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Chapter 60 - What She Remembers When He Doesn't

He didn't let go right away. When he finally did, the wind seemed to notice them again, threading a soft, steady hush through the leaves. The girl sat back on the bench and looked at the book under his arm, then at his face, as if deciding which one would lie to her first.

"I found something," he said.

"I know."

"You knew where I was?"

"I always do," she said simply, which answered nothing.

He set the book on his knees and kept a hand on it, as if it might try to escape. "It says I broke her. My sister." The word felt strange in his mouth—sized to fit a different story. "It says that's why this is happening."

The girl's eyes lowered to the scorched hem of her dress. "Do you believe it?"

"I did when I was reading it." He let out an unsteady breath. "I still do, a little. That's the problem."

"It's built to be believed," she said. "Like a door that only opens inward."

He glanced at her. "Is it true?"

She didn't answer right away. "I remember parts of you that don't belong together," she said at last. "Sometimes the house is blue, sometimes it's brick. Sometimes you wear a watch; sometimes you hate the feeling of anything on your wrists. Sometimes there's a little girl who laughs when the sprinkler hits the rosebush, and sometimes there isn't a yard at all. I don't think the book is false because it's cruel." She hesitated. "I think it's false because it's consistent."

He looked past her to the unmoving sky. "Then what do you remember?"

"That you were afraid of small rooms," she said. "Even before you knew why. That you always sit on the edge of the bench, never in the middle. That when you lie, your hands get very still." She turned back to him. "And that you apologize when you don't have the right words."

"I'm sorry," he said automatically.

She almost smiled. "There."

They were quiet for a while. The swing gave a single creak and fell still again, like a thought dismissed.

"The Archivist knows," he said. It wasn't a question.

"He knows more than he says," she agreed. "He keeps the story walking in a straight line, even when the ground bends. But sometimes he… pockets things. For later." She lifted her gaze to his. "So you don't tear the page in half trying to read it."

"He told me the order is breaking," the boy said. "That the chapters are going to slide out of place."

"They already are." She nudged the book with one finger, not touching it. "He thinks the shape will keep you from falling through."

"And you?"

"I think the shape is what you fall through."

He laughed once—tired, without humor. "So I'm trapped either way."

"You're not trapped," she said. "You're choosing in circles."

He studied her face, the way she didn't flinch from him the way the rooms did. "Tell me what you can't say," he whispered.

Her eyes softened. "If I could, I would."

He nodded, and for a moment it felt like agreement, though nothing had been agreed upon. He opened the book to the place where the key was stitched to the gutter, the brass caught in the seam like a tooth. The words near it seemed to breathe as he moved, as if relieved to have a reader.

"Don't," she said, very quietly.

"I have to know whether this is mine," he said.

"Knowing is how it keeps you," she said. "Believing is how it buries you."

He closed the cover. The key did not rattle. He pressed his thumb to the spine and felt the faintest warmth, as if the story had a pulse.

"If he's hiding pages," he said, "then there's a place he keeps them."

"There is," she said.

"Will you take me?"

She looked at the sky, and for the first time since he'd met her, something like impatience passed across her face—at the clouds, at the scene, at the way the bench never shifted under their weight.

"No," she said. "But I can tell you where to wait."

"For what?"

"For the story to look away."

He frowned. "How will I know?"

"You'll hear it," she said. "Like paper turning in another room."

He listened without meaning to. The wind feathered. The swing didn't move. The book warmed his palm.

"Tell me one true thing," he said suddenly, surprising himself with the need in it. "Anything."

She thought for a long time. When she spoke, it was almost a whisper. "You were kind," she said. "Even when you were afraid."

He swallowed. "That doesn't feel like enough."

"It's never enough," she said. "But it's the only thing that doesn't change."

He stood. She did not. He slipped the book under his arm again and faced the path. "If I wait," he said, "and it looks away…"

"Then go where you couldn't before," she said. "And don't take the key where it wants to go."

He nodded, though he didn't understand it. He took a step, then another. Behind him, her voice reached him one last time.

"If you see him," she said, meaning the Archivist, "tell him I remember more than he thinks. Tell him the garden didn't used to be here."

He turned back, but she was looking at the not-moving birds again, as if they might change if she watched long enough.

He walked until the bench was gone behind the hedge. He walked until the path narrowed into the corridor again, the air cooler, the lights uncertain. He stood very still, book pressed to his ribs, and waited.

Somewhere, far off, the sound came: a soft, unmistakable shiver—the whisper of a page turning where no reader should be.

He exhaled, stepped left where there was no door, and felt the world hesitate.

Then, obedient to nothing he could name, it let him through.

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