Limit of Vision (49 page)

I sat up with my mother all that night. She was a silhouette beside her bedroom window, listening to the glassy tinkle of the fountain in the courtyard. I sat in the rocking chair. The runners whispered against the floor as I rocked myself in a slow, even rhythm. “I nursed you in that chair,” she said, without turning her head.

“You nursed each one of us.”

Starlight glimmered in her eyes. I caught the soft exhalation of her sigh. “Lie down on the bed, Jubilee. Try to sleep.”

I lay down, but sleep did not come. My mind would not rest. The same questions kept returning to me, over and over again: How had my father come to be on the road at dusk? Who was the stranger beyond the wall? Why had he given himself to the silver on the same night my father was taken? And why had he asked about my brother as if he were still alive?

Jolly should know that I am his father now
.

It wasn’t possible to survive the silver. Was it?

Was the legend of Fiaccomo real?

By dawn all these mysteries had become one in my mind. Somehow the stranger had caused my father’s death. I was sure of it. And maybe he had caused Jolly’s too, and perhaps . . . it wasn’t over yet? Should I tell my mother what I had seen?

Or what I thought I had seen. When I tried to put it into words it sounded absurd. My mother would certainly say I’d been asleep on the wall, that I’d been dreaming, but it had been no dream.

Real then. It had been real and reality leaves tracks—but where to look for them? Where else but in the experience of others? I would visit the market, and inquire.

With this resolution made, I sat up. My mother turned from her post in the window. Behind her the sky was just beginning to lighten. “
Jubilee
,” she whispered, fear carried in a high overnote.

I went to her, and I took her hands. “Mama?”

“Jubilee, don’t—”

Don’t go
. I knew that was what she wanted to say. Don’t go wayfaring. Stay home. Stay away from the silver. Be safe.
Don’t make me sit this vigil for you.
But she did not say it. She kissed my forehead and told me instead, “Wake your brothers and sisters. All but the baby. Send them to me.”

I nodded. My mother was wise.

We hope you enjoyed this sample of
Memory
, by Linda Nagata. Please visit
BookViewCafe.com
to purchase the ebook.

Stories of the Puzzle Lands

The Dread Hammer
-
Book 1: a tale of love, war, murder, marriage, and fate

Hepen the Watcher
-
Book 2: a tale of exile, rebellion, fidelity, and fire

The Nanotech Succession
is a collection of four stand-alone novels set in a shared science-fiction story world, beginning in the present day and reaching into the far future. Following the timeline of the story world the books are:

Tech-Heaven

The Bohr Maker
(winner of the 1996 Locus Award for Best First Novel)

Deception Well

Vast

Other Story Worlds

Goddesses & Other Stories
(a short-fiction collection including the 2000 Nebula Award winner for Best Novella)

Limit of Vision

Memory

Skye-Object 3270a
(young adult)

Linda Nagata grew up in a rented beach house on the north shore of Oahu. She graduated from the University of Hawaii with a degree in zoology and worked for a time at Haleakala National Park on the island of Maui. She has been a writer, a mom, a programmer of database-driven websites, and lately a publisher and book designer. She is the author of multiple novels and short stories including
The Bohr Maker
, winner of the Locus Award for best first novel, and the novella “Goddesses,” the first online publication to receive a Nebula award. She lives with her husband in their long-time home on the island of Maui.

Find her online at:

twitter.com/LindaNagata

facebook.com/Linda.Nagata.author

Book View Café
is a professional authors cooperative offering DRM free ebooks in multiple formats to readers around the world. With over thirty authors in a variety of genres including mystery, romance, fantasy, and science fiction, Book View Café has something for everyone.

Book View Café
is good for readers because you can enjoy high-quality DRM free ebooks from your favorite authors at a reasonable price.

Book View Café
is good for writers because 95% of the purchase price of the book goes directly to the book's author, with no middle man.

Support independent professional authors by buying your ebooks from
BookViewCafe.com