Page 4 of We Were Eternal Once

I did not ask where we were going. I did not ask what I must leave behind.

I abandoned my life and entered yours.

Ignoble Beginnings

The night you made me is my clearest memory—until it is not.

A palm reader once frowned at my hand, flexing and turning it over as she tried to scry. “So many twists and turns. So many choices…and a great split,” she mumbled. You’d snatched my hand away and spit on the ground at her feet. You may have found me in a temple, but you never believed in religion.

The great split is the before and after of that night.

The before, as I’ve explained…is hazy. I’ve learned that the mind likes to get rid of inconsequential thoughts, memories that mean nothing. Sometimes, if I travel a path too often, I forget the journey. It becomes mundane, it lacks beauty. The time before you is just that—bland, spiritless, dull.

(“The mind forgets more than just the tedious”)

Tedious isn’t strong enough a word.

Had you explained the change before you gave it to me? Or was I a lamb, unaware I was being led to slaughter?

I waited for you. I wore the same dress all week, so my spare had time to wash and dry. I collected flowers for smell. I took twice as long at cleaning myself, not caring the ire it caused. I had nothing to give you, no token to thank you for what you were about to do. I had only myself, and I did not think it was enough.

It was night, and your hand outstretched to mine. I took it, the cold of your skin a shock against my fevered palm. The air was thick with the humidity of summer, curling the frayed edges of my hair. I favored my hair short, dark brown locks that hung straight to my chin—just like I do now.

I swiped at my hair, pushing it from my sweaty forehead. This wasn’t going the way I wanted it to. I had pictured something different when I wore my best dress. I tried to wear a kekryphalos but had no skill with it, the netting tangling in my hair. I thought I would be cultured or put together if I couldn’t be beautiful.

I spent days copying the walk of those who visited the temple, to emulate the mannerisms of the elite. I was trying to court a goddess, I was trying to gain your favor. I needed to be more, and for a moment, you made me think I was.

A mouse pulled from a temple because of her song.

I slowed, tripping over my feet.

“What ever are you doing?” you asked.

“Walking,” I said, ducking my head to hide my shame.

“No, you’re not,” you scoffed, your finger under my chin to tilt my head up to look at you. “You’re pretending. I won’t have it.”

“I am not⁠—”

“Don’t lie to me.” Your voice is quiet, dangerous. My jaw snaps shut, my footsteps falling into their familiar pattern. You nod, and that alone lifts my spirits. I may have erred, but my correction is enough.

“We are ancient,” you say, your voice drifting back to me. “We are eternal. Older than gods or trees or rocks. Inside me flows the blood of powerful creatures.”

I loved your stories. You spoke of magic and truth, of time eternal, of stars that no longer shone in the night sky. Gods far more ancient than the ones I worshipped.

Yet, you looked no older than twenty-five. No older than me.

“Older than the Earth?” I ask.

“Perhaps,” you say, smiling over your shoulder at me. “One day I will give you my knowledge, just as I have been given.”

Knowledge. I couldn’t comprehend that. I was never deemed worthy enough to learn to read or write. My sex, my class, marked me as someone best kept to the shadows. I brought nothing to society, therefore society should give me nothing.

Knowledge was forbidden to a woman like me. Had I ever tried to learn to read before you? Had I longed to know what the words over the temple door said? Had I simply passed under them, unaware of their existence?

The Christian Bible tells a story of the first couple, who only understood knowledge when they ate an apple. They did not know what they did not know.

I was like that woman, though without a companion. You were not my Adam or my Eve, you were the serpent, and your blood my apple. The first fork in my road, the denotation of before and after.