Rachel Caine: Thin Air

Come back , I heard David whisper, and the thing that had unspooled inside of me like a kite string was suddenly reversing, tugging me back away from the wonder of the sky, and it felt as if I’d spilled wind from my wings.

I was falling out of control back toward the forest, the tent, the fire.

I slammed back into my body with a sickening jolt, gasped, and convulsively tightened my grip on David’s hands. I heard the first cold patters of rain on the fabric overhead.

Outside, by the fire, Lewis cursed, and I felt a sudden hot snap of…correction. The rain stopped.

“Oh, my God,” I whispered. My hands were shaking, not with weakness but with sheer joy. “Oh, my God, that was-”

“Nothing,” David said. “Just a taste. You used to control more than rain, Jo. You will again.”

He pulled me into his arms, and his lips pressed gently on my forehead, my closed eyes…my lips. I didn’t know if I should respond, but my body was already making the decision for me. The warm, damp pressure of his mouth on mine raised something wild inside of me, something deep and primal. I sank my fingers deep into the soft silk of his hair. He was a good kisser. Rapt, intense, focused, devouring my lips hungrily.

And then he broke free, sighed, and rested his forehead against mine. His fingers combed through the mud-caked tangle of my hair, leaving it straight and shining and clean.

“How long…” My voice wasn’t quite steady. I licked my lips, nearly licked his as well. “How long have we, you know, been…together?”

“A while,” he said.

“Years?”

I felt his smile. “What do you think?” His lips brushed mine when he murmured that answer. Keep talking , I thought. Because I was tempted to do a lot more.

“Not years, maybe…um…I don’t know.” All I knew was that whoever and whatever David was, he had the key to turn my engine. “Then why don’t I remember you? Remember us ?” I was fairly sure, given the intensity of the kisses, that it was well worth remembering.

“You don’t because you can’t,” he said, and his fingers stroked through my hair again, gentle and soothing. “Because someone took away your past.”

“Then…how come I can still talk? Remember how to dress myself-okay, not that I dressed myself, bad example…” I got lost on a side thought, and pulled back to look at him. “Did you? Put my clothes on?”

“Do you seriously think I’d let Lewis do it?” David asked, raising his eyebrows. “Of course.” He gave me a slow, wicked smile. “Don’t worry. I didn’t take any liberties.”

I didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved.

“In answer to the original question, certain kinds of memories are stored differently in the human mind. Memories-memories of events, of people, of conversations-these are more vulnerable. They can be taken away more easily.”

“Why? Why would anybody do that? Wait a minute- how could anybody do that?”

Outside, the fire suddenly died to a banked glow. The tent flap moved, and Lewis, crouched uncomfortably low, ducked inside. He gave the two of us an unreadable look, then crawled over to the other sleeping bag.

“Earth Wardens could have done it,” Lewis said. “It’s possible, if an Earth Warden had the right training and skill level, to remove selective memories. It’s part of how Marion Bearheart’s division drains away the powers of Wardens who have to be taken out of the organization and returned to the regular human population. Only they don’t just take memories; they take away the core of power inside.” He stretched out, put his hands under his head, and stared at the glow of moonlight on the tent fabric. “But in your case it was done by a Djinn. His name is Ashan.”

“A Djinn,” I repeated. “Like you?” I pointed at David, whose eyebrows rose.

“Not anymore. But yes, Ashan was Djinn, and he did this to you. He didn’t want to kill you; he wanted you to have never existed at all. And he had the power to do it. He made a good start on it.”

“So what stopped him?”

David and Lewis exchanged looks. It was Lewis who answered. “Let’s get into that later.”

“Fine. General question.” I licked my lips and avoided staring directly at David. “What exactly is a Djinn?”

Lewis sighed and closed his eyes. “We’ve really got to get you fixed,” he said. “The Djinn are another race of beings on this planet. They can be corporeal when they want to, but their real existence is energy. They’re…spirits. Spirits of fire and will.”

“Poetic, but not exactly the whole story,” David said. “We were once slaves to you. To the Wardens. You used us to amplify your powers.”

“Slaves?”

“Subject to your orders. And your whims.” He was watching me with half-closed eyes, and when I turned I saw sparks flying in them. “We’re free now.”

“So you’re…all-powerful?” I had to laugh as I said it. “Snap your fingers and make it so, or something like that?”

He smiled, but the sparks were still flying. “Djinn move energy-that’s all. We take it from point A to point B. Transform it. But we can’t create, and we can’t destroy, not at the primal levels. That’s why I think we may be able to undo what was done to you-because at least on some level, the energy is never lost.”

“Great! So, just…” I snapped my fingers. “You know. Make it so.”

“I can’t,” David said, “or I’d already have done it. Time was Ashan’s specialty. I was never very good at manipulating it. Jonathan-” He stopped, and-if anything-looked even bleaker. “You don’t remember Jonathan.”

I shook my head.

“It would take a Jonathan or an Ashan to undo what was done.”

“Can’t you just go get one of them?” I asked.

“Jonathan’s dead,” David said, “and Ashan’s…not what he was. Besides, I can’t find him. He’s been very successful at hiding.”

“Too bad,” I said. “I was going to offer to bear your children if you could get me out of this icebox and onto a nice, warm beach somewhere.”

I was kidding, but whatever I’d said hit him hard. It hurt. He got up and moved back to his original position at my feet, breaking the connection, breaking eye contact. There was a tension in his body now, as if I’d said something really terrible.

Lewis covered his eyes with the heels of his hands, digging deeply. “She doesn’t remember,” he said. “David. She doesn’t remember.”

“I know,” David said, and his voice scared me. Raw, anguished, fragile. “But I thought…if anything…”

“She can’t . You know that. It’s not her fault.”

No answer. David said nothing. I opened my mouth a couple of times, but I couldn’t think what to ask, what to say; I’d put my foot in it big-time, but I had no idea why.

No, I realized after a slow-dawning, horrified moment. I did know. Or at least, I guessed.

“Did you and I…do we have children?” I asked. Because I wasn’t ready to be a mother. What could I possibly have to teach a child when I couldn’t remember my own life, my own childhood? My own family?

The question I’d addressed aloud to David seemed to drop into a velvet black pool of silence. After a very long time he said tonelessly, “No. We don’t have any children.”

And poof. He was gone. Vanished into thin air.

“What the hell…?”

Lewis didn’t answer. Not directly. He rolled over on his side, turning his back to me. “Sleep,” he told me. “We’ll get into this tomorrow.”

I rolled over on my side, too, putting me back-to-back with Lewis with a blank view of a blue nylon tent wall. Uncomfortably close, close enough to be in the corona of his body heat. He needed a bath. So did I.