Allison Wall

Unbound

Memory within the River Stone

I walk into the forest. I walk slow, with deliberate dignity, until I am out of sight. Until my numbed heart begins to pound. Until the rattlesnakes of fear and devastation wake to do battle within me. Then I run. I know how to run with the grace of the deer, who now flee from the crashing path I cut. I am not a deer. I am a child fleeing and failing to outrun my soul’s rending.

I trip. I am trapped in the moment. My feet no longer beneath me, untouched, floating—then the shock of impact. I am wet. I have fallen down the unseen bank of a stream, scraped my palms and cut my knees. Cold water swirls around me. The current is strong. It burbles cheerfully among the rocks that have drawn my blood. I have known this stream, but now it is a stranger. Such a carefree voice! It acknowledges nothing of my suffering.

The water reflects back a scattered distortion of who I am. I catch a glimpse of myself crowned with light and oak leaves, favored, chosen, strong. A mockery of who I wanted to be. I strike the water, splashing myself in the face. Useless. Nothing I have done, nothing I could do, makes any difference.

My soul rips within me. It is like the opening of ponderous black gates, through which all the sorrow of the universe screams, the agony of a million damned lives threatening to pour out and destroy me. My tears pour, water to water.

I must confront it: The path I took into the forest, I will not retrace, and no one will come looking for me. No one will miss me. My grief sharpens. A blade, twisting. I do not know what it means to be alive, if I am alone.

The current pulls. Laughing. Insistent. It wants me to let go, to give up the burdens of this body, to flow, to be folded beneath the surface, to belong only to the water. I could offer myself to the stream. I want to. Then I remember—this is what she wants: for me to disappear. It might be easier for me to relent. It will also be much easier for her.

Anger wakes, that animating heat. I remember the betrayal. The injustice of it all. The wreckage and violation of my secrets, the crushed baskets, all the lights gone out. No. I will not give in. Once, even a few hours ago, I would have listened to the stream. I would have obeyed it without thought. But it is one of her allies. I can no longer trust it.

I ascend the bank and walk upstream.

1

I waited before the Grove of the Inner Circle, the Sacred Heart of All Forests. I tried to do so still and respectful, but the waiting was hard. I had been waiting for this day my entire life and the anticipation was excruciating. I was so nervous. Over and over, I traced the flowers embroidered on my green skirt. It felt wrong to be wearing something colored for Spring, not Autumn. The leaves were beginning to turn. Oranges and reds gathered in them, and the Sun glittered through the canopy, as if it was the one changing them, setting little fires in each leaf. It was right to dress for the Seasons. But this was the proper garment for the ceremony before me. The ceremony that would commence at any moment.

Oh! What if how I waited was also part of the ceremony? Foolish. Why hadn’t I thought of that? I must master myself. I could not risk being found unworthy.

I attempted to become like a tree, rooted in the certainty that I was exactly where I should be. I was, and so was the rest of the world around me: woodpecker drumming, chickadee calling, rabbit rustling through underbrush. Wind swished in the leaves. I tried hard to lose myself to the forest, with little success. My mind raced, like the squirrels chasing each other in the branches.

At last came my mother’s voice: “Nerissa.” She held back a curtain of willow branches and beckoned me.

I smoothed my skirt, pushed the elaborate knotwork of my hair over my shoulder, and entered the Grove of the Inner Circle.

I had never been inside the Grove before. It was like stepping into a dream—not mine, the forest’s. Trees created a chamber, sculpted with their entwined roots and branches. A living floor, ceiling, and roof, intricately patterned. As they held the sacred space, the trees whispered and grew. Late-season butterflies danced near the top of the Grove, in the warmth of the sunbeams.

Around the circumference of the chamber were the members of the Inner Circle. They sat upon chairs grown from the living trees. Seven were: my mother, her three sisters, and their daughters. Eighth was the one who mattered most, who was really the first: my grandmother Maia. Her hair, once black, was streaked with white, braided intricately with tokens of her workings. Her eyes were gray and far-seeing and sharp. They rested upon me. She stood, and the Inner Circle looked to her.

“Who comes here, to this Sacred Grove?” she asked.

I recited: “Nerissa, second in line to the High Seat, daughter of Rowena, heiress apparent, granddaughter of Maia, Ruler of the Circle, who makes her workings at the height of her power.”

Maia smiled at me. I smiled back, though shyly. My grandmother intimidated me more than a little, and in this moment especially. I had practiced many times so that I would be sure not to fumble my words with the full weight of her attention on me, and I was not yet out of danger.

She asked, “And what have you come here seeking on this second day of Autumn?”

“I have come to take up my birthright and ascend.”

“Do you come at the right time?”

“I am seventeen, the age of ascending for women of my line.”

“What do you intend to do?”

“To keep the ways of the Circle, to practice rituals of binding, to attend to the old ways, and in so doing, to maintain the threads of the world.”

“And would you do this alone?”

“Only in community can the Circle keep all bound. Together we are strong. Alone, we are nothing.”

“What is the evidence of the Circle’s work in the world?”

“We hold the constellations in their place. We keep the seasons turning in their rhythm. We hold the Sun to his promise of morning, the Moon to her waxing and waning. We maintain the tides, the flowers, the cycles of birth and death. We are Mother Gaia’s children. We carry out her will. And the Inner Circle are the decision-makers and enactors of justice.”

“Good,” Maia said. “Welcome, ninth member of the Inner Circle. May you prove yourself worthy.”

I bowed my head. I wished for nothing else.

“Be seated, Nerissa.”

My grandmother gestured to an empty seat in the Circle. It was beautiful and I loved it at once: the wood was young, fresh, supple, and smelled of summer. Willow and aspen branches wove in intricate patterns, knots of various sorts, blessing spells caught up in them, just for me, for the seat had been sprouted for me. It was the simplest and smallest in the Inner Circle, but I had only just ascended. Perhaps as I grew in power and wisdom, it would grow too.

I sat down upon the living seat that was my inheritance for the first of what I anticipated would be many times.

Maia also sat. Her seat rose highest of all, far up into the canopy ceiling, woven into the roof that covered us all. She said, “Now that all nine seats are occupied, bound together by the strength of your workings, we are at full power. Thanks be to Gaia who grants and sustains us.”

“Thanks be to Gaia,” I said, along with the others.

“And a good thing too,” my grandmother said, her tone shifting, “as a great danger has emerged and even now threatens our existence.”

Shocked, I turned to my inner eye: to the intricate web binding me to the natural world. I thought to examine this danger Maia spoke of. But all I felt was the golden energy of a fading summer. Nothing amiss. Even the workings that ran from me to my grandmother gave no hint of this danger she spoke of. The other members were doing the same, checking their workings, and their confusion was as my own.

Rowena—my mother, tall and straight, her hair shining—turned to Maia and said, “Of what do you speak? I have felt nothing.”

“No,” said Maia. “I have been keeping it from you.”

My mother’s eyes widened.

I was shocked again. That Maia had been able to separate herself from us, to put up a wall between us? The power of my grandmother’s working was beyond imagination. But it was not right that Maia would hold anything back. Our strength was our unity. We could not be unified if we did not share all things. Yet who could rebuke Maia? My mother, second in power and authority, did not.

Maia said, “It is a risk I did not want to take, in case I might not have been able to bear it alone. But I did. And now the ninth seat is filled. We may act.”

My mother spoke the thoughts of the Inner Circle: “Tell us of this danger and what we must do.”

Maia closed her eyes and began to chant. “There is a darkness that threatens us, our forest, the world. I see it. Beyond the boundary of the forest, the land gives way to hills, and the hills, to mountains. And atop the highest mountain, there is a fortress of stone. Here the daylight is always dim. Here night is always black. Here no plant nor natural thing grows. Here is the stronghold of the enemy.”

A wind shivered the leaves of the bower. Clouds passed over the sun. Into our minds, Maia painted a picture: a lone figure, cloaked in black, upon a high place, overlooking desolation.

“Once a man. Now a Wizard. He takes what is not his. He practices magic.”

I gasped. A man? Practicing magic? It was impossible. Wasn’t it?

“He is unbound. He answers to no one but himself, and that perversion of Gaia’s intent for magic, both in sex and in solitude, has perverted him. His hunger for power knows no limits—for he has none. No checks. No tethers. He chooses solitude, and by solitude, he is consumed.”

Wind lashed at that lone figure. Dread rose within me. Such a thing was horrible even to imagine.

“The Wizard has one aim: to cut the bindings of the world, so that all are severed, as he is.”

The figure raised his arms. The world was shaken with earthquakes. Fissures exploded, pulling the Earth apart. The Moon cracked into pieces, and the sun turned dull red, like coals at the end of a fire. Stars fell from the sky in fiery streaks and plunged, smoking, into the forest, into the sea, unleashing massive wildfires and tsunamis. The Circle, the creatures of the forest, the trees and flowers and rivers, all dead. The Wizard stood upon the wreckage of the world, the last living being, surveying the absolute destruction he had wrought. He threw back his head like a wolf, and howled with laughter.

The nightmare vision ended.

My grandmother opened her eyes. She looked around at us with a serious but kind expression. “Everything in Gaia’s world, my children, is connected. When we sever those connections, we sever ourselves from our correct place. We become monsters. There is no reasoning with a monster. We must bring this Wizard to heel. And we must do it now, before he destroys the bindings of the world and wreaks apocalyptic havoc and death. We have sworn to protect the world. This is our task to undertake.”

The Inner Circle rippled agreement, righteous anger, like flames.

A single red leaf landed upon my lap: the first fallen of Autumn. A strong portent! The trees nodded in the wind. Agreeing. The Wizard must fall.

Memory within the Raven’s Feather

I have been walking for days—how many? I don’t remember. I’m not counting. I know enough of the wild to survive in it, and I focus all of my attention on that. Nothing before, nothing after. Only now.

Rising from the ashes of my small fire, in the pale-blue of dawn, I see six ravens flying. I mark their direction and the pattern their bodies make—then stop myself. What am I doing? The language I have been taught to read is treacherous. It has been used against me. It is a trap. All of the signs and symbols I used to take as omens, I must ignore.

