Page 32 of The Book of Lost Hours
LISAVET WAS TIRED . S HE wasn’t accustomed to the feeling.
Nor was she quite sure why, after twelve years of feeling nothing of the sort, she suddenly felt like her body had been drained of energy, like a marionette with its strings cut.
Limbs so heavy that the simple act of walking was a trial.
She wanted to do nothing but sleep, but no matter how hard she tried, either inside of memories or in the time space, she couldn’t manage it.
“Perhaps I’m ill?” she suggested to Azrael.
He shook his head. “No, it isn’t possible. Not in the time space.” He paused, watching her weary face as she leaned against the shelves in a dark corner. “Though I suppose heartbreak is a kind of illness all its own.”
Maybe that was it. Maybe it was heartbreak making her so tired. Now she was the one following Ernest in the time space whenever he made an appearance. Seeing him, even from a distance, was as much a relief as it was painful. He was alive and well and unharmed. No longer in danger.
She, however, still was. She could sense something had changed for her within the time space.
Timekeepers were watching for her now. Not just the Americans and the Russians, but the British, the French, the Italians…
they worked more quickly, lingering longer.
Memories were burned before she could reach them, and it became harder and harder to stay hidden.
Twice now she had been forced to run away when a timekeeper pulled a gun on her.
Three times she had found one following her the way Ernest had when they’d first met.
Another Russian, this one with dark hair and hard, sullen eyes.
He tracked her every movement from afar.
Another hunter. Another threat. She kept the silver revolver close at hand, but she doubted she’d ever be able to bring herself to use it.
Death was another kind of erasure, and she did not want to be the cause of it.
Every time her salvaging efforts were thwarted, she cursed Jack Dillinger in her head.
She was certain that this was his fault.
That he, realizing what she had done to Ernest, had put the word out about her, telling every timekeeper in existence that the girl who saved memories could also take them away completely.
She was in more danger than she had ever been.
Azrael remained particularly vigilant, staying by her side in ways he hadn’t since she was small.
The exhaustion settled deeper as time passed.
No matter how much she rested. No matter how often she tried to sleep.
But then, four months after her last night with Ernest, she awoke to the feeling of something moving within her.
She was on a ship sailing from England to India on calm, clear waters, tucked into the memory of a sailor standing watch up on deck.
The rocking of the hull had helped lull her to sleep but now, all of a sudden, she found the movement unsettling.
Her eyes searched the interior of the ship, looking for the cause when it happened again.
She sprang from the bed, smacking her head on the low ceiling.
With one hand on her forehead, she stumbled out of the memory and back into the time space, panting in fear. Azrael was beside her in an instant.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I thought I felt something moving.”
“Moving? Moving where?”
She pressed a hand against her abdomen. “Something inside of me. It…”
She broke off at the sight of Azrael’s face. “What is it?”
“Come with me,” he said gravely.
He took her through the shelves of the time space, his liquid form moving so quickly he was almost a blur.
He stopped in between two rows and summoned the specter of a woman Lisavet had never seen before.
She was dressed like Azrael in simple brown robes.
They spoke in whispers, pausing every once in a while so the woman could assess her.
When they finished speaking, the crease in Azrael’s brow was deeper than Lisavet had ever seen it.
“Oh, Lisavet. Oh, my poor child.”
“What’s wrong?”
“It seems that… well, there’s no other explanation. The exhaustion, now this… My dear, you are pregnant.”
Lisavet’s knees buckled. No, that wasn’t possible. She couldn’t get pregnant. It was something she had been so certain of. She had never even bled! That’s because you’re in the time space , a little voice in her head said, almost mockingly.
“H-how? It’s been over three months since Ernest and I last…”
Azrael consulted the woman again. “She said that would put you somewhere between sixteen and twenty weeks along. Around the time the baby starts to move.”
As if on cue, the thing inside of her shifted again.
She put a hand on her stomach. Was it possible?
