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Annie raises her eyebrows but says only, “Forty. Each.”
Normally I would dicker with her, but I figure she’s inflating the cost so she can justify giving me the information. I pull out the bills and slide them over.
She grins her black-toothed grin. “So, what do you want to know?”
“How can you tell if your memories have been changed? Is there just a black hole in your thoughts? Can memories be replaced with other memories?”
She lights a hand-rolled cigarette that stinks of green tea leaves. “I’m not admitting to knowing anybody when I answer this. I’m just speculating, you understand? All I do is I make some of these amulets and I sell a few that my friends make, and the government hasn’t managed to make that illegal yet.”
“Sure,” I say, affronted. “Just because I’m not—”
“Don’t get your nose in a twist. I’m not explaining for you. I’m explaining it for the edification of anyone who happens to be listening in on this conversation. And they do.”
“Who does?”
She gives me a long look, like I’m slow, and sucks on her cigarette, blowing herbal smoke into the air. “The government.”
“Oh,” I say. Even though I’m pretty sure she’s just paranoid, possibly with a touch of dementia, I feel an intense urge to look behind me.
“On to your questions. How it feels depends on who did the working. The best workers make it seamless. They’ll remove a memory and replace it with a new one. The worst ones are slobs. They might be able to make you remember you owe them money, but if there’s no money in your pocket and you don’t remember spending any either, you’re going to start asking questions.
“Most memory workers fall somewhere in the middle in terms of skill. They leave behind pieces, threads. A blue sky without the rest of a day. Aching sorrow with no cause.”
“Clues,” I say.
“Sure, if you want to call them that.” She takes another long drag on her tea cigarette. “There’s four different kinds of memory curses. A memory worker can rip memories right out of your head, leaving that big hole you’re talking about, or they can give you new memories of things that never happened. They can sift through your memories and learn stuff, or they can simply block your access to your own memories.”
“Why would they do that last one? The blocking access one?” I touch the smooth black circle of the memory stone. It glides against the pad of my gloved finger.
“Because it’s easier to block access than to remove a memory entirely, which makes it cheaper. Just like changing a single piece of a memory is easier than creating a whole new one. And if you remove the block, then the memory comes back, which is nice if you want to be able to reverse the process.”
I nod my head, although I’m not sure I’m following.
“A shady memory worker will charge for ripping a memory but just put a block in. Then he’ll go and charge the victim to take the block back out again. That’s bad business, but what do these kids know? They’ve got no respect anymore.” She looks at me intently. “Your family never told you any of this?”
“I’m not a worker,” I remind her, but shame heats my face. I should know; my family should have trusted me enough. That they didn’t speaks volumes about what they think of me.
“But your brother—,” she says.
“Can it be reversed?” I ask, interrupting her. I really don’t want to talk about my family right now.
She looks at me so intently that I drop my gaze. Then she clears her throat and starts talking like I wasn’t just incredibly rude. “Memory magic’s permanent. But that doesn’t mean people can’t change their minds. You can make someone remember that you’re the hottest thing out there, but they can take a good look at you and decide otherwise.”
I force a smile, but my stomach feels like I’ve swallowed lead. “What about transformation work?”
She shrugs her shoulders. The bells on her skirts jingle. “What about it?”
“Is it permanent too?”
“Another transformation worker can undo it, so long as the person was turned into a living thing. A changer can turn a boy into a boat and then back to a boy, but the kid won’t live through the transformation. Once a living thing becomes a nonliving thing, that’s that.”
That’s that. I want to ask her about a girl changed into a cat, but I can’t risk being that specific. I’ve risked enough.
“Thanks,” I say, standing. I’m not sure what I learned, except that the answers I need aren’t going to be easy to get.
She winks. “You tell that grandfather of yours that Crooked Annie was asking after him.”
“I will,” I say, although I know I won’t. If I told him I was down near Carney, he’d want to know why.
