This choice: Tell Margaret about removing imago • Go Back...Chapter #96The Last Session by: imaj   You’ve grown accustomed to the overwhelming thickness of the air that greets you in Margaret’s library. Not ‘immune to’ but accustomed. Another burden to bear as Margaret works to lead you to the answer you are seeking. You let it wash round you as you struggle across the room and into your chair. Margaret is content to wordlessly watch your progress with those dead eyes.
The chair is no more comfortable than it was the first day you stepped into this room, but it has grown familiar. There’s a sort of comfort in familiarity as well and you shift in the seat until the impossible pressure squeezing at you seems a fraction more bearable.
Margaret continues to gaze at you without saying a word. So it’s going to be one of those sessions, you think.
This has happened a couple of times: An hour of painful, awkward silence as Margaret stares at you. You’ve never quite been able to meet her gaze when it’s been like this. Your eyes drift slowly downwards until you recall what Rick told you yesterday: She might not care about what you learned but who knows, maybe it will lead to something. At least it will break the silence.
You look at Margaret, looking back into her flinty eyes. “I learned something yesterday, how to remove imago that I’ve copied from people” you begin. The air seems to thicken again, pushing you further down into the seat – you seem to have provoked a reaction. “It’s important,” you protest, struggling with the words. “What happens if my brain fills up with other people’s thoughts? What if I run out of room? I need to be able to manage it,” you stumble. It’s hard to get the words out now, the gaps between each word have grown longer and it takes many minutes to get everything out.
The sense of pressure ups again and you feel your spine twinge in protest. Your lungs are on fire and you feel as if the life is being crushed out of you. “There are… There are some… memories,” you struggle to speak, your vision is starting to go fuzzy round the edges. “That I want to forget.” The last words burst out in a rush and the sense of relief is indescribable.
Abruptly the pressure rescinds. Margaret’s eyes flicker about, as if she is examining you in some way that you can’t perceive. “Why,” she rasps.
You spend a minute thinking of the words that you need: “So I don’t have to go through the wardrobe door,” you say slowly. Margaret says nothing, she just sits impossibly still. “There are memories that I’ve taken that are dangerous,” you explain, the words coming slowly but steadily now. “The cultist, George. What he’d done, what he’d been taught to do. The knowledge he had was enough to send him through the door. Should I carry it with me,” you ask. Margaret does not answer. “I don’t think I should. Even if I didn’t look at it today, what about tomorrow, or the day after? There’s always the risk that I’d want to know, or use something I shouldn’t.” You stop to mop your brow. Sweat flow freely and your clothes are drenched in it.
“There are memories I had no right to take,” you add. “Jen the flight attendant. Rick told me to stay in L.A., but I ignored him and came here. I took her life for a day and made a mess of it,” you explain guiltily. “I still know all her secrets. I shouldn’t, but now I can forget them all.”
You breathe deeply and freely. The air of the room is as oppressive as ever, but it seems just that little bit sweeter now that you’ve unburdened yourself. You start to lever yourself out of the chair…
The pressure on you ramps back up, crushing you back into the cushions. Have you missed out something? You were sure you’d realised something very important but Margaret seems to think there is more to say.
How can you tell, the question haunts you again. Being able to remove memories and imago, that’s part of the solution, not all of it. You are sure the whole answer is close. Margaret must sense it too, otherwise why would she be pressing you so hard. If only there was some kind of clue.
“I’m dangerous,” you say hesitantly. “I need to be watched.” What Fyodor and Kali said to you in the garden after your very first session swims into your thoughts. “We’re all dangerous, we all have to be watched so we watch each other.” The words spill out slowly and unsurely, but now that you’ve spoken them, you are sure they are true. “We have to watch ourselves, don’t we,” you ask, not expecting an answer, you need to give voice to the sentiment though. “So we need to know how to watch ourselves. That’s what you meant when you asked me how I could tell,” you continue excitedly. Though you still feel the weight of the room pressing down on you, it somehow doesn’t seem to matter anymore. You are like a long distance runner on the final straight – the aches and pains are still there but they only need to be borne a little while longer.
