Chapter 42 Memory Keeper

Chapter 42 Memory Keeper
Luna POV

I did not wish to go up to the barrier. I had just gotten my life back. I had just become human once again. The thought of going back to that place, of becoming one with it, of reuniting with it, was like being wiped out again.

But Ethan was already ready. "When do we leave?" he asked.

"You're not going," I said. "Not this time. This time I have to do it alone."

You are not doing anything, Ethan said. His voice was firm. We had this argument several times already. I'm coming with you. That's not negotiable."

The seal is individual, the grandmother of Elena said. It must be pegged by a person who realizes the strength of memory. Somebody who has lived enough to understand what it would be like to forget.

This makes me the right person, then," Ethan said. I have loved Luna since her childhood, and she was not even aware of the existence of magic. I have recalled her in memories of herself. I have retained the memory of how she was stuck in the barrier. Not knowing how powerful memory can be, I do not know what is.

The grandmother of Elena thought him over. Then she nodded. "Alright," she said. "Both of you. Go to the barrier. Merge with it. Create the seal together. Let your memories anchor it. Let your love anchor it."

Together we proceeded to the barrier. The cracking was beginning to increase. I was almost able to look through the cracks. I nearly had a view of what was on the other side. Whiteness. Emptiness. Everything is gone, and memory is gone.

"I'm scared," I admitted to Ethan.

"I know," he said. "So am I. But we're scared together. And that makes it less lonely."

We stepped into the barrier. It was not like in the previous cases. It was softer. More welcoming. As if the barrier was awaiting us.

I could see the seal. It consisted of light and time and choice and all interwoven. It was lovely and tender and frantically creaking.

I put my hands on it. I put my memories into it. I recalled how I ran out of my marriage. I recalled the way I hid in the city. I recalled how I had found Elena. I recalled the discovery of my mother. I recalled when I had initially visited the bakery. I recollected the first time when Ethan said that he loved me. I recalled all the moments that had gotten me to be what I was.

Ethan touched me with his hands on the seal. He added his memories. He recalled how I looked at him when I was not aware of his presence. He recalled the agony of mate bond breaking. He recalled that he decided to love me even when he was not able to experience the supernatural connection. He recalled how we have been standing by each other in all crises. He recalled how he picked me, time and time again, because I was pickable.

The seal strengthened. It became solid again. The Forgetting struck it, but could not make out. Not now. Not through our memories keeping it back.

Why should the Forgetting be making such an attempt now? I appealed to consciousness which held the barrier.

Owing to the change of the barrier, the consciousness said. Whenever you alter reality, whenever you make a new decision, the seals we have made old become weak. Forgetting was waiting all the time when man would remember nothing that had to be remembered.

"What needs to be remembered?" I asked.

The consciousness said, That you have made this choice. "That you made it. That it wasn't given to you. That it meant sacrifice and pain and difficulty. That it is worth preserving because you made it yourselves.

Is there no other means of sealing it? Ethan asked. And has Luna to combine with the barrier each time there is a crisis?

"Yes," the consciousness said. "If you teach everyone. The latter, should you ensure that everybody realizes that they are the seal. Their memories. Their choices. Their refusal to forget. That is what holds the Forgetting out. That keeps reality on track, that is what.

Ethan pulled away and I pulled away. We came out of the world, and we were tired and we lived. The seal was holding. The Forgetting held within itself.

Yet I felt there was a change in me. Something had changed. I was no longer a person who had given my life to the barrier. I was no longer one who could pass into it. I was something else now. I stood between the remembering and forgetting. I was the parent of parents.

"What's happening to me?" I asked Elena's grandmother.

You are turning into a Memory Keeper, you are, she said. "It's an old role. One that has not lived in a thousand years. You will be capable of reminding people. The presence will be enough to reinforce the seal. You will know how to make people do it too.

"How long will that last?" I asked. How many days more will I be so able?

You may have it until you want to stop needing it, the grandmother of Elena told her. Or until another comes to fill the place. The Memory Keeper has the option of shifting the burden onto his/her self whenever he/she desires.

During the following days I began grasping my new position. I was able to touch the memories of people. I was able to feel when a person was beginning to lose something significant. I could help them remember. It was tiring and also very satisfying.

But there was something wrong with me also. There were those who were opposing memories. Some people wanted to forget. They desired to forget the suffering. The loss. The challenge to establishing peace.

I confronted them. I questioned them as to the reason they wanted to forget.

"Because it hurts," one man said. He had lost his family during wars preceding the peace movement. Memory only serves to make it hurt more.

But forgetting, I said, we forget the lessons. We are put at risk of repeating ourselves.

"Maybe that's okay," the man said. Maybe it is not worth remembering some pain.

I did not know what to do about that. I took the issue to the council.

It is the true challenge, when Elena heard of it, said its grandmother. This is what Forgetting is actually about. It's not a malicious force. It is the instinct of avoiding pain. It is the urge to deny that bad things have occurred. And should too many succumb to that temptation the seal will come loose.

"So what do we do?" I asked.

Grandmother Elena said: "We make rituals. We invent rituals in which individuals get to work upon their hurt. And in a place where they will not be engulfed by what hurt them. Where they may recall, but not entrapment.

We developed memorial ceremonies. Healing circles. Places where individuals were able to accept their losses and at the same time accept their development. And gradually it began to dawn upon people that memory need not be painful. Memory could be powerful. It was possible that memory was what united them.

There was still something wrong. I could feel it. There was another presence. The other consciousness that was attempting to communicate with me. It felt familiar. It felt like someone I knew.

And then Sarah came to find me.

She was different now. Less fragmented. More whole. But she was also desperate. She was turning over her shoulder. Reason being she thought something was pursuing her like she was scared.

"Luna," Sarah said. "We need to talk. Alone. And we need to talk fast. Because he's coming. He's finally coming. And when he arrives here before you know the truth everything collapses once more.