Strangeness and Charm: The Courts of the Feyre by Mike Shevdon Read Free Book Online

They were living things you could touch without sparking visions of other people's lives.
      "You'll start to remember soon," she remarked.
      "Remember what?"
      "What I saw, in the rooms under Porton Down. I've given you the memory."
      "You've given it to me? How?"
      "It's in the lemonade."
      I looked down into the translucent liquid, then put the glass back on the table, wondering what she had poisoned me with and how long I had.
      "It's only a memory, not the full experience. I stirred it in with the sugar."
      "Why?"
      "Because I want you to understand what I saw. Think back, there's a memory that's not your own."
      I thought back to the night Raffmir and I broke into Porton Down, to the people we had killed and those we had saved.
      I remembered the rooms with glass walls reinforced with iron wire. I could see myself taking the key from the nurse's hand, the swish of the blade, the spatter of blood across the glass, the slowing ooze as the blood ran down the glass, black and glossy in the dim light.
      Strangely I can see both sides of the glass.
      I remember the sudden trepidation that the dark figures would kill me too, followed by the realisation that we were being set free. These were not my memories. I could see myself through another's eyes; a shadowed outline under the faded safety lights.
      The key is turned; hope outweighs my fear while my heart pounds in my chest. I edge closer; the overwhelming urge to touch. My hand finds its way to his cheek. I am momentarily blinded, a piercing light – so much brightness – then darkness and an afterimage, a rising sun. The sun will rise, and they shall fall. I can hear myself saying it.
      The image of the sunrise is burned into my retina. My logical mind says that it could be a sunset, but my power knows different. I stumble away down the corridor, away from the man. I can barely see. My eyes fill with a searing light that hasn't happened yet….
      I blinked, vaguely disorientated by the foreign memory. I couldn't escape the feeling that something alien was planted there.
      "How can I have your memory? Can you remove it?" I said.
      "The memory? Now that would be interesting, wouldn't it? If I could make you forget things, how could you trust your mind? I could make you forget why you're here, where you came from, who you are." She shook her head, "No, I can't remove it."
      "You could have just told me."
      "Do you know what it means?" she asked.
      "Some of it. The light could have been me. There was a helicopter spraying bullets onto the roof. I created the light to destroy it."
      "I saw the aftermath when I left. What about the rest of it? The sun will rise and they shall fall. What does it mean?"
      "I was hoping you were going to tell me," I said.
      "Come with me." She went into the hall. "Come on, I won't bite."
      I followed her upstairs, careful to keep the sword where I could draw it if I needed to. There was a landing at the top, a bathroom and two bedrooms. At the front of the house was a closed door. A small sign on the door said, Caution! Woman at Work.
      She stood with her hand on the door. "I was a writer, you know? Freelance; mainly brochures and advertising copy, before all this."
      "All what?" I asked.
      "The facility at Porton Down. Did you know I volunteered? Initially they took volunteers. We were treated better than the other inmates, though that changed towards the end."
      "I'm surprised you went, given that you must have known what would happen there."
      "Oh I had a fair idea what they meant to do, but it was that or be taken there. It was going to happen anyway. Easier on me if I went willingly. It's all in here."
      "What is?"
      "See for yourself."
      She pushed open the door and stepped back, leaving me room to come forward. It opened into a small room at the front that had been converted into a study. There was a desk and chair, a pile of books and notepads