With a great effort, I wipe the ravens from my mind.

I gather myself to begin the day’s journey. And where should I go? Which direction is best? Will I ever find a safe place?

I wish, with all of my being, that the ravens could tell me. That there is a right path to take for me, one who has stepped off all known paths—who has been banished from them.

But my trust in the natural world is broken. My trust in people, shattered. I hold the pieces of myself together, clutching my arms around my ribcage. I am going nowhere but away. There is nothing more.

I change course. I seek solid ground. I seek stone, ancient as the stars. I climb, and I climb, and I climb. My muscles burn. I revel in the pain. I ascend away from the Earth with all its growing and living things. I breathe the thin dryness of the air and feel the moisture strip away. I want to strip everything away that I have been. For everything I have been was built upon lies. I want to find the true things. Stone is true. Mountains do not change their form. Or if they do, they do it honestly, slowly, over hundreds of years.

Finally, the mountain shows me a cave. No—I find a cave. I go inside and wrap myself in darkness. Here is a stone womb, where I am held, secure. I scatter the pieces of myself across the floor like runes, and no wind comes to blow them away. No animals disturb me. The sounds that emerge from my throat are enough to assure my solitude. An entire wolf pack makes its den within the tunnels of my heart, and they will not be comforted.

2

I had thought the day of my ascension would be celebratory. But as we filed out of the Grove, my aunts and cousins swept their skirts, chins high, eyes averted. They did not acknowledge me. They could not keep their feelings from me, as I was more intricately bound to them than I ever had been. It was as I suspected: they resented me.

Though my mother Rowena was the eldest of Maia’s daughters, my cousins were all much older than me. I was Rowena’s long-wished-for, first and only child. A star fell at the moment of my birth. Yet my aunts and cousins had never seemed to want me—perhaps because I was younger, less experienced, and yet destined to ascend over them. Well. Now that I had ascended, I would not use my new authority against them. I would sit straight and tall and just in the Grove and listen to the wisdom of the leaves whispering around me.

If not theirs, I had hoped, at least, to have earned my grandmother’s pride. But after my ascension, Maia had barely looked at me. Her announcement of this Wizard had eclipsed the moment I had looked forward to all my life. I was not angry at her. At least, I tried not to be. It was wrong to hold such feelings—especially against Maia, who was only doing what she did to protect and guide us. But I could not revel in my successful ascension. The vision of the Wizard’s apocalypse hung over me. That, and a nagging emptiness. A sense of lack. This wasn’t a new sensation, though. It came over me often, walking through the trees, especially near twilight. I did not know why. It was likely some sort of temptation, a weakness in my nature to be subdued. I did my best, but after the events of my ascension day, the emptiness was sharpened to a point.

My mother and I started the walk home through the forest—and an instant later, we were there. I blinked, disoriented. I must have been so lost in my thoughts; I had abandoned the present moment. Not an ideal frame of mind for one of the Inner Circle. I must do better.

Home was a bittersweet sight. Late-blooming roses poured over the lintel of the white-stone cottage. The blossoms wouldn’t last much longer. I might not be here to see the petals fall, to collect them for the workings I had been planning.

My father opened the front door for us. He greeted Mother respectfully, then embraced me with all the words of praise I had hoped for, but they were seeds blowing across drought-parched dirt. They found no place within me.

Going inside, Mother observed, “You’ve been busy, Varden.”

It was true. The cottage was spotless. Fresh flowers hung in sweet garlands from the rafters. On the table was an elaborate meal: fresh salad from the garden, a rich vegetable pot pie, mushroom pasties, wild blackberry tarts, and a cold pitcher of cider, condensation running down its sides. He must have been working all day.

His excitement and pride were well-intentioned, but beneath them I was desperately uncomfortable. Embarrassed. Given how underwhelmed my fellow Inner Circle members had been to receive me, yes, it was too much. And any celebration was hollow, with the Wizard’s threat hanging over us all.

“Is it too much?” he asked.

I looked to my mother. She raised an eyebrow, passing responding back to me. I had no intention of spoiling his preparations or his happiness, so I told him, “It’s beautiful. And everything smells fantastic. Thank you.”

He hugged me again. “Well. A daughter only ascends once. I would like to have done more, but the sun doesn’t stop for me. Come in, come in, and sit!”

He bustled all around, making sure everything was perfect, that Mother and I were served, and only then did he settle into his own chair. “I know you can’t tell me the details,” he said, “but I would have loved to have been there, Nerri, to see you take your place.”

I smiled at him, hoping my expression passed as happy, hoping Mother wouldn’t take this comment as presumption—of course, no man could enter the sacred space of the Grove—and he didn’t mean it that way, I knew, but sometimes, when she was tight with the threads of her responsibility, she was quick to rebuke, slow to understanding, with him in particular. She didn’t seem to be listening to him, though, and the moment passed.

“Everything is so delicious,” I told Father.

He refilled my plate, with a sly, trickster wink.

“Oh,” Mother said, casually. “There is a bit of news. Now that we are at nine members, Gaia has called the Inner Circle to an intensive time of retreat and fasting. We’re going back to the Grove tomorrow.”

This was the lie Maia had given us to tell our families. I wished Mother had kept it to herself, not forever of course, but just to enjoy the peace of the meal a little longer.

My father put down his cup. “How long will you be gone?”

“A week.”

“That’s a long fast.”

“Mm. It’s intermittent.”

“Should I send food along with you, then?”

“Thank you, dear. That would be nice.”

He forced a smile. “It’ll be very quiet about the house without you. But Nerissa, only just ascended, already doing such important work! I’m so proud of you.” He looked at me more carefully, though, and his face fell. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I said, “all is well.”

“Something happened. Surely not the ascension—”

Mother said, “There is nothing to trouble yourself with.”

“But Nerissa is—”

She squeezed his hand. “She’s tired. It’s been a long day. Let’s focus our attention on the present moment and enjoy the food you made for us.”

Father pressed his lips together and said, “Yes, dear.” He did not ask after me again.

#

When the sun had set, Mother and I went out to bind the evening star. This was our particular responsibility, as Maia’s heirs. As soon as we were outdoors, she demanded, “What is the matter with you? Your emotions are so unbound, even your father sensed that something is wrong.”

“Something is wrong.”

“Nerissa. Only the ascended share the burden of knowledge.”

Out from the house drifted the delicate, comfortable clatter of my father washing dishes, humming to himself.

I said, “I don’t like lying to him.”

“We’re following Maia’s instructions. No one can know where we’re really going, or else their fear might poison the threads of our connection and weaken us.”

“I know, I just…”

My mother clicked her tongue. “You must bind your emotions. You are dangerously close to breaking law, Nerissa. What has gotten into you?”

“I-I am worried about the… Has the Inner Circle ever,” and I whispered, “left the forest before?”

“Maia has decided it is the right course of action and she will see us through. Fear is not of the Circle. It’s an illusion.”

“Of course,” I said. “Thank you for reminding me.”

So that was that. Simple. Easy. Or it should have been.

She said, “There is something else. I sense it.”

In the twilight, the features of my mother’s face were shrouded. Her dark gold hair was painted black.

I hesitated.

“Do not lie to me, Nerissa. I always know when you are lying.”

I held back a sigh. “The ascension. It didn’t feel the way I thought it would.”

“You’re disappointed?” she asked, incredulous.

“Well. Um.”

“I wonder if you really were ready to ascend.”

“No, no, I am ready!”

“Such selfish small-mindedness makes me wonder.”

“It’s just…I’ve looked forward to it for so long, and—”

“Did you think ascending was an event just for you? You are involved, but it is more. It is our power and our hope for the future. It is stability. It is service. To the Circle, to me, to your grandmother, to the rest of the world, and to Gaia herself, who entrusts us with this burden.”

“I am sorry.”

“You should be. To think such things at such a time—this Wizard threatens the entire natural world. We have to defeat him, or else the Circle will fail. And if we fail, the world will be destroyed. It will be apocalypse. The end of everything. Whether or not you ever ascended will be meaningless.”

I could not help it: I frowned.

“And what now?”

“Did you feel the danger?”

“Maia was keeping it from us, as she said.”

Neither of us spoke for a long moment, and in that space, the thought loomed between us: She ought not to have done so.

Mother said, “This is your first task worthy of your heritage. Perhaps the most important one of your life. Together, we are strong. Together, we channel the strength of Gaia Herself. This Wizard has no chance. We will prevail. We always do.”

Memory within the Thorn

I give in to my pain but it does not ease. The more I feel, the more there is. Grief is a crushing weight in my bones. I am nauseous with it, my head aches, my eyes refuse to focus. I barely eat. I sleep poorly, tortured by nightmares, and I am constantly fogged with exhaustion. I cannot think. I cannot plan. I swirl in the vortex of my loss.

My vulnerability frightens me. I can’t go on like this.

I sit upon the ground, barefoot, cross-legged, with my chosen object before me. I do not know whether this action is sound. I do not know who I will be, after I do this. But I don’t know who I am now. I am the emptiness of who I used to be. There is nothing left to lose. I unbind the rock, splitting it into two halves. It is hollow. Crystals glitter, spiky, within. A geode. This seems auspicious.

I close my eyes. Concentrate. Isolate the memory. The one that haunts me, hurts me, wakes me in the night with tears already flowing. It glows darkly. I fold it up, gathering all of its poisonous light. I slide it into the hollow place, between the halves of the geode, within the teeth of the crystals. I bind the pieces back together.

I do not wonder if it worked. I have performed this magic many times, in smaller ways. I invented it. The memory I chose now lives within the geode. And—I realize—I do not know which memory it is. I do not know what I would remember, if I cracked the geode open and reclaimed it.

Memories are slippery, long-tentacled creatures. I may have trapped this one, but emotions slither out. They find loopholes, openings in other memories in which I was thinking about the geode memory. It’s impossible to fully eradicate a memory’s impact.

