The Persistence of Memory

Time to wake up.



Five years have passed since the Cage let Robyn go, and life at the bottom of the garden is kind. Her son is growing. The house is warm. The light is always exactly where she needs it.

That is the problem.

Because lately there are flashes: a rail cold under her hand, a tube low in her throat, a voice a hand's breadth away saying her name into a dark it is not sure can hear. And once Robyn pulls the first loose thread, the whole warm world begins to come apart in her lap.

Somewhere above her there is a room. In the room there is a woman who has never once stopped saying it: to the moon and back. Twelve marbles will get Robyn there. She has six. And the world is draining while she counts.

But every marble is a memory, and every memory is a thing she must be willing to lose. Everything she loves is in one world. Everyone who loves her is in the other. Only one of them can keep her.

The Persistence of Memory concludes Where Giants Sleep, a trilogy that begins with Beyond the Pale.