The Archived Read Online Free PDF Page B

world.
    I set the glasses by my bed and return the rest of Ben’s things to their box. I’m
     about to put my ring back on when a thought stops me. Marks. Our last house was new when we moved in. Every scuff was ours, every nick was ours,
     and all of them had stories.
    Now, as I look around at a room filled not only with boxes but plenty of its own marks,
     I want to know the stories behind them. Or rather, a part of me wants to know those
     stories. The other part of me thinks that’s the worst idea in the world, but I don’t
     listen to that part. Ignorance may be bliss, but only if it outweighs curiosity. Curiosity is a gateway drug to sympathy, Da’s warning echoes in my head, and I know, I know; but there are no Histories here
     to feel sympathy for . Which is exactly why the Archive wouldn’t approve. They don’t approve of any form
     of recreational reading.
    But it’s my talent, and it’s not like a little light goes off every time I use it. Besides, I’ve
     already broken the rule once tonight by reading Ben’s things, so I might as well group
     my infractions. I clear a space on the floor, which gives off a low thrum when my
     fingertips press against the boards. Here in the Outer, the floors hold the best impressions.
    I reach, and my hands begin to tingle. The numbness slides up my wrists as the line
     between the wall and my skin seems to dissolve. Behind my closed eyes, the room takes
     shape again, the same and yet different. For one thing, I see myself standing in it,
     just like I was a few moments ago, looking down at Ben’s box. The color’s been bleached
     out, leaving a faded landscape of memory, and the whole picture is faint, like a print
     in sand, recent but already fading.
    I get my footing in the moment before I begin to roll the memory backward.
    It plays like a film in reverse.
    Time spins away and the room fills up with shadows, there and gone and there and gone,
     so fast they overlap. Movers. Boxes disappear until the space is bare. In a matter
     of moments, the scene goes dark. Empty. But not ended. Vacant. I can feel the older
     memories beyond the dark. I rewind faster, searching for more people, more stories.
     There’s nothing, nothing, and then the memories flicker up again.
    Broad surfaces hold on to every impression, but there are two kinds—those burned in
     by emotion and those worn in by repetition—and they register differently. The first
     is bold, bright, defined. This room is full of the second kind—dull, long periods
     of habit worn into the surfaces, years pressed into a moment more like a photo than
     a film. Most of what I see are faded snapshots: a dark wooden desk and a wall of books,
     a man walking like a pendulum back and forth between the two; a woman stretched out
     on a couch; an older couple. The room flares into clarity during a fight, but by the
     time the woman has slammed the door, the scene fades back into shadow, and then dark
     again.
    A heavy, lasting dark.
    And yet, I can feel something past it.
    Something bright, vivid, promising.
    The numbness spreads up my arms and through my chest as I press my hands flush against
     the floorboards, reaching through the span of black until a dull ache forms behind
     my eyes and the darkness finally gives way to light and shape and memory. I’ve pushed
     too hard, rewound too far. The scenes skip back too fast, a blur, spiraling out of
     my control so that I have to drag time until it slows, lean into it until it shudders
     to a stop around me.
    When it does, I’m kneeling in a room that is my room and isn’t. I’m about to continue
     backward, when something stops me. On the floor, a few feet in front of my hands,
     is a drop of something blackish, and a spray of broken glass. I look up.
    At first glance it’s a pretty room, old-fashioned, delicate, white furniture with
     painted flowers…but the covers on the bed are askew, the contents of the dresser shelf—books
     and baubles—are mostly