Summary from Chapter 19
I glance at Selene out of the corner of my eye, "Um, sure. Anyway, after that we got talking about cape stuff, and she told me that the unwritten rules only help me if I have a separate civilian identity, otherwise it's just my identity."
Selene nods thoughtfully, "I can see how that would work, much like having a moniker helped the heroes of old. Though it was not a separate identity, rather a way of standing out from the other mortals. Have you given any thought to your own cape identity?"
I look down at the firepit, "Um, given that you are my master, I was thinking maybe Menae. But it was only an idle thought."
Selene leans over and pulls me into a hug beside her, "Taylor, were it not for who the Menae are, I would welcome you as the 51st Menae. However, they were each my children born between myself and Endymion. If you wish to represent me I will give you a name."
I lean into Selene's shoulder, "I would like that. This is almost like having a mother again."
Selene kisses me on the forehead, "I did say that the bond between us would bring us closer. Then hence forth you will be known as Berenike, apprentice of Selene. It shall be your name until you earn another."
I smile, "What does it mean?"
"Bearer of Victory, or she who brings victory. I shall prepare raiments suitable for your new identity for when you arrive for your training. I charge you to live up to the name and make me proud."
I smile, "I will, I promise."
"I know you will, now on with your tale."
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I look up as Selene calls my name while I'm trying to get a straight cut along this stupid log. "What!"
I know the moment I shouted that it was the wrong thing to do, and Selene's thunderous expression gives me that oh shit feeling that I got the couple of times I saw him lose it at someone. "Apprentice, that is enough. I have given you plenty of time to come to me to seek help with whatever happened to you. Yet you have not only not done so, but even your daughter has noticed that something's wrong."
"Victoria's not my daughter, she's a friend that I'm looking after until she's regained her memories!"
"Berenike, you treated her like your daughter, and she thinks of you like a mother. That is enough to make her your daughter no matter what you think now. Same as you consider me your mother, or at least you used to."
I open my mouth to deny that, then close it again as Selene continues, "You and I are going to travel to near the shore, and you will go through everything that you did between leaving here and meeting me with the sphere."
I grind out, "Yes master."
Quietly, Selene says, "Taylor, the change in your personality is not a good change. I do not know yet know what you did, but the person you are now is not someone I can be proud of, yet the person you were is someone I was very proud of."
As she says, that, I collapse to the floor and clutch my chest as I remember with excruciating clarity promising to make Selene proud after she gave me my new name.
Selene's face drops into immediate concern as she rushes to pick me up, "Berenike, what happened?"
As I gasp for breath, I croak out, "Promise. I promised to make you proud."
Selene hugs me to her chest, "And you will, we will both work together to discover what you did, and to undo the damage."
I smile as the pain in my chest dies down and I can see a way forward, "I will, and I'm sorry I disappointed you. I pro…"
Selene covers my mouth, "No, no more promises, not until you are better."
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As Selene carries me up to the fire, I'm not sure how to feel about what's happening. Am I really that different to the person I was last week? I grimace as I'm forced to look at myself and my actions, as introspection doesn't seem to come naturally for me.
I'm barely aware of Selene's conversation with Sarah and Victoria as I wrestle with my recent memories, as well as trying to understand why I was behaving that way. The only thing that makes sense is when I woke up in my inner world beside the tree stump. But there were only a few tree stumps, could it really have caused that much difference?
I try to step into my inner world, only to realize I can't quite remember exactly how I did it. For a moment, I wish I'd started keeping my diaries before I met Selene. But I stall as I try to remember how exactly I met her. I know I got a concussion, and I had another camp close to Earth Bet. Same as I remember starting home schooling, and meeting Lung. But there's some thread that joins them together.
I open my eyes and let out a groan of frustration as I look around.
Selene pauses in her walking and looks down at me, "What is the matter dear one?"
"I can't remember, and thinking is so hard, I want to be doing."
Selene sets me down on my feet, "I see. I believe I know what the problem is now. For now, we need to hunt sufficient game to last you at least a few months. Do you remember how to hunt?"
I nod, "I think so."
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Fuck, my patience is shot, apparently, so is my ability to plan in a fight. I bash my head against the temporary log cabin that Selene built, and stare up at the rivers of magic flowing through the sky.
Just before I get up and start to practice with my spear, Selene walks out of the cabin with my Miss Militia diary, and sits down beside me. "Berenike, I think I understand what you did now, and I am sorry I did not ask you to check in with me if you had any difficulties."
I look at Selene, "What did I do?"
Selene takes a deep breath, "At the beginning of the mortal year you suffered a massive trauma, it was so bad that it touched every part of your life. While you were making the cave in the sphere, the memory of that event hurt you so much that I think you stopped being able to think things through properly."
My heart sinks into my stomach as I ask again, "What did I do?"
"I think you chopped down the tree that represents that memory in your inner world. I hope that is what you did, as the other option. I will not say what the other option is, but it is a permanent sacrifice, and you would never recover from it. You could build a new life, and if you'd lived long enough, your personality wouldn't change too much. But it would be permanent and irrevocable."
"What does that mean, I chopped down the tree."
