Over and Over

My earliest memory is of the base of an ancient oak tree. I was so intoxicated by the concoction that the priest had given me that I was on my ass, back against its trunk, cradled between its massive roots. The priest pressed a massive oak leaf against my forehead and pronounced some words in the ancient Euskaran tongue that roughly translated to “Remember when you wake.” I had no idea what it actually meant until the next winter solstice.

It was a brutal winter. In addition to wearing the furred pelts of Aurochs to stave off the cold, we had to don ankle-high rabbit skin moccasins to negotiate the snow that covered the plain several feet thick. The space inside the circle of massive stones had been swept clean with branches to provide unimpeded access to the central stone where I was to plant the seed of my sacrifice.

My blood would run down the side of the stone and pour on the ground. It would soak into the primal mycelium that lay under the surface and extended for miles in every direction, radiating beyond the plain and into the surrounding fen and forest. It had provided the mushrooms that prepared me for the sacrifice. It would carry the fruit of my sacrifice to the surrounding lands and guarantee bounty for my people; my family. The massive stones served as eyes for the great mycelium so that it could gaze into the even greater mycelium of the Milky Way. Right before he drew the razor sharp semicircle of flint across my throat he said, “Remember when you wake.”

My next memory was suckling on the bright pink nipple of my anglo-saxon mother, unable to speak her language, so I spent the two years it took for my voicebox to develop simply listening. There was much to learn because in this new life I was female. This saved my life when a Danish raiding party killed all of the men in the village. I was raped at the age of twelve along with all of the other women who hadn’t been killed. I became the favorite concubine of the leader of the raiding party. Remembering what the priest had taught me in my former life, I gathered certain vines and flowers, pounded them into a paste and mixed it in with the Danish chief’s mead. His lieutenant, realizing that I had poisoned his captain, thrust his sword through my heart, but I had already avenged my people; my family.

Because I retained the full memory of my previous life, including any skills I had learned, after a few lifetimes I became a skilled craftsman, a well-trained soldier, and a well-read scholar. Now I turn my hand to writing to recount what has been forgotten by all save me, over and over. To tell the story of my people; my family.