The boat moves through to the other side of the bubble and we’re out, but not for long. We enter another memory. Ensi’s older now, perhaps late teens or early twenties. He’s standing behind the pulpit as Mana-ma lectures, her face rapturous as she turns it toward the stained glass of the church. The Brother stares ahead, thinking about God, and a higher power. If His will is really what Mana-ma proposed.

The sermon ends, and the Brother follows Mana-ma. They go to the Confession room. Mana-ma sets out a chessboard, and they play as they usually do, but the Brother isn’t in the mood for strategy.

“I don’t see why I should leave you. Isn’t my work for God here?”

Mana-ma rearranges her robes about herself. She’s only recently taken up the title from her predecessor. She must be about the same age in this memory as my sister and I are now.

“God spoke to me. This is the way to do His will. You have a brilliant mind. You are interested in the sciences, but you’ve learned all you can here. You are meant to go on this journey into the unholy land, and bring glory to us. I am not sure exactly how, but He has told me you will find your way. You have my full support, and my faith in you.”

Ensi moves his pawn forward. Mana-ma captures it.

I have a feeling Ensi programmed this world, a personal Vervescape separate from where he torments his victims. A place to categorize his memories, but now they’re bleeding into each other, his past and his present colliding.

As Ensi’s memories merge, Nazarin and I are thrown into slivers of his life. After coming to San Francisco, he looks into a mirror after shaving. He isn’t as beautiful then. His nose is bigger, his hair not as full, his chin a little weaker. He is Veli Carrera, the man I saw projected on the wall in Mantel’s Vervescape. He doesn’t like this world, how loud and strange and Impure it is. He presses the razor against his wrist. He wants to go back to the redwoods, and back to Mana-ma. At the same time, the lure of knowledge calls him, and he knows he can continue God’s work here, and make his Mana-ma proud. Reluctantly, he takes the razor away.

I want to know how he went from under her thumb to being the true, unseen hand that rules San Francisco.

With another shuddering lurch, the boat sails through the next memory.

Mana-ma is in Ensi’s apartment. I startle to see her not in the Hearth. They move toward each other, resting foreheads close. Ensi looks as he does now, and Mana-ma looks a little older than I remember. It is a more recent memory.