“Are you ready?” Your voice is deep, and though you’ve spoken softly, it echoes through the marble corridor. 

“Yes. Would you like to do the honors?” I reply.

You step forward. I watch your calloused hand rise, as if to command the door to open. I smile. Our previous existence was aboard a ship hurtling through space. Doors there opened to such gestures. 

“You truly are my old man these days,” I tease, reaching around you. The brass knob was purchased many years ago. Our door is painted blue, carved with rose vines. 

We step inside the cottage. The stove is just as we left it, teakettle almost-hot, curtains blowing inward. The sound of waves lapping the sand beckons.

You notice the direction of my gaze, and speak: “Let’s plan first. Then we will walk along the ocean. It’s almost time. We’ll need to be quick.”

“We have a plan. It’s good. Please, let’s just-”

“Run it through with me, once more. I won’t remember all the details the way you will. I need to hear them again.”

“I’m sorry. Of course, you’re right.”

I pour us each a cup of tea, uselessly trying to stretch out our last few hours together. You know very well that I wish to delay the inevitable, when there is no hope of doing so. Soon you’re behind me, wrapping your arms around my waist.

“Remember this. Remember how I feel,” I half-tease. But we know the drill by now. Experience has taught us many things. Among them, the liminal nature of time and memory.

“Come sit,” you take my hand and pull me to the sofa we placed in front of an open window. Sea air blows in, a welcome awakening from the warmth of the wood stove in the kitchen.

I sigh. I know you are waiting for me to begin. I’d rather just sit, content within your arms. 

“Very well,” I begin the recitation. “You will go first. I’ll watch from here, until you… until it’s time. Then I’ll come. Based on expected parameters of these types of missions, it will be at least a little while until we see one another again. And of course, time works differently there-”

“General. Not specific.”

“Right, yes. Okay – When we meet again, I will have some sense of you, but you will be unlikely to realize that you recognize me right away. Because of the nature of that place, and because you will have been there longer than me-” I am trying my best to be general. Truly. “We will not be able to remember exactly how we know one another, but there will be indicators. Clues. Some the same as last time, some that are newly developed.”

“Yes. We went over those already. I’ve ingrained them in my memory files. What else?”

“Because of the way that place works, the disorientation- well, it could be a while until we fully recognize one another. And of course it can be very dark there-”

“We will have plenty of light by then. That is what The Council says.”

“I know. Yet-”

“Don’t worry. I will remember you. I will see you.”

“But that place, it changes us. Last time-”

“That’s over. It’s done. We were very close. This time, after everything we’ve gone through… surely this will be our great success.”

“I think it will. But when I’m back there, without you…”

I let the thought trail off. It doesn’t matter, anyway. We both know we will either succeed, or not. 

“There are advantages to being there, remember?” You ask. I feel your breath on my neck, and yes, oh yes. I remember. The solid, real weight of you, wrapped around me. The beat of your heart. Then, terror of losing you, of remembering too late-

“Don’t think about that part. It will pass. If all goes according to plan, you will push through more quickly than ever before.” You are attuned to my emotions, always. You have a talent for it.

“Yes. I think you’re right. Though it may be more intense this time, we have designed this mission to fill all identified gaps of the previous ones. And our team is solid. We have many helpers coming along.”

“They’ve been observing and walking alongside us. They trust us.” You pause, as if weighing each word before breathing it into existence. “They believe in us.”

I know it’s true, and the honor of what we’ve chosen, the balance we will achieve-

“Well. We are highly qualified. That alone engenders trust amongst like-minded souls.”

“It’s not just that,” you kiss my neck, a memory of the pressure, the intensity, when we’re—but I’m not even supposed to allow myself to think of it. Not yet. Not the Name.

“I know.” You almost always say what I think you will these days. Or perhaps it was I who spoke. Our minds have known one another long enough to become patterned in similar ways; spiraling fractals that inform our existence.

“And the stories? You’ve added them to the data?” You’re requesting confirmation. I oblige.

“Yes. The two most important ones are fully encrypted. The others are there too. Smaller files. But it should be more than enough to trigger the memories I need—”

“And you will retain the names this time? All of them?”

“I will.” 

Two times ago, I’d forgotten. And hadn’t trusted the information from The Council. I couldn’t see clearly enough. The darkness was thick that time. We’d been so close. But instead… 

I do not like to think of that mission. There’s still a sting to it. 

“Are you ready to tell our stories? All of them? Can you be braver than ever before?”

“Yes,” I am nearly sure. I know too well the machinations that play upon the mind in the darkness of that place. I’ve been fooled before. Tricked out of remembering who I am and what I am capable of. You have, too.

Our fingers find each other, and you pull me to lay against your chest. We fit one another well. Your heart beats in rhythm with the sea, and am I lulled into an endless waking dream.

After a long while, we rise and walk barefoot out the front door to the sand.

When we return, there’s a small shaft of glowing white light near the stoop.

“It won’t be long now.”

“Let’s go lay down,” you reply. We walk through the cottage, memories surrounding us—hanging from the walls, set upon shelves. Favorite totems, tokens and gifts of love from all the places we once visited.

Silently, we pull back the covers. The window in our bedroom is always open. The perks of having no neighbors and the perfect climate. We lay down, and you pull me close. Your energy is protection, home, and kinship. Love, of course. More than that. It is Knowing. The reality that no being has been able to fully disregard. 

“My love. Rest.” You say, lips moving gently along my neck, a small reassurance. I must have made some small movement to give away my agitation. You pull me closer, as if to envelop me completely. Reminding me, imprinting upon me. I am all my incarnations at once: hag, crone, infant, child, lover. Awakener.

We enter the half-dream state we’ve come to know so well. As light fills our cottage, fingertips find lips, creases, folds. Ridges, mountains. The flesh turned topographic. Stories unfold through sighs and utterances of love.

A story we’ve been telling for millennia.

The room brightens. I know it’s coming, it’s been nearly here for so long now. Hours or days, what does time matter? 

We pull apart, fulfilled. Shaking. Knowing we may forget one another. Fully. It’s happened before. One or the other of us forgets. Almost every time. 

“I love you.”

Our voice speaks as one. I feel you being torn from me. I scream. I’ve forgotten how much it hurts. The pressure, the temporary inability to breathe, the blood.

Right before I emerge into my mother’s arms, I remember more than I thought I would be allowed: I will not see you again for thirty years. Thus, I am born crying, a wail my mother will later (rather dramatically) call ‘the heartbroken sobs of one who knows she’s been ripped from the womb of heaven.’

And so, we begin.