The Memory Draining

Granny Agnes Forrest, an old traveling spiritual medium, said the sister we'd finally found after ten years missing had been so badly frightened that her soul had slipped loose from her body. She needed my memories to burn as lamp oil. Forty-nine days, start to finish, before Harper Ellison's spirit would finally settle. The first time they drained a memory from me, I forgot I was allergic to shellfish. I ate the shrimp my brother Grayson Ellison put on my plate and went into shock, straight into the ICU. Mom and Dad sat in the next room over, watching cartoons with Harper. They said the sound of my monitors was too loud, so they shut the door. After the twentieth draining, I forgot how to act sweet and needy around my own parents. After the fortieth, I forgot how to stay up waiting for my brother to come home from work at night. Today was day forty-nine. The last one. For the first time I could remember, Grayson walked into the basement himself, carrying a bowl of hot soup. "Once we finish draining the last of it today, we'll call it even. You'll have paid off the ten years you took from her. After this, we'll treat you like our real sister too." I looked up and watched him quietly, without a word. Chapter 1 I wiped my hands self-consciously on my filthy clothes, dug a single coin out of my pocket, and held it out to him. "Thank you for taking me in, sir," I said. "This is all the money I have. Is it enough to buy this bowl of soup?" Grayson Ellison's gentle smile froze on his lips. He had no idea that only moments earlier, I'd completely forgotten who I was. I'd forgotten how much I used to love my family, too. Grayson stood there holding the bowl of steaming soup. The corners of his mouth stiffened, then finally fell. He stared at the dust-covered coin in my palm, his brow knitting together. "Sophie, what are you playing at now?" "Playing at?" I flinched. I looked down at the coin in my hand. My fingers, still clutching it, started to shake. "I'm sorry. If it's not enough, I can clean this basement to make up the difference." Grayson's face darkened completely. He slammed the bowl down on the wooden crate beside him. Scalding broth splashed out and burned the back of his hand, though he didn't seem to feel it at all. He grabbed my wrist instead. "That's enough! How long do you plan on playing this amnesia act?" His grip was crushing, strong enough to nearly break my bones. "The forty-nine days are over. You've paid your debt. There's no need to keep playing the victim in front of us." The pain shooting up my wrist made me struggle on instinct, and tears sprang to my eyes before I could stop them. He dragged me, stumbling, out of the basement. "What did you do to her?" A woman's voice rang out, gentle but edged with reproach. I forced my eyes open and saw a middle-aged woman in silk loungewear stepping out of the kitchen. She frowned and pried Grayson's hand off my arm. Her eyes lingered on my frayed sleeves and dirty face. Something flickered across her expression. She reached toward me, then pulled her hand back before it landed. "Sophie, honestly. It's just a memory draw, not a bone marrow donation. Why do you have to make such a mess of yourself over it?" Diana Ellison sighed, a note of worn-out, reluctant patience in her voice. "That's enough. The ritual's over now, so let's just move on and live like normal. Go take a shower and change into something clean." As she spoke, she glanced up toward the second floor and lowered her voice deliberately. "Your sister, Harper Ellison, is asleep upstairs. Keep it quiet when you go up. Her nerves are shot, and she only just managed to fall asleep." I stood there awkwardly on the expensive carpet, not knowing what to do with myself. "Where should I go to wash up?" I asked carefully. The room went quiet for a beat. Grayson let out a cold laugh beside me. "Mom, look at her. Still putting on a show." Diana's brow furrowed too, the sympathy in her voice replaced instantly by irritation. "You don't know where your own room is? It's the last one at the end of the hall on the second floor. Go on. And don't use the shared bathroom out here. Harper doesn't like using anything someone else has touched." With that, she turned and ladled a bowl of chicken soup out of the pot on the stove. I stared at the bowl and gulped. She glanced back at my hollow stomach, pulled a smaller bowl from the sterilizer cabinet, and filled it for me. "Drink this before you go wash up. I made extra on purpose. There's a share in here for you too." Still, when she carried the larger bowl upstairs, her footsteps were quick and urgent. Grayson stood off to the side, tugging at his tie. "Alright, Mom's already given you a way out. Don't push your luck. Drink the soup, and let's put the past behind us. Going forward, you're still a young lady of this house. Whatever Harper has, we'll do our best to get you a share of it too." If the old Sophie had heard any of that, she probably would have burst into tears over the unfairness of it, or flipped the bowl over in a fit of anger and demanded to know why ten years of devotion counted for less than blood. But I didn't. I just looked calmly around the kitchen until my eyes landed on a rag. Then, under Grayson's startled stare, I walked over, picked it up, knelt down, and wiped away the dirty footprints I'd tracked in by accident. When I finished, I stood back up and set the coin down neatly on the edge of the bowl of soup. "Sir. Ma'am. I won't be drinking the soup." I stepped back and bowed to the tall man in front of me. "I'll collect bottles outside and sell them to pay you back for that bowl of soup you brought to the basement, if that's alright." I looked up, my eyes free of any resentment. "Please, I'm begging you, don't lock me back in that dark room. "I'll behave. I can do plenty of work." Chapter 2 Grayson stood frozen where he was. I did as Diana had