The Woman Who Died a Lot

  She then gave me some hurried instructions, told me not to fail, wished us good luck, and the phone clicked dead. I turned to look at everyone as the memories of Jenny learning to walk came creeping back.

  “Was that the Cleaning Lady?” came Aornis’ voice from outside in the hall. I ignored her and beckoned Friday and Tuesday closer.

  “I need you two to open the security gates,” I whispered, “so remind each other within a ten-second time frame. This is all you have to do, and if you feel the urge to do something random on instinct, then go with it— they’ll be forgotten recalls. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Landen, you’re to cause disorder in Aornis’ mind. Mnemonomorphs are highly attuned to recall, so I want you to just lose yourself in your memories. It’s only when we’re forming new memories that she has a pathway in. On constant recall you’ll be nothing but a distracting buzz in her head, and she can’t get to you. Do that from here.”

  “I’m getting Jenny’s eighth birthday,” he said.

  “We booked her a magician.”

  “Who turned up drunk.”

  “It seems so real.”

  “It might as well be.”

  “Where’s your pistol?” I asked.

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Blast,” I muttered, for Aornis was already putting a few safeguards in place. I handed Friday the cordless drill.

  “Fed up with this. Let’s deal with Aornis for good.”

  Friday, Tuesday and I positioned ourselves at the door. I turned back to look at Landen, who had his head in his hands and was thinking hard, deep in his own thoughts. I listened at the door for a moment, and when I couldn’t hear anything, I signaled to Friday, who unscrewed the door. As soon as it was open, they both dashed out.

  “Open the security gate no matter what,” said Friday, “and repeat this order.”

  “Open the security gate no matter what,” repeated Tuesday, “and repeat this order.”

  “Open the gate no matter what,” continued Friday as they ran down the corridor, “and repeat this order.”

  I trod quietly into the hall, then into the living room. There was no sign of life—nothing. I could feel the memories of Jenny coming back, and already a sense of confusion was rising on the edge of my conscious mind, the sort of feeling you get when waking from a deep slumber and you’re not sure where you are—mixed with having a word on the tip of one’s tongue and that odd empty feeling when you walk into a room not knowing what you’re doing there.

  I walked to the fireplace simply because I thought I should, and I touched the cold marble. I picked up a vase and turned it upside down. A note fluttered out. My fingers might have been trembling slightly as I unfolded it. I already knew who it was from.

  “I’ve been in New Zealand for the past six months,” the note read, “so no, I’m not in the house. Everything that has just happened to you—the Cleaning Lady, the sealing of the kitchen—it’s all merely memories, a time-released gift from me to make you realize the futility of even considering you can rid your mind of me. I’ll let you savor this frustration for the next half minute, and then it will fade. The joy of all this is that I can screw with you and your family as many times as I want and you’ll just never get it.”

  It was signed “Aornis.”

  “Hello, Mum,” said Tuesday as she walked in. “What are you doing?”

  “Did you open the security gates?”

  “You told us never to do that unless for a good reason.”

  “I don’t suppose it matters now.” I sighed, sitting on one of the arms of the sofa in a dejected mood. The whole thing had been staged. And I had only half a minute to ponder on my own hopelessness before losing it altogether. I stared at the note again and prodded absently at the handwriting. I stopped, for the ink had smudged. I hobbled to the writing desk. A blue ballpoint was lying there, the stack of notepaper still with the impression of Aornis’ note upon it.

  “Shit,” I said, “she’s still in here.”

  “Who?” asked Tuesday.

  “Aornis. Open the security gates. now!”

  She scurried off, and I looked around. Aornis couldn’t instantly delete herself from my memory, and I still had twenty seconds left. I could feel my concentration lapsing as I tried to focus on what I was meant to be doing, the same way as when battling fatigue and fighting off sleep. The house was too large to search in the time available, so I looked around in desperation. And then I saw it. The pull cord from the curtains across the large bay windows was rocking. It would be doing that only if someone had recently touched it, and the only way that might have happened was if someone was hiding behind the sofa.

