Page 33 of Vanish

Such a man could never lie to me. Yet the words didn’t ring confidently in my mind. Notwithstanding my assurances, Aira didn’t have any reason to lead me astray with unfounded accusations, leaving me trapped in a labyrinth of confusion.

The beauty of the outdoors was lost to me as I wrestled with the conundrum. Silence stretched around us as Lucien strolled the twisting paths and I floated alongside him, but though much remained unresolved about my circumstances and the nature of our relationship, the silence wasn’t filled with our usual anxiety but instead a comfortable quiet.

I startled as Aira suddenly appeared unseen at my elbow. “This is the perfect opportunity to catch him in his lies; one can only spin their web of deceit for so long before the threads unravel.” She gazed at me earnestly, her eyes begging me to listen.

I didn’t answer lest Lucien hear my response, but Aira sensed my unspoken question in my uncertain glance.

“We only need His Highness to speak of your supposed past courtship and compare his memories against our own.”

“I have no memories,” I reminded her, words that caused Lucien’s brows to draw in concern.

“I wish there was a way I could restore them for you. Perhaps speaking of our past will help you remember.”

I hadn’t meant for my words to serve as a bridge to the test my distrustful handmaiden had in mind for him. I yearned to snatch them back, but Lucien already seemed eager to speak of our forgotten courtship, oblivious to the trap meant to expose him.

Aira snorted. “He’s quite confident to share memories of events that never occurred; he must believe your own recollections have entirely vanished. His promise to help you seems to lack the faith he has the ability to follow through.”

I wished that the curse would snatch her accusations, but it did nothing to stop them from settling upon my fragile heart and taking root. The only force strong enough to weed them out would be memories drawn from my own faded reminiscences.

I took a wavering breath. “I want to remember our courtship.”

He briefly hesitated before giving a soft smile. “I will share whichever memory you wish for me to recount. Is there one in particular you hope to recover?”

I was certain Aira had plenty of ideas for ones that would more easily entrap him, but it wasn’t her memory that had faded except for the select painful patches, though I was unsure which ones I most needed to shade in the missing details.

I looked around the vast grounds in hopes of discovering a fragment of my broken memory amongst the splendor that lingered beyond the curse whose ravaging reach hadn’t yet made its way to the protected capital. “You once mentioned we spent a lot of time walking the grounds? Is there a particular occasion…”

I trailed off when a bend in the path opened up to a small orchard, where a rope swing hung from a large blossoming tree growing in the center. I stilled, captured by a sudden image that caressed my mind—another swing hanging within a secluded garden, its ropes covered in flowers whose sweet perfume filled the gentle breeze, my refuge for when I needed to be alone.

I felt as if this thread of my memories was being connected to something important, but no matter how many times I turned it over in my mind I couldn’t gather any further clues. I tried to coax the reminiscence from its hiding place, but it only retreated back into the fog shrouding my mind.

The act of trying to remember caused pain to pierce my head, a discomfort I was beginning to wonder if it was caused by the strain of being rapped in this state of in-between. I pressed my hand to my brow, but rather than stave the throbbing ache my touch only went through my body, a movement that drew Lucien’s notice. “Are you alright?”

I couldn’t answer, my entire focus on the discomfort I shouldn’t feel without a body, making me wonder whether each gathered piece of my past gradually untangled me from the curse’s coils. I tried to piece together the recollection this location had triggered before it completely slipped away.

“That swing…”

Lucien glanced towards it, apprehensively at first, before the emotion faded into a soft smile. “That seems the perfect memory to begin with. During one of our first tours of the grounds shortly after our engagement, I brought you here and pushed you on the swing.”

I didn’t need to remember this event to know it would have undoubtedly been quite tender. I tried to resist glancing in Aira’s direction, afraid of what her expression would reveal, but the lure of potential answers was impossible to resist. My heart sank at her dark frown, confirmation that this particular memory was a lie.

Pain wrenched my heart, a wound that created an opening for the doubt I’d struggled to keep at bay to enter and threaten to overtake me. I frantically seized hold of the flimsy thread connecting to the memory lapping against my awareness, holding fast to this anchor midst the storm.

“This reminds me of the swing on my own royal grounds. Did I ever show you when you visited me in Thorndale?”

Aira smirked approvingly of what she undoubtedly assumed to be a carefully laid trap, but it wasn’t my intention to trick him. My glimpses of recollection had been enough for me to know that location had been my only childhood sanctuary; whether I’d been brave enough to show Lucien that tender part of my heart would tell me far more about how well our relationship had progressed than the details of our time together.

Though he nodded, he did it with considerable hesitation that left me apprehensive. “That was where we spent the most time together.”

I searched his face, every fiber of my being willing his words to be the truth. Yet with every recollection he shared, none possessed the familiarity I experienced whenever I stumbled upon the hurt and neglect that haunted my past.

As if sensing my doubts, Aira chose this moment to interject. “He’s lying. He scarcely visited, and whenever he did you rarely left the parlor where your sole interaction was to take tea and engage in smalltalk…when there was any conversation at all.”

My heart pounded painfully against my ribs. “Is that true?” I wasn’t sure whether I addressed Aira or Lucien.

Once more his expression faltered before he offered a tentative smile. “Of course. It was the perfect place to get away from the prying eyes of the court in order to capture a private moment together, free from the constraints of title and expectation.”

My memory stirred in recognition of the sentiment. “Yes, even before our courtship the swing found on the Thorndale palace grounds provided solace. I still remember my excitement to finally show you a place so special to me in order to nourish the already tender memories we’d created and grow new ones together.”

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