The Anthian family estate was a pale marble fortress, perched on a cliff overlooking the city, harsh and imperial with no wall free of embellished stone and no edge unattended by a curious sculpted marble child, groosome gargoyle, voluptuous goddess, or stone depiction of some other kind. It was a mansion among mansions, like a man amongst men, tall and dyed beige by the reddening rays of the evening sun far over the distant coastline.

  Okimoto couldn’t help but stare as they drove closer, circling towards the place on a cliff’s side road.

  Stepping out onto the estate grounds after they arrived and parked, he saw the Orion family dolls, sweeping away summer leaves and dried mangos that had fallen from the trees above.

  “These things,” Okimoto said. “From a distance, you really can’t tell they're just glorified puppets.”

  “Amazing, aren’t they?” Crystella said, then held a hand over her mouth as if she had said something offensive. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be praising them.”

  Okimoto chuckled. “It’s fine. Remember, I could just be lying about this all.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s not good to speak of yourself in such a manner.”

  Okimoto rubbed the back of his neck. “I just—I don’t like being pitied.”

  ”So damn prideful, I don't get that about boys.”

  Two dolls came up to them, wooden joints creaking as they bowed.

  They were both wearing maids' attire, their frames carved to have the shape of a woman. They even had silky black hair raining down their shoulders.

  “Greetings, Lady Crystella,” They both said. “Allow us to take your things to your room. Do you wish for us not to do this, or have them taken elsewhere?”

  “No,” Crystella said.

  Creaking, they rose and took her shopping bag, then started up the steps to the front doors flanked by several Neafuma statues, the very entrance to the mansion a pillared temple of sorts.

  “To be honest, those are amazing things,” Okimoto said. “The sheer complexity of the rituals that make them work, speaks to a sort of skill worthy of praise.”

  “Well, they are still Francisco’s designs,” Crystella said. “His son and grandson were mainly focused on expanding business operations. The actual mechanics of the dolls haven’t changed much since the pre-war era. Francisco’s designs were so complex that nobody could recreate them, giving him a monopoly on the magical puppeteering trade.”

  Okimoto raised an eyebrow as they ascended to the doors.

  Crystella suddenly seemed embarrassed. “I know this because I study Magical Business and Finance, as is the tradition in my family.”

  “Do you believe that Francisco was a great man?” Okimoto asked.

  “He was certainly good at what he did. As for whether or not he was a good person, that’s beyond me. There are a lot of good things written about him, but it could all be lies. I’m sure that’s a possibility you’re very aware of with how your life has been thrown upside down. Is there a particular reason for your question?”

  “I’m asking this because I often think about what it means to be remembered,” Okimoto said. “Even if the Orions of today are bastards, I don’t like to think it reflects poorly on Francisco. After all, he had left this world hadn’t he, leaving behind his sixteen-year-old son and lovesick wife to run a multinational corporation. It’s not uncommon for families to stray from their ancestors as time passes.”

  “Interesting.” Crystella laughed. “You’re really thoughtful. I never took you for the kind. Always playing aloof and nonchalant.”

  Okimoto smiled and gazed up at the mural above the doors. “The world of ritualism is a mysterious place. Theoretically, there are methods to become immortal without the drawbacks of becoming a god. It’s my plan to eventually seek out such methods, but I also understand death could come at any moment. Which is why I often think about leaving behind a legacy, in case I don’t succeed in all of my future endeavours. If I were to have descendants, would they live in a way consistent with my morals and values? What do you think?”

  “I don’t think that’s something you can control,” Crystella said. “People love freedom, and if they have the ability, they’ll live their lives the way they want. I sometimes have problems with my family because they have plans for me that I don’t care for. My dad even shouted at me because I chased away a suitor I didn’t fancy the other night. It turns out, the only reason my father bought me my new car was to make me feel obligated to give the boy a chance for his sake.”

  “You’re a rebel I see,” Okimoto said smiling, extending a hand to block her from going inside.

  “Okimoto?” She muttered, confused as he ushered her into a shadowed corner off to the side.

  “What’s your relationship like with your father?” He asked gently, bending to whisper down into her ear.

  “Why are you asking? Trust me, I’ll plead for you.”

  “Crystella, if I were to jump from the lip of the cliff around the corner I could plead with gravity not to pulverise me into mince meat. But that doesn’t mean it’ll work. If your father is cross with you at the moment, then that’s what you’ll be dragging me into.

  Okimoto was somewhat irritated, fearing he’d just told her some personal stuff about himself without a guarantee that deepening their friendship would prove useful.

  She started to button up the top of his linen shirt, which was open. “C’mon now, love, you can’t meet him looking a right mess. Even if I find this wilder look more attractive. I have my own life that I’m living okay, I didn’t know you’d come looking for my help. I’m sorry that when you randomly decided to use me today everything wasn’t perfectly lined up for you to take advantage of.”

