The Memory Theater

  Also by Karin Tidbeck

  Amatka

  Jagannath

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2021 by Karin Tidbeck

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.

  Pantheon Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Name: Tidbeck, Karin, [date] author.

  Title: The memory theater / Karin Tidbeck.

  Description: First edition. New York : Pantheon Books, 2021

  Identifiers: lccn 2020021201 (print). lccn 2020021202 (ebook). isbn 9781524748333 (hardcover). isbn 9781524748340 (ebook).

  Subjects: gsafd: Fantasy fiction.

  Classification: lcc pt9877.3.i45 m46 2021 (print) | lcc pt9877.3.i45 (ebook) | ddc 839.73/8—dc23

  lc record available at lccn.loc.gov/​2020021201

  lc ebook record available at lccn.loc.gov/​2020021202

  Ebook ISBN 9781524748340

  www.pantheonbooks.com

  Cover background image: Mystic, 2004 (detail) by Magdolna Ban. © Magdolna Ban/Bridgeman Images

  Cover design by Kelly Blair

  ep_prh_5.6.1_c0_r0

  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Karin Tidbeck

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Part I: The Gardens

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Part II: Outside

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Part III: Mountains

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Part IV: Homecoming

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33: The Fall of the Gardens

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Acknowledgments

  A Note About the Author

  To my grandmother Greta,

  who came down from the mountain

  Part I

  The Gardens

  1

  Dora and Thistle spent the party hiding under a side table. The lords and ladies twirled between the marble statues on the dance floor, heels clattering on the cracked cobblestones to a rhythm that slid back and forth in uneven and hypnotic syncopation. One-two-three-four-five, one-two-three-four-five-six. Satin skirts brushed against brocade coats; playful eyes glittered in powdered faces. Lady Mnemosyne, resplendent in her laurel wreath and leafy dress, watched from her throne. It was like any other feast in this place, in eternal twilight, under a summer sky. At the edge of the dance floor, servants waited by buffet tables laden with cornucopias and drink.

  Thistle sighed. “You’ve got grass all over your front.”

  Dora blinked and peered down at her pinafore. It did have grass on it. The dress itself smelled sour and sat too tight over her chest and upper back, and the edges of the veil around her shoulders were frayed. She was not at all as clean and neat as Thistle, who sat with the coattails of his celadon livery neatly folded in his lap. His lips and cheeks were rouged, his hazel eyes rimmed with black, his cropped auburn curls slicked against his skull.

  Dora reached out and rubbed the collar of Thistle’s coat between her fingers. The velvet felt like mouse fur. Thistle gently pried her hand off.

  “You need to be more careful,” he said.

  A loud crash made them jump, and Dora lifted the tablecloth to peek outside. One of the ladies had upended a buffet table and sprawled in the ruins of a cornucopia. She laughed and smeared fruit over her skirts. Thistle took Dora’s free hand and began to clean her nails with a small rosewood stick.

  “Servants!”

  Heels clicked over the stones. A hoarse voice called out: “Servants! Servants!”

  It was Lady Augusta, Thistle’s mistress. Dora dropped the tablecloth. Thistle quickly veiled Dora’s face and crawled away to find his lady. A shock of lily of the valley perfume stung Dora’s nose, and she tried to stifle a sneeze. There was a rustle and Thistle returned and settled down next to her. He folded the veil back again.

  “It’s nothing. Nothing you have to worry about. Here, dry your nose.”

  Thistle smiled at Dora and gave her a handkerchief. His face was pale under the rouge. He continued Dora’s manicure, and she gnawed on the cuticles of her other hand. Somewhere above them, Lady Mnemosyne’s voice boomed in the air: “Drink to eternal beauty, my friends! Revel in our glory. Now dance and kiss and be joyful!”

  Dora let the noise of applause and shouts wash over her and relaxed into the good little pain of Thistle digging for dirt under her nails.

  When she opened her eyes again, it was quiet.

  “They’ve gone to sleep,” Thistle said. “We can go.”

  They crawled out from under the table and picked their way across cobblestones littered with cups and crystal shards.

  Thistle led Dora in an arc around the debris to where the dance floor ended and the path through the birch grove began. The black soil swallowed the sound of their footsteps, and Thistle let out a long breath. Dora took his hand as they walked between the trees in silence.

  In the middle of the grove, Porla was asleep in her pool. She floated just under the surface, blond hair waving in the water like seaweed. Her greenish face looked innocent: you’d never know that her teeth were sharp and she kept the body of a dead servant under the roots of a tree that grew next to the water. She had been a lady; then she dived into the water and never left. She had tried to lure Dora and Thistle in for “tea” more than once. They gave the pool a wide berth.

