The Memorist

Chapter 102

Thursday, May 1^st-8:27 p.m.

Meer stood stage left watching the police take Sebastian away. There would be time later to try and understand how it had happened and what the ramifications would be of the fact that tonight, here in Vienna, he’d caused thousands of people to remember brutal, horrific experiences from lives they’d lived before. And died before.

More than once, when her father had tried to explain the mystical light of wisdom to her, he’d told her how when we die our souls leave our bodies as pure light that shatters into thousands of fragments, and how each of those fragments returns in another time as another soul. The ultimate goal was that one day all those fragments would be made whole again.

Whose soul inhabited Sebastian’s body? Was it really a fragment of the same soul that had lived in Archer Wells? So it seemed. First Archer and then Sebastian had succumbed to base and selfish motives, defiling the promise of the flute. Why couldn’t Sebastian have learned his karmic lesson? What was he still working out? And why had so many others needed to be hurt in the process? Had part of her purpose been to give him this chance to do the right thing, repair what he’d done before?

If it was, all she’d managed to do was help him to fail.

An arm gripped her from behind. Strong and secure. The voice was familiar and kind. “I think it’s time for us to leave, Meer.”

Hearing Malachai’s voice she slumped with relief but he kept her supported. “Let me help you. I’ll take care of everything now. Just come with me.”

“I have it-” Meer showed him the flute.

“I know. Just hold tight and let me get you out of here.”

“Do you know what happened?”

“Meer,” Malachai whispered, “we need to hurry now. We have to keep the flute safe. You understand that, don’t you? We have to protect our memory tool.” He chanted soothingly, leading her farther away from the police and Sebastian.

They were in the wings, his arm in hers, when she realized he didn’t know about Jeremy. “Malachai-”

“We can’t stop to talk now. We must get you and the flute out of here without anyone noticing. Please, just keep walking. All of the exits in the main hall are blocked off so the police can control the exodus in an orderly fashion. We need to use the stage door.”

Ahead of them a group of three musicians were running and assuming they knew where the exits were, Malachai followed in their path, leading Meer deeper into the guts of the backstage area. The shouts and screams coming from the hall were muted now and she could hear her footsteps and Malachai’s on the concrete. They rounded a corner and were alone. So much quiet after so much noise was disconcerting.

“This way,” he said as he took a right in the direction of a glowing red exit light at the end of a long otherwise dark hallway. By the time he saw there were two security guards flanking the oversize metal door, it was too late to turn back.

“We’re going through. Don’t try to act brave. It’s all right that you look shaken up,” Malachai whispered. “They expect everyone to be upset. The only thing I want you to do is act as if you’re used to coming and going this way. By now I’m sure they all know someone’s been arrested and taken into custody. I doubt they’re looking for anyone else. Probably just trying to keep the situation calm. If they stop and ask to see what you’re carrying, show it to them, tell them it’s your instrument, that you’re in the orchestra.”

Clutching the bone, Meer tried to use Malachai’s words to keep her in the present but time was shimmering.

Ohana was running away in the ancient past. Everyone she’d ever been had run away. Always running away. She had to learn to stop and stay. This time she was trying to escape from Sunil’s wrath. Clutching the bone, all she had left of her dead lover Devadas, she kept running, not knowing where she was going, only knowing where she had been and that she had to leave there.

“Meer? Meer?”

Time shimmered again. She was with Malachai, backstage at the concert hall in Vienna. Her father had died, not a man named Devadas. From behind her, scurrying footsteps rushed by. Suddenly the hallway was crowded as a group of four dark-suited men escorted a well-dressed couple through the area. Malachai gripped Meer by the wrist and pulled her back, deep into the shadows.

Meer thought she recognized the thin, tall tuxedoed man who was weeping but she wasn’t sure. The blond woman with him was trying to comfort him, whispering to him but as they reached the exit, he collapsed and everyone rushed to his side.

“We should stay here,” Malachai whispered. “Until they’re gone.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“They aren’t going to want anyone to see him like that. That’s Edward Fields, the head of the American National Security Commission. It would exacerbate the perception that chaos has been unleashed. I don’t want them to realize we saw him and detain us. Let’s turn around. Go out the front. Give me the flute-if they stop me I’ll do some sleight of hand to confuse them.”

Meer’s fingers tightened around the bone instrument.

“Give it to me,” he repeated.

“No. I can’t. I can’t let anyone else have it.”

“Meer?”

“No one.”