Even so, I feel relief. It is stepping into the shade of a single tree in a field beneath the hot, noonday sun. Part of me wonders if fragmenting myself for comfort is worth it. If what I am hiding away might be essential. But then, it isn’t gone. I can always take it back out if I need to.

3

Before dawn, when dew was stringing its crystal beads upon the last long grasses of summer, my mother and I left to face the Wizard.

I said goodbye to my father.

“I’ll miss you,” he said.

“We’ll be home before you know it.”

He smiled at me sadly. He knew I was holding something back. Of course he did! Even though he was a man, and though he might not be permitted to make his own workings, he was connected to the Circle. He could sense things. His senses may have been lesser, but they weren’t nonexistent. He’d been deemed worthy of Maia’s daughter, after all.

I wanted to blurt everything out. He would comfort me. Show me where I had gone wrong, that I felt such fear. My father had always been a trusted confidant who didn’t tell anyone what I shared, no matter how dangerous or wrong. But I didn’t tell him this time. And he did not demand to know. I was beyond him now. I was ascended. My father couldn’t help me, and we both knew it. I was so afraid I would never see him again, afraid that my own fear would somehow make it so.

“Come, Nerissa,” Mother called. She was already outside, walking staff in hand.

He wrapped me in a hug. It was heavy with everything unspoken, unspeakable. Sharp pain radiated through my arm. I winced. I turned away and pushed up my sleeve. A nasty, deep-blue bruise encircled my upper arm. I frowned.

“Another bruise?”

I covered it back up. “It’s nothing.”

“Do you remember where this one came from?”

“Probably bumped into something yesterday. I was so preoccupied with the ascension, I don’t even remember walking home! And you know how clumsy I can be.” I gave a reassuring, self-deprecating laugh, but his worry was not assuaged.

“Nerissa!” Mother’s voice came again, less patient.

“You’d better go,” he said. “Be careful out there. No more mystery bruises, okay?”

I agreed, though I could promise no such thing. I was walking into the greatest danger I had ever faced. I would count myself lucky if all I sustained was another bruise.

I left my home and followed my mother into the forest. I would see my father again. I had to trust in that. Otherwise, I could not have walked away. I did not allow myself to look back, or to count my steps, or to notice in special detail any of the fond places of home. I would see this place again. I bound myself to it with the strongest, deepest of my heart-threads. Ribbons, tied to my ribcage, trailing behind me, unspooling through the trees.

I walked in step behind my mother, watching the sway of her braided hair, the objects of power bound within, with their spells. Some were new: a blue jay feather, a bit of quartz, a purple fiber. I did not know their purpose. Perhaps they were for this journey. Perhaps I ought to have done the same. I could not convince myself I was safe, that if it was crucial, my mother would have told me so. Why did I not feel protected? Was the Wizard even now poisoning my mind? No matter how many times I tried to set it down, fear dragged my every step.

#

The Inner Circle convened in the forest as the birds were beginning to call for the sun.

“Let us begin,” said Maia.

We gathered the fibers the forest provided: grasses, sticks, leaves, moss, wildflowers, roots, things pliable and things rigid. We each took our place in the loom, two rows of us, our fingers and hands and arms ready to weave. Maia took her place and began directing our working. I listened. Obeyed. And as I did so, I turned my focus inward, to the shadow-land where our web of power connected us. So began the intricate dance of spell weaving. As we wove the natural fibers, we also wove with magic. We bound safety and peace to the forest, to the Circle, to our loved ones.

I had created similar spells, but never with so many other workers, nor for so many places and people at once. I had to keep attuned to Maia’s directions, to each person working with me, to keep rhythm, to split my attention so that my hands made no mistakes, so that my mind remained intent. Twisting the fibers of light and shadow in my mind’s eye, twisting the grass and branches in my hands.

The work was all-consuming. A trance. I did not have time to be afraid or to think of blasphemous questions. We made different parts, and joined those together until our weaving was complete. I had never seen its equal: a great hoop of forest fibers, patterned and wild, vibrating with our energy. We hung the working in the trees, so that it was upright, like a portal. It was big enough to step through without brushing the sides.

“Now, we bind ourselves,” Maia said.

I did not know if I had any strength left, but the Circle sent me energy. By the time the sun had fully risen, knots of protection were tied well in my belt and braided into my hair: one from each of the Inner Circle. I had also tied one knot in each of their belts and into their hair.

I put my hope in those bindings, in the hoop we had woven, in the others, in Maia. I felt the armor of power that covered and sustained me. It was heavy. It pulled at my hair and dragged at my waist. I supposed that was a small price to pay for protection from such a foe. And I hid this sensation of heaviness as best I could, hoping it did not reveal anything about me, that I was weak or unworthy.

Memory within the Bone Knife

Though I am cast out, the knots of binding remain in my hair. I have not wanted to undo them. I have not known how. It was never for me to bind my own hair. It was never for me to express any of the magic welling up inside of me. I try to unpick the knots. One hour. Two. I make almost no progress. My fingers shake. I am hopelessly ensnared. They are meant to be tied anew each day, and it has been many weeks since my mother last tended to them. Her last gift to me, from the night before I was banished, hangs about my head in matted snarls. Entangled beyond saving. Truth burns, nauseous and heavy, in my gut. I must be free.

I have a knife, taken and crafted from the thigh bone of a deer. I hold it in one hand and with the other, I choose a knot near the front of my head. I pull the hair tight. Am I really going to do this? It isn’t permitted to cut one’s hair. Which, of course, means I must do it.

I saw through the knot. Hair rains down around me, dark as shadows. I pause, panting, like a rabbit after a chase, listening for pursuit. Nothing happens. The severed hair, once part of me and my vitality, is now inert. Dead. A foreign object. An encumbrance.

With growing thrill, I cut knot after knot. The pile grows. When I can run my fingers through my hair smoothly, I stop. It swings above my shoulders: the shortest I can remember it ever being.

I throw handfuls of my old hair into the fire. It blazes alight, singing and curling up, like a dead spider’s legs. Stench rises into the air—of who I have been, what has been done to that person. I vow to never let myself be bound again. And as I do so, a breeze carries away the black smoke, cleansing the air.

I release a breath I didn’t know I was holding. But relief is shallow. There is more, some other binding to be severed. I can feel the knots twisting within me.

I wear no bracelets. No necklaces. No rings. I carry no threads with me that came from that place. My clothes have been replaced. I wove the cloth and stitched it myself, with a multitude of my own invented protections.

Ah—I know what it is.

The bindings in my hair were a tangible manifestation of what had been done to me since birth. They carried power, to be sure, but the strongest bindings are not physical. I had cut my hair; the knots tied within my mind and my heart remain.

I fiddle with the bone knife. It cannot cut through those knots.

So, then, I need a different blade.

I sit on the ground with my head pressed to my knees. I go into myself, and I search. I taste emotions. Elements. Whisper to ancestors, who do not whisper back. I call to the Earth. To the stars. To the needles on the fir trees, to the fallen pine cones. When there is nowhere else to look, I open a trap door deep into memory. I float, disembodied, out of time. I forget and find myself again and again. I follow a dark path.

After a long time, I open my eyes. My body is cramped and crooked. I straighten, gasping at the tightness of my muscles. But I have it. The blade I need. I am afraid to wield it. For from the cut it will make, there is no return.

I stare into the ashes of the fire that had consumed my hair. I passed the point of no return long ago. The idea that I can go back is fantasy.

I grit my teeth. Oh, I want to return! To slip back into my old life, without this constant, gnawing pain! But if the potential of return is imagination, then so is the life I long for. It had all been illusion, reality stolen and hidden away, so that I might be used.

I will never go back to that. I will never again submit my soul in such a debased way. This blade will make sure of it. It will only be good for one use, but I have no need beyond that.

I stand, my joints creaking. I take into my palm my weapon: my name. A blade capable of dividing spirit from soul. And with the name I was given, the only name I have ever known, the word that defines who I am—who I was—I cut through the bindings around my mind and my heart.

They sever with an explosion of energy. And my name, that shining weapon of my oppression, dissolves.

4

The Inner Circle gathered at the woven portal we had made together. One by one, we stepped through it, crossing from one side to the other, from within the safety of the Circle, to without. I was extra careful to pick up my robe, not to trip over the rim.

Once we were all through, we took willow branches and wove the opening closed. The hoop, now a disk, dangled from the trees. The morning breeze could not find a way through; the disk caught it, swinging gently.

The way to the Circle was shut. Of course, one could walk around the weaving. But the spells we had worked into it extended beyond the visible and into the spirit. No one from the outside would find the Circle unless they used the portal, and unless they knew exactly how to remove the branches and in what order, no one would get through. Our loved ones were safe.

“And so it is,” Maia said: a benediction, a hope, a blessing. “Come.” She stepped up onto some invisible working. She hovered there over the ground, her physical form wavering.

We looked at Maia with wonder and awe.

She said, “We are caretakers of all, binding and maintaining. Our workings have built for us a path, and we may travel here, upon the connections between Earth and Air, Air and Sky. Faster than hawks with the wind. You see? All submit to help us on our quest.”

I’d had no notion we could do such things, and the Inner Circle seemed likewise surprised. But then, the Circle was of the forest. We did not leave. So none had need of this skill, to travel swiftly over long distances. At least, we had not needed it until now.

How had Maia known of it?

A silly question. Maia knew of many, many things. If she did not share them, that did not necessarily make them secrets. It just meant we were not ready for that knowledge.

Did I believe that?

Enough. I believed it enough.

We put our backs to our homes, and we followed Maia, stepping up onto a plane we had not known existed. It bounced underfoot, like walking on an absurdly large bolt of cloth, held taught. We walked, and the world blurred around us. In spite of my trust in my grandmother, I was apprehensive. I had never thought I would go beyond the borders of our forest. But I took comfort in the others and found courage. So we went, stepping lightly over the Earth, toward the greatest danger we had ever faced.

Memory within the Obsidian Key

This evening, when I greet the white shell of the Moon nestled in the deepening sky, something is changed. It is not a change of the world around me, but of the world within.

