I

For Ahsha, my guiding star.

Please understand that yours is the first face I remember and, though I know you will not be with me, I pray it will be the last I forget. The horror in your youthful eyes reflected the waning Sun as my world materialised around me. Hot, thick blood trickled up my neck and crawled into my open throat as the cool blade sealed my flesh in place. I gasped desperately to catch my initial and dying breath, exhaling balmy, ferric oxygen into the early morning breeze.

I watched ruby-red globules fly from your white gown towards me. It took mere moments for your horror to turn to fear, then consternation and confusion, and, at last, joy. Your focus snapped back from my shoulder, where a rough hand had planted itself just seconds before. Your gaze met mine and your smile outshone the heavenly conflagration.

I possessed no memories at that time, nor comprehension of my surroundings. The gloaming grew deeper as my fledgling identity fought to assemble itself.

I knew only one thing: that I already loved you. I have learned nothing of importance since.

And so, I experienced my first sunset as you witnessed its rise, our love star-crossed from the very beginning. Though it has proved to be of little solace, I have oft sought comfort from the simultaneity offered by our planet’s axial rotation. My consciousness continues to regress at odds with the world’s spin, but the pendulous cosmos metes out equal servings of light and dark to me as it does to others.

Perhaps trajectory is a myth after all; a trick of the light.

My love for you epitomises my arrival into this world, but I cannot help recalling the unadulterated fear that was its companion. Fear for your safety, but in the absence of context. Dread without any apparent roots represents fear in its purest form, akin to finding oneself in freefall. Yet rather than wondering when I would meet the ground, I questioned whether there was any ground to meet me.

You made lilting sounds as these nightmarish thoughts harassed my embryonic consciousness, and I was astonished to learn that your utterances appeared to convey meaning. Stranger still, in retrospect at least, I grasped these meanings before the sounds reached my ear. Your voice, though melodic and calming, seemed to obscure its intentions as it progressed, like a curator drawing a veil over a painting already viewed. As you continued, I gleaned that you were imparting news from our village, offering wry but unfailingly kind-hearted opinions about our neighbours.

I loved you even more.

I listened to you speak with fascination, as night usurped morning. When you quietened, I replayed all that I could recall inwardly and oppositely, grasping the details as best I could. This, I have learned, is the most effective way to peer behind the veil. By working backwards, I can understand others and, most importantly, enjoy your words in all their delicate majesty.

We stood to leave in tandem, though I was not conscious of willing myself into action. Rather, I sensed that I was about to move through implication alone. I knew I had been standing in the moments before I stood. How? The simplest explanation is that each of my actions is preceded by its outcome, although I have never been able to articulate this sensation satisfactorily.

I am haunted by ghosts of my future; by premonitions of my past.

II

I learn much over the coming years. For one, I am mute. I understand the speech of those around me, though only through meticulous retrospection, but I never proffer any words of my own. Our neighbours think me simple and I fear they are right, although they do not understand why.

I learn that I am not like other people. Everyone speaks of the past – of my future – but I do not share their memories. They are equally ignorant of what awaits them, while I can recall their fates in vivid detail. I never reveal what I know, of course. It would not be fair.

I learn that we arrive in Eubur ten years from now, when you are an infant barely able to form sentences. I, meanwhile, remain a grown woman, altogether incapable of forming sentences.

I weep with joy before learning that you are my daughter.

We spend our spare hours in the safety of our small home, which is reassuringly secluded and offers welcome shade from the desert heat. We live comfortably, mingling with the villagers when necessary and tilling the land to earn our keep.

You have adopted a quasi-diplomatic role within our local community, representing the both of us. You explain that I was widowed ahead of our arrival in Eubur, and that we relocated in search of a new life. The villagers accept your story, seemingly without suspicion, as youngsters rarely lie about such affairs. I do not know whether this account is accurate or the fruit of your imagination, though I wish for it to be true with all my heart.

I cherish our days together and I delight in my ever-accumulating memories of your blossoming adolescence. All the while, I cannot shake this persistent feeling of unanchored dread, which has stalked my dreams for as long as I can remember. Every morning, you retire to your room to wake, and I am left to confront the coming darkness unaided. More often than not, a menacing face awaits me as I lose my nightly battle with sleep. A venomous man – his visage gruff, callous and unrepentant – pursues me tirelessly across soporific vistas. I awake with a start in the pitch of night, unable to rest until I am satisfied that you are safe. I look in on you, sleeping soundly, and my fear abates until the previous evening.

Each of my actions remains an enigma. I accept my behaviour with resigned despondency, perturbed by the knowledge that its cause is yet to reveal itself. I envy the villagers and, I confess, I envy you also for your agency. The concept of choice is as alien to me as it is tantalising. Others decide to act and, through some form of alchemic will, they do. I, meanwhile, sense that I have done something and, soon after, it has been done.