told me and crept quietly up to the second floor. The moment I pushed open the door, I saw every trace of the life that used to be mine had been eaten away, piece by piece. I hadn't lost every memory. Some of the good ones still surfaced, faint and distant. Two months ago, Harper had tossed one of her shopping bags onto my bed without a second thought. I'd carried it back to her room myself, and all I got in return was her bursting into tears, eyes red with self-pity. Diana had scolded me for it instead. "Sophie, Harper spent ten years out there with no sense of security. That's why she likes to hoard things. How can you be so selfish, making a fuss over something this small?" From that day on, my room became Harper's second closet. There was a lamp on my desk, chipped at the corner and pushed out of the way. It was the first thing I'd ever bought with my own money, back when I'd first come home to the Ellisons and worked part-time handing out flyers. Later, Harper decided her own room's lighting wasn't "cozy" enough and set her sights on that lamp of mine. I wouldn't give it up. While we were pulling it back and forth between us, Grayson happened to come upstairs. Without asking a single question, he snatched the lamp away and smashed it on the floor. "Sophie, are you out of your mind? You'd make your sister cry over some cheap piece of junk that cost next to nothing? I'll have my assistant buy you a hundred new ones tomorrow. Right now, go apologize to Harper!" Of course, he never did buy me a new lamp. I closed my eyes and forced all that bitterness back down where it belonged. It didn't matter anymore. There was nothing left for me to remember now. I walked into the bathroom and turned the shower on. Ice-cold water poured down over my head. Diana had told me to use the bathroom in my own room, forgetting that its water heater had been broken for a week already. I scrubbed the grime off my skin with the freezing water. Where it hit my cuts, the sting was sharp as a needle, though it was nothing next to the ache underneath it. I made my way to the corner by the bathroom door and crouched down beside the old cardboard box there. I don't know how much time passed before the door banged open from outside, someone shoving it in without patience. "Sophie, how long do you plan on keeping up this..." Grayson's voice, tight with restrained anger, started to ring out, then caught abruptly in his throat. His gaze dropped slowly and landed on the corner where I sat. "What... what are you doing on the floor? Why aren't you sleeping in the bed?" His voice actually shook. I flinched hard and scrambled backward. "S-sorry, sir. I didn't know this was your storage room. I shouldn't have come in." I swallowed and forced my voice down low. He dropped into a crouch and reached for me. "Sophie, get up. The floor's cold." "Don't hit me!" I curled myself into the corner without meaning to, my voice cracking with fear. "I'll dry off my clothes right away. I won't get the floor dirty. Please, sir, don't hurt me." He watched me draw into that defensive posture, his eyes landing on my trembling shoulders. He grabbed my shoulder. "Why are your clothes freezing? Your hair's cold too! Did you shower in cold water?" "I..." I swallowed again, my eyes darting away. "Ma'am said I couldn't use the shared bathroom outside, in case I got the young miss's things dirty. My room, I mean the bathroom off this storage room, doesn't have hot water. I didn't want to smell bad and upset anyone, so I just rinsed off with cold water." Grayson gulped. Of course he knew the bathroom had no hot water. I'd told him myself a week ago, when the pipe broke. He'd been helping Harper put together some Lego set worth thousands of dollars at the time, and hadn't even looked up. "You're bothering me over something this small? Sophie, are you picking fights on purpose now that Harper's back, trying to steal attention?" Nobody had fixed that pipe since. "I..." Grayson opened his mouth, his voice dry and strained. He looked at my lips, purple from the cold, and reached to pull off his own suit jacket to drape over me. That was when a light set of footsteps sounded outside the door. "Grayson? What are you doing in Sophie's room?" Chapter 3 "Grayson? What are you doing in Sophie's room?" Harper stood in the doorway. Grayson's body went visibly rigid at the sound of her voice. He stepped away from me without thinking, putting distance between us. "Harper, what are you doing awake? Did we wake you?" His voice went soft in an instant. Harper bit her lip, her eyes reddening on cue. "I had a nightmare. Grayson, is Sophie still mad at me? If it's my fault, I'll give the room back to her and go stay in the basement myself. Don't fight because of me." Grayson rushed to comfort her. "Harper, don't be ridiculous. How could any of this be your fault? After everything you went through, of course you deserve the best room in this house. Sophie just isn't thinking straight since the ritual only just ended. Don't take it to heart." That was when Diana heard the commotion upstairs and hurried up in her slippers. The moment she saw Harper's tear-filled eyes, her face darkened. She stepped forward and pulled Harper tight against her. "Sophie! How long are you going to keep this up? Harper's nerves are shot, and she only just managed to fall asleep. The second you're back, you're turning the whole house upside down? All we asked was for you to take a shower. Do you really have to put on this pathetic act for whoever's watching?" I shrank into the cold corner, hugging my knees, my whole body shaking. I buried my head low. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. I'm not angry. I'll go, I'll go right now." I made a show of crawling toward the door, my palms scraping at the filthy floor. Diana looked at me like that, all the harsh words she'd been ready to unleash dying in her throat. It hit her like a punch landing on a pillow, and her face went pale with frustration. "Mom... look at her. She really seems..." Grayson looked at me, his mouth opening, seeming to finally register that something was wrong. "Grayson, is Sophie actually out of her mind?" Harper sniffled. Diana let out a cold huff and pulled Harper back a step. "She's playing dumb. That's enough, stop putting on this little show. Do you really think this will win you any sympathy? Since her brain's clearly broken, we'll have a doctor look at her tomorrow. Harper, let's go back to your room. Don't pay her any attention." Diana's tone was thick with impatience and cold disregard. On her way out, she turned back to Grayson. "Lock the door from the outside. I don't want her running out in the middle of the night and scaring Harper. And tomorrow, throw out all that junk in her room. It's bad luck just looking at it." "Got it, Mom." Grayson glanced at me once more before following them out obediently. The door was locked from the outside with a cold, final click. I listened to their footsteps fade away, then slowly got up off the floor. I dug out a small waterproof pouch I'd hidden at the very bottom of my old cardboard box. Inside was a bank card I'd secretly opened myself, holding the meager travel money I'd scraped together over the years by living frugally. There was also a train ticket I'd already bought. Holding the ticket stub in my palm, I suddenly remembered my eighteenth birthday, the family photo we'd all taken together. Diana had her arm around me, and Grayson held up the cake. Back then, it had really felt like they saw me as family. Since they loved Harper that much, Harper could stay with them forever. Chapter 4 Morning came, and the door was pushed open again. This time, Diana came in carrying a bowl of steaming rice pudding. "Sophie, you must be hungry. Eat this while it's warm." Diana walked over to my bed and reached out to smooth my hair. "Yesterday, your brother and I were just too worked up. Harper's health is so fragile, and we panicked and took it out on you. Don't hold it against us." Grayson stepped forward too and sighed. "Sophie. Granny Forrest said again last night that Harper's ten years missing were hard on her, that her body and her luck are both weak right now. And you, you've spent ten years living comfortably here at home, so your luck clashes with hers. That's why her chest aches and she has nightmares the moment she's back." He pulled a pendant out of his pocket and took my hand. "Sophie, this is the last time. The very last time this family will ever put you through something hard. All you have to do is use your own blood to consecrate this pendant, and it'll shield Harper from the bad luck clashing with hers. We'll make it up to you, all of it. We'll treat you like our real family. We'll never let you suffer again. Please." I looked at this picture of a happy family in front of me and felt nothing but bitter irony. Harper sat on the couch, sniffling through her tears. "Sophie, I really don't feel well. If you help me just this once, I'll split Grayson and Mom's love with you fifty-fifty from now on. Please." Under the three of them watching me, I lifted my head slowly. "If I give blood, will it stop hurting for Harper?" I gulped, timid. "And, sir, ma'am, if I do this, will you really start liking me? Will you stop locking me back in that dark basement?" "Of course. I promise you, Sophie, you'll be the second young lady of this house from now on." Diana nodded quickly, a flicker of triumph in her eyes. My nose stung. I thought back to last year, when I'd cut my finger peeling an apple, and how Grayson had torn the medicine cabinet apart looking for a bandage. Now, I closed my eyes. This ten years of taking me in, I'd repay it all with this one cut. "Okay. I'll do it. I will shield Harper from the bad luck." I sniffled and obediently held out my right hand. Seeing me nod, something lit up in Grayson's eyes. He didn't even say "brace yourself." He simply grabbed my palm and pressed it down hard against his own. "Grayson, that hurts! It hurts so much!" I cried out, my body shaking violently, and instinctively tried to pull my hand back. But Grayson held it in place. "Don't move. Just a little more. Be good, Sophie. I said this was the last time. Why can't you just cooperate?" When I was little and I'd fallen and scraped my knee bloody, he'd carried me on his back the whole way home, sweat pouring down his face in a panic. He'd said, "Sophie, don't cry, I will kiss it till its better." Diana, sitting off to the side, didn't show a shred of pity. Instead, she wrinkled her nose in disgust while carefully patting Harper's back. "It's just a little blood. How could that possibly compare to what Harper suffered out there for ten years?" Late that night, the whole Ellison estate had fallen into a deep sleep. During the day, Harper's "chest pain" had miraculously cleared up. The family had gone off happily to celebrate at the fanciest restaurant downtown. As for my hand, still bleeding, they hadn't left me so much as a bandage. When they left the house, I watched from the window as Grayson opened the car door for Harper and Diana straightened out her skirt for her, just like they used to do for me. Listening to the steady breathing from the next room, I quietly opened my eyes. Not until my own two feet had carried me out through the Ellison estate's front door did I finally believe it was real. I climbed into a taxi headed for the train station. 'I'm not playing this game with you anymore,' I thought as I turned my phone off and leaned my head against the window. Meanwhile, back at the table, Diana suddenly got a text message. [Hey sis, Harper's checkup results are back. There's nothing wrong. But there's one thing. I remember you and your husband are both O blood type. How exactly did you end up with a kid who's AB?] [Sis, did you get the wrong kid?]