Was she carrying a child, Ernest’s child?
A baby that belonged to a man who no longer remembered she existed?
The tiny being kicked again and this time she felt it against the palm of her hand. She fainted cold onto the floor.
T HE MONTHS moved quickly.
It was getting harder to stay hidden. Harder to run away whenever danger drew closer.
Lisavet lingered inside of memories more than she stayed outside of them.
In the hourly increments of sleep she managed to get, she began having nightmares of Jack Dillinger’s voice ordering Ernest, who had forgotten that he loved her, to shoot her dead, her baby dragged from her arms the minute it was born.
She was restless with worry, wondering how long she could outrun them.
All the while, the baby inside of her grew as restless as she was.
Its constant kicking kept her awake and she took to humming songs to it in an effort to get it to stop.
Every song, save for one, seemed only to excite it.
But whenever she sang “Blue Moon,” the baby at last held still.
One evening, she sang the song until the baby stopped moving and leaned her head back against the shelves, still humming.
“My brother loves that song,” a woman’s voice said suddenly, jerking her out of her momentary peace.
Her eyes found the woman at once. Over the years, Lisavet had encountered hundreds, if not thousands of spectral memories, but never had she seen one she knew.
Or… knew of, at least. There was no mistaking the copper hair and hereditary blue eyes of Ernest Duquesne’s younger sister.
Lisavet had seen her in his memories; the wayward girl who’d gotten pregnant out of wedlock and been disowned by her family.
By everyone, that is, except her older brother. What was she doing here?
“Who?” she asked instead, feigning confusion.
“My older brother,” said the memory of Elaina Duquesne. “He plays it all the time on his record player.”
He still played their song.
“It’s a beautiful song,” Lisavet said. She didn’t know how to talk to this person.
“It is.” Elaina lingered beside her, just as uncertain as she was. “You’re having a baby?”
Lisavet touched her stomach. “Yes. Not long now.”
“I had a baby too,” Elaina said.
I know , Lisavet wanted to say.
“She died just a few days after she was born. She was so little. And the doctors said she was ill.”
“I’m sorry,” Lisavet said. She hadn’t known the baby had died. When she and Ernest parted ways, the baby was just a few weeks away from being born. “So… your brother never got to meet her? His niece?”
“No. He came to see me in the hospital a few hours too late. He was the only one. The rest of my family… they weren’t happy with me. But Ernest, my brother, he was different. He offered to help me raise her. When she died, he even said I could come live with him, but I was too stubborn.”
“How did you die?” Lisavet asked, knowing it was a touchy subject among the dead. Usually, she didn’t dare ask.
Elaina dropped her eyes and looked away. “I did it to myself. I couldn’t handle it. Losing the baby, I mean. So six months after, I…” she broke off and shook her head violently. “It was stupid. It was so stupid. If I could change it…”
Lisavet nodded in understanding. She had met many memories who had taken their own lives over the years. Every one of them regretted it.
“I’m sorry for bothering you,” Elaina said after a moment. “I heard you singing, and I couldn’t help it.”
“It’s all right. I don’t mind company. I only wish I could help somehow.”
“Could you?” Elaina asked hopefully. “I don’t mean to be too forward, but I’ve seen the other timekeepers around here. Hardly any of them bother with random girls who offed themselves and I don’t want Ernest to be the one to see all my memories. It would… it would break him.”
Lisavet started to tell her that she wasn’t a timekeeper.
But she stopped short. Why shouldn’t she help her?
She had a watch. The book of poems was certainly big enough to hold the memories of this woman’s short life.
She was as much a timekeeper as anyone else.
And besides, she knew what Elaina said about Ernest was true.
She agreed, watching the relief spread across the young woman’s face.
Using the shelf to pull herself up, Lisavet took the poems from her bag.
She did what she had seen the other timekeepers do, letting her fingers rest on the milky shadow of Ernest’s younger sister.