  A breeze wafted into the grove, thick with the smell of apples. Dora and Thistle stepped out from between the birch trees and into the orchard under the big ultramarine bowl of sky. The air bit into Dora’s lungs.

  The orchard’s gnarled apple trees were planted in neat rows. You could stand in any spot and stretch out your arms and pretend that the trees streamed from your fingertips. The branches hung heavy with fruit: every other tree carried big red apples, and the rest juicy-looking green ones. Dora had compared most of the trees. They all looked the same, down to the smallest twig and fruit. The apples tasted the same, too: hard and tongue-shriveling sour for the green, mealy and sweet for the red. Dora sniffed an apple on the nearest tree, then
bit into it. It smelled better than it tasted. Her feet made a swishing noise in the damp grass. Next to her, Thistle was quiet. She glanced at him. His steps were so light; he moved like a wading bird, like the lords and ladies. He looked so frail next to her, little stolen boy. Dora should be minding him instead of the other way around. She didn’t say this out loud, just stopped and held him close.

  “What are you doing?” Thistle mumbled against her shoulder.

  He had stopped speaking in the boy voice now that they were alone. Male servants with low voices were doomed. The lords and ladies hadn’t noticed because Thistle was short and good at shaving.

  “You’re so small.”

  He chuckled. “I can’t breathe.”

  Dora let go again. Thistle looked up at her and smiled. The paint around his eyes was smudged.

  “Come on, sister.” He took her hand.

  * * *

  —

  At the edge of the orchard, the conservatory’s great cupola loomed against the wall of forest that surrounded the Gardens. It was the biggest structure in the realm, a complicated wooden lattice inlaid with glass panes that reflected the hues in the evening sky. In the conservatory, little orange trees stood in a circle around three divans, lit by flickering wax candles. Here rested the enormous Aunts, attended by their Nieces. The Aunts ate and ate until they could grow no bigger. Then they died, and their Nieces cut them open to reveal a new little Aunt nestled around the old Aunt’s heart. The old body was taken away to make food for the new little Aunt, who grew and grew, until she was done and the cycle repeated itself.

  The lords and ladies didn’t come here. Neither did the other servants, who said that the Aunts were too strange. Whenever their masters slept, as they did between parties, this was a good place for Dora and Thistle to sit in peace. One of the apple trees grew close to the dome’s side, and that was where Dora had made a secret place: a little nest made of discarded pillows and blankets in the hollow between the tree and the wall.

  Thistle sat down and leaned back against the tree trunk. Dora lay down next to him and rested her head in his lap. She took one of his hands and slid her fingers up inside his sleeve where the skin was warm. The ornate scars on his skin felt silky under her fingertips. Thistle flinched a little, then relaxed again.

  “I saw something,” he said. “When Lady Augusta called for me.”

  “Oh.” After a moment, Dora realized she should probably ask, “What did you see?”

  Thistle shook his head. “I’m not sure.”

  Dora waited. Thistle took so long that when he spoke again, she had stopped listening and had to ask him to repeat himself.

  “My mistress looked at me and said, ‘How are you alive?’ ” Thistle said.

  His hand gripped Dora’s hair so hard it hurt.

  “Ow,” Dora said.

  Thistle didn’t seem to notice.

  “She’s going to do something to me,” he said. “Or she thinks she’s done something. She might try it again.”

  The lords and ladies didn’t move through time like others did. They lived through the same evening, over and over again. They rose from their beds, threw a party or organized a game, and reveled through the twilight until they fell asleep. Then they awoke from their stupor, and the party began anew. Their minds worked in loops; they would forget what they had done and remember things they hadn’t done yet.

  Their servants, however, were children who had wandered into the surrounding forest from the outside, lured in by fairy lights and the noise of revels. The lords and ladies stole the children’s names, marking and binding each child to its new master, taking all but the faintest memories of their former lives away. But the children weren’t touched by the same ageless magic that surrounded their masters. They grew up, and the patterns that were carved into them became complete. When that happened, they were killed for sport and eaten.

  “If I just had my true name back,” Thistle said, “I would be free from Augusta. We could run away from here before anything happens. And with my name I would remember where I came from and find a way back to my parents. You could live with us.”

  “You’ve looked for your name everywhere,” Dora said. “You said it’s not written down, it’s not caught in a jar, it isn’t embroidered on a handkerchief.”

  Thistle hung his head.

  Dora pried Thistle’s fingers loose from where they were stroking her hair. “I won’t let her hurt you. Now tell my story.”

  Thistle let out a shaky laugh. “How many times do you need to hear it?”

