This is the memory palace. I'm Nate DeMoeu.

There's only one dramatic moment in the story.

You will come about halfway through.

The protagonist, the heroine, will fall from a cliff, and it might seem like the turning point,

like the moment where everything hangs in the balance and everything's about to change.

But it's not.

That point will come earlier, just a few minutes from now.

I'll flag it so you don't miss it.

You will examine it for a second before sliding it into a drawer and moving on.

And maybe we'll come back to it at the end, or maybe not.

But we all know it's still there in the drawer if either of us wants to return to it in the future.

I'll make sure to leave it unlocked.

This story starts here in Ernest, 44 seconds in, with the birth of Inez and Requete Juliera Mejé,

in Washington, BC in 1870.

Her father was a Mexican diplomat.

Her mother was a socialite from Philadelphia.

And when she was three, they all moved to Texas, outside Waco.

Where Inez spent most of her time alone.

She liked it for the most part, exploring the ranch where they lived, picking flowers,

watching birds circling above the low hills.

Rabbids start in and out of the Mesquite in the Oahuio.

Green branches dappled pale yellow all spring.

...