I have been afraid. I thought I would stay like that forever. Hiding. Small, aspiring to invisibility alone. I see now that I cannot remain uninvolved. I cannot stand by and allow what has happened to continue. I won’t. I do not know what triggered this change, or when or how. Perhaps my power is stronger, so I am confident. Perhaps my pain has calcified into something else. Perhaps I have removed the right memories. I see how sharp my focus is without them, how much I can do without their distraction and the energy they demand.

Looking up at the Moon, the chill of prophecy ripples over my skin. A moment of confrontation approaches. It is only a matter of time. I can see, though, that it is up to me. I have to be the one to call it into existence—or not. It is my choice.

I stand upon the mountain’s skull. Beneath my feet, the stone reaches down, deep, through the weakness of the Earth, into something stronger. Something hot. Something I can use.

I crouch low. I put my palms upon the rock. And I begin to invite it upward. I pull.

At first, the stone does not respond. It has been a thousand ages since it has moved so rapidly. It is sluggish. Half-asleep. It doesn’t remember how.

I whisper to it of injustice. Of heartbreak. I tell how it is, to have no home, no anchor. I tell how I was taught that stone is heartless and unfeeling. How I do not think that is true.

In the deep, the stone hears my words. It has not dreamed about suffering, in its slumber. It rumbles. Without words, it asks me a question, and I answer.

All around, the mountain changes. The stone grows. It shapes itself. There is no tearing, no cracks, no broken shards. It moves like water. Taller, taller, like a wave that never crests, never falls.

I walk through the stone halls of my new-grown fortress. I climb the winding passages. I stand upon the tower that juts into the sky like a profane finger, a challenge. This is the first step. This is the key in the lock. Next is the turning.

5

Maia held up her hand and we stopped. The world sharpened into focus. We stood upon a rocky ridge. There were mountains all around—vicious, sharp protrusions, claws reaching for the sky. As if signaled by our presence, clouds gathered with unnatural swiftness, blocking out the sun. Wind-driven rain spattered upon the rocks. Lightning flashed a forked tongue.

There was the Wizard’s fortress, turrets rising, defended on all sides by mountains. Into a gap between those had been set gates of stone. A glimpse only, before rain rushed down, pelting us, obscuring view of the Wizard’s stronghold.

I felt uneasy—the weather was our domain. Why, then, did it hinder us? Were we not in control? Or was there some advantage in approaching with a storm Maia had foreseen that I could not? That was the likeliest answer, and I tried to trust it.

We proceeded to the gates. A dreadful aversion came over me, but I followed Maia’s direction and, with the others, placed my palms upon the gates. So cold—burning—searing the flesh of my hands—and the sensation cracked and dissolved. The gates swung open. There was now nothing between us and the fortress, save the distance of a stone path, winding upward to meet it.

We strengthened our knots of protection, drawing from our collective energy, and Maia led us on. The lightning gave a ghastly aspect to our progress, as though we moved in jolts, starts and stops. Thunder crashed so loud we could not have made our outer voices heard if we tried.

As we drew nearer, I saw that the fortress was smooth. There were no bricks, no mortar lines, no straight edges. The structure swirled in one continuous motion, like a snail’s shell. The towers I had seen at a distance had a swooping effect.

Curving steps mounted to a great, rounded door. It had no handle. But as we climbed the steps, the door opened. No one was behind it, just deeper darkness within, where the lightning could not reach. Nerves thrilled through my body.

Maia stepped boldly over the threshold. Candle flames leapt to life. They lined the interior walls and revealed a stark space, devoid of any comfort. In their light, I could see that, indeed, the interior matched the exterior. There were no seams in the stone, no cracks, even where the candle sconces met the wall. The fortress was all of a piece, as if it had grown that way. But how could rock be incensed to rise? Rock was ever drawn down. This fortress was a terrible working, a profanity against the natural world.

The door closed behind us. The shutting echoed overhead and onward, inward, filling unknown spaces. And the echoes faded into silence.

Within the Wizard’s fortress, all was silence. The air was preternaturally still: the candles burned upright, undisturbed. The breath scraped loud through my nose. My heart beat like a drum in my chest.

We had not lit the candles. We had not opened the door, nor closed it behind us.

He knows we are here.

Cold terror swept from my feet to my head. I wanted to run to the door, to pull, to push, to flee. Even if I tried, though, I did not think it would open. We were trapped within this horrifying, unnatural structure.

Swiftly, the Circle reassured me. There were nine of us and only one of him. We were united. We were strong. Even if he was aware of us, what could he do?

There was an easy confidence in this that I did not like. One who has drawn the bedrock of Gaia’s Earth to a shape of his own liking should not be underestimated.

The Circle answered that it did not underestimate the Wizard, but neither did it underestimate itself. I was young, inexperienced. Trust in the Circle must be unbroken, lest it prove a weakness.

I would not be the weak strand in the weaving. I trusted my elders and put my doubts away. We, the hunters, had entered the territory of our prey. Now, we must best him.

We advanced. There was but one way forward: the stone hall extending before us. It curved gently, so that we could never see its end. Any moment the Wizard could leap out from the unseen part of the passage and attack us. Each bend revealed more candles, more hallway—and another bend in the distance.

After some walking, my calves burned, and I realized the floor was sloping steadily upward. There were no windows by which to confirm this, but my legs did not lie. We were climbing the heights of the fortress in an ever-ascending, ever-tightening spiral. I thought again of the shells snails grow for their protection. An odd association—from what did a Wizard need protecting?

With her inner voice, Maia whispered a call for vigilance, courage, unity. I focused my intention, embarrassed that, again, I had to be called to task.

The turns narrowed, curling toward the apex of the fortress. We must be nearing the summit. Nearing the Wizard. For where else could he be? We had passed no doorways, no other halls. The way tapered. At last, there was a bend before us so tight, we would have to pass through one at a time. We stopped before it and, with Maia’s instruction, we readied a net of power. Through our minds came her final warning: His words are his greatest weapon. He will try to confuse you, by telling lies laced with magic. Do not be persuaded.

We moved forward. One by one, the members of the Inner Circle disappeared, until it was my turn. I slipped through the stone curl.

A blast of white light. A percussive shock. A screaming roar.

All was thrown into confusion. I lost the Circle, my connections, and fumbled, alone, temporarily blind.

I could hear Maia, her outer voice proclaiming words of power. I rallied to her. So did the others. We found one another, groping for the energetic threads of magic that bound us. They were frayed. We quickly knit them whole again.

My vision returned, though marred with branching black streaks. A dark figure. The Inner Circle, surrounding him. Maia, her hands extended.

Again, the Wizard attempted to sever our bonds. This time we held strong. And together, we cast our net.

Instant calm.

The Wizard stood, hands at his sides, breathing heavily. He was caught within the center of our Circle, but he was not subdued. He stalked the Circle like a caged animal. He put out his hand, feeling for a weakness in our working. There was none. As he passed me, I wanted very much to look at him, to know this Wizard we had trapped, but I was afraid to make eye contact, lest he gain some advantage over me.

When his back was turned, I stole a glance. The Wizard’s black-and-gray hair hung loose, to his shoulder blades. He wore neutral robes. His feet were bare. He paced, and he breathed, and his eyes flashed here and there wildly, never settling. Within our binding I could feel his energy. It put me in mind of a feral cat. Dangerous, yes, but only out of fear.

Fear? He was afraid of us? Surely such an enemy, one who has delved so deep into dark magic, would not feel fear.

“Will none of you speak?” The Wizard’s voice shattered the silence. It was thick with fury. “You have come uninvited. You have violated my sanctuary. Will you give no account of your presence here? Will you only stare, like ill-mannered children?”

Our net tightened.

He laughed. “You think you have me by the tail, but what exactly have you caught?” He turned, narrowing his gaze at each of us, one by one. “How long will you be able to contain me? Hm? Doubt creeps through you. I can feel it. You weaken.”

Surely it was my doubt he sensed. I steeled myself against it, attempting to bury it deep.

When his gaze struck me, I felt it like a blow. I avoided his eyes.

At Maia’s unspoken command, we drew our net tighter.

Maia said one word: “Terrwyn.”

I did not know it to be a word of power, yet the effect it had on the Wizard was strange: He laughed, a howl like a wolf. “There is nothing for you here, Maia, despite your bloated, misplaced confidence to the contrary.”

Shock froze my veins. How could he possibly know her name?

The Wizard hissed, as though burned. “The world is full of secrets. Do not expect me to divulge mine. I. Owe. You. Nothing.”

His hair clung to his neck, wet with sweat. His fingers trembled. His emotions pulsed: outrage, fear, grief. They reverberated through our working, nearly dragging the threads from my power. This morass of feelings I could not put into the context of this moment.

The Wizard bared his teeth. “What will you do, Maia, when you are revealed for what you are? When you are destroyed, and I grow greater?”

Maia made a slashing gesture, down.

The Wizard collapsed. He lay motionless upon the stone.

Had she killed him? No—his chest rose and fell.

The Circle looked from one to another in quick, furtive glances. We did not dare to break concentration, lest the Wizard rise and catch us off our guard.

To Maia, my mother said, “He spoke as though in conversation. You were speaking with him? Mind to mind?”

My grandmother answered, “I warned you of what he would say. Did you sense me speaking with him?”

“You told us yourself, you are strong enough to keep us from your working.”

I listened to this exchange with heightening anxiety, though I did not think it was possible to feel more tense and fearful than I had. What had gotten into my mother, that she openly questioned Maia so?

Maia laughed, and it did sound forced. “What would I gain from doing so?”

“You want nothing from him?”

“Secrets? Memories? What good would those do? Everything of the Wizard is tainted.”

“Memories,” my mother said.

Her voice was so strange, I chanced a look. Rowena frowned, her gaze soft and distant, unfocused. Like she was trying to remember something. Yes, I thought, there was something about memories. But what?

Maia’s voice commanded my attention: “Circle.” Whatever I had been trying to recall, it was gone. “Our aim is to subdue him. Sever him from his power. Not to take anything from him. He has nothing we want, only evil knowledge better off destroyed.”

