Read Online Iron Chamber of Memory by John C. Wright - Free Book Online Page B

chamber, am I am alive. Out there, I am a sleepwalker.” A broken sigh came from her. “I am so very weary of this! For two years we’ve been trying to make our Outer Selves remember, to let the truth out! But don’t you see what’s happened? What is happening to me? I’ve turned into a shameless flirt!”
    Henry said gallantly, “I don’t know what you mean!”
    She raised her face from her hands, and her eyes were like two green rays boring into him scornfully. “So you did not notice how many times outside me contrived to press up against you this evening, to take your hand, to fall into your arms? I do not know which is more shameful: being a shameless hoyden or one who is so amateurish that the efforts go unnoticed!”
    “No, Outside Me thinks you are very attractive indeed,” said Henry. “He is just not going to hurt his friends by—wait a minute! Why am I apologizing for him? I mean, for me? In any case, you are not a flirt. All that was happening was that you subconsciously were aware of your true self. Your true heart. The real you was pushing you into my arms. You should be happy! It means we can beat this thing! Break it! My love, my darling, nothing can keep us apart!”
    “But something is. The marriage is two months from now. Something, something we cannot understand, cannot put a name to, has kept us apart for two years. Six hundred days and counting we have been separated. Sixty days remain. The nothing that keeps us apart is amnesia. It is time for firmer steps.”
    Henry’s face darkened. “Don’t bring this up again.”
    “I tell you—there is only one way to break a spell in a fairy tale like this. Sleeping Beauty was not just kissed, you know. Prince Charming needed a deeper intimacy to wake his love. The Brothers Grimm just cleaned the story up. Here is a roomy purple couch. We can light a fire in the rose-red marble fireplace to warm us. Sit with me! Take me in your arms!”
    She tugged on his hand, urging him to lower himself. Henry shook his head.
    Laureline said, “But everyone does it these days!”
    “Everyone can go to the devil. All we need do is bring a parson in here, have us perform the ceremony.”
    Her green eyes flashed scornfully. “And then what? After the Honeymoon, once the nuptials are over, and we’ve consummated the wedding, as soon as I walk downstairs, I will be unwed again, and marry Manfred, an adulteress in my own house? A different husband for every floor of the manor? I can go back and forth between this chamber and the master bedroom on cold nights, when one or the other of you grows tired. That will be a new scandal, even for England.”
    “Don’t talk like that!” he snapped.
    Laureline’s eyes grew wide with dismay, and her lip trembled.
    He knelt where she was kneeling before the divan, and took her hands in his, and kissed her. “Sorry—I don’t mean to be sharp.”
    “No, it is my fault. I don’t know what has come over me. I am so … so…”
    “Darling, I know. Shush. I know. But maybe our wedding vows would break the spell. There is an odd power in those old sacraments. Then we can consummate our love, and we will be free.”
    She rolled her eyes in scorn yet again. “Fine! You write a note to yourself to invite a minister into this chamber when I am here. And somehow talk me into bringing a wedding dress. But I think those notes will be ones your eyes will never let you read, once you are out-of-doors. They are too close to the heart of the matter.”
    He glared at his scarred arm. “Maybe…”
    Laureline said, “Do let me suggest a plan, for once. Let us try your new method. Write down in your little black book these words:
Buy diamond necklace
. Now in your memory palace, let us say in the swimming pool in the back, picture me wearing a black one-piece bathing suit, but with diamonds on a chain around my neck. See?”
    He said, “What will that accomplish?”
    “You are going to buy me a diamond necklace. When you see it on