“You see?” I said, standing with the wedding procession receding behind me. “You’re both more alike than you know.”

And if any doubts remained in their minds, I had just the evidence to show them. It would hurt, but I was 99% sure it would do the trick.

Geoffrey pointed at Yuta. “He found a new life. He managed to move on. I have nothing! I have nothing!”

Geoffrey must have sensed I was about to tap into another one of his memories, because he glared at me and yelled, “Wait just a moment!”

“W-What is it?” I stammered.

“All this,” he gestured to our surroundings, “it’s all been you.”

I nodded. “Guilty as charged.”

Geoffrey exhaled sharply. “Why?”

“What do you mean, ‘why’?” I asked.

“Why are you doing this? Why dredge up these memories. Why…” He pointed at Yuta while trying and failing to keep himself from shedding tears. “Why show me his life? Why make me live it? Have I not suffered enough?”

“When I said I wanted you two to stop fighting, I meant it.”

Geoffrey sliced his arm through the air and yelled. “That’s not an answer!” But then, gasping his temples in one hand, he sighed and shook his head, trying to regain a semblance of his composure.

“In here, you might as well be God. Why go through all this trouble? You could easily shut me away for what I did. But you haven’t. Why?”

“I told you already; I need to stop you from becoming a demon. Both of you!”

“You could throw me in the dungeon,” he replied. “It would be far simpler.”

“Can you do that?” Brand asked.

I nodded. “Yes, but… I don’t want to, not if I can avoid it.”

“Why? Why am I worth your time?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do,” I said. “I mean, come on! If I can fix an Athelmarch, I can basically fix anything, right?”

“I don’t believe that’s how it works, Genneth,” Brand said.

I sighed. “You know what I mean. It gets me motivated.” I turned back to Geoffrey. “Believe it or not, you’re not the only person on earth who’s fallen short of his own expectations. I know I have.”

But then I felt a twinge of the sinister logic that lurked beneath Geoffrey’s inquiries.

I stared at him for a moment.

“What?” he asked.

“You still think I’m a demon, don’t you?” I said. “Or, at least part of you does.”

That question certainly left Geoffrey flustered.

“Demons are incapable of kindness or sympathy, let alone whatever all this is.”

“Therapy,” I said. “This is therapy.”

He glared at me. “Demons aren’t capable of therapy.”

“Now that, I agree with,” Brand quipped.

“Isn’t that enough evidence for you?” I asked, turning back to Geoffrey.

“Evidence only matters if it changes people’s hearts, Dr. Howle. Can you blame me? Imagine if our positions were reversed. Would you believe me?”

Yuta crossed his arms. “I believe him.”

“Why?” Geoffrey asked.

“Why not?” Yuta retorted.

“Because he’s a Norm!”

“And you’re an Athelmarch,” I said. I pointed at the both of us. “Scripture doesn’t speak kindly of either of us.”

“That’s not the same!” Geoffrey replied.

I chuckled. For a moment there, Geoffrey’s captious objections had reminded me of Jules.

Angel, how I missed her. I missed them all, so, so much.

“Why not?” Brand asked.

Finally, Geoffrey belted it out. “Because it would mean scripture was false! Demons aren’t supposed to do… this.”

“Geoffrey, scripture left out the fact that there’s more than one Angel.”

“What…?” He whispered.

I shared my memory of that moment with him, complete with all my inner torment laid bare. It took only a few seconds, but when it was finished, Geoffrey was left trembling.

“That’s… that’s impossible.” He wept. “It can’t be.”

“I kept saying the same thing, and I got proven wrong time and again.” I sighed. “You’re right. I could have locked you up and thrown away the key. I could have forced you to comply. That’s what a demon would have done. But I didn’t, because I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I could.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

I guess this meant I was going to have to deploy the aforementioned evidence. Letting my arms hang at my side, I sighed.

“It seems you’re inclined to trust your experience of my feelings more than my words,” I said. “So, why don’t I stop beating around the bush and show you what’s going on under my hood. I suppose it’s only fair. I’ve seen the memories that make you tick, Geoffrey Athelmarch; you might as well see mine.”

Closing my eyes, I focused. Our surroundings changed. I could feel it in my bones.

It was like opening an old wound.

Well, no, it wasn’t “like” opening an old wound; it was opening an old wound.

I was already crying.

— — —

We sat in a halcyon day, in a booth for four. The O’Malleigh’s was filled to the brim with customers. Seats swiveled at the chrome counter curled around the kitchen. Heads stuck up from the booths around us, in front and behind. The booth’s red and white striped plastic upholstery was plump and bouncy, making it easy to bob in tune with the slow rhythm ’n’ blues playing from the jukebox on the far wall. The music was smooth and lush, like the jukebox’s mother of pearl inlays. The sparkly clean windows behind the machine gave a cloud-swept view of a flawless summer day out on the Bay.

Brand and I sat on one side of the booth; Yuta and Geoffrey on the other. We were in our work clothes: Brand and I in our white doctor’s coats; Yuta, his blue haori; Geoffrey, his stately plate mail. The two time travelers gawked at each other for a moment before turning their gazes to me. For a moment, they moved like mirror images of another—similar, despite all their differences.

A white-aproned waitress walked up to us. She had auburn hair and a plucky attitude, one that showed off in the smile she graced us with as she handed out the three ice cream pebble cones she’d brought to the table.

I’d put the order in in advance.

“Here you go, gentlemen, three Chocolate Caramel Crazes.”

I nodded. “Thanks, Carol.”

She walked off with a smile and a wave.

I was the only one without any ice cream, but that was intentional. Nothing ruined ice cream quite like crying while you were eating it.

I was already tearing up.