“How can we do this?” asked my mother. “His power is far greater than we had anticipated.”

The Circle began discussing ways of separating him from his power. This was a crucial moment, but I could not pay attention. Their voices droned like flies in my ears.

I looked at the Wizard. His long hair partly covered his face. Unconscious, he looked not like the monster of solitude Maia had described, but human. And there was something—something in the curl of his eyelashes, the line of his brow. Something tugged at my mind. Something familiar. As I studied his features, trying to understand what called to me, his eyes opened. Gray, like the winter sky before snow. Staring directly into mine.

Everything stopped. My mother, my grandmother, all the members of the Circle went still as stone. The air was empty. Not quiet or heavy with dread or anticipation, just—nothing. In this nightmare, the Wizard alone moved. He picked himself up, slowly, never breaking eye contact with me.

I threw myself away from him. Backwards. Collided—shock!—with a wall. I cast about wildly for the others, for a hint of their presence, their magic, their help, their protection, but though I could see them, I could not reach them. Could not reach the Earth. I was alone. Cut off. I had never felt such desolation. The only other living being I could reach—was him.

Memory within the Dried Flowers

There is so much work to do. Time grows short. And time is the puzzle I try to solve over and over. I live for it, my mind buried in it and my body buried in the breathing stone. Today, though, the work goes badly. Today, I am driven out of doors by frustration and despair.

I have no notion whether spring visits this mountaintop, or if so, what it is like, but the air is fresh. Damp. It is like spring, as spring was in the place from which I am exiled. Clouds rush over the head of the mountain, loose, like sheep wool, now darkening the world, now revealing the sun.

I breathe it in deeply, the world I apparently still belong to, and my body aches to join it. I hike into the valley, farther than I ever have. The air might taste familiar, but the landscape is alien. Stone, stone, and more stone, shades of gray, a monochromatic world. That is, until I see it.

A pool of water bubbling up from the rocks.

The green mossy bank all round it.

The wildflowers that have found enough soil to root. Purple. Simple. Four petals each, smaller than my fingernail.

Memory assaults me.

I think of the forest I have been so careful to forget. I think of you. Of course I think of you. It is for you that I do this work.

How many flower crowns did you require? How many bracelets? Necklaces? And, once your fingers were steady enough, how many times did you crown me? You braided into my long hair the tiniest purple blossoms. Mother was forever combing out their dried husks, scolding me for indulging you.

We were forest royalty. We were nymphs, dryads, fairies. We were deer, enchanted to take human form. We were the triumphant heroes of every story I told you before bed, of every story you made up. I feel your hand in mine, tugging, as you skipped, danced, sang. I see your eyes, open and trusting. And then I am at a precipice—the last time I saw your eyes—

I stumble. There is a searing pain in my chest. I’m not breathing. Dizziness swarms the world. I lower myself, careful, to the ground. I cannot think of you now. I must be strong. I take up the wildflowers, watered by this spring, and I push into them memories, one by one, blossom by blossom, until I am catching memories only seconds old, until my mind finally calms and I can breathe again.

6

The Wizard stood before me. Severed from the Circle, I could not protect myself. My power drained through the broken threads of our collective working. I glared at the Wizard, bracing for the attack that would surely come. I hoped I looked brave, that my last moments would make the Circle proud.

Nothing happened. The Wizard just looked at me, eyes glittering. Finally he said, “I removed us from time. This moment will last as long as I hold it.”

Claustrophobia constricted my throat. This was dark magic no one should have, no one should use, and I was trapped within it.

I said, “You separate us to kill us one by one.”

“No!” he exclaimed. “Nothing like that.”

“Then what?” I demanded. “What is your intention?”

He did not answer.

I was overwhelmed by a wave of emotion. Anxiety, deepening to horror, swirling outward—but it was not mine. It was the Wizard’s.

I was used to the safe enmeshment of the Circle, to the constant rhythm of sensing and checking the feelings of those around me. I had no practice blocking people out, and the Wizard’s distress was only intensifying. My instinct was to reach out my working threads, to steady him, mitigate, comfort—I stopped myself. I would not be bound to this Wizard, even if he was the last person left on Earth.

He was, though, wasn’t he? We were the only people on Earth, in this moment. I needed him. He was my only avenue back to the Circle. I had no other recourse. I hated that. But I also hated what he was feeling. I did not like hurting another being, Wizard or not.

Rather than binding, though, I spoke. “I am sorry.”

“For what?”

“Our working. It is harming you.”

He snorted. “This spider’s web?”

“But you are unwell.”

“How sure you are.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Am I wrong?”

He shook his hands, as if to rid himself of some clinging thing. “This is an old harm. It follows me.” His face was pale and his breath shallow. His eyes had a distant look I did not like.

“You ought to sit down.”

To my surprise he obeyed, wrapping his arms around his legs, leaning his forehead on his knees.

I might have pressed some advantage at that moment. But, I realized, I did not want to. He did not look like a powerful Wizard. He looked vulnerable. Even frail. The vertebrae of his spine showed at the back of his neck. He had listened to me, like a child to his elders, saving himself a fall in case he would faint. Besides, I did not think I could physically attack him this way if my life depended on it. It would be foolish to attack him now. I did not know what would happen if he were to die with me inside the trap of his working.

Instead, I crouched by the wall and waited. I would be vigilant. If this was a trick, it would not work on me. I would find a way to make him let me go, and then the Inner Circle would deal with him once and for all.

Eventually his breathing slowed and deepened. He lifted his head. His color was much healthier. He smiled at me ruefully. “Knowing something will happen does not mean you are prepared for it.”

I understood a little of that—the selfish disappointment of my long-awaited ascension still fresh, here I was, the only member of the Circle left, the youngest, the most inexperienced, clinging to my enemy, because he was the only boat I had within the white-water rapids of his evil magic. I had to remember who I was, my purpose, and not be swept along. I had to try something. Take some control. There seemed to be an opening for it: perhaps he was not as strong as Maia had thought.

“You prepared,” I said. “For us?”

“Not the way you think.” And he actually rolled his eyes, and muttered, “Ridiculous. All bound up together like a tangle of rats.”

There was his blasphemy. I must challenge it or risk its infection. “We are all bound,” I said. “It is Gaia’s truth.”

“Gaia.”

“Our Kind and Benevolent Mother. The Mother of All.”

He put his head to one side. “Would a kind mother wrap chains around her children? Enslave them to one another?”

I had never thought of binding like this. It gave me pause. But then, the Wizard’s corruption was in his solitude. His unbound-ness. Of course he would deny the need for binding.

He went on, “And do you really speak of Gaia, or Maia?” He gestured to my grandmother, who was frozen with a sneer pulling the corner of her nose. “She says the only way is one of knots and tethers and restrictions and limits. But does that feel true to you?”

How could he know what Maia taught?

Flustered, I said, “Maia only speaks truth.”

“Oh, Nerissa. You know better than that.”

He was right again: Maia had hidden knowledge of the Wizard’s presence from the Circle. Was that not a kind of lie? What else might she be hiding? But that revelation was secondary to the fact that he knew my name.

I was stunned. Shocked and confused and afraid anew. How could he know it? Had he been inside my mind? Had I told him, somehow, and forgotten?

The Wizard went on, “Do you never wonder what she wants? She who holds the reins? The Great and Powerful Maia. Tell me, has she aged at all, to your memory?”

I refused to be drawn into an argument. What was being revealed was far more important: The Wizard knew too much. He spoke of our secret rites and workings. He named us as the Circle. He knew my grandmother’s name. He knew mine.

So instead of responding to his attack upon everything I had been raised to embody, I demanded, “Who are you?”

He gave a wry half-smile. “You invaded and attacked without asking against whom she has weaponized you?”

“I am asking now.”

“You alone.” He flipped a dismissive hand at the immobile Circle. “They have been so consumed that they only see Maia’s way.”

Anger flashed in me. “Tell me who you are or don’t, but stop insulting my family!”

His gray eyes evaluated me. There was something in his expression I did not understand, a playfulness or fondness that seemed out of place. “I want to show you something.”

The Wizard tilted his head at an arched doorway I had not seen before. Had it always been there? He went through, to whatever was on the other side.

I looked at the impotent effigies of the Circle, then followed.

The doorway led to a room in which there was a single wooden armoire, ominous in its solitude. The Wizard opened it. The shelves were cluttered with a menagerie of objects: a polished stone, a fox skull, a raven feather, a black key, an orb filled with water, an ivory-colored knife, a piece of green seaglass, a dried bouquet of wildflowers. They looked ordinary enough, but sensing them with the broken thread-ends of my working, they vibrated, almost levitating with energy.

“What are these things?” I whispered.

“Memories. Or, rather, where they are stored.”

“Memories? Whose?”

“Mine, of course.”

This was appalling. What would compel someone to rip themselves, their psyche, apart? I felt nauseous.

Softly, I asked, “Doesn’t it hurt, to be in so many pieces?”

He shrugged. “Less than trying to contain them all.”

“But…you aren’t whole.”

“No. And I haven’t been for a long time.”

I looked at the Wizard anew. He had spoken of an old harm. How severe had it been, that fragmenting himself offered relief?

From the shelf, the Wizard took a round, textured rock. “You asked who I am. Here. Open it and see.” He held out the rock to me.

I took it, touching as little of it as possible. It buzzed, like a wasp. And it was heavy. “What is the memory?”

He grinned, a sharp, wolf’s expression. “If I knew, you wouldn’t have to open it.”

“But then, why did you choose this one?”

“It’s the first one I ever made. Where everything, all of this, started.” He glanced around at his fortress, its curved walls, his eclectic memory collection. “Twist. It’ll break open, and the memory will come free.”

“Will you remember it then?”

He nodded.

“Will you be…I mean, what will happen to you?”

“I’ll survive.”

I took a deep breath. I twisted. The rock cracked and came apart.

Memory within the Geode

I am running through the forest, my chest tight with tears. I burst into my home, the white-stone cottage where my father is baking bread, where my little sister is playing.

