Page 127 of Live Like Legends

She smirked up at me. “Personally, I think you should. You’ve been in this up and down emotional war about your mother for a while, so maybe getting the memories you have of her back could create something really beautiful for you.”

“I don’t know if it can patch up the giant sized parental hole that she left behind.”

Dani pressed her lips together. “No, but it might help repair it just a little bit. Just enough for you to know that repair is possible at all.”

Natalia ushered us inside the apothecary, leading us into an empty room. Dani held my hand the entire time and even when our palms got sweaty and separation of our hands was all but necessary, she didn’t let go.

“Are you completely sure this is what you want?” Natalia asked for probably the tenth time since we’d gotten here.

I sighed. “Yes. I’m overly sure at this point.” I walked over to the chair in the middle of the room and sat down.

Dani and I watched as Natalia went over to a bookshelf and pulled out a small square box with rose colored hinges. She placed the box on the table behind her and lifted the lid. When she walked around the chair, facing us again, in her hand was a sphere with white gold smoke floating around inside. The smoke was thick and I felt the need to reach out and touch it.

“What’s that?” Dani asked, her eyes wide as she stared at the sphere.

Natalia held it firm between her palms. “It’s a retention sphere. They are hardly used anymore, if I’m being honest, they were likely not used all that much back in my mothers time.”

“My memories are in there?” I pointed to what she held in her hands.

“Yes, Nicholas. Most of the time the removal of memories was quite permanent. They pulled them from the mind and simply threw them away. My mother clearly didn’t do that with yours.”

Dani hummed suspiciously. “How are you so sure that’s his memories?”

“As I’ve said these spheres are hardly used, but this happens to be the only one and— because of this.” Natalia reached into the front pocket of her dress, pulling out a small note. “It was underneath the sphere.

I took it from her, unfolding the paper and reading the contents:

If you find this please forgive me and know she loved you very much, I never wanted you to forget that.

“It’s written in my mother’s hand and I don’t know about you but I would bet all my magic she is speaking about you.” She gave me a pointed look.

I folded the note back up, placing it in my pocket. “Okay, what now?”

“Nicholas, this isn’t going to feel good. I have to be forthcoming about that. Extracting memories hurts but putting them back is a much more delicate process. You’ll feel a lot of things all at once. The memories won’t be in the right places at first and you’ll feel like you want to push them out, but fight against that.” She placed her hand on my shoulder. “The memories will find their place. You have to give them time. They are foreign to you, but you are not as foreign to them.”

I looked over to Dani, who collected my hand in hers again. She kissed the inside of my wrist. “I got you.”

Natalia stood on the other side of me and moved her hand around the sphere. The smoke started to recede from inside and circle around Natalia’s hand. “Just relax Nicholas.”

I settled back in the chair, watching as the smoke started to move towards me, collecting around my head. It tickled behind my ears and I blinked a few times as it got in my eyes. The smokestarted to fall away as it absorbed itself into my head. I felt like nothing, but then I heard a ringing.

“Does anyone else hear that?” I asked, the sound getting louder and I shook my head, trying to get it to stop. Dani looked to Natalia, opening and closing her mouth. The ringing stopped and then nothing. I let out a breath. “That was odd, but I don’t feel…”

The sudden feeling of bricks being cemented into place hit my head. It was like every memory was slamming in one by one, landing wherever they could. I jolted backwards, clamping my teeth together. The memories shifted, grating over my mind. Little pieces of things I hardly remembered began to take shape.

The memories continued to jump around and slam around in the interior of my mind, but I squeezed Dani’s hand needing some kind of anchor to the here and now.

The pain halted, skidding to a stop. The memories moved more delicately now as if they knew exactly where they needed to be and why. I felt my body slump back as if I was dozing off, but then the memories started to play and my mind opened up as if it was the first time I was experiencing these things.

I saw my mother and the way she crouched down as I ran over to her. Her face bright with so much pride.

I felt the fear from when I’d woken up from a nightmare and my mother rushed in to soothe me.

I saw the way she snuggled with my father on the couch right before I jumped in between them.

I remembered the way she caressed my face and told me how lucky she was that I picked her to be my mother. She would tell me how I would grow up so strong like my father, but at the end of the day I would always be her little boy.

I saw the looks on peoples faces when my mother would take me everywhere with her, making sure she always spent enough time with me.

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