"Do you remember visiting Victoria's mind and seeing all the tree stumps?"
I nod, "I do."
"You did that with one of your central memories, and with it you also took every memory that it was associated with. I fear that we are going to have to do in months something that you should have done over years, one memory at a time."
I stand up and start to pace, "What do you mean? I don't get it."
Selene looks up at me, and catches my eyes, "Once you find your inner world again, we are going to have to start examining your memories, especially those that are now tree stumps, and work through them together so that you can come to terms with them and separate them from the traumatic parts of your life. The longer we take, the less of your old personality will come back as we are all built on our memories and experiences."
I start to backpedal, "But, but."
Selene pins me with her gaze, and her words cut me to the bone, "Berenike, do you want to be the person that Victoria calls Momma, or do you want to be the person that reminds her of the mother who's memories she's avoiding? That's how different you are from when she last saw you."
I think hard and fast, and remember something that mum once said, "But wouldn't doing that kill who I am now?"
Selene shakes her head, "No, as you are a fraction of the person you used to be. By restoring your memories you will grow with the experiences. Will you change? Yes. Will you rediscover some of your old values and traits? Yes. But it will not kill you. This you, any more than the you that was a small child was killed as you grew up."
"I'm scared."
Selene nods, "I know, but bravery isn't not being scared. It's knowing what you need to do, and doing it even though your scared. That is why I blame myself for your current situation. I should have been able to prepare you better, or taken into account your recent past. Instead, I allowed my immediate concerns over my safety, and the safety of the world, to override my duty to you as my apprentice, and my child."
"But I remember doing whatever I did because I didn't want you to die."
Selene stands and touches my cheek, "And I am very grateful that you did. But that doesn't change my own responsibilities, just as you are also responsible for Victoria, which is why we are here, so that you are absent for the shortest possible time. Come, we should meditate before we eat, I have set a fire in something called a chimney, with some of the meat roasting over it."
Grumbling, I walk inside and pause when I see the woven carpet, lounging chairs and a low table. "Where did all this come from?"
Selene smiles, "I made it with magic. Out here it should last a few years, but on the mortal world I would expect it to last for a couple of hours at most. It's the same thing I did to your body, so I'm sure you can work it out for yourself."
I growl, as I hate having to do that. Then I pause, as I realize that maybe I didn't hate doing that. Fuck.
Selene gestures to the seats and cushions that are dotted around, "To start with, you should find somewhere to sit comfortably, as this is an introspective act. According to the book you used, you should try to visualize a flame and feed into it all of your intrusive thoughts and emotions. At some point during that process you'll find your inner world. If you get there during this session, then call my name and I will join you. Otherwise, I shall nudge you when food is ready."
Grumbling to myself, I settle down and close my eyes.
After the third time I open my eyes when I can't concentrate, I almost complain, when I remember Victoria doing the same thing, and I exhausted her before having her try again. Instead of complaining, I instead say, "Selene, I, uh, I need to move around as I can't concentrate. I'll be outside practicing with my spear."
Selene smoothly stands up from her position by the fire and a spear appears in her hand, "I will join you, and we can go until food is ready. Once we've eaten, you'll mediate again."
I grimace and nod.
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As I appear on a grassy plateau over looking the sea, I look around at the place I know is my inner world, but is both familiar and strange at the same time. As I do, I say, "This looks a lot like New England."
After a couple of minutes looking around at the hills, forest, and sea, I say, "Selene, goddess of the moon. I've found it."
I jump as Selene appears beside me, "Well done, I knew you could."
I grouse, "It took me three days."
Selene smiles gently, "That is still faster than you did it before."
"I bet it wasn't the only thing I was doing before though. Gods, I feel like my butt's permanently gone to sleep."
"I believe that you are exaggerating. Come, we should see how much damage you did in your desperation."
I hang my head before raising it up again and squaring my shoulders, "Right, how bad can it be?"
As we get closer to the forest I wish I could take those words back, as there are tree stumps everywhere. As we walk around my mouth opens and closes like a fish, until I finally say, "How could it be this bad?"
Selene stops by a stump that's near a lightning struck tree, "Because you are young, and the pillar memory is so important. I have my own pillar memories, like the death of my love. If that was ever uprooted it would take much of my memory of living in Greece since the death of the titans with it."
I shudder at the sheer idea, "How do I deal with something like that?"
Selene points at the stump, "You start with the supporting memories. And you build them up again one at a time. Then, when you come to dealing with the pillar memory, you have enough understanding and support to bear the weight and come to see it as a defining moment in your life, without being the defining moment anymore. Try this stump."
I look down at the bare stump, "But there's no leaves."
"That's because you have not started to remember it yet. All of these memories will eventually return on their own. At the same time you are always making new ones."
As I crouch down, I spot a few leaves poking up from a plant near the tree. As I reach out to touch the leaves, Selene grabs my hand, "Do not. That is an association. You probably cannot remember when you first discovered that they exist, but if you touch that, you will not see the true memory, just the mix of the associated memories and this memory. You might need to push quite a bit of magic into the roots of the stump to find your memory."
I glance back up towards Selene as I put my hand on the stump, and I do have to put magic into it. Suddenly, I'm swinging on a swing with Emma and mum walks over.
