The Memorist

Chapter 97

Thursday, May 1^st-8:13 p.m.

In the audience, Annabelle Strauss climbed wildly onto her seat and stood up. “Help me!” she shrieked as she waved her arms above her head. Beside her, the mayor attempted to calm her but she reacted as if he were a stranger instead of her husband.

Gerta Osborne, the elderly opera singer sitting on the other side of the aisle, stared up at the concert hall’s domed ceiling, pointing to something or someone only she could see and screaming that it was coming “too fast…too fast…too fast.”

Stan Miller stumbled through the row of other audience members, tripping on their legs as if he were blind. They cried out-fended him off-but couldn’t stop him; he was desperate to get away from whatever was chasing him, even if it was only in his imagination.

On the stage, the conductor rolled on the floor, reaching out into the air where there was nothing to hold on to.

The principal violinist used his instrument to swat at his own arms, chest and face as if he were being eaten alive by a swarm of insects.

The female harpist, head in her hands, heaved with deep, wrenching sobs.

Erika Alderman was riveted to her seat, watching the audience members disassembling around her. She knew exactly what was happening. She was close enough to the stage to see her fellow Society member. Sebastian was playing the memory flute, and its tones were sending most of the audience into paroxysms of painful memories. She turned to tell Fremont, to share the amazing news that her hypothesis about binaural beats was being demonstrated all around them, but he wasn’t in his seat anymore. In the confusion, she hadn’t even noticed he’d gotten up. Where could he have gone? Had he been affected? She should go look for him but didn’t want to leave the performance and miss witnessing any of the living proof that was establishing her theory.

Another audience member observed the melee, also immune to the music. Malachai Samuels’ mind flooded with astonishment. Why did Sebastian have the flute? How had he learned the music? Had Meer figured it out? And more important, why was he doing this? Amazed by what was occurring, he studied people in the audience as they moved from the present to the past, unprepared for their journeys or their destinations. Finally, he stood. Whatever else happened, he had to be there when Sebastian finished his song, to get the flute.

As he worked his way to the front of the auditorium he saw Meer trying to do the same an aisle away. The two of them were the only ones not moving en masse toward the exit.

Meer didn’t even notice the people in her way; it was the onslaught of her own devastating memories that was making it so hard for her to move faster. Trying desperately to hold on to the present, she felt the last vestiges of it dissolve around her, melting in the sounds Sebastian blew through the flute.

Margaux forbade her hand to shake as she kept the pistol pointed at Archer.

Unafraid of her, so sure that she wouldn’t have the nerve to use the gun, he ignored her and nudged his horse closer and closer until he was near enough to reach out for the straps holding the gaming box to her saddle.

“No!” she cried out, pulling on the reins and backing her horse away.

“You stupid fool. Don’t you understand what a mess you’ve made? A mess I have to clean up. I know the box has clues in it. Give it to me and I’ll still pay you what I promised. If you don’t, I won’t hesitate to use this.” He brandished his pistol. “How’s that for incentive?”

In the hall, Malachai felt panic escalating around him. Fear, hysteria and hallucinations immobilized everyone, making it impossible for them to perform simple equations. Stay? Go? Run? Where? Drop to the ground? Go forward? Even those, like him, who weren’t affected, weren’t sure what to do; the terror was too pervasive. As he kept moving steadily forward through the chaos, he saw the wild fear in people’s eyes and heard their unholy cries as the song played on. But absolutely nothing happened to him.

The surging crowd pulled Meer back to the present again. She was caught up in the maelstrom of people shoving each other as they tried to escape, not understanding what she understood: that as long as they could hear the music, the pain and the memories would continue to bombard them, that even out in the lobby the assault would persist. Each brittle high note after another propelled them all deeper and deeper into netherworlds where the light was hundreds or thousands of years old.