Memoria

By Elizabeth Anne Myrick

Fireworks exploded over Elysium Fields Senior Living and Nate almost dropped the bag of empanadas as he blundered out of his car. He squelched his apprehension. He had to reach Abuela before she lost herself in memory.

On recent visits, Abuela had been lucid, and he’d told Alexis about their picnic traditions. Abuela would demolish them in Rummy. Nate would put a sparkler in her lemonade when the stars came out. And Alexis promised to bring red-white-and-blue-sprinkled sugar cookies—a new tradition.

But if memory swept Abuela back to her days as the superhero Memoria, he’d miss his chance to share their day with Alexis.

His throat tightened as he entered the facility, signed the visitors’ log, and bustled into the memory care unit.

Abuela’s room was empty.

Icy chills ran down his spine. He set the empanadas on a side table and rounded the room as if it might alter reality. Abuela’s chair sat next to the window, the view of the redbud tree pink with blossoms.

Wait—blossoms? In July?

This was Memoria’s past, the visual trick a trademark of her superpowers.

His feet left the carpet, and he groaned. Stupid reflexes. From his grandfather’s flight ability, Nate had inherited just a foot of hovering. He pedaled uselessly in midair, stretching until his toe brushed the carpet. With a nudge, he drifted toward the door and looked for an anchor to the present.

It was the most frustrating game of “spot the difference.” Had a nurse made Abuela’s bed this morning? Did she leave her shoes to the right or the left of the door?

The empanadas. Her front table appeared empty, but he swiped his palm across the surface and knocked the plastic bag to the floor. The world turned upside-down as he slammed back into the present. As soon as his feet hit the carpet, he sprinted out the door.

In the hallway, Alexis’s gap-toothed grin launched him airborne again. He glided until he caught himself on the library door.

“Sorry I’m late.” Alexis stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. She tilted her head toward the library. “He thought I was some old villain. A Commencer? Nearly clobbered me with a book.”

Nate ducked as a Styrofoam cup zipped through the door. In the library, Rufus Johanssen huddled in an armchair, surrounded by swirling coffee cups, notepads, and plastic straws. Books vibrated at his feet. When a firecracker popped outside, Rufus sent two straws skittering against the window.

If all the residents were this agitated, the facility was in big trouble—especially with Abuela on the loose.

Swallowing, Nate took Alexis’s hand. “Abuela’s having a Memoria day.”

Alexis’s eyes flared neon-green, alarm triggering her laser vision. “What if she pulls the whole facility into a memory?”

Nate cringed, imagining the other elderly residents—all ex-superheroes—snarled in Abuela’s past. “We’ve got to find her.”

He shoved off the wall, sailing halfway down the hallway before he touched the floor. Alexis followed. But when they burst into the cafeteria, they found a crater-pocked city street and a sky flickering with explosions. Nate bobbed into the air.

The other residents were reliving the day of the battle, too.

The floor shook as Seismicism stomped a slippered foot. Ornitha unfolded huge, gray-feathered wings, a butterknife clenched in her fist. Staff members scrambled to calm them, but the power of Abuela’s memory gripped the residents too deeply. Most of them had fought alongside Abuela in the battle against the Commencers half a century ago.

Nate found his grandmother in the center of the melee, eyes wild. When she saw him, she gasped.

“Where were you?” Tears trembled silver on her lashes. “I needed you, Fernando.”

Nate froze. She’d mistaken him for his grandfather. Alexis pushed him forward, and he squared his shoulders. His hip brushed a cafeteria table, and the present flashed in his vision, swallowed immediately by Abuela’s power.

“Abuela, it’s me. Nate.” The floor shook with another of Seismicism’s tremors, and Abuela scowled at him.

“I can’t do this alone,” she said. “Just think of Vanessa if the Commencers take the city.”

Nate flinched at mention of his mother. Around the room, chaos reigned. Alexis knocked the butterknife away from Ornitha with her laser vision. Rufus shuffled into view amid a vortex of plastic forks, and Seismicism prepared another shockwave.

Trapped in this memory, the residents would demolish the building. Nate’s eyes snapped to Alexis. Her face was pale with fear as she said, “You have to get her away.”

Nate reached for his grandmother. “Abuela, aren’t you hungry? I brought empanadas.”

For a moment, confusion blurred the furor in her eyes. The cafeteria flickered into existence.

A firework rattled the windows.

Abuela startled, and they plunged back into the battlefield.

“Fernando, I want you by my side.” She looked at Nate pleadingly.

He caught her frail hand in his own. Her skin felt like tissue paper. She was trapped in her own mind, tangled in the horrors of a past long before he was born. All the anchors of the present couldn’t pull her free.

Nate wrapped his grandmother in a hug. “Take us somewhere safe, Memoria,” he said. “Maybe the day you met Ferna—your love. At the summer fireworks. Remember?”

Abuela’s hand trembled. But gradually, the battlefield faded. Grass sprouted under their feet and stars flecked the sky.

A flash of red sparkled overhead. Nate wasn’t sure if the boom came from the present or Abuela’s memory, but a gasp of wonder from the residents calmed his racing heartbeat.

His toes touched the earth.

They spread the picnic blanket on the cafeteria floor under the remembered night sky. The staff prohibited their sparklers, but Alexis shared her sugar cookies with the residents.

Abuela blinked at him, and for a moment, her eyes cleared. She cupped his cheek. “How you remind me of your abuelo. Don’t forget, he would be proud.”

Nate nestled his head on her shoulder. “I’ll always remember.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elizabeth Anne Myrick lives in Kansas City with a golden retriever named Edith, a suitcase named Posey, and several houseplants with unfortunately forgotten names (but she swears there’s a Kenneth in there somewhere). Always hungry for adventure, she’s visited sixteen real-world countries and countless fictional ones. Her stories glimmer with hope and a sprinkle of magic. You can find Elizabeth on the back deck with her iced coffee, lost in a good book, or on her social media.

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