When the memory finishes, I dash the tears out of my eyes as I smile at Selene, "Why was this… It's a happy memory and…"
Selene pulls me into a hug, "It is because of Emma. She betrayed your friendship and bullied you so badly that it culminated in your pillar memory. This was a memory that we both found just after you discovered the brambles."
"Are the others going to be like this?"
Selene nods, "Most of them I would imagine. Some happy, some sad, but none of them especially bad unless we find one of your school memories. When we find the bad memories, we'll stop and talk about them, and go through them together. Once you can place it in the greater part of your life, we'll move onto another memory."
I look around me with a grimace, "I was sort of hoping this would be a quick thing. But it isn't going to be, is it."
Together we walk away from The Tree, and the next stump we come across is mum praising me for practicing the flute. Another one is not so happy, as mum sits me down in the kitchen and quizzes me on why I decided to break a toy while Emma watches cartoons in the lounge.
As Selene comes out of the same memory, she pulls me into a hug, "I am proud of you for facing these. When Victoria came to me, one of the things she said is that you made her explain why she did something wrong, rather than just shouting at her. I think you had a remarkable mother, and I would have liked to have met her."
I lean my head down against Selene's, and for the first time I realize just how physically short she really is. I sniff back some tear snot, and say, "I think I'd forgotten that too."
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Memories 1
We must have covered over a hundred memories today, but I feel like I've gained more than that. Selene didn't seem to be surprised when I told her that. Then she said that we're going to need to visit them anyway.
Before I started writing, I touched Victoria's resonance and apologized for shouting at her. I then described what I should have done. She then spent the next while telling me about how good the burgers were, and how hard it was to cut the meat small enough to make them.
I think Selene was right, I did need to do this.
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Memories 2
Just a short one, as I feel like this is worth noting. I haven't had a period for over a month. I'm usually regular as clockwork. Apparently it's a side effect of the fact Selene had to make most of my body out of magic to save my life. She also showed me how they used to keep time on a doorframe, with a notch for every day that passes up to a full menstrual cycle. Funnily enough, Selene's exactly matched the cycle of the moon. Then each Menae has it's own little picture, that when put together makes a repeating pattern that can be used to decorate the door.
Oh, and apparently, the Olympus cycle was 99 Menai long.
I love how excited I am to learn new things again. But there was one bad memory we found. When I got back from Summer camp, and Emma broke off our friendship because I said I liked her new haircut. That was the last memory we dealt with that day, and the only one we dealt with the next too.
I never noticed how choppy Emma's hair was, or how puffy her eyes were either. It doesn't excuse what Selene says she did to me later, but If I'm honest with myself, I probably wouldn't have noticed without Selene's help even now. I think that Emma's carrying around her own pillar memory, and it's poisoned everything.
Oh, apparently it wasn't so short.
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Memories 3
We've been through thousands of memories and my period started a few days ago. We've also only got a week or so's worth of meat left.
Oh, and Victoria has been talking to me two or three times every one of her days, and a few of her days ago, she started a diary so that she can show me everything that she's been doing. She even showed me some of her coloring, I wasn't aware that she could show^it to me, but she did anyway. I'm so proud of her I could burst.
Then, her yesterday, she and Sarah both moved down a world towards Earth Bet for a few minutes. Have I mentioned just how proud of her I am?
Anyway, onto the reason for this entry. We've hit the first of my bad school memories. I counted the door, and we've been here 132 days. It was the first time Emma told me I should kill myself so that I could be with mum. I thought they somehow got a large part of the school to whisper it to me throughout the day. It turns out that they really only got around half the class to do so, though it took repeatedly going through the memory to work it out. We also found the memory of me eating lunch in the jungle. It's amazing how much difference having magic makes to my memories (well a usable amount of magic anyway, as I already had a tiny bit of magic). We explored that memory as a way to take a break from processing the other memory, and I could literally look behind me and pause the memory to pay attention to the smallest detail. If all of Selene's memories are like this, then I'm not surprised that she struggles to forget things.
We're going to go looking for other childhood memories tomorrow, and if we can't find any any we're going to start on the memories surrounding mum's death to get more practice dealing with hard memories.
Oh, I found out that the grass is made up of emotions and feelings from before I became aware of myself. Things like a heartbeat in the womb, or someone saying pikaboo. Not sure what the animals are though, but I suspect they're my thoughts and ideas, or maybe my dreams. I don't know.
^Apparently I've marked Victoria, that's why I can use her senses. Selene just assumed I'd realized it had happened which is why it didn't occur to her to mention it. I could also take over her body and do anything she's capable of, even if she doesn't know how, but I do. I'm not sure how to feel about that, so I think I'm going to ignore it until it becomes unavoidable. On the plus side, I always know where she is if I concentrate.
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Memories 4
Fuck, my life sucked. Even with Selene helping me, I can feel myself becoming more cautious and suspicious as we deal with my school memories. I think I am going to talk to Selene tomorrow, as I think allowing those memories to come back naturally will be more beneficial than hoping we don't step on another land mine like mum's flute. At least I now know why removing the locker took out so many of my childhood memories.