It didn’t take long to find Sally. She was sitting at a little outdoor diner, eating. She glanced up at them. “Did you find her?”

“Oh, we found…” June blinked. “What’s that?”

“It’s Roman-Chinese fusion cuisine! Want it? It’s Allesso di Bollito and rice!”

“Um… maybe later,” June said. “We found Mom.”

“But she didn’t come back with us,” Hank said. He looked grim. “Sally, Darktown is… different.”

“Darktown’s always different,” Sally said, putting her fork down. “You know that, Hank.”

“Really different. We almost didn’t get out. We had to go to the center of the place and talk to Witness.”

Sally blinked, then glared at Hank. “Hank, why did you take June that far in!? She’s a kid, and you know what Darktown is like—”

“It wasn’t his fault!” June said. “Sally, there was someone—something there. It was having everyone feed their memories into a fire, and they… changed.” She closed her eyes and held out her hand, recalling the memory of those terrifying angels.

Sally stared at them, then shook her head. “I never saw anything like that.”

“I need to help Mom, and Hank said you… You lived in Darktown.”

“Living is a bit of misnomer, Dear, even as we name it in the Memory Lands.” Sally picked up the last bit of food and bit into it, chewing and swallowing. “You know that in Darktown, you never eat anything that tastes good. It’s always regret and dust.” She paused. “Or you don’t eat. You don’t have to, after all, since we’re not really alive. Then it’s just a continual feeling of emptiness.”

“I—I have to get Mom out.”

“You can’t.”

“But you did!”

“I came because Hank saw me and spoke to me,” Sally said. “Because I listened. But pull someone out against their will? They will bring Darktown with them.”

“But this isn’t normal Darktown, you said it.”

“I said I never saw anything like that, and I was on the fringes.” Sally sighed. “June, you’re a memory-worker, but you’re young, you’re new here and you were murdered.” She looked around. “Let’s go to a park. Where we can sit alone. Not everyone likes to hear this.”

June nodded, and the three walked down the street. Neon lights competed with LED’s and Victorian gas lamps, while a gentle rain fell from the dark sky. People walked around, chatting…

Living the memory of their lives, June thought. Is that what we all are, just memories of the past? She shook her head. No. She was June. The people around her weren’t just memories, they were living souls for all that their bodies had passed. And Hank and Sally weren’t just memories. She’d met them after she had died, after all.

The City had many parks. Some of them looking like the parks people had remembered from their lives, and others were mixtures of different eras and places. The park they came to had a wrought-iron fence surrounding it, rose bushes growing up and around the iron, filling the air with a sweet scent. Inside, there was a little pagoda on an island in a big koi pond, with little bridges heading for it. Lanterns floated in the air, giving the place an otherworldly look.

The three walked to the pagoda, sitting down on the polished wooden seats. Sally looked around and frowned, shaking her head.

“Darktown… Well, it’s bigger on the inside, right?”

“Yes.” June nodded.

“No. It’s smaller,” Sally said. “It’s just that the people inside can’t see beyond their own despair.” She sighed, and shook her head, and suddenly looked older, wrinkles running up and down her face. “You died… quickly. Maybe you had regrets, but you didn’t have a chance to think of them, did you?”

“I—no.”

“And then you were pulled along. Most people who came to the Memory Lands, at least before now, had something holding them. Regrets, unfinished business. An executive dying of a heart attack in his expensive apartment, realizing that… His wealth is about to mean nothing, and there are none in the world who will miss him. A woman who played it safe all of her life… But those memories can pull you down, and Darktown is where the worst come, like me.”

“You.”

“I was a starlet. But starlets get old. My mother sent me to all the right dancing schools, acting schools, and oh, she was so proud when I had the main supporting role in my school play. And when I had the main supporting role in that little TV movie…” Sally stared at the pond. “She was proud, even when I missed the gold ring. And then Mom passed away, without ever seeing my name in lights.”

June said nothing. Hank was staring at Sally like he was remembering something himself and yet…

I died in a few minutes. It was horrible, but… Sally was right. It wasn’t like June had decades of memories and regrets when she died.

“So I got older, and older starlets don’t even get good second billing. I did everything,” she said, then laughed. “Advertisements, fashion shows, PR billings for someone who wanted a “movie star” on their arm and who couldn’t actually get a real star… But the years keep moving. And those years catch up to you. So I stopped getting anything other than the little bits. You know, a grandmother who shows up for one scene to say goodbye to the real stars, the people with careers in front of them.”

“What…”

“My last day. My agent—the dear had been keeping me on out of pity—called me. They had a need for a new commercial series for ‘fashionable adult diapers for the senior citizen on the go.’ I took it.” She said nothing. “And then I realized, that I’d spent my entire life chasing a dream, and here was the end. Adult diapers. No children, not even very many close friends. None, to be honest. Nobody would miss me, and my walls were full of little PR shots, but not much of my ordinary life.”

“That’s when you…”

“Committed suicide, and barely spent a day in the Memory Lands before I heard the call of Darktown. Because that place, however horrible it was, is a place where you never have to look and see what you could have been, but weren’t. “Or at least you don’t have to think about how maybe it was your decisions that led you there. And that’s why it’s so big. Nobody wants to see what they could be, if only they took the chance. There’s a comfort, of a sort, in despair.”

To face their despair, to be different from what they were to… June shook her head. “And Hank saved you?”

“I actually saw one of her movies,” Hank said. “You know that people sometimes come out of Darktown, for a short time, and I saw her in an alley, and then followed her. Call me a fan.”

Sally chuckled. “Or a savior.”

“How did you get her to leave?” June asked.

“I talked to her. Let a little light in,” Hank looked around. “It won’t work for your Mom, June, it’s different for everyone. And Sally didn’t have that… thing near her.”

“Yeah, we need to find out what that is,” June said. “But maybe we can at least talk to Mom?”

“How?” Hank asked.

“Well… she comes out of Darktown, or at least she did, and I think she still remembers me, so… If she comes out, maybe I can…” June paused. “Um, kidnap her?”

“Stuff her in a bag and bring her to Teacher?” Hank shook his head. “June, I didn’t think you had it in you!”

Sally frowned. “June, you can’t make your mother leave Darktown. In fact, if you try that, it’s likely the place you’re holding her will start to become part of Darktown.”

“Right, but I can talk to her, maybe that will work.” June said. She had a vision of Mom tossing her memories into that fire, warping and becoming one of those things. “And even if sh—she goes back, we can learn about what is happening. Because if they’re taking all of their memories, that means nobody will ever be able to leave Darktown, because they won’t have any good memories.”

Sally and Hank looked at each other, some unspoken communication going between them.

Hank nodded. “June, we’ll help you, but equally, you may be a memory-worker, you may hold the spear of how-the-hell-old-is-it, but I want your promise. If this doesn’t work, if your mother, of her free will, chooses to leave after you talk to her, you’ll let her leave and won’t go into Darktown to try to get her.”

“I—”

“Because that’s one way Darktown might get its claws into you.” Sally said.

It’s made of regret and failed choices. What could be worse than failing to save her mother? Spending all of her time trying to get her again and again… And then one day, I just decide to stay with her, even if it’s in Darktown.

“You’re right,” June said. “If I can’t get her to understand… I’ll respect her decision.” However hard it is going to be.