  I glanced around for a weapon, while outside I could see the security gates swing slowly open. I wondered why this was so and cursed myself for being distracted as my mind struggled to keep my concentration on the task at hand. There was someone behind the sofa, and it was someone dangerous, who they shouldn’t be there. I limped across as quietly as I could with my stick raised, but in my recently enfeebled state I knocked against the bureau and the figure behind the sofa jumped up like a jack-in-the-box. It was Aornis Hades.

  “Aornis!” I exclaimed, for I hadn’t seen her since her trial and enloopment. “What in hell’s name are you doing in my front room?”

  She was still under forty and was an attractive woman, well dressed and with a misleadingly affable demeanor. I knew vaguely of her powers of memory manipulation but had never considered for one moment that she might have tried any of it on me—or indeed was still doing it to anyone. Which made it even stranger that she was in my front room.

  “I was looking for my contact lenses,” she said in a friendly tone. “Would you have a look? Your eyesight’s better than mine.”

  “Sure,” I said, then stopped and frowned. “What were you doing in here?”

  She leaned closer. “I need to talk to you about my elder sister, Phlegethon,” she said in a conspiratorial whisper. “She’s completely out of control. Remember that incident this morning, when someone tried to kidnap Jenny?”

  “When?’

  “You remember . . . this morning.”

  “I . . . no, yes, wait—that was her in the blue car?”

  “She wants vengeance because you killed her brother. You saw her face clearly, didn’t you?”

  I stared at her, my temples throbbing.

  “Didn’t you?” she asked, this time louder.

  “Yes, I saw her face clearly,” I said slowly. “I’d know her anywhere. But why would she wait eighteen years for revenge?”

  “She dithers. It used to drive Mum nuts. But the thing is, she’s dangerous. Really dangerous. So dangerous you might have to shoot her dead on sight.”

  “I thought Phlegethon was your brother?”

  “He changes sex as the mood takes her. But you remember what she said she’d do to Jenny? Can you really let someone like that live?”

  “Are you sure it was this morning?” I asked, trying to recall the events. For a fleeting moment, the attempted kidnap had been clear, but now I was having trouble figuring out even where it happened, and it might have been a black car, not a blue one. My doubt had a visible effect on Aornis, who suddenly looked worried, stopped, and glanced around.

  “Where’s Landen?”

  “Conducting a recallathon.”

  “A what?”

  “I don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “The word just popped into my head.”

  We heard the front door open and Tuesday say,“Can I help you?”

  “Remember,” said Aornis, “Phlegethon is dangerous. You can’t let him live.”

  “Her.”

  “What?”

  “Her. You said Phlegethon was a woman at the moment.”

  “Silly me,” she said. “See how confusing it can be? But she’s dangerous, and you know what she looks like, and she should be shot on sight. Now I must find my contact lens.”

  And with a cheery smile, she d
ucked behind the sofa again, leaving me standing in the middle of the large room.

  It seemed a strange thing to do to be standing here all alone in the living room, wondering . . . quite what I was doing there. I knew I had come into the room to do something important. I sat down on the arm of the sofa, and my mind clicked over, trying to connect the trail of events that had led me here. We were talking in the kitchen, and Landen was still there. He was doing something. Something important. Maybe something about Phlegethon’s attempt to kidnap Jenny that morning. And that was when the door opened and Tuesday came in.

  “There’s a cleaning lady here wanting to know if you need any cleaning done.”

  “We have Georgina, and she comes Tuesdays and Fridays.”

  “That’s what I told her.”

  “Where’s your father? He can deal with it.”

  “He’s mumbling to himself in the kitchen and won’t be distracted.”

  “Really?”

  The door pushed wider open, and a middle-aged woman walked in. My heart thumped, and in an instant my pistol was pointed at her. I flicked off the safety, and Tuesday stepped hurriedly aside.

  “Mum?”

  “It’s her. Phlegethon. She tried to kidnap Jenny this morning.”

  “When?”

  “On the school run.”

