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Even though I know it’s pointless, I look around.
Nope.
No black windows have magically materialized.
Feeling silly, I even look up.
Nope.
Just the usual decorative mosaic depicting an archery-target-like mandala made out of multicolored glass.
My stomach drops.
Glass.
Multicolored.
“It can’t be,” I mutter.
Uncomprehending, my sister follows my gaze.
I jab my finger at the mosaic. “The bullseye. There, in the very center. It’s the darkest piece. Isn’t it black?”
“It is,” she breathes, awed.
“Isn’t a window a piece of glass?” I press on. “Maybe they’re usually bigger, and on walls, but—”
Asha extends a trembling hand, a glimmer of hope returning to her eyes. “I might have enough juice to take you through it.”
I clasp her hand, and she rockets up.
As the bullseye nears, I realize that it isn’t even all that much smaller than a window. Being a piece in a mosaic makes it appear that way, especially from the very bottom of the lobby.
It has to be the black window we’ve missed all these years—we just didn’t see it as such because we’ve grown to see the mosaic as a whole, not a sum of its parts.
It must be what’s hiding our childhood memories.
It’s our only chance.
Sure enough, as soon as the top of Asha’s head touches the bullseye, the dream palace around us evaporates.
We’re in a room covered from floor to ceiling with pottery paraphernalia, everything from wheel to kiln.
“We made it,” Asha exclaims, looking around in wonder. “For a moment there, I thought I was going to drown in that black water, towing you along.”
That’s right. This time, I was the unconscious one inside the boat. “This is my first time experiencing this from this end,” I say. “What should I—”
I don’t finish the sentence because memories flood in, just as this particular one starts playing in front of our eyes.
Bebe is molding a vase on the wheel.
Seeing her unlocks a cascade of recollections: her lovingly calling me “her little bee,” the countless hugs she gave me, the priceless wisdom she imparted, the stories she told to lull me and Asha to sleep…
It’s almost unbearable, and the tears that I couldn’t shed for her earlier begin streaking down my cheeks. But they’re not just tears of sadness. Though I lost Bebe today, I’ve just regained a part of her as well.
A part that I will now carry in my memories.
Asha’s eyes are also on Bebe, her cheeks as wet as mine.
The memory continues to play out.
Mom is sitting there with a serene expression on her face.
Seeing her triggers its own rollercoaster of childhood memories, each more treasured than the next.
The countless times she tucked me into bed.
The way she’d make the boring Soma food seem fun.
The love and warmth she’d given me.
Next to me, Asha drags in a shaky breath.
Mom is holding the young versions of us.
The recollections of my sister at that age flow in, and I feel like my mind might burst from it all.
Focusing, I strain to catch one particular memory among them—of the Two as One game—but it’s too hard. Things are too jumbled at the moment.
“Come, dear ones,” Bebe says in the memory.
As the two little girls shuffle over to her, I realize I’ve seen this very memory in Mom’s black window. Except now I remember it in every detail, down to how it felt, and it’s so much more vivid than when I was an observer.
“You can touch,” Bebe tells the girls.
Grinning mischievously, the twins leave palmprints on the sides of the vase.
Bebe smiles in approval and deposits the vase into the kiln.
“Isn’t that the vase from your memory gallery?” grown Asha asks. “The one you broke years later, on Gomorrah?”
Before I can reply in the affirmative, Bebe gives the vase to Mom as a gift, and the memory terminates.
The new memory runs faster.
We’re in a different room, and I recall that it’s the living room of our Soma dwelling.
I’ve seen this room in memories of others.
It’s where Asha and I were born.
“Did anything about Two as One come back to you?” grown Asha asks.
“No.” I greedily scan the room in the hopes that something here will trigger the memory we seek.
Mom is holding Dad’s hand, and seeing him opens a new tsunami of recollections.
The piggyback rides.
The itchiness of his stubble when he’d kiss my cheek.
The loving way he’d gaze at us.
The feeling of safety in his embrace.
I can only think of him as Dad from now on, not father—and certainly not something as impersonal as Maxwell.
The memory continues.
Six-year-old versions of me and Asha are playing with Valerian and Kojo while our parents converse about the prophecy.
Valerian pulls on his father’s sleeve. “Dad, can Bailey and I go to the garden?”
Davu nods, and little me and little Valerian race out of the room.
Again, I can’t help but remember more than the content of the memory provided.
Valerian and I were best friends, inseparable companions. He was also my first crush—and at the ripe old age of six, I made a vow to myself that I would marry him one day. There was even a chaste kiss once—our true first kiss, as it turns out.