  Dora smiled. “I like hearing it.”

  “All right,” Thistle said. “Once upon a time there was a lonely lord called Walpurgis. He was rich and beautiful and comfortable, but he wanted a child. In this land, however, no one had children, for they had become timeless and forgotten how to make them.

  “ ‘Oh, how I wish I had a child of my own,’ Lord Walpurgis would say, and put his head in his hands. ‘Someone who was part of me.’

  “So it came to pass that a visitor arrived, a traveler who called herself Ghorbi, and she came from far away.

  “Walpurgis sought her out, and said, ‘My good woman, will you help me? For I would like a child of my own.’

  “ ‘I will help you,’ Ghorbi replied, ‘but you must know this: if you mistreat her, she will not be yours.’

  “Still, Walpurgis insisted, and he paid Ghorbi in precious stones. She took a bottle of his seed and went away. Then she returned, and she wasn’t alone.

  “ ‘Walpurgis, I have your daughter,’ Ghorbi said. ‘This is Dora.’

  “She stepped aside, and lo! There was a girl. She was as tall as Walpurgis, her shoulders broad and strong, her eyes dark as the earth, and her hair like white feathers.

  “ ‘Father,’ said the girl, and her voice was like the blackbird’s song.

  “ ‘She was grown from your seed in the earth,’ Ghorbi said. ‘She is half of the mountain, and half of you.’

  “But Walpurgis hesitated. ‘I thank you for this gift,’ he said. ‘But this creature is too precious. I am not worthy.’

  “ ‘A bargain’s a bargain,’ Ghorbi replied. ‘I have delivered what you asked for.’

  “And then she was gone.

  “Walpurgis had a good heart, but even though he tried, he couldn’t take care of Dora. He was simply not very good at being a parent, since he couldn’t recall ever being a child. The court was angry with him and demoted him to chamberlain, for they had all sworn not to bear children of their own.

  “Walpurgis found a friend for Dora, a boy called Thistle, who was a page to the lady Augusta.

  “The lords and ladies said, ‘You can take care of her better than we. Let her be veiled, lest we are reminded of our failure.’

  “Thistle was happy to care for Dora. They loved each other like brother and sister.”

  Dora closed her eyes. Her favorite part was coming.

  “Finally, after being a terrible father, Walpurgis began to understand,” Thistle continued. “He finally understood what love was, and that he must take care of Dora. And so he took her back, and he saw how well Thistle had cared for her. And he promised to love her and asked her forgiveness for his neglect.”

  “Really?” Dora asked.

  Thistle stroked her hair. “Really.”

  Far away, someone blew a whistle. Thistle carefully lifted Dora’s head and stood up.

  “There’s a croquet game,” he said. “I have to go.”

  Dora watched him walk out into the orchard, then followed at a distance.

  2

  Hidden behind an oak at the edge of the game lawn, Dora watched them play. She kept her veil drawn over her face. The pale lords and ladies loitered on the grass, leaning on croquet clubs and each other. Lady Mnemosyne watched from her seat on the podium, eyes
shadowed under her wreath, her skirts spread out like a willow tree. Walpurgis lay on the grass at her feet, propped up on his elbow. The left half of his white coat was spattered with something sticky-looking. Next to him, the twins Cymbeline and Virgilia embraced on their divan. Cymbeline’s crinoline was covered in chestnut leaves; Virgilia’s dress was woven out of peacock feathers. At the edge of the lawn, Augusta’s sister Euterpe was already drunk, rolling around in the grass dressed only in a thin shift. Hyssop, Virgilia’s page boy, stood at attention nearby, holding a tray of drinks and sweetmeats. Like the other servants, he was good at not moving. Moving drew attention.

  In the center of the lawn, surrounded by little arches stuck into the ground, the lady Augusta stared at a striped ball by her feet. She looked formidable in her brilliant blue coat and knee pants; her mahogany hair was freshly curled, her face a work of art. Thistle stood at her elbow, hands clasped behind his back, eyes wandering over the lawn. He looked into the trees and briefly met Dora’s gaze. His eyes widened a fraction, and he shook his head almost imperceptibly.

  Augusta swung her club. The ball flew in a high arc and hit Hyssop. He dropped his tray and clutched his arm with a groan. The crowd on the lawn burst into cheers and applause. Mnemosyne smiled and nodded from her podium. When Hyssop straightened, Virgilia got up from the divan and slapped him. She pointed at the mess. Hyssop immediately kneeled to pick it up, his left arm shaking.

  Dora watched as the game progressed. She had never understood the rules, but everyone broke into applause when the players hit the servants.