“She’s stealing our memories!” I shout. “She does awful, terrible things to us, and makes us forget!”

Nerissa begins to cry. I’m sorry to have frightened her. I’m more sorry that I now remember where that bruise on her forehead came from.

Father takes Nerissa into his arms. “What’s this? Who?”

My throat constricts. I almost can’t say it. But I have to. To protect Nissa and everyone else, I have to say it: “Maia.”

“Terrwyn,” my father warns. There is fear in his voice, but it does not stop me.

“That mark on Nerissa’s face. Maia hit her. Then she—she put her hand on Nissa’s head, and Nissa went all blank. Stopped crying. Forgot.”

“Son, you shouldn’t—”

“She hurts us. She hits and she shouts and she—she drains away our power. I saw her.”

And I see it happen again in my mind’s eye. Crouched in the woods, watching my mother’s eyes roll back in her head, her body collapse, her muscles spasm. I thought she was dead. That Maia had killed her and left her in the woods. But she woke, remembering nothing, looking at me strangely for my desperate concern.

With his free arm, my father hugs me, presses my face into his shoulder, shushes me.

I struggle loose, fighting the urge to scream. “Listen! I can prove it. I was afraid Maia would do it to me so I started taking out my memories and keeping them in the woods. To compare them with what I thought I remembered.”

My father stares at me. “You…wove magic?” He shakes his head. “You can’t have.”

A righteous indignation rises up in me. “Yes I can, and I did. I have always been able to, but no one would listen, no one would believe me, because I was a boy. All you have to do is come and see. They aren’t far—”

The front door opens and my mother steps inside. And the moment twists into a nightmare, because Maia follows. She holds a woven basket. The light of one of my memories shines through the reeds.

Fear chokes me. How have I been found out? No, that is the wrong question. I should be asking: How had I ever thought I could hide something from Maia?

“I am the memory changer?” Maia asks, her voice slow and dangerous. “Am I also the one who is practicing outlawed magic?”

I am cornered. Like a badger, I fight back, angry. “It’s not outlawed. I made it up.”

“You stole it. Magic belongs only to Gaia and to Her daughters. All magic is outlawed for one such as you. Your father should have made that abundantly clear by his own example.”

He ducks his head, muttering some base apology and plea for forgiveness. It turns my stomach.

Maia crushes the basket. The memory goes dark. I do not know which one it is. It does not fly back to me. It is lost. She has destroyed it.

I cry out and run at my grandmother. To do what? Avenge my dead memory? How? It doesn’t matter. I am stopped. Yanked to an abrupt halt. Held painfully in the air. Maia’s power is strong. Mother won’t look at me. Father looks, but says nothing. Confusion and pain in his eyes. Like he has seen something in me he doesn’t recognize.

“These aren’t memories,” Maia says. “These are the made-up stories of a child. Fairy lights.”

“That’s not true!”

“Jealous,” Maia hisses. “You wish you were in line for my Seat instead of your sister. You slaver like a dog for her power. You, Terrwyn, are the one who harmed her. I can see it now, though you have tried to hide it. Ungrateful, venomous child, you seek to steal power by destroying your own family.”

Useless tears pour down my cheeks. “You’re lying.”

She isn’t all wrong, though, is she? Never would I do anything to hurt Nissa. She is the Sun and Moon to me. But I saw how our mother yearned for a daughter. How, over and over, she looked at me with disappointment, that I might be her only child. Then came Nissa. Wanted, loved, rejoiced over, and yes, I long for that reception. I know who I am. What I can do. I am not content, as my father is, to be near the Inner Circle. I want to answer the pull of magic flowing through my blood, buzzing in my bones. I want to weave and bind the threads of the world together with my mother, my aunts, my cousins. But I have always been found lacking. I have never been enough.

Am I ungrateful? Am I being driven by selfish ambition? I did not think so, but now I am unsure. In the midst of my turmoil, Maia reaches into my mind. She would erase my memory to keep me compliant, a drone from which she can siphon energy, be married off to produce more daughters, denying me a place within the Inner Circle, all the while hurting the people I love. Hurting me. With all the power I can muster, I slap her away.

“Terrwyn. Still you rebel. Why? For what?”

She reaches again.

Again, I rebuff her.

She smiles, smug and ugly. “You will regret this for the rest of your life, which will be short, painful, and meaningless. You have forfeited your place in the Circle. You are cast out.”

“Out?”

“This is no longer your home. We are no longer your family. You must leave. Now. And never return.”

She releases me and I fall awkwardly to the floor. I am disoriented and numb. The thought I could be exiled had never entered my mind. I can’t understand what it means.

Nerissa runs between Maia and me. “No no no no no no no!”

Calmly, Maia tells her, “This stranger doesn’t belong here. He needs to leave.”

She is old enough to understand Maia is lying. Her face turns indignant, and then, blank. She looks at me, and there is no longer any recognition.

My mother peers around Maia’s shoulder. “Maia? Who is this?”

“Mother, it’s me. Terrwyn. Your firstborn!”

My mother’s gray eyes flicker. She almost remembers. My father wavers, frowning, my sister clinging to his leg, looking up at me with wide, fearful eyes. These are the three daggers Maia drives through my heart.

“You see?” Maia whispers. “You will not be missed.”

I do not believe her. I can feel their minds struggle against her control. She restrains them, pulls them tight, tighter, too tight… What will happen if, one day, it snaps? Will any of who they are remain?

I demand, “How can you do this to your own family?”

“I am protecting my family. I am wiping away the pain you inflicted with your betrayal.” She gestures with her chin. “Now go.”

With such coldness she casts me out. I pull my shoulders back. I compose my face. I swear an oath that Maia will never see me cry again. I walk away. Slow. With dignity.

7

I came back to myself. My hand was clenched tight around the rough edges of the geode. I felt strange, as though I was not fully inside my body. I pushed up my sleeve. It was still there: the latest mysterious bruise, turning green around the edges. I could see the shape of a hand in it. Fingers. A clawed grip.

The Wizard was watching me, his gray eyes shining. When the Circle had surrounded him, and he had fallen, and I had first dared to look at him, something was so familiar about him. Now I knew what it was: He looked like my mother. He looked like my father. He looked like me. Like a brother would, if I had one.

I heard myself say, “But I would remember a brother.”

Softly, the Wizard answered, “Maia has bound your memories—you and all of the Circle. She has hidden me from you, Nissa.”

Nissa.

No one ever called me that. Why, then, did it sound like home?

“Did you wonder why my gates let you through? Why candles lit your way? Why you passed, unharmed, directly to me?”

I stared at him, willing myself to know him, to see through deception if there was any. Nothing happened. “If you are my brother, I want to remember you.”

“I can free your memory. But I cannot unbind some and not the others.”

“Others?”

“Many,” he said sadly.

My palms tingled. I could not bear the thought of not remembering everything that had happened to me. Everything I was. What are we, but our memories? It felt dangerous, to willfully not remember. Not know. I wanted to be whole. I told him so.

“You are in line for Maia’s position,” he warned. “You may be giving that up.”

I handed him back the broken geode. “If she really has done what you say, then I will sever myself from it. She has polluted it, and it is not worth having.”

“Very well.” He held the edge of his hand to my forehead and closed his eyes. A frown wrinkled the space between his dark brows. He sliced downward.

Memories rippled through my mind—memories I recognized. But they changed.

My family at dinner, laughing, the three of us—no, the four of us, my older brother telling a comedic story, me pantomiming along. That is his spot at the table, that is his chair, the one I thought had always stood in the corner, empty.

Me, playing alone in the woods, braiding willow branches—no, my brother showing me how to weave baskets, how to weave shelters, screens, so that no one will ever be able to find our secret hiding places, our treasures: rocks sparkling with minerals, cups sculpted from riverbank clay, crowns of wildflowers, sharpened sticks we called our weapons.

Over and over, memories surfaced, and my brother emerged in all of them. His presence—his absence—had permeated my life. I had lost the elder brother who was my guiding star. And I had forgotten him completely. He had been wiped out of my mind.

Disoriented, I put out a hand—the Wizard caught it. And I saw in him the brother who had played by my side. Who ran through the forest like a deer. Who disappeared. He was changed. Older. His hair prematurely graying, lines carved into his face. But it was him. Gone was any doubt. I recalled his memory within the geode, but now from my perspective. I had been there. It had happened just as he showed me. For me, it had been a turmoil of fear and confusion: Why did our grandmother order him away? I tried to stop it. My mother had not. Why did they no longer love him? No longer love me?

As betrayal and loss intensified beyond bearing, here he was, in front of me. Lost and found, forgotten and remembered, all in an instant. Grief and consolation twined into an unholy knot I could not unbind. I flung my arms around him and wept.

He embraced me, resting his cheek atop my head. We fit together like we had all those years ago. This feeling of being held, too, I had forgotten.

When I could speak, I said, “Terrwyn,” but he twisted away.

“I severed myself from that name a long time ago.”

“What should I call you, then?”

“I have no name.”

What a desolate creature indeed, who did not even have a name!

“I fought for you. I tried.”

“What could you have done? You were a child.”

“Our mother did not fight for you.”

“She is as mind-bound as the rest,” he said, weary, as though he’d had this conversation many, many times.

“But how could Maia do this? You were her grandchild!”

“No. I was a threat. I knew who she was. She feared me. Feared that I could sever the Circle from her. That’s all she cares about. She brought you here to finish what she started. To put me down, like an animal. I am more dangerous to her than ever. Far more than a simple loose thread fallen from her loom. I can unravel it all.”

The pain in my brother’s voice! He had been rejected by the people who were supposed to love and protect him, been utterly, utterly alone.

I understood, then, what it had cost him to let us breach the fortress he had grown to protect himself. Once he was safe in this bound moment, panic had overwhelmed him. Of course it had: He was facing what had been done to him all those years ago, facing the monster who had done it.

He rolled the geode pieces distractedly in his hand.