Brand, to his credit, knew exactly what to do, and he didn’t waste a single moment. He moaned softly as he chowed down on his ice cream pebble cone.

“Holy crap,” he said, speaking through a full mouth, “this is good.”

I tapped my fingernail on the plastic tabletop. “Yeah.” I nodded. “That’s probably the extra helping of nostalgia you’re tasting.”

While Geoffrey gazed at his cone quizzically, Yuta locked eyes with me. “Is this like the Ice Cream Sandwich?” he asked.

I nodded. “This is the Daimyo of ice cream.”

And it really was. To make an O’Malleigh’s Chocolate Caramel Craze, take vanilla and the four flavors of chocolate—milk, white, black, and fudge—and turn them into spherules of freeze-dried deliciousness. After that, squeeze out some caramel and press it into little beads and add them to the mix. Then, finish it off by pouring the six-color batch into a double-layered waffle cone—two sheets of waffle cone with chocolate sandwiched in between—and serve it up to the eager clientele.

“What is this?” Geoffrey asked. He posed the question right as Yuta took his first bite.

Yuta’s jaws churned for a moment, then froze as he stared at the dessert in his hand. He then looked at Geoffrey askance and whispered, “Either you eat your, or I will take it.”

Apparently, that was enough to break the ice. Geoffrey mimicked Brand and Yuta’s eating technique, biting into the pebble-pile jutting out from the waffle cone’s rim.

His eyes went wide.

“By the Godhead,” he whispered.

I nodded glibly. “You’re welcome. Also,” I added, “you should thank DAISHU. They made this.”

That revelation certainly threw him for a whirl.

I let the two time travelers finish their treats before I spoke. I cleared my throat when they were done.

The effect was immediate. The rest of the restaurant fell into shade as something like a spotlight bore down on the booth on the other side of the aisle, directly across from ours. There was a record-scratching noise as the music came to a halt and the ambient chit-chat fell silent, save for one conversation.

Brand, Yuta, and Geoffrey look over at the spotlit booth almost immediately. I, however… I took my time.

My younger self sat in the booth across the aisle. Dana sat across from him, hunched forward with her arms crossed on the tabletop.

Angel, she was just like I remembered.

Twerpy tween Genneth was nearing peak dowdiness, an aesthetic accentuated by his (our?) braces and his undue confidence in square-framed glasses. But my sister? She was a summer’s day, forever shining. She was a little sloppy, and proud of it. Her long, wavy hair spurted up at the back of her head in a poor attempt at a ponytail; the rest of it spilled down her shoulders, “Just hangin’,” as she’d liked to say.

Dana’s black t-shirt and indigo jeans looked even less put-together than my buttoned up plaid shirt and khaki shorts. We each had a Chocolate Caramel Craze in our hands. As usual, Dana couldn’t help but make a mess of it as she ate, and—just as usually—she laughed it off like she didn’t have a care in the world.

She laughed and laughed.

Yuta, Geoffrey, and Brand fell silent. I think it was the look on my face—my older self, not my memory-self—that got them to clam up.

I cleared my throat again. “That’s me,” I said. “I was twelve. And that’s…” I exhaled. “That’s Dana, my older sister.”

I raised the volume of my memory-self’s conversation until it filled the air.

“Dana…” I-he said, with a trace of hesitation. “What was Mom like?”

Her brow furrowed—never a good sign. “You really wanna make it this chewy?” she asked.

“I’m serious.”

“Seriously serious?” Dana asked.

I nodded.

Dana huffed, jutting out her lower lip and blowing out a puff of air that tousled her bangs. “Well…” She leaned back in the red and white booth seat. “What kind of answer are you looking for? I have a salmony answer—interesting quality, bad aftertaste. We could do the laughy one. Though… I also have a pretzel answer—very crunchy.”

“Salted or unsalted?” I asked.

My sister had a way with words. Something was “chewy” if it made you feel, while something was “crunchy” if it made you think. A “wasp-tickler” was a foolish person. As for pretzels, salted pretzels were always more enjoyable than dry, unsalted ones.

“Salted,” she said.

“I’ll have a salted pretzel answer, please,” I said.

Dana tapped her fingers on the tabletop. She didn’t waste time with nail extensions or finger polish. Her nails were as plain as her lips. Anything else would have been “fingermongering”, and if there was one thing an honest jane (or joe) didn’t want to be, it was a fingermonger.

“Well, Eg,” she began.

My sister had a traveling bag’s worth of pet names for me, all of which were anagrams of my name (or a subset thereof).

“Eg” was for when I was receiving wisdom. “Nethgen” was for casual conversation. “Genneth” was for emergencies and other moments of extreme reality. “Hentgen” was for when I wasn’t doing the right thing. “Tenheng” was for when I was doing things ‘like a boss’.

I didn’t get nearly as many Tenhengs as I would have liked.

“…she was a lot like you,” Dana said.

“What?” I asked.

Dana nodded. “Mom was the salt to Dad’s pepper.”

“Dad was pepper?” I asked, astonished.

Dana smiled. “Like you wouldn’t believe. Mom, though, she was beautifully turtle. She smelled every rose. Loved reading. She read fairy tales to me at night, when my head was too monkey to go to bed.”

Dana had done the same for me.

There was a pause. “Do you think she would have been proud of me?”

“She’d have loved to meet you,” she said. “Though, as you know, I think everyone would be happy to meet you. You’re very meetable, you know. You know how to listen, Genneth, and… well, that’s diamond-sky priceless. You’re doin’ great, you know you know you know.”

“I got a B on the chemistry test,” I admitted.

“Yeah, well, chemistry’s a B,” Dana said, with a laugh.

Then I ended the memory, and everything went dark.