Hades

Chapter Twenty Three - The Memory, Part One

Chapter Twenty Three: The Memory Part One

'From then on, we would always meet at her garden gate,' said Honda, stretching luxuriously in Harusame's arms. 'When my father became assigned to the new parish I walked from the church into town everyday to look around, and I always loved passing that mansion surrounded by roses. It made me kind of sad that it was blocked off from the world with that big wall of hedgerows; I guessed the owner must be pretty secretive but that only made me more curious about it.'

Harusame nodded. 'I'm the same,' she said, her eyes sparkling. 'When something is a mystery, I love it all the more. My mother always said I got this curiosity from my father.' She tickled Honda's chin, and his slow, contented motor began to rumble involuntarily. 'I'm sorry Honda-kun, you were saying?'

'Let's see, it was only about a week after we'd moved in that I first met her. She was so cute! I couldn't help but go back there in the hope that I might see her again. She would lean over the gate with this bright look in her eyes, and ask me to show her magic. You have to understand Izuki-san, my father was a pastor and he strongly disapproved of my tricks. He said they were wicked black magic; he didn't understand that my performance was just illusion designed to make people happy. When I told him that none of it was real magic he scolded me for tricking and deceiving people. I felt like I couldn't do anything to please him. I wasn't too clever at my studies, and as you can see I've never been too athletic. Magic was all I had, and Treielle was so enthusiastic about it. I would go to her house every morning, and even though we were on opposite sides of the gate we'd sit side by side. She would read me chapters from her book, and I would show her my magic. One day I even managed to conjure a flower for her.'

*

Treielle watched as the boy reached into his sleeve and pulled from it a single white rose. Her former self made an impressed squeak of appreciation and applauded.

'This is for you,' he said with a blush, passing it through the gate. 'Just don't hurt your finger on the thorns okay?'

She took it and held it tenderly, turning it over in her fingers. 'Thank you Honda! It matches my dress.'

'If you'd like a red one, we could always paint it like the card men did in your storybook.'

The girl smiled wistfully at the pack of Honda's cards, spread on the grass at his side of the gate. 'I wish you could make the cards come alive, and we could all have a fun game of croquet together. I wouldn't want you to magic the queen of hearts to life though. That would be scary!'

Honda reached through the gate and took her hand. Treielle felt warm watching this memory; the touch of his hands on hers was fresh in her mind. Her former self looked nervous.

'Treielle, why don't you ever want to come outside with me? I'm so used to the city that I've never seen the countryside. You could show me around the town and-'

'I don't know the town,' she said. The boy looked at her in crestfallen surprise.

'You said your parents moved from Brittany when you were a baby, and you've lived here all your life, right?'

Her expression was stubborn, defensive. 'It's not that I don't want to, it's that I'm not allowed outside. I really couldn't tell you anything about this town.'

'But, why-?'

'Because they didn't want me to get hurt,' thought Treielle sadly, watching as her doppelganger squeezed the rose in her hands, trying desperately to explain her situation to Honda. 'After my sister died my parents were terrified that they would lose me too, and so I wasn't ever allowed out. I was their one and only precious little girl, kept in that beautiful house, in that beautiful garden all my life. I had birdsong and sunshine and servants to wait on me hand and foot, yet I was miserable. I had everything I could ever need or want, except for friendship, until the day your white rabbit broke into my fake wonderland.'