He keeps dragging out things long forgotten, my sewing kit, cross-stitch, flight. Also memories, the long ago ones from childhood, half-remembered lyrics to songs sung in a scratchy voice in the dark and the soft touch of my nurse. Liesel. I remember her as old, but she mustn’t have been, for I remember too her stories of the children who awaited her at home. Children my age, that her sister raised as she raised me. Children I was never to meet, and oddly resented.

I do not often think of my childhood. I dismiss it with a mere brush of my mind lest the dwelling and festering start. But now this, memories that warm and make me smile. It was her who gave me a love of reading, and tarts. Hers were the only arms to bring me a sense of true safety, that unwavering trust in an adult only a child can have. And suddenly, that glimmering has become all consuming. I can feel it reaching forward through the ages between, once more warming me. Good memories that seem to swell, consuming most of the bad.

I was nine when she was replaced, when the long stream of governesses took her place. I hadn’t known, one turn she was there to wake and help me dress and the next a lady’s maid had taken her place. I don’t even think I cried, simply boxed it up with all the rest and shoved it deep within me. I am sure I used it a time or two to grow my hatred of my parents, but little more. Details of her life, her life apart from me are sadly lacking. Who was she? And more important, what has become of her life? I would seek her out, but am loath to enlist the help of my mother. And, if I am to be honest with myself - I am fearful that the answers or woman I find might pop this precious little bubble I’ve found. That sense that perhaps I was special in her eyes, perhaps she loved me.

My laughter comes far easier now, what started as farce, a lie of happiness and healing - slowly becomes truth. The Dragger of Memories spoke also of time, precious time. He spoke of ones we would linger within. Treasured moments that we would still the spinning of things for. And so I’ve started a game with myself, picking through the good things - looking for that perfect moment. It brings that same kind of warmth that Liesel does.