Memorymakers Read Online Free PDF

unable to utter a sound. If he attempts to write a secret, his arms and hands cease functioning entirely. And when he falls asleep the next time, as he must, a form of shittah is set in motion. Secrets have never been lost.
    —From a story told to Ch’Var children

    In an elegant house near the condominium complex where Squick lived, sunlight hit Emily Harvey’s green glass desk lamp and threw a shadow against the wall. Above the shadow, ghostly, smokelike shapes from the interaction of sunrays with bulb and glass heat waves curled upward, as if the lamp were afire. Such fine and delicate creatures those undulating nether forms seemed to be, Emily thought, as if they had secret energies of their own.
    It was the third day of Emily’s Easter vacation, a time for relaxation and thought gathering. But only for a few minutes. Part of her attention waited for the shrill cry from her stepmother that would call her to the kitchen for chores.
    The doorbell rang, and Emily found herself at the front door gazing up at a pleasant-faced man in a gray and black tweed jacket. He held a briefcase in one hand and a peculiarly carved wooden pipe in the other. He tucked the pipe into a pocket.
    His eyes glittered with excitement—they were dark, almost red. “Good afternoon, young lady. I have a gift for your family . . . free. No obligation to buy anything. Is your mother home?”
    “I’ll get. . . her,” Emily said, thinking how false the word mother sounded.
    She went to the kitchen, where her stepmother, Victoria, busily slammed unwashed dishes into a pile. The family had a live-in housekeeper, Mrs. Belfer, who didn’t cook and refused to do much of anything in the kitchen. Emily had once estimated that Mrs. Belfer slept at least fourteen hours a day. Several times Emily had seen the housekeeper enter by the back door, paper bag in hand, a bottle of brandy or wine protruding from the top. Mrs. Belfer, a plump woman with fat cheeks, tiny hands and feet, and a great thirst, frequently poured herself drinks from the family liquor cabinet, though Emily had never heard her stepmother complain about this habit.
    “Start filling the dishwasher,” Victoria said the moment she saw Emily.
    “A man to see you,” Emily announced, her tone guarded. “Says he has a free gift for us.” Long ago the girl had decided that no matter what she said to Victoria it would be wrong. It always was.
    Victoria Harvey, a tall, well-developed brunette, held her body in the manner of a modeling-school graduate, at an angle with chin and hips thrust forward. Across one shoulder she wore a long, multicolored scarf which she pulled at nervously. Victoria’s eyes were lavender, and she had perfect teeth behind perfect lips that smiled the perfect smile at everyone but Emily.
    The perfect lips parted. “Couldn’t you have said I wasn’t in? I wish you’d use your head, if that’s possible. You know I’m on my way to a fashion show. Free gift? I’ll bet. Another salesman. I’ve told you a dozen times, I can’t be bothered with them.”
    Emily looked away, and her stepmother brushed past.
    The stranger must have possessed charms beyond those of the average solicitor, because moments later Emily saw him seated on the living room couch with Victoria, engaged in lively discussion. Behind them a three-dimensional aquarium video showed tropical fish swimming silently through an underwater garden, and to one side a fireplace video crackled.
    Victoria ‘s stuff, Emily thought. Artificial, like her.
    Emily had once dreamed that Victoria replaced her with a videotape, one that said, “Yes, Victoria. Yes, Victoria,” over and over again.
    When they were younger, Emily and her brother, Thomas, had often eavesdropped from the hallway. Crouched behind a railing that separated the hall from the living room, they had watched their parents entertain guests—discussions of divorces, new cars, failed love affairs, marriages, stock options and land values, all