Origins of a Smile - Episode Three

1

Barbara, Christopher, and David with his head down low, returned back to the sitting room. Barbara was about to ask Betty if she knew anything about the library key when she realised Betty wasn’t even there. Neither was Jacob.

“Where do you think they’ve gone?” asked Christopher.

“I don’t know, but Jacob was in no condition to walk. He had minutes at best. At one point earlier I even thought he was dead.” 

That was when Barbara realised. “Oh, I’m so stupid. He looked dead because he was dead.”

“The Endless?” asked David.

“No worse, that bloody Eternal Child.”

“But he’s got nothing left. What’s the point?”

“He’s got what he’s always wanted. Betty. With her he can start all over again.”

“They must have gone into the garden, we’ve got to hurry” said Christopher.

2

Chasing after Betty in the thick snow was harder then it looked. Most of the detail of the garden was gone, under the uniformed whiteness and the way the light reflected off the snow was almost dazzling. But still the creature did not stop. It could go as long as the body it inhabited could manage.

“I will get you Betty, because I have nothing left; when you have nothing left, you are capable of doing just about anything.”

Betty didn’t answer, she just kept on running, turning this way and that for what looked like no rhyme or reason.

“It’s not personal Betty, I just need your body. I need my family, I miss them. I’m all alone. With your help I can start again, but this time I’ll do it differently.”

Suddenly Betty stopped in her tracks and turned around to face her pursuer.

“Finally, Betty” it said when it stopped a few feet away. “Finally you understand me. There’s nowhere left to go. You know you can’t stop me, you’ve got nothing left.”

“And when you’ve got nothing left you are capable of doing just about anything” replied Betty.

“What, what are you talking about?”

“You think I didn’t know it was you in there.”

“Really” replied the creature, “how?”

“You forget I hear dead people. Jacob was still hanging on even after you took over, which I’m assuming happened before we even got back to the cottage. He’s been shouting at me all this time, telling me he’s dead, telling me you’re back.”

“Then why did you bring me out here.”

“You may have wanted me out in the garden, but I wanted you out here even more. I want you here on this exact spot.”

“What’s so important about the garden?”

“This isn’t just any old garden and this isn’t just any old spot. This is the heart of the garden of memories, where the power is at its strongest. Here you revisit all the memories in your mind, vividly, each and every one. And you’ve jumped into so many bodies. You’ve seen so many fragments of so many people’s lives. You told me yourself, every fresh body has lingering memories. So many memories deep down in that one little mind, and now there all bursting to come out, all those memories, all at the once.”

At first the garden was still, as white and peaceful and quiet as Betty had previously advertised. But then the garden began to murmur. The change was subtle at first, it began in the snow. All around Betty and the Creature delicate flakes began to float up from the white carpet at their feet; it was literally snowing backwards. The creature raised one of Jacob’s arms out to catch one of the flakes in his hand.

The flake passed straight through Jacob’s hand and in that instant, images flashed through the creature's mind, images of darkness and images of loneliness.

The snowflakes were all around them now. They had stopped their ascent into the sky and were instead moving in different directions. It looked like they were dancing as they twirled and swooped and spun around their captive audience. Every once and awhile one would arch down and pass straight through Jacob's body, then another and another. Each one bringing another image and another memory, but all the memories were muddled, none of it made any sense.

“Stop it, stop it now.”

“Now you can remember every kill, every body you’ve ever stolen.”

“Enough please Betty, enough.”

“Enough. Enough? It hasn’t even started yet.” Betty laughed, stepping towards the creature. “All those memories of all those people would be enough for anyone. For you it’s not, but I’ve got more. More memories then all of them put together.”

Betty grabbed hold of Jacob’s hand and held tight. The creature screamed.

3

Barbara, with Christopher and David charged through the snow trying to find Betty.

“They could be anywhere” protested David.

“I think I have an idea” said Barbara. “Follow me.”

And sure enough it wasn’t long before they could hear screaming, but it wasn’t Betty’s. They all rushed forward even faster. Christopher was the first on the scene, and what a scene it was.

Betty and Jacob seemed to be frozen at the centre of a strange snow storm. The snowflakes were hurtling around the two at such a pace they looked like hula hoops made of snow.

“What’s going on?” asked Christopher.

“They’re lost in their memories at the epicentre of the garden, oh Betty you clever old thing.”

“Explain” said David.

“This garden is a memory garden. Well it’s actually called an intelligent garden. It literally creates itself from people’s memories, but that’s another explanation, another time. What you need to know now is that it draws memories from people’s subconscious and plays them back in vivid detail.”

“Sort of getting it” said David.

“It happened to Peter and I when we first visited the garden. I saw things from my past like they were right in front of me. Some were images but the stronger stuff was like real, like live action. And you could feel it too, like you felt it when it actually happened.”

“Do you remember the sign in the garden?” asked Barbara.

“Yes” laughed Christopher. “No holding hands in the garden, it was funny.”

