Chronicles of The Craft - vol 3 [COMPLETE]

The Power of Memory

I walk along the beach each day, when afternoon slowly morphs into evening. With the darkening sky and the setting sun, I know what will come, because I have been here before, drawn every day of this lifetime and the ones before it. I cannot stay away.

There is something here, something powerful in this liminal place, not quite land and not quite sea, but both and yet neither. And then in those moments of transitional time, when it is not quite day and not quite night, something truly magical happens.

The sun is lowering towards the horizon and the waves, creeping up the beach as the tide comes in, washes over my feet. My heart races. It won't be long now, and then-

'You came back for me,' I hear a voice whisper over my shoulder. It is deep and strong and laced with emotion which pulls at me like the undercurrent of the tide at my feet.

'I promised, didn't I?' I hear myself say, but my lips do not move.

'My love, you must let this go. Let me go.'

'I can't. I don't know how to.' A tear slips down my cheek.

Hands, big and sure, are laid gently on my upper arms. 'How long has it been?' he asks.

'Since you were swept out to sea? I don't know...years.'

'No, my love. It has been so much longer than that. It has been lifetimes. I see you before me as I knew you, as beautiful as I ever thought you to be, but I have seen also the new faces you have worn. There have been so many, too many.'

'What would you have me do?' my voice croaks.

'Forget me.'

'No, never. Please don't ask me to.'

'You are alive, my love, but you don't know how to live.'

'Stop. Please. No more.'

'You must listen to me, sweetheart. I am trapped, stuck in this endless cycle, doomed to stare out at the sea which took me from this world. It is my own fault, I know that, I gambled on the curse and lost. But you, you are free from this. Leave this place and be happy, I beg you.'

I turn to face him, angry and heartbroken. 'Leave you alone?' His face is soft and kind, and his eyes full of love and warmth. How could I leave him? How could he ask me to.

'I love you,' he whispers. 'More than anything. I think about you all the time, but more than anything else, I want you to come to peace with what happened. You must or it will haunt you forever.'

I open my mouth to protest, but he places a finger over my lips. 'Listen, dear heart. You come here to me each day, yet you do not remember why. Not until the light changes and the past and the present are as one. When you are out there, in your new skin, with your new name, you do not remember me or why the beach draws you here. I am a tether, preventing you from living. And when the day is gone and night is here and I fade, you will not recall our conversation. It will be less than a memory, not even an echo, to be forgotten. So I beg of you, try and break this chain between us...

The sky is darkening. The beach is beginning to be lost in the gloom, as the twilight enshrouds all, but the lights from the town along the seafront.

'Time is failing us, my love. You must heed what I say...

'No, no, this isn't fair, please don't ask me.'

He stepped closer and pulled me towards him. 'I know how much it hurts,' he whispers as his finger trace the tears down my cheek. 'I love you,' and then his lips are on mine. Suddenly everything makes sense, I know who he is, who I am, and how I lost him the first time.

I cling to him as if my life depends on it. I can't let him go, but there is nothing I can do to stop the forces that were at work on the beach...

Noise draws my attention to the seafront. A crowd of people are laughing and joking. I'm still walking along the beach, the waves cooling my bare feet. When I reach the end of the shore, I turn and walk back, heading for home. I know something draws me to the beach, but I don't know what it is, but I will back tomorrow, to try and puzzle it out.