Winter's Tree

1 - The Tree

She sat quietly, eyes closed, arms folded loosely across her bent legs. The heat of the sun kissed her bare skin where her clothing failed to cover her. It felt nice. Comforting. A welcome change from the cold that crept up from the snow-covered ground beneath her.

She ran one thumb along the top of her opposite hand, the hard crust of dirt and blood flaking off as she did. She didn't want to open her eyes; didn't want to let go of who she was.

"You can't hold on forever," she heard him say, his voice a deep, rich base.

She knew him, recognized his voice, much like she recognized this place, but she wasn't ready.

The wind shifted, as it often did in this place, and the crisp air brushed against her already raw knuckles, causing her to pull her knees in tight against her body.

There was no more time. She had to open her eyes.

She inhaled and exhaled slowly against the soft fur of her upturned collar, sharp, cold air expelling in a damp cloud that clung to her eyelashes and left them coated in frost. Her eyelids fluttered open, pulling apart, and she looked up into the pale, winter sun. She could make out the icy tips of her eyelashes in her peripheral vision.

Lowering her eyes, she could see the rough, dark skin of her hands. The firmness of her thigh muscles in the space where the fur leg wraps left off and her tunic had yet to begin. She knew this body, and she didn't. It was both new to her and comfortably familiar.

Forcing her hands apart, she stood. Her memories slipped around her like fish in a pond. She tried to catch them, but they only brushed against her and floated away. Even her name eluded her. She tilted her head, and it seemed, for a moment, that the wind would bring it to her, but what it brought her was too much. Too many names when she only needed the one.

She ran her palms down her hide tunic, ignoring the slight tremble. She faced out towards the horizon, the sun already dipping back down towards the edge of the earth, where the landscape of unbroken snow finally fell from view.

It would be dark soon, she thought, and then her time to remember would be gone.

She raised her hand to the beads she wore strung around her neck, fingers caressing the worn bone and shells, finding familiar notches that tickled something at the edges of her mind.

The snow cracked beneath her feet as she shifted, and slowly she turned until she faced that which she feared.

It hunkered before her, a behemoth, unmoving, but for the wind that shook its branches. Its trunk gnarled and twisted, black as night, stretched upwards like the sky had cracked and darkness had crept in. A fissure of shadow rising above the snow.

It was bigger than she remembered, but it was its nature to grow. To devour. To become-to become-the memory drifted away, leaving her grasping at air.

There was something hanging from one of its branches, bent and twisted. She averted her eyes, seeking instead the uppermost limbs where ravens should fly, but didn't.

"Does it bother you still?"

She turned and saw him standing behind her. Skin a shade or two darker than her own, tall and powerfully built.

He didn't look the same, he never did, but still it was him.

She turned back to face the tree, not answering him.

He sighed, his breath misting the air before him. He wore only the loincloth, traditional to the ancestors of old, worn before the clans had left the sands to trek north into the wetlands.

"Tell me, then, of the things you don't fear, daughter."

Her skin prickled, and something like anger, or perhaps the memory of anger, bubbled up.

"Don't call me that," she said, with more heat than she intended.

If he heard her anger, he ignored it. "What would you have me call you, then?"

"Ayessa," she said, the name slipping off her tongue before she could catch it.

Yes. That was it. Ayessa.

He smiled, almost to himself. "I suppose that will do. For now. Come, Ayessa, come tell me what you learned."

He stretched out his hand towards her and, hesitantly, she took it. Despite the cold, he felt warm and like the sun, his heat seeped into her.

They walked together, hand in hand, towards the tree, the snow crunching beneath their feet.

He did not lead her towards the broken branches and the setting sun, but instead took her to the left, towards the lowest branch.

From a distance, the tree had looked barren, but up close she could see a smattering of tiny green leaves, newly sprouted on the very tips at the end of the branch.

"Do you remember these?" he asked her, his voice close to her ear.

"No," she said, but knew it for a lie the moment she said it.

He let go of her hand and gently cupped the new growth.

"Here," he said, his face turning to hers.

She shook her head and backed away. She didn't want to.

His dark eyes lifted to the space over her shoulder where the sun dipped ever lower.

"It will be sunset soon, and time to forget again. It will be easier then, but for now, you must remember."

He reached out and took her hand again, lifting it until the backs of her fingers brushed against the leaf.

"Remember," he said again.

And she did.