“The number one golden rule about the memory garden is you don’t hold hands, because the moment you do, you share each other’s memories and it can become too much for one mind, a jumbled confusing mess.”

“Right okay” said David.

“And here at the heart of the garden where the memories come by so strong, that rule is even more important. Not adhering to the rule here is beyond stupid, is borderline dangerous.” Barbara paused for a moment before continuing. “With all that said Chris, I've got one thing to ask.”

“Yes?”

“Do you want to do something beyond stupid and borderline dangerous?” said Barbara, stretching out both her arms and offering Christopher and David a hand.

“I’m not sure about this” said David, genuine fear in his voice.

“I’ll be your anchor” said Barbara. “Worst case scenario you become a gibbering wreck forever.”

“Best case scenario?”

“You’ll only be a gibbering wreck for a week.”

“With those amazing odds, why didn’t you say so” said David grabbing hold of Barbara’s hand. A second later Christopher grabbed the other.

“We ready then?” asked Barbara.

“Nowhere near” said Christopher.

“I’m always ready” laughed David running into the storm, pulling Barbara and Christopher in behind him.

The moment they entered the eye of the storm the whole world changed, shifting to an angle Christopher couldn’t quite put his finger on. It was silent in the centre while all around the flakes flew in a flurry of fury.

“Both of you grab Betty and Jacob, make a circle.”

It was strange Christopher could hear Barbara’s voice but it was like it was coming from inside his head. He did what he was told anyway.

The second the circle was complete the snowflakes changed from white into every colour imaginable. Lines of blues, reds and yellows shot round them and through them and in between.

“Remember always listen for my voice.” said Barbara “Use it to keep yourselves from getting lost.”

The ground seemed to give away and everyone with it, leaving Christopher alone suspended in the air, surrounded by this ever changing, ever shrinking, stretching and expanding multi-coloured funnel.

“Chris, can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t worry you are not lost, you are still standing in the garden holding my hand. You’re safe.”

“Okay. Why is it like this?”

“There’s too many memories all spinning through our mind trying to grab our attention. I’m stopping it from frying your mind.”

“Great, thanks for that.”

“But be warned, as it intensifies some will come through, I can’t hold them all back. Just remember you’re still in the garden and you’re still holding my hand. I won’t ever let go.”

“Okay.”

Christopher tried to hold onto this information as the memories started to leak and spread through his mind. So many images, so many places and people and loves and hates. Christopher could feel sadness in some, happiness in others and, well that one just made him blush.

Some images Christopher knew, his parents, his favourite toy, his Peter. But others he assumed must have come from one of the creature's victims. He saw impossible places. He saw events from hundreds of years ago and faces from the other side of the world. He saw castles and blimps and extinct animals, and they were coming faster and harder and sharper.  All the while the creature was screaming continuously in the background.

“How are you doing?” asked Barbara calmly as ever.

“It’s getting a bit much.”

“Just a little bit more Chris, it’s nearly done.”

“What’s nearly done?”

“You’ll see.”

The images all around Christopher had now begun to move. A vivid one came to the fore, of Barbara standing in the rain, her bloodied hands holding a gun and her face frozen in the strongest guilt Christopher had ever seen. But soon that passed for another, one of some kind of hut filled with pots and herbs and tools and lots and lots of cannabis, and Peter sitting in a chair crying.

“The first night” Christopher heard Betty’s voice from somewhere. 

“He just let it all out that night. Once Peter started, he couldn’t stop, losing his parents, then his brother, and then finally the fear of losing you, Christopher.”

Before Christopher could come to terms with that, another memory took its place and took hold of him. This time it was Christopher’s father telling him he was disgusting, that he was no son of his and demanding he leave, with his mother not doing a thing to stop him. Christopher wanted the memory to pass but it seemed it wanted to linger, like it always did. Christopher was all too aware that if he was seeing this, so were the others.

Next up a burning house, but not the one they’d only just escaped from with their lives. Christopher was sure he could hear a child screaming but the scene passed as quickly as it arrived. Almost as though it was being pushed along purposely out of view.

The screams from the creature had intensified.

“Enough please, I’ll do anything, anything. Just let me out of this nightmare.” It screamed.

“Do you really want it to stop?” Barbara’s voice came through clear.

“Yes please.”

“If I help you, you have to leave this body and go back to the nowhere place, back to where your family are... somewhere.”

“Anything is better than this.”

“Then concentrate. Take your mind back to a time you were most happy, felt most safe. Cut out everything else, push it away. And concentrate on that one image, that one moment in time.”

Christopher couldn’t believe it; the images started to drop away one by one by one by one. Every single image blew away like a photo in the wind, until there was only one memory left, the final memory. It began on a cold winter’s night sixty years ago.

“What’s happening?” Christopher asked Barbara.

“Well isn’t it obvious, haven’t we always wanted to know what really happened. That’s where we’re going.”

“I’m sorry, where are we going?”

“Back to the where it all began of course, the origins of the smile.”

To be continued...