  “You never mentioned it,” said Tuesday. “And anyway, Phlegethon is a man.”

  “He changes sex as the mood takes him.”

  “I’m not sure that’s possible.”

  “I’m not Phlegethon,” said the woman. “I’m the Cleaning Lady, and you’re going to have to put the gun down. Rely on nothing your memory tells you. You’ve been led astray by Aornis Hades and her memory tricks.”

  “I haven’t seen Aornis for years.”

  “You saw her less than a minute ago. She’s somewhere in this house.”

  My finger tightened on the trigger. “Impossible! Don’t try anything. You fired three shots into our car this morning. You tried to kill us.”

  “If that’s so, then why can’t you remember the police interviewing you afterward?”

  I looked inside my own memory but all I found was an isolated event—her, a blue car, several shots and Jenny screaming. But it seemed to lack depth and detail, as though I had seen the highlights on a bad TV screen, and only once.

  “She’s making up the memories right now so you will kill me. She hasn’t had the time to put in the detail, but she will.”

  My temples ached, and a stab of pain hit my head.

  “She’s right, Mum,” said Tuesday. “I had lunch with Jenny, and she was fine—you know what a chatterbox she is, and she would have been talking about nothing else. I don’t think it happened.”

  “Shit!” I yelled as loud as I could. “She’s in my head. I can feel it, like a spider, crawling over my subconscious, her feet leaving false memory trails like water on a bathroom floor!”

  “Where is she?” demanded the Cleaning Lady. “It’s a big house, and we need to find her before she starts really doing some damage.”

  “I don’t know!” I yelled angrily. “I knew once, but it’s gone. It’s like a hole in my head, a dark space spreading. It’s like . . . my mind is going!”

  “Aornis’ whereabouts are in there,” said the Cleaning Lady, “and can be accessed only through instinct— the subconscious working with forgotten recalls. Act now. Do or say the first thing that comes into your head. No matter how strange.”

  I was furious now.

  “What kind of shit is this?” I said, taking two paces forward, still with the gun pointing at the woman. “Do anything? No matter how strange? You’re crazier than Aornis, you know that? And what if you are Phlegethon?”

  “Just let go, Thursday.”

  “Let go? Let go? I’ll show you how I can let go!”

  And so saying, I fired four shots into the sofa without looking or aiming.

  “Happy now?” I yelled, my face only inches from hers. “I’m sorry?” she said, “My ears are ringing.”

  “What was that?” said Landen, bursting in the door. He looked at me, then at Tuesday, then at the newcomer.

  “Are you the Cleaning Lady?” he said. “The one who called Thursday ten minutes ago?”

  “I’m getting confused,” I said. “She called me when?”

  “Gunshots in a small space are loud,” said the Cleaning Lady, waggling a finger in her ear. “Hello, Landen.”

  “Do we know each other?”

  “You helped me sew the cell phone into Thursday’s coat at Image Ink this morning. It’s been a rough week for all of us.”

  “What were those shots?” said Friday, running into the room.

  “Mum shot the sofa,” said Tuesday.

  “Again?”

  “It’s stopped,” I said suddenly. “The kidnapping that didn’t happen. It’s halted half remembered.”

  We all stood there for a moment, attempting to figure out what was going on. My mind was no longer falling in on itself. It felt clear—confused, but clear.

  “Aornis has gone,” I said, “or at least for the moment. Will she be coming back?”

  “No,” said the Cleaning Lady as she looked across at the sofa. “I don’t think she’s coming back.”

  Landen cottoned on first and walked over to look behind the sofa.

  “Straight through the eye,” he said. “Well done.”

  “I didn’t mean to kill her,” I said. “Or I didn’t consciously mean to kill her.

  “I better call SO-5,” said Landen. “They’ll be well pissed off that you got her before they did but pleased at least the job was done.”

