Page 80 of By the Moonbeam and the Mist
“I felt a little overwhelmed, I think. There were so many people around, so much going on. And…”
“Yes?”
“I was apprehensive,” I blurted. “I was waiting for something. Or someone.” I could see that in the periodic shift of my attention over all the tents and booths and haggling vendors, as if my eyes were hoping to snag onto… what? I wasn’t sure. Couldn’t remember.
Garvis persisted.
“And how does all this make you feel now that you’re remembering it? Or at least remembering part of it?”
I bit my lip, wishing I could keep it all in, not let the dam break. But…
“Nostalgic,” I blurted out. “For the moments when I felt like I fit in last year. For the moments when I felt… worthy. Offriendship. Of belonging. And now I’m… I’m sad that it’s gone, Garvis. I miss Emelle, miss feeling close to her…”
“Keep going. But now put your hand on the ground.”
Trying to sniff up the burn in my nose, I bent and planted my palms into the snow beneath the swirling mist, letting the crunch of ice crystals envelop the lingering warmth within me.
“I’m worried that I can’t keep a friend.” The words were rushing out, tumbling over my tongue, falling over this frozen bit of ground. “I’m worried I’m notworthpermanent friendship because my whole life seems to be one giant ball of secrets and I can’t be completely honest about who I am.”
The ground seemed to be thumping, like a drum trying to beat its way out of the ice below us.
“I don’t think I’ll ever find someone as sweet and kind as Emelle again. I hate that I have to keep my distance and push her away. I wish—”
Acrackfractured the ground beneath my palms, parting the snow until it fell away…
And mist rose from the crevice in the ground.
It merged with the mist of Emelle and me, twirling and dancing with its missing counterpart like long-lost lovers.
Gaping, I scrambled to my feet and watched the memory reform itself, swelling in size so that I had to take a few steps back.
Emelle and I didn’t just turn right around to go visit Grandma Gretel’s Gowns. A blanket peddler stopped us to give me a letter fromFabian.
A letter that told me to follow it.
And as my crescent moon beamed upon this first missing memory, I watched the whole thing play out like an unearthed dream. Starting with that abandoned classroom in the Element Wielder sector—the very same one I’d seen and recognized onmy first day of class when I’d been talking to the black mamba. I just hadn’t realizedwhyI’d recognized it.
I listened to Lord Arad and Velika tell me about my mother and Fabian’s love story. How she’d wanted to give me to the pirates. How he’d kidnapped me and stolen her knife—myknife now—too.
I saw Jagaros arrive to save Emelle and me when those tomb bats began morphing into their mutant vampire selves…
But then Garvis was pointing at a hole in the mist, frowning.
“Something is missing there.” He turned to me with furrowed brows. “Did you ever rip the mist? Hide part of it elsewhere?”
I shook my head, bewildered.
“N-no. I would have known if I’d done that, wouldn’t I?”
Garvis stroked his mustache. “Yes, you would have. That’s… strange.”
As I returned my gaze to that hole in the mist, the rest of the memory eddying and churning around it, I couldn’t help but feel as if its darkness matched the dense, fathomless darkness of Steeler’s Walking magic. Like once upon a time,hehad filled that gaping absence.
For better or for worse.
Throughout the next few Sundays, Garvis and I kept searching for the rest of my buried memories.
We found the moment my innate faerie power had exploded with Rodhi in the tent. The moment I dry-swallowed my first pill while I sat nervously next to Lander right before the Branding. All the forbidden conversations between Ms. Pincette and me inthe Testing Center and in her classroom. Every wretched thing Fergus had ever done to me and Gileon and Mr. Fenway.