I am a prisoner of history, thrashing against the indomitable tide of what has already transpired. Perhaps time’s grip is equal in all directions. For all I know, you, the villagers and everyone else in this world are also bound by the current of determinism. But even if this is the case, you are still blessed with the illusory possibility of free will, while my experience permits no such explanation.

Four years after my death, I curse my jealousy. We toil beneath an amber sky amid a suffocating haze, you awaiting the end of the working day as I look forward to its beginning. Without warning, you look up at me and I understand immediately that we occupy the same temporal plane. You speak and I hear your words as they were meant to sound. “Mother,” you say, in my unspoken tongue. My heart splits in two. This instant remains my one true connection with a living being, and I curse the heavens for poisoning you with my affliction. I raise my hand, intentionally for the first time, and bark my only words.

“Do not walk this path with me, child. It leads only to sorrow.”

Confronted by the prospect that you too were at odds with the universe, my body tremored, but I was comforted by your ongoing conversations with our neighbours. You followed the common trajectory, and my fears were alleviated. You were compliant, and our consciousnesses have not run parallel before or since.

Nevertheless, my dread persisted and swelled until, one winter’s day, I found you helping me to my knees before returning from the grove. I flew to my feet after you left me prone on the floor, my lower back meeting a jolting heel. I turned about-face to be confronted by the venomous man that haunts my nights. He threatened my life in no uncertain terms before kicking me into the dirt. I gleaned that he was your father, and that you were conceived without my consent. Furious and paranoid, he labelled me a whore and promised to kill me if I revealed his crime.

I never did. He slit my throat, nonetheless.

His name, as I have come to learn, is Samael, and he left as swiftly as he appeared. You returned home ahead of the attack and our lives continued, but something inside me had changed. I understood in that moment that I could not die knowing that you would be subject to the whim of this man.

I resolved to seize agency, whatever the cost.

III

I could not be sure that I would see Samael again before your conception, but he had intimated that this was not the first time he had threatened me. Given the opportunity, I decided that I must act.

I worried endlessly that any disruption to my future – to your past – would jeopardise our time together, but I knew your protection justified the risk. I feared my demise, but only because it would leave you subject to Samael’s wrath. Keep in mind that I have already survived death; only birth can quell my existence.

From that day onwards, my sole aim was to seize agency. I spent my days attempting to influence my actions; to conjure effects that resulted in my desired behaviour. Eventually, my preparations proved fruitful. One evening, I imagined that my body was cooling after entering the shade of our house and, sure enough, I began to heat up. Within minutes, I found that I was walking outside into the summer heat. Coincidence? Perhaps, yet I was confident that effect had finally precipitated cause.

Approximately one month later, I found myself collecting a sodden robe from our yard. Instinctually, I imagined that my heightened state of mind was dissipating after washing blood from the garment. Earlier that day, I found myself scrubbing furiously, painting strokes of deep red into the fabric as it dried. I donned the robe and walked from our house to the palms. En route, a bloodied knife jumped up from the dirt into my shaking hand.

On arrival, I was greeted with the sight of Samael gasping and crawling helplessly in the loam. He stumbled to his feet and clutched my chest as his blood jumped from me to him. I jabbed at his neck, my hot knife cauterising his wound as I removed it in a violent snatching motion. Upon recovering, he proceeded to tell me that I did not have the courage to take his life, and that I would be put to death if I attempted to do so.

“So be it,” I thought.

He stepped backwards towards the horizon and I basked in my newfound agency.

IV

Ahsha, I write to you on the morning of your father’s death. I now possess two conflicting sets of memories: the timeline that I have recounted, which began with my first sunset; and an alternate past that culminates in my being executed for Samael’s murder. The former continues to fade as the latter becomes more distinct, so I am recounting my tale while there is still time. I am truly sorry to have left you but, please know, I had no other choice.

This will be my last conscious act. Upon returning home from the grove, I envisaged the relief I would feel by imparting these details to you, explaining how I acted in pursuit of your future. I collected the already-transcribed papers from your room and carried them to our table. I grasped the quill and watched myself scratch the ink from these pages.

Even now, I do not understand why my consciousness struggles against time’s preferred current. I confess that I am afraid as I journey unbidden towards my birth and, in turn, my death. Yet my mind has been changed. Your ability to choose your trajectory – that which once paralysed me with fear – now lends me hope. I find myself convinced that my curse could become your power. I feel you may be the first person to be gifted genuine free will, and I can think of no worthier recipient.

As I write, I look at your smiling face and think of Samael. I cannot fathom how such venom could precipitate such love. Indeed, I do not understand how such love could necessitate such venom. I do not care. You are my child and your life is worth any price.

Henceforth, I have resolved to relinquish all agency as I do not wish to jeopardise your life. Unlikely though it may seem, the slightest deviation in my future could compromise your conception and birth. When Samael’s knife sliced me into existence, I wished only for your safety. This wish has grown into hope, and I will not put that at risk.

I will now take you to see the sunrise, as I watch it set.

Your loving mother,

Maram

THE END