  Okimoto sighed. “I’m sorry. I should’ve been more considerate.”

  She smiled and shrugged. “All we can do is our best. And as I said earlier, my father’s a businessman before anything else. No matter how strained my relationship with him becomes, he’ll be willing to hear you out if you show promise. It’s not like he hates me anyway, it’s just a tiny disagreement. We all bump heads with family from time to time, right?”

  Okimoto stared at her.

  She immediately stumbled over her words. “I’m sorry, I completely forgot about—you know what.”

  As her fingers struggled with the final button, an awkward silence lasted for several seconds.

  Once she was done she asked, “Have you made any progress with getting your memories back?”

  Okimoto smiled and shook his head. “I’m still where I was when I first woke up on that hospital bed. To be fair, I haven’t put in much effort if any in the last two years.”

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “So you’ve resolved yourself to moving forward without worrying about the past?”

  “Yes. It’s not like I can’t be bothered anymore, it’s just that there’s no point in chasing down something like that forever. I can’t let a lost decade and a half stop me from making the best of the century I have left.”

  “Did they at least figure out the cause of your amnesia?”

  Okimoto shook his head. “They labelled it an anomaly. They studied my brain at one point and found no traces of it having ever been injured. The way my amnesia affects me also doesn’t quite make sense. Normally people with my problem lose everything. It’s to the point where they have to learn to walk and talk again. But with me for some reason, I could do things like that just fine. I even had a basic understanding of the world as well as a rudimentary education. Particularly strangely, I also had extensive knowledge about basic ritualism, to the point where I was overqualified for any magical school for kids my age. This is partially why I was enrolled at Toaddor below the age of eighteen.”

  Crystella giggled. “That does sound odd. To be honest, when I enrolled I found it awkward at first that you were two years my senior academically yet I was two years your senior physically. I suppose it’s a bit better now that I have more context regarding your circumstances. But you said that they found nothing wrong with your brain? Are you sure you’re even an amnesiac at all?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Resting her hands on her hips, she gave him a curious look, as if she were a dog sniffing another’s bottom. “Unlike Dolly, I’m no medical student, but I do know enough to suggest that the cause of your situation might not lie with your body at all. If they couldn’t find anything wrong with you physically, and you're displaying strange anomalies that set you apart from regular Amnesiacs, then the real cause must be just as strange. Consider that a ritual, or even a curse might be suppressing your memory. Or maybe you're subconsciously suppressing them because you’ve been traumatised.”

  Okimoto took a step back, his mouth gaping. “Sweet Fanny Adams! Crystella your a genius! I’ve never once thought of that, can you believe it?!”

  For the smallest fraction of a second, the sarcasm didn’t register, and a proud smile flashed on her face before it promptly vanished.

  Inside, the mansion was as impressive as the outside: lavish halls, sparkling chandeliers, exotic furniture from around the world, and taxidermied creatures lining the jewel-speckled living room wall. Okimoto examined closely the head of an Imperial Cock hung above the vintage record player. These creatures of Geliform variety were a terror in ancient times. Too large and heavily muscled, they relied on their turquoise wings and magnificent rainbow tails to summon tornado-strength winds to fly. Upon opening their beaks, a beam of compressed air would be produced, deforesting the landscape and stripping away villages from the earth like barnacles off a ship’s hull. There were also a variety of troll types, laughing trolls, still laughing even in death, grey trolls with long noses and razor sharp teeth, and curiously no common trolls (perhaps those weren't exotic enough). Okimoto knew about these creatures, as they were ritual beasts, rare examples of animal species that could use ether much like humans. Part of the requirements for becoming an archmage was to hunt and kill at least one such creature and successfully incorporate its properties into one’s shapeshifting.

  Okimoto looked at the records stocking the shelves beside the record player. Classics from Virani, exotic tunes from abroad, and post-war patriotic melodies were in the mentioned order from top to bottom, all plated in gold, the shelves were composed of deconjured diamond. Resting against the wall beneath the shelves was a replica of the silver harp Motoshiki was said to use, the god of music and art, and the reason Okimoto’s name ended in the letters it did. Almost all Coronatians had names ending in letters taken from the names of the one hundred and thirteen. The bookshelves in the opposite corner of the living room, were lined with novels, play scripts, and poems from Ganimon, Dilysper, Meliazephra, and countless other philosophers that had been bashed into Okimoto’s memory during his first year at the university.

  As his eyes panned around, he made a thousand other observations, the details of which would balloon this chapter to double its length if narrated.

