The Plagues of Pandora

CHAPTER FIVE

Drake was with Mai when Grace returned from her time with the private investigator. By not saying anything the Japanese woman had requested his presence. For that alone he was grateful. For two weeks now this private investigator had been searching into Grace’s past, trying to stitch together the tattered patchwork quilt that was her memory. Two weeks. Surely he must have dug up something, Drake thought. But seventeen years was an awfully long timespan to have to trawl through, and Grace herself said she could remember nothing beyond her time with the Tsugarai and her master, Gozu. Drake knew they were bad times. Best forgotten. Mai Kitano had saved Grace’s life the moment she untangled those bonds, in more ways than one. Then Mai had made herself personally responsible for Grace’s welfare and future, a development Grace seemed not entirely happy about. So when Hayden offered to help by introducing Grace to an off-the-books investigator, they had all leaped at the chance. Perhaps Grace could get some real closure; maybe she could start to live again. Even find her parents. A fresh start and all that. In particular, maybe he could do something the DC doctors couldn’t — help find and revive her past memories. Grace needed to be made whole again.

In any case, he could search for her physical past.

Drake knew that Grace regretted her refusal of Mai’s offer of companionship the moment he saw her. The normally upbeat outer veneer crumbled and a tear fell from the corner of her eye. Drake feared the worst.

Mai stepped forward, taking her in her arms.

“You are seventeen,” she said. “You have been through hell. Standing up for yourself is one of the ways you will begin to step back into the real world.”

Drake had met Aiden Hardy very briefly before they allowed Grace to visit alone. He remembered the man as in his early thirties, rugged, with a day’s growth covering his big chin, and a smile that made his eyes twinkle, which was a quality someone like Grace would hopefully take to.

Grace pulled away from Mai, staring down at the floor and letting her words rush out in a flood. “He said that Hayden called him in to find answers. Nothing official, but something done quicker and dirtier than usual. That’s kinda my specialty, he said.” Grace sniffed. “He called me in because he found something.”

Mai stroked her hair. Drake had never seen her so soft, so nervous. He knew that Mai was being bombarded mentally on two fronts — from feelings for Grace and the family of the man she had killed.

“Hardy stopped smiling after a minute,” the young girl said, “and told me that I was probably a runaway.” Tears caught in her throat. “I have no family history up to the age of twelve that he has yet found, which is probably when I ran away. But after that, there’s more than enough. At twelve I was a streetwalker, bought and sold. These men, these animals that control the slave trade, they know what they’re doing. They keep you pliable through a cocktail of alcohol and drugs, and probably brutality, that’s what Hardy told me. I was one of the lost, ready to be used up and thrown away. I was failed, adrift. Treated as garbage. Of course, the dark streets of most major cities are awash with stories like mine. I was somebody’s daughter, I guess, but that somebody is unknown.”

Drake saw Grace’s show of confidence slipping. “I don’t even know if my mother loved me.” She sniffed.

Drake swallowed hard. Mai held the girl in strong arms. “Your mother loved you,” she said. “I know it.”

Now Grace’s voice grew harsher. “You haven’t figured out the worst part have you?”

Drake frowned. “You might still be able to find them.”

Grace wiped her eyes. “It’s not that. Finding them is a dream that might save me, but not knowing what happened to me from age twelve until now is one thing. Remembering it is going to be…” She began to wail, burying her head.

Drake felt a slice of horror stab his heart. What could be worse that having horrific old memories return? The memories she had so long craved for would serve only to ruin her again.

Drake fought to speak. “As the memories return perhaps you can get counselling. Or—”

Grace shook. “All the memories that will return to me are… are… horrible ones. And there’s nothing I can do to stop it. All I can do is… quit.”

Mai spoke for the first time. “So I’m suggesting that you start living your life. Now. For the present and the future because the past will one day return and you will need great new memories to help combat those long regressed nightmares.”

Grace shook her head slowly, clearly unable to believe her quandary.

I’m an empty shell,” she said. “A blank sheet. Love is dead, long live vengeance. Where do I belong?”

Drake responded to the thin voice, the devastated tone. “To the here and now,” he said. “Make yourself a life full of shiny new memories.”

“Here? Now? At seventeen? But once I was a child! I am somebody’s daughter! I am. And my mother loved me!”

Drake nodded. “So rise again. Find them. And be stronger than those chains protecting your heart and soul. Be a fighter. I mean, you’re in the right company, love.”

Mai met the girl’s complex dilemma head on. “So here you are, at memory-age three weeks, and having to deal with a decision-making event that would faze most adults. The question is — would a person want to remember such horrifying events? If a man could forget what he had seen in war,” she glanced up at Drake, “or if a woman could forget the night of her rape. If a police officer could forget just a few of the shocking and terrifying scenes they are forced to witness month by month, year by year, would they choose to do so?”

Grace stared in silence, maybe filing the question away for later consideration. The answer, Drake knew, was moot. Grace had no control over the resurrection of her memories. But she did have strength. And purpose.

She did have a future.