Виктория Шваб: The Archived

There’s not even enough memory to make a full scene, only a kind of jagged picture, the details all smeared away. But it doesn’t matter, because Ben is there—well, a Ben-like shape—standing in front of a Dad-like shape with the glasses perched on his nose and his chin thrust out as he looks up and tries not to smile because he thinks that only frowns are taken seriously, and there’s just enough time for the smudged line of his mouth to waver and crack into a grin before the memory falters and dissolves back into gray, and gray darkens to black.

My heart hammers in my ears as I clutch the glasses. I don’t have to rewind, guide the memory back to the start, because there’s only one sad set of images looping inside these plastic frames; and sure enough, a moment later the darkness wobbles into gray, and it starts again. I let the stilted memory of Ben loop five times—each time hoping it will sharpen, hoping it will grow into a scene instead of a few smudged moments—before I finally force myself to let go, force myself to blink, and it’s gone and I’m back in a box-filled bedroom, cradling my dead brother’s glasses.

My hands are shaking, and I can’t tell if it’s from anger or sadness or fear. Fear that I’m losing him, bit by bit. Not just his face—that started to fade right away—but the marks he made on the world.

I set the glasses by my bed and return the rest of Ben’s things to their box. I’m about to put my ring back on when a thought stops me. Marks. Our last house was new when we moved in. Every scuff was ours, every nick was ours, and all of them had stories.

Now, as I look around at a room filled not only with boxes but plenty of its own marks, I want to know the stories behind them. Or rather, a part of me wants to know those stories. The other part of me thinks that’s the worst idea in the world, but I don’t listen to that part. Ignorance may be bliss, but only if it outweighs curiosity. Curiosity is a gateway drug to sympathy, Da’s warning echoes in my head, and I know, I know; but there are no Histories here to feel sympathy for . Which is exactly why the Archive wouldn’t approve. They don’t approve of any form of recreational reading.

But it’s my talent, and it’s not like a little light goes off every time I use it. Besides, I’ve already broken the rule once tonight by reading Ben’s things, so I might as well group my infractions. I clear a space on the floor, which gives off a low thrum when my fingertips press against the boards. Here in the Outer, the floors hold the best impressions.

I reach, and my hands begin to tingle. The numbness slides up my wrists as the line between the wall and my skin seems to dissolve. Behind my closed eyes, the room takes shape again, the same and yet different. For one thing, I see myself standing in it, just like I was a few moments ago, looking down at Ben’s box. The color’s been bleached out, leaving a faded landscape of memory, and the whole picture is faint, like a print in sand, recent but already fading.

I get my footing in the moment before I begin to roll the memory backward.

It plays like a film in reverse.

Time spins away and the room fills up with shadows, there and gone and there and gone, so fast they overlap. Movers. Boxes disappear until the space is bare. In a matter of moments, the scene goes dark. Empty. But not ended. Vacant. I can feel the older memories beyond the dark. I rewind faster, searching for more people, more stories. There’s nothing, nothing, and then the memories flicker up again.

Broad surfaces hold on to every impression, but there are two kinds—those burned in by emotion and those worn in by repetition—and they register differently. The first is bold, bright, defined. This room is full of the second kind—dull, long periods of habit worn into the surfaces, years pressed into a moment more like a photo than a film. Most of what I see are faded snapshots: a dark wooden desk and a wall of books, a man walking like a pendulum back and forth between the two; a woman stretched out on a couch; an older couple. The room flares into clarity during a fight, but by the time the woman has slammed the door, the scene fades back into shadow, and then dark again.

A heavy, lasting dark.

And yet, I can feel something past it.

Something bright, vivid, promising.

The numbness spreads up my arms and through my chest as I press my hands flush against the floorboards, reaching through the span of black until a dull ache forms behind my eyes and the darkness finally gives way to light and shape and memory. I’ve pushed too hard, rewound too far. The scenes skip back too fast, a blur, spiraling out of my control so that I have to drag time until it slows, lean into it until it shudders to a stop around me.

When it does, I’m kneeling in a room that is my room and isn’t. I’m about to continue backward, when something stops me. On the floor, a few feet in front of my hands, is a drop of something blackish, and a spray of broken glass. I look up.

At first glance it’s a pretty room, old-fashioned, delicate, white furniture with painted flowers…but the covers on the bed are askew, the contents of the dresser shelf—books and baubles—are mostly toppled.

I search for a date, the way Da taught me—bread crumbs, bookmarks, in case I ever need to come back to this moment—and find a small calendar propped on the table, the word MARCH legible, but no year. I scan for other temporal markers: a blue dress, bright for the faded memory, draped over a small corner chair. A black book on the side table.

A sinking feeling spreads through me as I roll time forward, and a young man stumbles in. The same slick and blackish stuff is splashed across his shirt, painted up his arms to the elbows. It drips from his fingers, and even in the faded world of the memory, I know it’s blood.

I can tell by the way he looks down at his skin, as if he wants to crawl out of it.

He sways and collapses to his knees right beside me, and even though he can’t touch me, even though I’m not here, I can’t help but shuffle back, careful to keep my hands on the floor, as he wraps his stained arms around his shirt. He can’t be much older than I am, late teens, dark hair combed back, strands escaping into his eyes as he rocks back and forth. His lips move, but voices rarely stick to memories, and all I hear is a hushushush sound like static.

“Mackenzie,” calls my mother. The sound of her voice is distorted, vague and bent by the veil of memory.

The man stops rocking and gets to his feet. His hands return to his sides, and my gut twists. He’s covered in blood, but it’s not his. There are no cuts on his arms or his chest. One hand looks sliced up, but not enough to bleed this much.

So whose blood is it? And whose room is it? There’s that dress, and I doubt that the furniture, dappled with tiny flowers, belongs to him, but—

“Mackenzie,” my mother calls again, closer, followed by the sound of a doorknob turning. I curse, open my eyes, and jerk my hands up from the floor, the memory vanishing, replaced by a room full of boxes and a dull headache. I’m just getting to my feet when Mom comes barging in. Before I can get the silver band out of my pocket and around my finger, she wraps me in a hug.

I gasp, and suddenly it’s not just noise but cold cavernous cold hollowed out too bright be bright screaming into pillow until I can’t breathe be bright smallest bedroom packing boxes with B crossed out it still shows couldn’t save him should have been there should have before I can shove her tangled stream of consciousness out of my head. I try to force a wall between us, a shaky mental version of the ring’s barrier. It is fragile as glass. Pushing back worsens the headache, but at least it blocks out my mother’s cluttered thoughts.