Page 41 of Vanish

However, when I viewed his hesitancy another way, I realized that it was a sign of caring—instead of taking advantage of my lost memories to force a kiss upon me before I was ready, he was allowing me to decide which memories I wanted to create for our future together.

Being the one to lean in would require courage I wasn’t sure I possessed. I’d spent my entire life paralyzed by fear—whether in submitting myself to Father’s dictates without ever standing up for myself or my own desires, or in remaining trapped by uncertainty for my unknown future. Could someone as passive as me really seize hold of the love I desperately wanted to be real?

Once upon a time I hadn’t believed I possessed such strength, but however our relationship would eventually unfold, in this moment it had become my most precious treasure, especially for how it had changed me. Each time I defied the invisibility rendered by the curse to become more a part of the visible world where Lucien dwelled, I was taking back the control that had eluded me for so long.

With a wavering breath I leaned closer and grazed his mouth with mine. I didn’t expect to feel his lips but they felt solid beneath mine, allowing us to connect. His breath caught before he kissed me back, a touch that was as uncertain as mine, yet earnest and infinitely gentle.

“Lisette…” A heartfelt plea cradled my name in the brief moment he pulled away to snatch a much needed breath, a sound that reached deep within me to enfold my heart. “I love you. Stay with me. Please.”

While I still didn’t possess the words to return his heartfelt declaration, in this moment no force—whether a curse or my Father’s iron will—would be strong enough to pull me from his side…at least that’s what I believed until everything suddenly unraveled from the most unexpected source.

The amulet I wore around my neck—until now as immaterial as my nearly vanished body—suddenly pulsated with heat. My new solid form allowed me to graze the stone embedded into the medal, causing a surge of magic to emanate. I gasped as a mysterious force reached inside my mind, searching until the magic pressed against an invisible wall in my mind to finally unlock my lost memories.

CHAPTER18

My amulet warmed and tingled against my touch, as if stirring from its previous dormancy to pulse with power that seemed to reach inside me, a key to unlocking the chest preserving my inaccessible memories. I gasped as recollection washed over me like a released tidal wave—some came in fragments that assaulted my mind too quickly for me to piece them together, others came in longer stretches of detail woven to create patchworks that, with effort, finally formed a complete picture.

I felt I was embarking on an internal journey, each memory serving as a signpost chronicling my life. Rather than revisiting my lost memories like one might a collection of stories or viewing them as one might the paintings in a gallery, I seemed to be transported back in time to when they’d unfolded to relive them in painstaking detail.

When my recollections had been hidden behind a veil of forgetfulness, I’d been free to imagine possibilities for what they contained. But now that I was finally forced to face them, rather than the glimmer I’d hoped to discover, they only confirmed that most of my life had been cast in shadow.

There were too many for me to revisit them all at once, so I paused on a select few, beginning with one from my childhood when my dreams for love had first been kindled—a time when even midst my sad life I’d still been able to maintain a sliver of innocence, my only shaft of light before it too was eventually extinguished.

The memory I chose gradually came into focus like stilling ripples of a pond, allowing me to see the details reflected back. The image of a young girl around seven or eight years old rose to the surface; she sat curled up on a window seat in one of the palace’s abandoned rooms where I’d often spent my days.

Even when I hadn’t had a firm grasp on the harsh whispers and judgmental stares of the court that followed me like slinking shadows, I retreated into whatever secluded nook and cranny I could find, my childish attempts to find refuge wherever I could.

On this particular day, my hiding place was discovered by none other than Father. He greeted me with his usual contemptuous look, his hardened expression condemning as he slowly took in my dolls carefully arranged around my table laden with tea as well as the small stack of fairytales I’d spent the morning reading.

“I’ve already indulged you enough by tolerating your existence; it’s high time you stopped these foolish pursuits. How do you expect to one day make yourself useful through an advantageous match if you continue wasting your time on idle play, especially when you have neither beauty nor charm to recommend you?”

I froze, unable to move or respond, which only seemed to anger him further. Without another word, he motioned to his accompanying guard. In one swift move, the guard swept my tea arrangement off the table, causing the porcelain cutlery to shatter. Apparently Father couldn’t stoop so low as to punish me himself, meaning I wasn’t even worth the attention brought by his ire.