A fire kindled in my chest. I wished to make a sweeping, powerful oath, to bind myself to my brother’s side so that he would never be alone again, but I hesitated. I felt suddenly shy.

I said, “I would have followed after you when you left. If I could have. I will now. If you let me.”

“You mean, you would stay?”

“If you don’t want me, then—”

“No, no. Of course I do. But you are giving up so much.”

“It is already lost.”

He smirked. “They will think I enchanted you.”

“Let them. I have chosen my path.”

It was my brother’s turn to be shy. “Would you… You should name me, then.”

It was a precious gift he extended. When was the last time he trusted someone and was not betrayed?

I said, “Only if you also name me.”

He nodded.

I thought deeply, then said, “You took your life into your own hands. Alone, you rise in power, like the sun. Ashur.”

A smile spread across his face. He liked it, and it suited him.

I held out my hands. “My turn.”

“First sever yourself from the Circle and from your name.”

I removed my belt and, with a word of power, slashed apart the knots. The fibers fell in pieces upon the floor. My gown flowed like water. I released my hair, unraveling the workings braided into it. I shook it loose upon my shoulders. Last, I unbound my name. All dropped away. For the first time in my life, I was tied to no one, no identity or image, no future. For the first time I understood how suffocating it had been, under the Circle’s binding. I was giddy, floating.

Ashur declared, “You descend willingly to the depths, and you will ascend—truly ascend—all the more powerful. Inanna.”

So we were Ashur and Inanna, and we were bound to one another. It was nothing like the Circle. I was anchored first to myself. Ashur’s was a strength that recognized and supported mine, demanding nothing. With him, I felt like myself, emboldened to do and say the things that mattered to me. And I could see now that his power wove all around the fortress, around the Circle that had attempted to subdue him: between them, over, under his power flowed. He could have destroyed us with the blink of an eye.

“You know,” Ashur said, “I wanted you to come. Maia didn’t spy me out. I revealed myself to her. I knew you would be joining the Inner Circle, so she’d bring you along.”

“You remembered my Ascension Day?”

“I’ve been counting it down.”

Tears welled in my eyes again, but I blinked them back. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“You saved me.”

“Your heart saved you. I don’t think the others would have cared if Maia cut my throat in front of them. They are closed like fists. Fear overwhelms them.”

That surprised me. I had always been fearful, and I had tried to hide it, for what member of the Inner Circle feels fear? But it was so obvious, now. Painfully so. The Circle clung to each other, to Maia, to her dogma, like children flailing in shallow water. Unaware that if they just put down their feet, they could stand. What a small way to live. My heart ached and I longed for their liberation.

#

We stood again before the motionless Circle. Faces that were more familiar than my own now belonged to strangers. Enemies, in fact. Time pushed against us like a river: a pressure, slowly intensifying from all sides. Ashur had to unbind this moment or we’d be washed away. But at the thought of facing Maia, fear drummed fast inside my chest.

“We don’t have to do this,” Ashur said. “We can just send them away. Blow them back to their forest on the North Wind.”

There was relief in the idea of avoiding confrontation, but then I thought of my father, waiting for me at home. I thought of my mother, who had been buried beneath Maia her entire life. They deserved to be free. All of the Circle did.

I said, “I want to talk to them. Try to help them see her for who she really is.”

Ashur, who had been calm in the memory room, was now agitated. He drew his fingers through his hair, forcing it back. “They won’t listen. They are too far under her control. And I won’t unbind them without their permission. I know what it is to lose a life. I would not force it upon anyone.”

“It is not how Maia would do it.”

“No. She does not allow autonomy.”

“You said yourself, memory changing isn’t perfect.”

“How I do it, no. But I don’t know if that applies here. Maia probably uses a different process.”

I grasped him by the shoulders. “You freed me. Surely we can free others. Maybe, with the two of us together, it’ll be easier. The fewer people under her power, the less strength she can steal to control, the less control she’ll have, and so on.”

“You are too optimistic.”

I shook him gently. “You aren’t optimistic enough.”

“If no one listens, or they try to hurt you—”

“We blow them away.”

Ashur nodded.

“Good. Ready?”

“Ready.”

He raised his head, and time resumed around us.

Memory within the Earth

Every muscle in my body is tense. My heart races. I am overcome with a child’s absolute, inescapable fear. The instant we rejoin the flow of time, I regret agreeing to stand before the person who harmed me the most and let her open her mouth, her most dangerous weapon.

Inanna, though, is not unsure. I wish I could muster a portion of her confidence, but I have gained too much in our bound moment to be reckless. Losing the love of a sister, her acceptance, her support after all this would crush me. But I trust her. I have to.

The Circle stares at us. My grandmother, my mother, her three younger sisters, their three daughters. I know their names. I remember the jealousies, the infighting. “Why should Rowena be Maia’s heir? She doesn’t even have a daughter.” Their eyes raking over me, disapproval like thorns tearing my skin. And then, at last, the miraculous birth, the blessed child, a falling star crowning her arrival. Nerissa-now-Inanna. Did I resent her? Do I resent her now? Did I create all of this pain and heartbreak because of my own selfish jealousy? Will I ever be able to rid myself of these endless questions, this swirling guilt?

The Circle stares at us. At the gap where Inanna once stood. At the place she stands now, within the Circle, at my side. Inanna looks right back, chin high.

There is a flurry of distress. They look one to another with increasing alarm.

“I am unbound,” Inanna says. “That is why you cannot sense me.”

“Nerissa,” Maia warns. “It is not safe, child.” She holds out her hand. “Quick.”

“I am unbound,” Inanna says again. “I choose to be.”

The Circle goes absolutely silent: the breath between the lightning flash and the thunder’s roll. I brace myself.

Because yes, all eyes fall upon me. I see memory unspooling in their minds. I was prone, on the ground. They were discussing ways of disposing of me. And now, I stand, unaffected, with their miracle heir apparently within my filthy grasp.

“What has he done?” asks Rowena.

“Nothing he did not have permission to do,” Inanna retorts.

Oh, my sister is angry. I had been so distracted by my own fear and grief, I had not felt it until now.

“You have severed her,” Maia spits at me. “You have turned her against us. We, her own family.”

“He is my family,” Inanna answers.

Maia’s eyes bulge. “This stranger? This errant, wicked man, who steals and misuses Gaia’s workings?”

Inanna looks at Maia with eyes that cut. To the whole Circle, Inanna declares, “This woman you worship is a liar and a thief. She abuses her power and takes our memories. Changes them or destroys them.” Inanna takes my hand. “This is my brother, who was banished for trying to protect me from her.” She shows a nasty, purple-blue bruise on her arm. “From this. Among other things.”

“These are lies,” Maia calls. “She has clearly been poisoned by the Wizard.”

“My whole life,” Inanna says, speaking over Maia, “I was guilty that I felt no affection or warmth toward you. A granddaughter should love her grandmother. I thought there was something wrong inside me, because I didn’t. But it was my body, warning me from danger. Trying to keep me safe. The mind may forget, or be made to forget—”

Rowena reaches out. “Nerissa, you must stop. This is—”

“—but the body remembers.” Inanna’s words fly like darts. “And now, so does my mind.”

Maia licks her lips, laughs. “You think you remember, child. But these are false memories. The Wizard—”

“Stop calling him that. You know who this is. You called him by name when we arrived. You know what you have done to him. What you have made all of us do to him. And for that, I demand apology.”

My little sister holds herself so regally, so proudly, as she stares down the most powerful woman in the Circle. She is so confident in the justness of her position, she does not imagine that it will not carry her safely through. I once stood in a similar position. It did not end well. She saw it, in my memory. Doesn’t she understand? Being right is no protection.

“Your mind has been broken open and warped. He controls you, like a puppet.”

“No, Maia. That is what you do. If you refuse to admit wrong and make amends, then the Circle is corrupted. I renounce it, and you, Maia, as a deceiver and a predator.”

Maia inhales deeply. “If you will not act to save yourself, we must do it for you.” Working threads burst forth from the Circle. They surge around Inanna, enwrapping her like a caterpillar in a cocoon.

I throw all of myself against this violence. I tear the threads of the Circle off her. Ripping, shredding, wild, until my sister is free from the onslaught.

“Are you all right?” I ask.

Inanna nods. She is dazed, but I don’t see or feel evidence of harm beyond that.

The Circle’s broken threads lay on the stone. Dead grass. They are not reabsorbed.

I look up, confused.

Maia is prone on the ground. Her eyes are staring and her mouth is open. I do not know which of us is more stunned: her, that her worthless, castaway grandson could wield a power that could undo her; or me, that I have killed Maia.

8

Before I knew what I was doing, I was kneeling at my grandmother’s side. My mother opposite. We looked up at each other, both realizing, both knowing, together. Maia was dead. Without warning, her body collapsed. Maia, her shape, the form she had inhabited, crumbled, until nothing was left but a length of dirt on the floor of Ashur’s fortress.

From behind me, Ashur said, “I…I didn’t mean to…I didn’t know I could…” His breath came in gasps. He was deathly pale.

I went back to him, and I linked my arm through his. He was shivering. I told him, “You didn’t mean to. It was an accident.”

“It was an accident,” he repeated, like an incantation, over and over, staring at the dirt that had been Maia.

I braced myself. For surely, the Circle would fall on him. On us. I had been naive. I had not expected my own grandmother to physically attack me, but that was foolish. She had physically attacked me nearly every day of my life. I suppose I had not thought her so bold as to do it in front of everyone. Openly. Or to use the holy threads of her workings to do so. I would not be caught flat-footed again.

But the Circle did not attack. Something had changed. They stood, not as one, but as individuals. My mother, my aunts, my cousins, not one body, but seven separate ones. Each with her own emotions, thoughts, impulses. Had I ever seen them that way? Had they?

Maia’s workings were anchored to her lifeforce. Now that she was dead, the bindings she had knotted so tightly dangled loose. The members of the Inner Circle stirred, grasping at each other. They looked at the earth-that-had-been-Maia and they remembered her abuse, her screaming, her self-aggrandizing rants. They put their hands to their heads, covered their mouths. They looked at me, at Ashur. Several of them gasped. They recognized him. They remembered. Some even leaned forward, seeking a way across the void between us.