  “Having fun scrutinising my house?” Crystella giggled, walking over to the record player. “Alas, Dad’s not here. He's usually off at the bank at this time. Expect him here by the twenty-third hour. Mom will be at her book club until the twenty-second hour and my baby brother’s been sleeping at the university for the past dozen days.”

  Okimoto looked at the clock on the wall, a gold ringed masterpiece of engineering, showing Coronatian, Andorian, and Bellipheezian units of time. “The nineteenth hour? What the hell are we going to do for four hours?”

  Continuing to giggle, she played one of the most popular songs of the year, the record scratching, instrumentals dancing through the air as she skipped to the second chorus. *I never thought the day would come where I would hear you say that you’d be honoured as my lover and would love for me to stay with you forever and forever and live happily ever after till the eve of fall has come and gone away,*

  Okimoto couldn't help but sing along, “I always knew the day would come when you’d give back my maiden name and hand her all the things that I just know I worked for all the same, you left me crying all alone, stripped me bare bottom to the bone and got her pregnant with the love that I was owed,”

  The bridge started and Okimoto stopped, not knowing that part so well.

  Crystella took him by the hands and started dancing, singing lyrics perfectly, “you left me all alone, to pick up what you broke, but he knows, yes he knows, red strings make his throne, where his eyes outshine stars, where his love outshines ours, where his heart beats with scars, a rainbow gaze from afar, and he’ll come, yes he’ll come, only trailed by a new dawn, where the wicked are gone, no longer looked upon, as heroes or strong, only ghouls here too long— ugh, I don’t know the rest.“

  Okimoto did know the third Chorus so he continued, “I never thought so strongly that we’ve seen this all before perhaps another life another time or ninety fifty four do you remember in September we made plans for this December in a world where eve had never come before.”

  They both sang together. “I never thought the day would come where I would hear you say that you’d be honoured as my lover and would love for me to stay with you forever and forever and live happily ever after till the eve of fall has come and gone away. I always knew the day would come when you’d give back my maiden name and hand her all the things that I just know I worked for all the same, you left me crying all alone, stripped me bare bottom to the bone and got her pregnant with the love that I was owed,”

  Okimoto quite liked the song, though it was of that odd occult genre. The lyrics of such songs were often filled with nonsense words that meant nothing like September and December, certain of them even referencing lands like Africa or America and cities like New York. As far as Okimoto was aware, none of these places had ever existed. He had always assumed the songwriters were just lazy and couldn’t come up with proper lyrics, so they made up bullshit and passed it off as an occult reference with an alleged hidden meaning.

  They played other songs and danced aimlessly.

  Eventually, Crystella turned the record player off.

  She said. “I have a better idea for passing the time.”

  She took him up a level, and then through corridor after corridor, dolls bowing to pay respect as they went by. They came into a massive room, with a window overlooking a balcony overlooking the city. The sun had started to set in the distance.

  There was pink everywhere, a great pink translucent veil cloaking a queen-sized pink bed.

  “Close your eyes.” Instructed Crystella.

  Okimoto did what he was told.

  Five minutes later she said, “You can open your eyes now.”

  He had heard her behind him, going through the bags the dolls had left in here.

  When he turned to face her, he saw that she was wearing the meat bouquet.

  Okimoto was at a loss for words, but then he remembered her little wink to him back when she finished parking her car around the corner from Spindle Street.

  In a part of the world where everyone was promiscuous to some extent, Crystella had a reputation for it, which was saying something. She had the lads at each other’s throats in their pining for her. She was a girl who loved pretty things, especially pretty men. She often took them and had them without a care in the world. Okimoto had never gotten caught up in her shenanigans before, though it seemed that was about to change.

  “Crystella.” He chuckled. “Do you intend to play me?”

  Getting closer, she declared with confidence, “Absolutely not. This is honesty. You’re eighteen now right? I’m assuming you have enough experience to not get feelings mixed up with sex at this point. It will be rather annoying if you become obsessed with me after doing it like some other boys have. You won't give a fuck after the fact if it's just a one time thing between us, right?”

  Okimoto shook his head. “Well no, if it's after the fact, then I've already given you the best fuck I can.”

  He was being honest, he was surprisingly unreserved when it came down to it. Okimoto thought little of sex, or perhaps more accurately, he thought about sex a lot but with little complexity. He fancied himself much like a dog, or a rabbit. Just like a critter, whenever he came across a willing female, he mated without caring too much. He had never understood others who overcomplicated things, creating rules and regulations around something so simple and natural. He didn’t even have a type now that he thought about it.

  She grinned, gesticulating as she spoke. ”I say we do a little ‘experiment’ together. You came here to use me, didn’t you. Let me use you for something too.“

  Laughing uncontrollably with his arms spread, he said. “Go ahead then, be sure to make proper use of me.”