only tool to take back what has been stolen from them. He can’t help but wonder what his life would have been like had he not been able to remember. The knowledge that somewhere out there the woman he loves is lost in the sea of forgetfulness has brought him nothing but pain.
He feels her stare.
“Something weighs on you,” she says.
He sighs. “It’s just—sometimes I—”
“Wish you didn’t remember?” she asks, taking him by surprise.
She glides to the window, her eyes staring through the grimy glass into the overgrown garden, now covered with a thin layer of fog. He follows her gaze. Shaded by the trees’ dense canopy, the cottage appears to be in perpetual twilight. The setting makes it look otherworldly, as if it were in its own plane of existence.
“I’ve been on this earth a very long time. Longer than I should,” she says. “Would you believe me if I told you I’ve seen more than I wish to remember?”
She turns to him. Her eyes make him feel vulnerable, as if his mind is a house she has full access to. “Life can break your heart. But living it the way you’re forced to—with no memories, no past, no purpose—you’re ghosts of who you’re meant to be. This is no life.”
“But what’s the point of remembering the past if you can’t have it back?”
“You mean have her back?” she asks.
His heart skips a beat. Her. The woman in his dreams. The one he tried and failed to find. The one he sometimes wonders if is simply a figment of his imagination.
The Crone’s wispy figure—a consciousness without body—shifts and changes, struggling between states of existence like evaporating water. For a moment, he thinks she will vanish back into her book. Her mood is unpredictable. But she stays.
“Remember the first time we met?” she asks.
“Of course.”
The day he found her in this crumbling place, his life changed. Before that, she was just a myth among unhappy souls, and he was just a man grappling for light in darkness.
“And do you remember what we talked about then?” she asks.
He nods. Her words have been haunting him.
“In this world—this prison—where the past and the present converge, there’s pain,” she says. “You haven’t experienced agony until you stare into the eyes of someone you love and see no trace of recognition. I’ve witnessed what it can do to a person.”
Her face is a calm pond where sadness swims like fish underneath. She has seen and experienced more loss than Metis can imagine, and he knows he can never truly understand the depth of her suffering.
“I do not wish you that level of pain,” she says. “But more than that, you know confusing the past and the present will lead to our exposure. I’ve seen it happen too many times to count. Absinthe must be protected.”
She walks to him and places her hand on his cheek. Although he cannot physically feel her touch, the gesture makes him feel thin and brittle, like the paper