I gaped at the broken china and the tea splotching the once immaculate tablecloth, each shattered fragment representing a piece of my life…something in that moment I could never hope to repair, especially when it’d been broken by the man who exerted such influence, the man who should have nurtured and protected me from the world’s censure. The moment he left I retreated to the swing hidden deep within the palace grounds, where I fought against the tears burning my eyes until I had no emotion left.

I slowly swayed back and forth, the motion as close as I could come to a mother’s comforting rocking of her small child. I gazed up, my eyes tracing the graceful daffodils that twined around the ropes, taking some small measure of solace in their quiet beauty and cheerful golden hue. The sharp pain in my chest gradually faded to a dull ache as I lightly traced the delicate petals, admiring the veins that ran through them like tiny brushstrokes.

An idea arose as I bent closer to memorize the delicate details. Perhaps I could request some paints and attempt to recreate this beauty in a more permanent form than the transient blooms. My fingers tingled with the desire to grasp a brush and copy my favorite flowers; maybe in exploring color and texture in seeking to add beauty to the world, I could find comfort and meaning even midst my current hopelessness.

No sooner had the wish appeared than I knew it was impossible. Father would never allow such an impractical pursuit; even if I were able to secretly obtain supplies, he would inevitably find out, and any art I attempted to create would only meet the same destruction as my shattered tea party.

I tucked that dream into a hidden corner of my heart—the only place it could stay beautiful and untarnished—and vowed never to show it to anyone who hadn’t earned my trust. Bit by bit I added other dreams to my secret treasure chest: beginning with the childhood desire for parents who loved me, then friends I could confide in, and finally shy girlhood imaginings of a kind, loving man who would someday see my true self and earn the key to my locked heart.

From that day forward, all my toys and frivolous books were confiscated; in their place I had a strict tutor who kept me busy all hours of the day learning courtly etiquette, feminine accomplishments which did not include any of the art I yearned to study, and some foreign policy that excluded any actual affairs of the country—the fine line of being educated enough to be marketable on the marriage mart, but not enough to be of any actual use to the household I married into.

The seemingly endless hours of study gradually took a toll on my health, but I pushed forward, desperate to earn some form of affection that always felt entirely elusive. My mother didn’t exist outside the scandal-laden whispers I sometimes overheard from the servants despite the topic being banned. At that time I didn’t fully understand the words that haunted me wherever I went—illegitimacy,mistress,common born,imposter—I only knew that they kept me separate from the rest of my family.

The tainted words acted as binding chains, serving not only the reason for the queen’s hatred and my brother’s frequent distance, but impenetrable barriers to my father’s love. I felt I’d committed a grave crime in his eyes that I could never hope to overcome, yet that didn’t stop me from striving to be the perfect royal in a desperate attempt to fit into the world that the circumstances surrounding my birth kept me forever ostracized from.

The secrecy shrouding my birth meant that outside my secluded haven in the garden, I scarcely ever left the palace throughout my childhood so as to keep my illegitimacy as hidden as possible for when the time came to arrange my marriage. This added pressure for whenever I did venture into public deepened my feelings of unworthiness and caused me to withdraw even more.

This memory eventually faded, allowing me to drift along the gallery displaying an exhibition of my recollections and emotions until I paused in front of the next one of interest—the day Father had informed me of my engagement. I’d spent my entire life harboring secret fantasies of a fairytale future where a prince would take me away from my dreary life and finally provide me with the love I lacked.

When I’d grown old enough to fully understand the implications brought by my birth, I realized that my secret wishes were nothing more than fruitless dreams kept locked away without any hopes of them actually coming true—finding happiness in my marriage felt as faraway as the stars. No respectable family would ever align themselves with someone possessing my tainted background…or so I believed until one fateful afternoon Father summoned me to inform me he’d created an arrangement with the Crown Prince of Brimoire.

Shock stilled my thoughts at the name of the man Father had arranged a marriage with—not one of his corrupt advisors or an aging noble of a backwards province, but aprince; and not just any prince but a future king near my own age.

Father awaited a response so I scrambled for my voice. “The Crown Prince of Brimoire wants to marryme?”

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