  I turned to look at the Cleaning Lady, who had sat herself in one of the armchairs.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  She never told us her name. A brief search of the house revealed that Aornis had taken over the attic above the east wing and used it as the base of operations for a global network of criminal activities that ranged from securities fraud to counterfeiting, human trafficking and arms sales. SO-5 could hardly believe their eyes when they started delving into her filing cabinets, all of which contained a host of useful information— contacts, names, front companies, the lot. According to the records they found, she was worth in excess of 350 million pounds but didn’t seem to be spending very much, if anything. She was in it only for the misery. She was, after all, a Hades.

  SO-5 took the body, cleaned up after themselves and were gone in a couple of hours with the advice that this “was so not worth worrying the cops over.”

  We agreed wholeheartedly, and while Aornis’s death was certainly no reason to shed any tears, I felt unfulfilled over the whole episode for two reasons. Firstly that she didn’t stand trial and secondly that even though I now knew that Jenny wasn’t real, Aornis had left me in a transmemory moment where I would think of Jenny, then realize she wasn’t real, then muse upon the loss of a daughter and all that this entailed. I could tell that the others felt the same way, too. We invited the Cleaning Lady to supper, which, given all that she had done, was the least we could do. Without her guiding influence, Aornis would still be living undetected in the attic.

  She was, of course, also a mnemonomorph, and she told us all the wide and varied adventures her sort had undertaken. From the first great erasure in the Middle Ages to the more recent retelling of recent history, some of which was still going on.

  “Some things humans can’t and shouldn’t remember,” she said, having outlined one particular incident that was now only sporadically recalled, and then only by fringe groups whom no one believed anyway.

  “Who decides what’s to be globally forgotten?” asked Tuesday. “There’s a six-person cabal,” she explained matter-of-factly. “We meet four times a year to discuss whether there is any thing pressing that would be better off forgotten, but we also spend a lot of time tidying up after our more criminally minded brethren.”

  “People like Aornis must give mnemonomorphs a bad name,??
? observed Tuesday.

  The Cleaning Lady patted her hand and smiled. “The stories we could tell, the things no one ever remembers. It could make your head spin. But if you’ve had that strange feeling that you’re in a room and you don’t know why, or felt that you should be doing something but can’t remember what, you can be pretty sure you’ve just had something erased. It doesn’t have to be big or anything, sometimes just a small part of a larger puzzle.”

  Everyone was silent around the table. We all knew we had heard too much, and that led to only one possible outcome for the evening.

  “We’re not going to remember any of this, are we?” said Friday.

  “Maybe when you’re older, small shreds of Aornis’ death will filter up from the deep subconscious, but they will be unclear and indistinct, no more real than half-forgotten dreams.”

  “What about Jenny?” I asked. “What will happen to her? She’s so strong in my mind that I can smell her. I can’t imagine her not being there any more than I can imagine Friday or Tuesday or Landen not being here.”

  “You’ll never know she was ever there,” said the Cleaning Lady. “There was only ever one Jenny, and she wasn’t yours.”

  “Aornis had a daughter?” asked Tuesday, who was sharp enough to pick up this stuff two minutes before the rest of us.

  “No one ever created a Homo mnemonicus without an intimately known and intimately lost person as a subject. I think Aornis missed Jenny dreadfully and wanted her to live on. The more she created her for you, the more Jenny became alive. But it’s not important. We can remove every single part of her so that all you will retain is a fondness for people named Jenny.”

  “You’re that good?” asked Tuesday.

  “I’m the second best there’s ever been.”

  “It’s a great plan,” said Landen, clapping his hands, “and we all need to get an early night. Big day tomorrow.”

  “I was about to say the same thing,” said the Cleaning Lady, glancing at the clock. “It will take a couple of hours, and I have a serious eradication tomorrow. Plus, the trains are not that regular to Whitby these days. Now, if you can all simply relax and hold hands, it will make things easier and none of this will have happened. And don’t worry about the tattoo,” she added to me. “You’ll go into Swindon on Monday and have it removed. You’ll think the scar was a scald that you got three years ago when the handle broke off a pan of water. So if you’ll just empty your minds, Jenny and I can be out of your hair for good and—”