The Trouble with Time, Part 2.1 - Soft

Before we start, there's one thing:

Long-term readers (aka mom and dad) may notice that 1. this year's story isn't beginning with a part called First Snow, 2. that the number of this part is 2.1 instead of 1, and 3. this year's story, just like last year's story, is called The Trouble with Time.

Those long-term readers may also remember that last year's story ended in a bit of a cliffhanger. Clearly in a place where one arc of a story ends, but with clearly about the same amount of story to come.

So yes, what we're doing his year is a little different, in that it's a sequel to last year's story instead of a whole new one.

And, since I don't think any of you really remember what happens in the first part (I barely do, and I wrote it), and I don't think many of you have the time or interest to go read all of it again (though if you do want to reread the whole thing, you can find part 1 here), here's a brief(ish) summary of what's happened before:

We have two protagonists: Kevin, who owns an antiques / magical items store, where he also lives, and an Acquirer, who's worked for Kevin for years, who stumbled into the store almost a year ago unable to remember basically anything about the previous three years of her life. With her she had instructions for an unknown spell, and a deadline of one year. She has spent that year trying to gather the ingredients for the spell, hoping it will get her memory back.

She's struggling with her last few ingredients, managing to get some strands of red hair and a morning breeze and take them back to Kevin for processing. One of the still missing ingredients are winterberries, and the only place in town to get them is a private garden, guarded by dogs. Unfortunately she is absolutely terrified of dogs, and once the dogs chase her out of the garden she's left panicky and terrified out of her mind. Kevin calls his friend Sam to help. Sam is a doctor, and gives her a Vial of Phobos, which can hold her fears while she breaks into the garden again to get the berries.

She keeps putting off going back to the garden. Kevin tries to convince himself he doesn't personally care if she meets her deadline.

They find out that a customer has some First Love, one of the very, very hard to get ingredients they need. He will exchange some for an Orange from the Golden Garden, which is a place that takes people's memories, the longer they spend there. She sees no other way, and decides to go get one. Sam helps her by removing all her memories, and storing them in a box while she goes into the Garden. She writes herself instructions to trust Kevin and Sam even though she doesn't remember anything, and get the Orange. With Kevin's help she gets to the garden, and with written instructions and a compass showing the way out around her neck she manages to go in, find the tree, and get out.

On their way back home Kevin starts to feel like there's a third person with them, even though he can't feel or in any way perceive a third person. He comes to the conclusion it's a Guardian, a benevolent being no one really knows anything about that some people seem to pick up from the Garden without knowing it. The only way to know it's there is a feeling that someone should be there. She gets her memories back, and she admits she too can feel a person that should be there, confirming Kevin isn't imagining it, but she says she's had that feeling for a long time now.

They decide to figure out what exactly it is. She takes a look in the Fountain of Truth, which shows the true form of anyone looking into it. She looks in and sees beside her a sad-looking red-haired woman she gets the strong feeling she should recognise. Instantly a melody she's certain she's heard before but can't place starts to play in her head excruciatingly loud and she passes out. She wakes up dizzy and disoriented, but mostly fine.

They exchange one of the Oranges for the First Love, so the only ingredient still missing is the winterberries. She tries to find a reason to keep putting it off, but can't find one anymore. So she literally bottles up her fear, breaks into the garden and gets the berries, only letting the fear back out after she's back at Kevin's store.

Kevin and Sam talk, and Kevin tells them he can hear her Guardian, sometimes, and that he thinks maybe Guardians aren't linked to the Garden, but to lost memories.

It takes a couple of days after all the ingredients are together for Kevin to prepare the spell before it can be cast, but finally it's ready. All three of them are there, ready. Kevin casts the spell on her, orange mist pours from her mouth, and forms the shape of the Guardian, who disappears through a portal opened by the spell. They all go after it, and find themselves inside her mind. In there is a wall and a gate, with the memories she has forgotten locked away. The memories have solidified into human-ish form, the Guardian, and it tells her the melody is the key. She sings the melody, and the memories are released.

Alice's memories are not the only ones that return. Both Sam and Kevin suddenly remember things that had happened in the last few years they hadn't before. They return to the shop, where things start to piece together. All the gaps in the memory were memories of one person, Vanessa. A year earlier Kevin had sent her and Alice to Fey Wilds to gather some mushrooms, but they Fey King Oberon had caught them. They make a deal: Vanessa stays and Alice gets to come home, but she has to find Vanessa again before a year is out, or they both have to stay forever. From Kevin's desk Alice digs out a conch shell, which she can use to talk to Vanessa.