You remember your conversation with Rick in the cultist’s ritual chamber. “Rick’s thing about not stealing from people, that’s something he does to watch himself isn’t it?” Margaret says nothing of course. “I need something for me, and I need it soon, don’t I?” Again, Margaret says nothing, but that doesn’t matter anymore. “I’m dangerous but I’m no more dangerous than any of us,” you say in a flash of insight. “But I am more dangerous because I’ve advanced so quickly, and it’s all about what I can do with peoples imago.”
It all seems so simple now. You can’t help but smile, an action that causes Margaret’s eyebrow to twitch. “George’s imago helped us bust up his cult. I’ll need to do that sometimes, but if I always get rid of the imago I’ve taken afterwards, there’ll be no temptation to use any forbidden knowledge later.”
“Jen’s imago,” you continue. “I took it and I shouldn’t have. There’s going to be times when I have to take someone innocent’s face for a while, because they are caught up in something or because I need to use them to get close to the bad guy. But I’ll always make sure I don’t screw up their life, and I’ll always remove their imago when I’m finished.”
There’s one more thing to say. One final statement that answers Margaret’s question: “I’ll only ever take someone’s imago when I need to and I’ll only keep it as long as I need. That way I know I’m not abusing my prodigies. If I slip up, Rick will tell me, or Kali, or Fyodor, and you’ll be here to help me.”
Margaret smiles wryly as the last of the pressure slips from around you. An enormous weight has been lifted from your shoulders, your worries about your future are gone. You realise that it will be hard work to keep to the standard you’ve set yourself, but the rest of the Stellae is there to help you if you fall. Rick, Kali and Miko have all shown you how to use your powers, but Margaret has shown you how not to use them. Maybe that’s the most important lesson you’ve learned yet.
“Thank you Ma’am,” you say as you lift yourself from the seat. You are halfway across the room when Margaret speaks again.
“Will,” she says, her voice has lost a little of its rasping quality. “Draw the curtains open for me please.”
It’s an odd request, but in your half giddy mood it’s one that you are happy to accede to. The thick curtains are stiff in your hand, almost resistant to being moved, and you tug them to side with difficulty before pinning them in place with loops of fabric. Light shines through the window, creeping back into the room almost as if its long absence has made it nervous to return. On impulse you pull the window upwards an open, letting the fresh morning breeze into the room. The last traces of mustiness in the air evaporate
As you turn to Margaret again to excuse yourself you see that her chair is empty. Shocked is the only way to describe how you feel as you watch her take slow but steady steps towards you, entirely unaided. She moves with a surety of purpose that belies her frail little frame.
It might just be a trick of the light, or maybe you were never able to see her properly in the dim half light that shrouded the room before, but her face seems to change as she gets closer to the window. The years seem to drop away, and though her basic features never seem to change, she looks more like she is sixty that someone far past their hundredth birthday.
She looks up at you, for she is still a tiny little thing and the top of her head barely reaches your chest. Her lively eyes lock with yours for a moment. “Shall we look at the garden for a while,” she says quietly but firmly.
You nod, your mouth agape and turn and face the window. Beyond it, Margaret’s back garden is a riot of colour in the early morning light. In the distance, the sun is rising hazily in the sky. “I have one more thing to ask of you Will,” she says. “Fetch Kali for me.”
*****
Kali is in the kitchen, along with Fyodor and Rick. Though you can barely contain your enthusiasm about what you’ve realised, you dutifully tell Kali that Margaret wants to speak to her. She leaves quickly.
You settle in at the table and start gabbling about your revelation, talking hurriedly and excitedly. Several times Fyodor has to ask you to slow down and repeat yourself, but as your explanation starts to come out, he rapidly becomes as enthusiastic as you.
Then Kali returns.
She stands in the doorway, tears streaming down her cheeks. “It’s Margaret,” she says, daubing at her eyes with a handkerchief, vainly trying to stop the flow. “She’s gone…”
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