Font Size
Line Height

Page 3 of The Book of Lost Hours

“Yes. Memories in the books. Normally I don’t care what you timekeepers start with, but…” He turned to face her, his watery image shifting as he did so. “You’re just so young. I would hate for you to encounter something dreadful on your first go at it.”

“I’m not a timekeeper,” Lisavet protested.

“You’re not? Oh. How disappointing. And here I thought they were finally being progressive and appointing a girl. It really is a shame, you know… but I suppose it can’t be helped.” He seemed not to notice her growing alarm as he lamented her existence. “What are you doing here then?”

“I’m trapped. My father left me here and now I can’t find my way back out.”

“I see,” the man said, looking concerned but offering no other help or solution.

“Well… is there?” Lisavet prompted.

“Is there what?”

“A way out? A door or a…”

“Oh. No. ’Fraid not.”

Lisavet felt her whole body deflate. “Then can you at least tell me what this place is?”

“It isn’t a place. It’s more… a concept.

You are in the space between the past and present.

Everywhere and nowhere at all. This is the place where Time ends.

The place where consciousness drifts when bodies die.

It exists in the space between the fabric of tangible things, one moment to the next.

Here, all things that happened on Earth linger in the form of memories. ”

“So you’re a memory?” Lisavet asked, frowning.

“Unfortunately yes.”

“Am I… dead?” She didn’t know if she wanted the answer.

“People are always so worried about death. As if it is the end.”

Lisavet could only stare at him.

He sighed. “No, you are not dead.”

“Am I dreaming?”

“Not dreaming either. I assure you this is all very real.”

“But you just said that you’re a memory. You can’t be real.”

“Why not? Memories are the realest thing any of us have, Lisavet.”

Lisavet took a step back. “You know my name?”

“Yes, of course,” the man said with a slight smirk. “I found it in your memories. You know. Those things you insist aren’t real.”

Lisavet bit her lip sheepishly. “What’s your name?”

“Me? Oh, I don’t have one. Well. Not anymore anyway. It’s been Forgotten.” He gave a small shudder at the word.

“Forgotten?” Lisavet repeated.

He flinched again. “Yes, by a timekeeper who didn’t want the world to remember me.”

“I don’t understand,” Lisavet said.

The man turned toward the books again, a wistful expression on his inky face.

“These books hold the memories of every person who has ever lived or died. Before the timekeepers they used to just hang around here in the time space, unattended. Not like it is now, all neat and tidy, filed away in books.”

Lisavet thought of her father. His bedtime story. Noticing her confused expression, the memory of the man offered her a blurry hand, his features fixed in a kind smile.

“If you’d like, I can show you Italy now. It’s really quite lovely, and I know the perfect memory to take you to.”

S OUND ERUPTED the moment they settled into the memory.

It came from all over. The earth, the buildings, the streets, the very sky.

After so much silence, the sudden cacophony was more than just a flood, it was a hurricane, enveloping every inch of Lisavet’s body.

The warm sun shone on her face, a breeze lifted her hair.

Warmth! Movement! They were standing on the edge of a parapet, watching a festival down below.

People laughing and singing. Lisavet almost cried at the sight of it. It felt almost real… almost.

“How do you know how to do this?” Lisavet asked.

Beside her, the memory of the man was smiling, watching her reaction. “I was a timekeeper,” he said.

“You were?”

“The very first. Before the Romans conquered my people, I had found the time space through sundials and meditations. I am the one they stole the secrets from.”

He took her down from the parapet, pointing out the young girl whose memory they were walking in. She looked to be about Lisavet’s age, sitting above the crowd in a dress of fine silk.

“One of the Medici daughters,” the man told her. “Very wealthy and important.”

Lisavet didn’t know much about the Medicis and their supposed wealth.

To her, the girl just looked bored, like she wanted to join the festival but couldn’t.

As they walked through the crowd, Lisavet started to understand how she felt.

She, too, was there, but not really there.

She wanted to taste the delicacies sold from carts.

Wanted to play with the other children darting through the crowd.

Everything she touched passed through her hands.

Eyes passed over her, seeing only blank space where she stood.

Lisavet turned her attention to the one person she could talk to. “Can I ask a question?”

“If you’d like.”

“If you’ve been… Forgotten…” Lisavet said this as delicately as she could, but he still flinched. “… why can I still see you?”

“Oh, they didn’t erase me completely. If they did that, they’d be erasing their own knowledge of the time space. And so what little of my memory that remains stays as it is. In the time space.”

“That’s confusing.”

“It is, isn’t it?” He frowned, looking just as puzzled as she felt. “Even so I’m glad for it. It allows me to provide assistance to other timekeepers when they need it. I show them how things work if they’re struggling.”

“If you don’t have a name, what should I call you?”

The memory shrugged. “Whatever you like, I suppose.”

Lisavet considered him. She had never named anything before.

Aside from her dolls, but that was different.

He was a person. Or at least he had been once.

She couldn’t quite tell where he was from.

His skin was neither particularly pale nor particularly dark but a warm olive color.

Maybe he was Italian? That would explain his love of Italy.

His head was shaven. The robes he wore offered no hints, either.

They were plain and old, like something worn by a monk, but having never met a monk before, she couldn’t be certain.

“Azrael,” she said after a moment.

