Page 79 of Rewitched

“My deepest shame. How you must fear me.”

“I don’t fear you, Arty.”

It was true. She didn’t fear the man in front of her, she never had done. But she did fear the things that Bronwyn had told her. She feared the magic that he’d once made, and the revenge, the jealousy that had fuelled his impulsive decision. Belle considered which truth it was that she wanted or needed to know.

“I’d like to hear your story straight from you. If you’d like to tell it to me.”

Artorius nodded while staring at his slippers. He chuckled softly. “How I wish I could, my dear. I would love nothing more than to be an open book. But I’m afraid my version of events is a hazy one, to say the very least.”

He gingerly returned to the chair opposite Belle and balanced his hands on the knees of his trousers. “Where to even begin?” His gaze was fixed on the purple fire as though it were showing him things, flames reflecting patterns of kaleidoscope amethyst in his eyes.

“As I’m sure you know, after my brother’s death, I was held for questioning at Hecate House for some time. The days became weeks, the weeks turned to months, soon it was years…”

“Years?” Belle balked. She hadn’t known he had been held at Hecate House for so long.

“A bleak time. The coven didn’t know what to do with me. I was just a boy, really. I had lost the most important person in my life to terrible circumstances, and it seemed I was responsible for his death.” His voice was soft and hoarse, catching in his throat. The old man’s cautious choice of words struck her.

“ ‘It seemed’? Do you mean you disagree that you killed your brother?”

“They told me I had murdered Savaric. And when I think back to that fateful night, I do indeed see myself creating the potion that killed him. Every night, even now, I see in my memory my own young hands reaching out and adding the cursed ingredients that would lead to his demise.”

Artorius’s voice was barely above a whisper. “But, it’s strange…” His hands stopped fidgeting with the pink hat. He looked directly at Belle. “I have no recollection of performing the action itself, Belle. Never have done. That is to say”—he closed his eyes in confusion—“I could see the action taking place in my mind’s eye, I still can see it happening. But I could never, and still do not, remember it happening. There is a dissonance between the two.”

“A dissonance?” Belle leaned forwards. “As though the memory isn’t right?”

“But they all told me that it was me who had killed my brother.” The old man hesitated, confused. “So I believed them. I must have killed him. I could see the very moment that I did it playing out in my mind.”

“I don’t understand,” Belle admitted.

Even Artorius was stumbling over his own explanation. He shook his head, trying to clear cobwebs of age. “I’m not explaining this too well, am I? It’s as though…How do I…? Ahh!” The old man snapped his fingers. “Those newfangled video cameras. I imagine your mother may have one, and so perhaps you’ve watched on film moments of your own childhood play out on-screen. You don’t remember them happening yourself, but you see them on a television. You see them played out, and later it feels as though you can remember living them. They imprint on your memory. But really, you just see the image that was captured on your behalf. What you actually remember is the last time you remembered it. It is a trick.”

Belle, with hesitant surprise, found she understood. “There’s footage from my childhood that I’ve seen so many times, it feels like I remember it happening. But I’ve just watched the recording. I don’t actually remember it.”

Artorius nodded. “The truth of your past and constructed memories become blurred. What did you truly experience, and what do you merely recall seeing occur?”

She pressed on. “Do you think that maybe the memory is just confused after so long? Or are you telling me that you think Savaric’s death was caused by…something else?”

Artorius sighed, staring deep into the fire. Belle knew that he was remembering his brother.

“I cannot say for certain. And I certainly didn’t help myself back then.”

“What do you mean?”

“Those dungeons were my home for years. I couldn’t stand to be alone with my own thoughts anymore. One night, I broke out of the dungeons. And I…I cursed myself.”

Belle’s stomach shot up to her throat, then dropped to a plummet.

“I simply couldn’t bear it anymore. Any wicchefolk who finds themselves in true despair can summon a different type of power from within their soul. They probably won’t even know they’re capable of such a caliginous force until it happens. It’s known as Tenebrae Obscurum. And on my escape, I hexed myself. I wiped all recollection of losing Savaric from my own mind, too painful to keep reliving over and over.”

Belle was frozen with horror, hanging on his every word.

“At least, that’s what I tried to do. The hex went wrong, of course.” His usual chuckle was laced with melancholy.

“I was young. Much younger than you, Belle. So unskilled with magic, it was entirely unrefined. My curse merely blurred the memories rather than removing them entirely. So now, I remember the feelings and the pain as if it were just yesterday. I remember the loss and the grief and the sorrow. But not the true recollection of the action in the moment.”

There was nothing that she could say. Belle found that she believed him entirely. “Artorius, I’m so…But if you even suspected that it wasn’t you who killed Savaric, why didn’t you stand up for yourself? There must have been another explanation. You were so young, and they just accepted it, closed the book on you. Where were your parents?”

“My father was already gone; my mother quickly followed Savaric, unable to cope. No one at the coven wanted alternative possibilities. Savaric was the answer to everybody’s prayers for Selcouth. He was the future of the coven, the warlock with the talent and charm everybody was seeking after years of turmoil. Bitter grief makes rash decisions. It also sealed my fate.”