I handed the big book to Wallach, whose eyebrows went up. Viv giggled. “I don’t see what this has to do with our question,” she said.
“I do,” Wallach said, but he didn’t elaborate. He paid for the book, and he and Viv left without any more conversation. I felt a little forlorn. Usually Viv chatted with me when she came into the store…but now she had a job, and chatting probably wasn’t allowed.
It took until almost five o’clock for the last Ambrosites to clear out, by which time I felt frazzled and headachy and a little embarrassed at my outburst. But when I mentioned that last to Judy, she said, “They deserved it, and you know it. I wish I’d recorded it so I could play it for everyone who comes to the store. And put it on permanent loop for my father. You’d think he would see the importance of not building tension, but no. Maybe this thing with the familiars will change his mind.”
“Maybe.” I picked up my Animorphs book and flipped through it. “Did you ever read these?”
“Nope. Why? I thought they looked dumb, honestly.”
“They’re not dumb. I read a few when I was young and liked them okay. I just don’t remember any details that might help interpret this augury. Except the kids are fighting alien invaders that can take over human hosts, so there’s that similarity.”
“Well, it’s short,” Judy said. “It shouldn’t take you long to go through it.”
“I hope not.” I set it aside and stretched, making my spine crackle with a series of tiny pops. “I have another therapy session tonight.”
“What’s your therapist like?”
I yawned and covered it with my hand. “She’s very matter-of-fact. Doesn’t try to comfort me when something upsets me, which is nice. I like her in a distant way—like, we’re never going to be buddies, and that’s okay.”
“Interesting.” Judy headed past me toward the break room. “I’m going to sweep, and then if you don’t mind I want to leave early. I need a shower before tonight. Party at Father’s house, and they’ll almost certainly be talking about the familiars crisis.”
“Sounds fun. I’m glad I’m not you.”
“Yeah, you just have to face your personal demons,” Judy said.
The corridor to Green 1 felt shorter this time, possibly because I knew what to expect at the end of it. Also, at that time of evening, the node was at its busiest, and a lot of people nodded or waved to me as I passed. It was all so friendly I almost forgot why I was there. My grip on my notebook, though, kept me from becoming complacent. I was nervous about showing my list to Sydney. She’d said it would be revelatory, and that was true, but what if she’d meant revelatory to her? I couldn’t imagine what a trained psychologist, or whatever a LCSW was, might make of my recitation of traumas. It felt like she’d asked me to strip naked so she could criticize my posture.
The Wardens at the central desk were, again, unfamiliar to me. It made me wonder how many bone magi Lucia employed that I knew so few of them. “Ms. Campbell,” the woman hailed me. She was tiny and looked younger than me, but her smile was confident. “You can wait right over there, and Sydney will be with you shortly.”
“Thanks.” I took a seat in the indicated direction and positioned my notebook on my lap.
Almost immediately, the nearest door opened, and Sydney emerged. She was wearing another shapeless, flowing dress, this one turquoise blue. My favorite color. “Hi, Helena. Come this way, please.”
The hall and the office hadn’t changed except for there being a dark blotch on the wall farther down the hallway where a bulb had burned out. Sydney saw me looking at it and said, “It takes Maintenance time to get to all the little things. Personally, I think they should give us a box of lightbulbs so we can handle it ourselves, but that would make too much sense.”
I sat in the chair I’d used last time and again set my notebook on my lap. Sydney seated herself opposite me and said, “Well. How have you been?”
“Okay, I guess. You heard about the familiars? And the Bridgerton Node?”
“I did. I admit I’m more frightened by the deaths of the familiars than by the attack. If the invaders can reach that far, who knows what else they might be capable of?”
I shook my head. “I bet they took advantage of some link they have to all invaders, even the bound familiars. If they could do that to humans, they would have already.”
“I hope you’re right.” Sydney held out a hand. “Is that your list?”
I opened the notebook to the right page and handed it over. Sydney took it and read down the page, slowly enough that I became nervous again. If she thought I was unhinged…or if I wasn’t unhinged, but should be…
“This is thorough,” Sydney finally said. “I admit I’m surprised at how much you’ve been through. How did you feel, writing all this out?”
I considered that. “At times, I felt relieved, like I’d lost a burden I’d carried for so long it felt like part of me. Other times, though, it felt like living through it again. Like—” I swallowed. “When the Mercy were actually in the store, and Mr. Santiago held a knife to my throat to get me to do what he wanted…I don’t think I’ll ever forget how that felt.”
“Understandable.” Sydney interlaced her fingers and rested them on her knee. “Does that memory bother you often?”
“Sometimes. It’s always unexpected, though. I’ll be doing something completely unrelated—I won’t even be in the store—and that memory springs up and I have to stop what I’m doing and calm myself.”
“I see. It’s that realistic a memory?”
“Very.” I realized my breathing was ragged and took a deep breath to slow it down.
Sydney looked at me as if she knew what I was doing, though I was sure I hadn’t been obvious. “Sometimes, when our memories of something traumatic are powerful,” she said, “it’s because our minds are trying to make those events turn out differently. As if dealing with them differently now will alter the original event.”
I thought about this. It was certainly true that all my most terrible memories, the ones I had trouble shaking, were of things I wished had happened differently. “That makes sense,” I said. “But I know I can’t change the past, so why does it happen?”
“Your head knows you can’t change the past, but your heart doesn’t.” Sydney leaned forward as if to give her words greater emphasis. “And you’ll go on doing it until you’ve accepted those events as part of who you are now. Particularly the ones that have changed you in ways you don’t like.”
The eye of memory immediately threw up an image of Santiago the way he’d looked just after I shot him, that horrible look of pain and bewilderment, and I closed my eyes against it. “How do I do that?” I said.
“We’ll start by working on those distressing thoughts,” Sydney said. “Do you know what mindfulness is?”
“I’ve heard people talk about it, but I don’t know more than that.”
“Mindfulness is about living in the moment. Being fully present and aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not being overwhelmed by what’s going on around us or our distracting thoughts. Everything you’ve endured is in the past, but you’ve been reliving it as if it were the present. You know that’s not true. Practicing mindfulness will help anchor you in the actual present, and allow you to eventually leave those memories where they belong—in your past.”