Page 46 of The Circle

“You just said ‘the diamond,’” Alec says. “Which diamond? What are you—?”

“I don’t know,” I interrupt.

I really don’t. I don’t know why I said it, in the same way I don’t know why I know that the dead guy back there is named Cillian. I just spit it out of my mouth like I realized I had accidentally drunk poison.

“Christine,” Danny says, taking my hand, “what are you remembering? Try to think.”

“I am,” I tell him. Again.

I close my eyes tightly. Closing my eyes tightly won’t be helpful in any way, but it at least projects to other people that I’m really giving it my all.

What’s in there? Inside my head? Hiding in the dark corners of my mind, hesitant to come out into the sun for whatever terrible reason?

“I don’t know,” I breathe. “I don’t. I can’t… I dunno.”

Don’t I know? Can’t I remember? Really? Or is it just that the last time I accessed whatever memories had gotten lost in the haze, it brought back up a history so messy and sorrowful that I wish it had stayed buried?

If my memories hadn’t come back to me, might we not all still be just living in a glass house in the middle of nowhere, naked, happy, and oblivious?

Probably not. The things we forget are never really gone, just tucked away for a while. Eventually, it would have all come out again anyway. Eventually Lars and his men would have stormed the castle, as it were, and…

Lars.

A castle.

“Vienna!” I say with a start.

“Vienna what?” Danny asks.

“That’s where I heard the voice. Lars and I were someplace outside Vienna at a meeting with…”

“Meeting with who?” Danny prompts.

“I dunno, Danny. If I knew, I’d tell you. I promise, I’m not holding anything back.” He shoots me a quick, skeptical glance. “Not anymore,” I follow up.

“Hm,” Alec grunts.

“What?” I ask him.

“Yeah. The oke on the phone was Austrian,” he muses.

“He was?” Danny asks.

“Obviously,” Alec responds.

“Maybe to you,” Danny says.

“Why?” asks Alec. “What did you think he was?”

“I dunno. German. Dutch. Finnish?”

“Finnish?” Alec repeats, with a scoff.

“Yeah, fuckin’ Finnish.”

“Finns and Austrians sound nothing alike.” Alec laughs.

“Dude, who fuckin’ cares? Christine,” Danny says, refocusing the conversation, “do you remember at all when this was?”