The man looked amused. “Azrael? The Judeo-Christian angel of death? Bit on the nose, isn’t it?”

Lisavet blushed. “Or we can pick something else.”

“No, no. Azrael is fine.” He said the name aloud a few times as if trying it on. “I rather think it suits me.”

They stayed a little longer, listening to the music, until the edges of the world started to fade, crinkling and rippling like water. Lisavet looked up at Azrael in alarm. He shook his head.

“Worry not. The memory is ending.” He pointed back up at the parapet where the girl was being led away by her nurse. “Let’s return to the time space for now.” He held out a hand.

“I don’t want to go back there.”

Azrael frowned slightly. “You don’t have to stay for long. Now that you know how to time walk, you can go wherever you’d like. But…” He tilted his head, squinting at her. “Do be careful. There is more evil in the world than you’ve been yet made aware of.”

Lisavet promised she would, mind racing with possibility.

She thought about all the things she’d learned about history in school.

Ancient Egypt. Germany before it was Germany.

The Great War her father had so often talked about.

All of it at her fingertips. She slipped her hand into Azrael’s, and they left the memory.

Silence hit her like a wall the moment they returned.

Gone was the sun. Gone was the breeze and the music and the smells.

They had returned to the unmoving darkness.

Lisavet was surprised to feel a small sense of relief at the absence of so much stimulus.

“Do you think you could show me your book next?” she asked, pointing up at the shelves.

Azrael winced slightly. “I would if I could; however, I don’t have a book myself. Any specter you see in the time space has not been ‘collected,’ so to speak, by a timekeeper. Meaning we have no book of memories to confine us.”

“Oh. I didn’t realize that—”

Azrael held up a hand, pressing a finger to his lips. His eyes were fixed on something down the row of shelves. Lisavet followed his gaze and saw the figure of a man passing between the rows. His shadow did not drag the way Azrael’s did. This was a real person, not a memory.

“A timekeeper,” Azrael murmured.

Lisavet’s eyes widened. A timekeeper? Perhaps he could help her leave! But Azrael shook his head.

“I don’t think this one would want to help you.”

“Why not?”

Azrael shushed her again and beckoned her to follow him. They followed the timekeeper at a distance until they saw him slip between a row of shelves up ahead.

“That section is Germany,” Azrael said quietly. “Rather close to modern day.”

Lisavet sensed the change in his tone. Germany?

Her Germany? Ignoring his warning, she stole past him and ran for the row of shelves that the man had gone down.

She didn’t stop until she’d reached the edge of the shelf.

Breathing hard, she peered around the side.

The man was standing in the center of the row.

He had pulled one of the books down from the shelves, hand tracing over the closed cover.

His blond hair was cropped close in the military style and when he turned with the book in hand, Lisavet got a better look at his clothes.

From the side, his black uniform was indistinguishable, but from the front she could clearly see the many silver pins and insignias.

The bright red armband fixed around his bicep. A Nazi.

She watched in horror as the soldier opened the book and withdrew a pack of matches from his pocket. He held the flame to one of the pages until it caught fire. As the flames grew, he dropped the book to the ground, cover face up, spine bent.

“Timekeepers destroy the memories they don’t want the world to remember.”

Lisavet jumped. Azrael had caught up to her and was watching the scene over her shoulder, his expression grave.

“But why?” she asked.

Azrael shrugged. “To uphold their ideology. The past is a mirror of us. It tells us who we’ve been and what we have become. Some people don’t like what they see in their reflection, so they change it by erasing memories from the face of the earth. By erasing people from existence.”

“Erasing people?” Lisavet repeated, horror raising the pitch of her voice.

The soldier’s head snapped up. “ Wer ist da? ” he demanded, reaching for his belt.

Lisavet ducked around the corner, heart thudding.

Azrael stayed where he was. The soldier shouted a few angry words at him, cursing Azrael for startling him.

The Nazi took something from his pocket and Lisavet squinted at it to get a better look.

The glass crystal of a pocket watch caught the light of the flames, glinting at her with unmistakable familiarity.

Its bronze case was worn with age, its patina a reflection of the many hands who held it before.

From father to son, now soldier. Her whole body went cold with recognition.

The soldier fiddled with the watch until a door opened six feet away from him.

He disappeared through it, casting one last glance at the burning heap of paper on the ground.

The minute the door sealed behind him, Lisavet rushed forward.

She collapsed onto her knees in front of the burning book and reached both hands into the flames to pull what remained of the leather-bound volume free.

The cover was burnt at the edges. Most of the remaining pages were charred to ash that crumbled under her feet as she stamped the fire out.

But a few of them, the ones closest to the beginning, remained intact.

They whispered to her as she swept the soot from them with careful, flame-stung fingers.

Telling her their story in a deep, crackling voice. Her father’s story. Her father’s voice.

Her breath came in ragged gasps and tears stung her eyes. She had forgotten Azrael was there until he spoke.

“The watch…” he said quietly.

Lisavet only cried harder. She didn’t want to think about what it meant, even though she knew there was only one way her father would have given up his pocket watch to a Nazi soldier. Azrael said nothing but stayed by her side as she cradled what remained of her father’s memories.

No one was coming.

Ad If ads affect your reading experience, click here to remove ads on this page.