They now have about two weeks to find her, or both Alice and Vanessa will be forever stuck in Fey Wilds.

And that's where we ended it last year. Now that that's out of the way, let's get this party going again. Or whatever.

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Alice knows she should sleep. It's been a long time since she's had a proper rest, and soon she will be unable to get one for a while again. And it's not like she can do anything about anything in the middle of the night. She should sleep, both to recover and to prepare. Instead she lies awake in the soft dark of her bed, going through every recently recovered memory from the last four years.

She'd met Vanessa on the job. Kevin had sent her after some flower that only produces one or two blossoms every year, very early in the spring, where ever the first warm rays of sunlight had hit that year. Vanessa was working for someone else in town, and almost got to it before Alice. Almost.

Soon after Vanessa moved to work at Kevin's shop, and from then on they were practically inseparable, and by far the most efficient and skillful Aquirer duo in town. Sending them to Fey Wilds didn't seemed like a crazy idea back then. Risky, sure, but nothing they wouldn't be able to handle together.

Alice stumbles through the memories of their work together and lands on everything else. The way Vanessa's red hair swings when she pulls it up and ties it to get it out of the way. The way her eyes shine when she's trying to keep a straight face, but is almost bursting to laughter inside. The song in her voice when she talks. The way she looks when she knows she's won, but also that her opponent hasn't realised it yet.

Meeting Vanessa was the best thing that ever happened to Alice. She makes her better. Kinder. Stronger. More comfortable with who she is.

She almost doesn't care that if they can't find her, they could be prisoners in Fey Wilds for the rest of eternity together. But no, that wouldn't be good.Vanessa has been there for long enough, she only wants her to come back home.

When they were deciding which of them should come back, Alice wanted Vanessa to come back. She was smarter, after all. If anyone could figure out a way to find the other, it would be her. Vanessa disagreed. What they needed on the outside, she convinced Alice, wasn't her wits. They needed Alice's unwillingness to give up. Not that Vanessa wasn't determined, but they both knew Alice's grim stubbornness would keep her going through cold, hard stone, even in the lack of memory of what it was she was doing. Alice wanted to argue, to not leave her there, but she had never been able to win an argument against her.

She goes through memory after memory, handling them gently and softly, as if she could break them and lose them again, this time permanently, and be left with nothing of Vanessa.

Alice drifts in and out of sleep all night. The only way to tell she gets any sleep at all is because the night doesn't feel quite as long as it would is she didn't. But eventually she gives up. It's still hours until sunrise (this time of the year it always is), but she gets up out of her soft, warm bed, turns on the hard light, and gets dressed.

Now that she's in the apartment with her memories again, she doesn't understand how she never even vaguely wondered why there seemed to be stuff of two different people there. It should be obvious, even if you didn't know it.

In the bathroom mirror her eyes are tired, but hard with determination. The pillow has left lines on her face. She rubs them absentmindedly. She makes herself coffee, for the first time noticing she's been drinking it from Vanessa's favorite cup for the entire year. For a moment she feels guilty for using something that's so clearly meant to be used by Vanessa, not by her, but she pushes the thought away. It gives her a small amount of comfort to hold the warm cup in her hands, knowing Vanessa has done the same thing hundreds of times.

She heads out into the cold and towards the antique store. She doesn't think Sam is there yet, and spares a moment to wonder about whether it's too early, if she'll be bothering Kevin, but decides not to worry about it. She's been there at odd times before, and Kevin seems to be awake literally always. And if she's honest with herself, right now she doesn't really care about whether or not she's bothering Kevin. What she cares about is that they have twelve days to find Vanessa in Fey Wilds, and that's not even close to enough time to be comfortable with.

When she gets there, the sign on the door says closed, but Kevin is there, waiting at the door for her, a steaming cup of coffee in his hand. She's going to ask how he knew to wait for her, then remembers he said he has a tracker on her phone. She stomps her feet to get rid of the clinging snow, then steps inside.

"Someone's early," he greets her as the door swings closed behind them. "Have you slept at all?"

She ignores the question.

"Is Sam here yet?"

"No, not yet. Because you're early. But they should get here soon."

"Good. We have work to do."

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Oookay.

I decided to keep this bit short, because I figured that plus the summary is plenty to read for one day for all you busy people who are always behind on reading our stories, or don't have the time to read them at all.

The topic for tomorrow is Flexible.

~matleena