The only person I cared about was Rowena. Our mother’s eyes moved between Ashur and me. She knew us. Both of us. Her nostrils flared. Emotion rose in her. I thought it was love. I hoped, maybe, free of Maia’s binding, Rowena would become the mother I wanted her to be. The mother I needed. That Ashur needed. She would run to us, fling her arms around us, and gather us close.

When had Rowena ever done that? When had she ever shown anything like affection? Still, I hoped, but again, I was naive.

Rowena’s nose wrinkled. Disgust. Contempt. “I understand Maia’s prophecy. Too late. But I understand. She was right about you, Wizard. You bring down apocalypse. You yearn for the end of the Earth.”

I said, “This is not—”

“Maia is my Earth. She is your Earth. She is the flesh and blood that bore me, that bore you, that sustained us all. This was the apocalypse she foresaw. The kind of betrayal, deep enough to destroy planets. A sin beyond comprehension. That flesh and blood should strike down its own.”

“Maia attacked me first! He was just protecting me.”

“Your betrayal she did not foresee. I should have. You questioned Maia. You felt fear unbecoming of the Circle.”

“Mother, please—”

Rowena pointed a finger at us. “No. You are no child of mine. The Circle must spin. The Circle must bind. It falls to me to maintain. I will have heirs, and they will come of a different seed. Your father was unworthy and so are you.” She smiled and for the first time in my life, I thought how much she looked like Maia. “I see it all now, but I see too late. A mistake I will not make again.”

Rowena clenched her fist. The air sang. Working threads whistled as she pulled them tight. The Circle straightened. The recognition in their eyes went blank. They became, again, one being, woven together with Maia’s workings, now in Rowena’s hands.

The Circle hummed with power. Rowena raised her arms, drew in a great
breath—

Blinding white light exploded from Ashur. A question roared out of him into the fortress. A desperate request. Then came the answer: mountain rumbling, a great door opening, somewhere, in its stone heart. A wind, pulling. A cacophony of voices, calling, screaming, shouting, receding, and then…nothing.

The Circle was gone. Ashur had sent them home.

I was utterly exhausted, my eyes seared with Ashur’s working, my ears ringing with my mother’s rejection.

Ashur leaned against the wall, staring at the little hill of soil. Maia’s remains. I was nauseous with responsibility. Maia was dead because I had insisted on confronting her. I should have known she would rather die than give in. And my hubris had caused Ashur further harm.

I said, “I didn’t mean for…any of this. I just—I wanted to give them a chance.”

“I know.”

“If I had listened to you, if I had let you send them away like you wanted, none of this would have happened.”

“Maybe it was better, to hear it from her. To hear her choose. I always wondered what she would have done if Maia hadn’t…but it doesn’t matter. She is Maia now. She took up the working threads and will continue right where Maia left off.” Ashur paused. “I had no love for her. But I didn’t want her dead.”

We cried together, on the other side of this confrontation, this abandonment, for the fullness of what we had lost. And it was frustrating, infuriating, because nothing we grieved we had ever truly possessed. It was illusion. Perception. Nothing concrete. Nothing that mattered. But it was everything we’d had.

#

We gathered up Maia’s earth and took it to a high balcony. I could not ignore the similarity between this landscape, this vantage point, and the vision she had put into the Circle’s minds of the supposed Wizard’s threat. I thought Rowena was right. If anything, what Maia had foreseen had been her own death. The world, what I had used to think of as Gaia’s Earth, was safe, as it always was. But, then, to Maia, her death was the end of the world. She could not imagine the world would keep on without her. But it did and it would. It would continue without her and without Rowena, and one day, without Ashur, and without me. As the wind whipped Maia’s remains away, I was comforted by this. That when my soul left this body of earth, the birds would go on singing, the trees rustling, the sun rising, the moon shining. It was like being tucked into bed, knowing you are safe. That something greater than you is taking care of you, watching over your resting place.

Ashur kept a bit of Maia’s earth. He poured it gently into a clay pot no bigger than the palm of his hand. I didn’t ask him about it.

In the cold, stone hallways and rooms of his fortress, Ashur and I rebuilt our relationship. I learned the magic he had discovered, not of binding alone, but of first asking. It was graceful and beautiful and free, like the hawks that spiraled on mountain updrafts. If everything was as alive as Maia had always claimed, why wouldn’t we ask permission? I asked the fortress for windows, skylights. I asked it for fireplaces and chairs, tables and benches. I asked it for gardens, for flowers, for butterflies. I asked it for a stream to trickle through the kitchen. All of these the fortress provided.

Ashur had difficulty trusting the things of the natural world, thought that, perhaps, they were spies from Rowena. But together, we asked them, and they had no knowledge of the Circle. They were only, joyfully, themselves.

How strange. I had thought we bound every part of the natural world from our Sacred Grove. But everything was so big, far bigger than I’d ever imagined it could be. The mountains. The sky. And nowhere could I feel the power of the Circle. It simply wasn’t there. This was chaos. Danger. Without the supportive bindings of the Circle, what was stopping me from dying? What was keeping the world together? Nothing made sense. Thoughts like these circled me like vultures, drawing me into darkness.

Then, the pure silver-gold of the morning sun would break through the clouds, or some other beautiful thing would happen. The world was beautiful, entirely under its own power, all by itself. And I found trust in the dance of the universe, the balance, attraction and repulsion, the spirit of harmony that wove through everything, and my relationship within it. Not as a weaver at the loom, but a thread in the working. Just another color, another texture, another shape and expression of what it means to be alive.

If Ashur fought any similar internal battles, he kept them to himself. It had to be a difficult adjustment: living in solitude from all human contact, then having a little sister running all over, changing things, chattering about this or that. He didn’t complain. I did not begrudge him any privacy (though it was strange, after living in the Circle, where nothing like privacy existed). He also took quiet moments to himself now and then, hiking into the mountains.

Once, when Ashur was out, I went to his memory room. Just to look. There was one new memory: the clay pot of Maia’s remains. It worried me that he was still fragmenting himself, though if the memory he’d trapped in the pot was what I suspected, and even though Maia’s death was an accident, I could understand why he did it.

An accident.

Had it been? Maia had survived so long, only to be undone, instantly, the first time anyone used magic against her. True, Ashur’s strength was immense, but she had not defended herself. Had she refrained…on purpose? Died, on purpose? What an awful thing—a curse—and I would not put it past her. Maybe this was her last attempt to keep her legacy intact and destroy Ashur, who she had hated so much, and who, in spite of everything she had done to him, was not defeated. Who worked spells of binding and unbinding, even though he had not been born a woman, who saw her for what she was, who challenged Maia’s power, even as he stood alone and she used the entire Circle as a source. Her death was one last injury, one last spite, thrown in his face. Whether she intended it that way, I could not of course know for sure.

All of that worried me. I decided to keep an eye on Ashur’s shelves, just checking in now and then to see how he was. But after the pot, no new memories appeared. In fact, there came a day when an object was missing: a dusty outline where a memory used to be. A fox or a wildcat’s skull. Gone. It was the first to go, but it wasn’t the last. As the objects on the shelf disappeared, Ashur was quicker to laugh, to cry, to share his thoughts—and quicker to tease me. I delighted in this development. More and more, he was the brother I remembered from my happiest childhood memories.

The forest at the mountain’s feet turned orange, red, and gave way to the empty brown branches of winter. Snow swirled on icy winds. The once-bare hallways and rooms of Ashur’s fortress blossomed.

So we spent a season.

#

One bright morning, as Winter neared Spring, Ashur met me for breakfast with a twinkle in his eyes. “We’ll have a visitor later,” he told me.

“The good kind or the bad kind?”

He said nothing.

“I only ask because the last set of visitors were mostly…poor guests. Do we need to make any preparations?”

Ashur only smiled.

“A good visitor, then. Who? Do you know? And how do you know? Is this some kind of new working you are keeping from me?”

But Ashur would say nothing more, no matter how I pestered him.

Frustrated—and irritated by his amusement at my frustration—I said, “Then I shall just go wait and see.” And I went resolutely out into the cold air and sat upon a bench we had coaxed from the stone. If it was a prank, surely he would feel guilty at some point and come get me.

I passed the time imagining how the gardens would look in Spring, counted the flower heads already poking through like pale green fingertips. And when next I scanned the horizon, there was someone approaching, far away. With my long sight, I looked and saw him and knew him. My father. Our father.

I shouted something to Ashur, but could not wait for him. I flew on wings of the wind—the wind knew how I missed my father and was glad to carry me—and I flung my arms around him, laughing and crying all at once. He was thin and travel worn, but he was here.

His surprise melted into an enveloping warmth of unconditional love. I had forgotten what that was like. Maybe in the Circle I had never been able to fully feel it, fully accept it, without reservation. Everything was a potential weak thread, and I had worked so hard to prove myself worthy of ascension.

When we finally let each other go, Ashur was there, waiting a little distance apart.

“Who is that?” Father whispered to me.

“Do you recognize him?”

Father looked at him a long moment and said, “He’s important. But I can’t remember how.”

“He was hidden from you. By Maia. And Rowena.”

My father’s mouth set into a firm line. Grim recognition. So he already knew something of the memory binding and control his mother in law had practiced on us.

I asked, “Do you want to remember him?”

“Yes.”

“Even if you remember other things?”

“I want to remember everything.”

I reached, carefully, into my father’s mind and severed every thread in the cave of spider-webs. There were so many, of Maia’s, of Rowena’s. When I was finished, he stood still with his eyes closed. I looked at Ashur, but he was focused entirely on our father. Holding his breath.

When his eyelids fluttered open, he went to Ashur, walking with a strength and purpose I had never seen in him before. He grasped Ashur by the arms. He said something to him I could not hear. Ashur nodded. He pulled Ashur close, holding him like he was a small child.

I hung back until Father gestured to me. “Both of my children.”

That was how the Circle was unbound. One at a time.

END