The second memory

 “You found me – Shizuka by that tree?” I asked.

Which meant Shizuka had most likely been abandoned there by parents who didn't want her. Yet another overlap with the life I, too, had lived.

“Yes,” said Uchi. “That place used to be a good spot for special herbs but that's all in the past now. Let's focus on fusing your future, shall we?”

Fuse as in combine my identity with Shizuka's? Though I had no desire to admit it to them, I couldn't deny that my soul seemed to fit in the dead lady's body like a hand in a tailored glove. Honestly I remembered feeling more uncomfortable in my own skin back on earth. Almost as if I needed to grip the reins of my own existence tighter to keep my normal body under control.

Being able to both hear Shizuka's story from her friends, as well as witness some of it first hand in the form of her memories, was beginning to alter my perspective on a lot of things that had felt off in my previous life. The way I always seemed to know things about various plants despite never having studied them. My interest in East Asian-style clothes. The distant between me and my family that never closed no matter how much I tried to reach them.

“She's right,” said Yua when I didn't answer right away. “The sooner we can confirm whether you're Shizuka or Sheila, the sooner we can plan our next move.”

“Wait, before you do that,” I said, gesturing at the mystical arrangement on the table. “Can you tell me one thing first?”

“Just one thing?” asked Uchi, squinting at me in the semi darkness.

“Maybe two,” I added, clearing my throat. “How did Shizuka die?”

Tatsuya went very still, except for his fingers which twisted into the front of his haori. His younger self had done exactly the same thing and I almost smiled but no one else looked remotely comfortable enough for that.

“What was your second question?” said Uchi after a taut silence.

I sighed. “Exactly how many people want her dead?”

“If we perform the ritual and prove you're Shizuka, we won't need to explain,” she replied.

“Unless I magically get all my memories back once you do, I'm still not going know,” I insisted.

“But if you're Sheila, would you want to return to your own world knowing all of that?” asked Yua. “It seems like it would be a waste of thought space.”

Her words were simple enough but, for half a second, I thought the roof had caved in and it had a grudge against me alone. Return to my own world? Why would I want to do that? I had only just left it behind. I drank some of Uchi's questionable tea to mask the shudder that wracked my body, plagued by a brand new set of questions. Was I only welcome here if I was Shizuka? What would happen if they found out I was Sheila? Would they all turn their backs on me and hand me over to the people they had been hiding me from all this time?

“What's wrong?” murmured Tatsuya as I set the mug down again.

“Nothing.” I forced the words out and straightened my back. “Okay. Let's do it then.”

I wanted to ask if it would hurt but Uchi seemed to be waiting for me to say something else so I didn't. I expected her to ask the others to leave the room but she didn't. There really was nothing predictable about this life so far and I'd be lying if I said I didn't appreciate it.

She scraped one of the matches across what looked like a wooden skull carving and used it to light a candle in the centre. She used the other to burn three short incense stubs that formed a triangle around the other items and shook the flames off both before standing up. An acrid scent, like burnt honey mixed with green tea spread throughout the room as she made her way behind my chair.

“You don't have to do anything,” she said, waving a hand around the thin smoke until it became a slowly swirling vortex, then wafting it towards my face. “Just breathe.”

That was simple enough. I only wanted to cough and sneeze simultaneously but there were worse fates for sure. I stifled both urges and tried to even out my breathing, horribly aware of all the eyes on me. Eyes that belonged to people who desperately wanted me to be Shizuka. Who would most likely try and find a way to send me back to earth if I wasn't.

Uchi placed one hand atop my head and curled the other one around my forehead as if she were about to snap my neck, her touch warmer than expected. Was that their next move if the ritual gave them anything other than the answer they all sought? I just hoped I would at least get sweat on her hands before that particular plan was carried out and calculated the distance to the door. Unfortunately Kohaku was positioned between me and it. A power imbalance that wouldn't be affected even if I kicked the table over.

“We are one with nature and to nature we all return,” announced Uchi and bit my lip to stifle an inappropriate laugh. “We, who are forever connected to our home world, seek Shizuka Spirit-hands. One who has been lost to our mortal eyes for many years. If her soul lingers here, we ask that you show us now so that we all may find peace in her passing.”

Was she speaking to a God? To the spirits of the land? To the heavens? I had a feeling I wouldn't know even if I could see her face from my position in the chair. The smoke spiralling above the table thickened suddenly and flowed into the shape of a hand splayed towards the ceiling. I reminded me of the times I had amused myself with my own shadow by using a torch in my dark bedroom after being sent upstairs early. This was a lot creepier.

The fingers moved like dying spider legs for a second, then stretched out all at once before the arm rotated on the spot. As if it were scanning not just the room but the entire world. It stopped once its wrist faced me and I coughed despite everything, taking the opportunity to cover my face. Which didn't seem to affect its sensing abilities in the slightest. The smoke seemed to ripple like water and then the hand lowered in a similarly fluid motion.

Pointing straight at me and triggering the second memory.

“Who are you?” asked the grey haired teenager who had just barged into Uchi's shop.

“I'm Shizu-” I walked around the examining table to get a closer look at the person she was carrying.

There was a lot of blood running from a wound somewhere on the other youth's head, down over their oddly shaped nose and jawline, soaking the fur that coated their neck.

“- Can you heal people too?” she said, setting her companion down on the table as soon as I gestured towards it. “None of the other healers would help. Only one of them told me about a witch called Uchi.”

She didn't need to explain why they had been turned away and it had very little to do with the complexity of the patient's injuries.

“Uchi isn't here right now,” I said, pushing up my sleeves and examining the shifted one's head closely for any other wounds. “But if you don't mind, I'll do what I can to help.”

“Is it bad?” The striking stranger clutched her friend's limp arm. “Is she going to –?”

“I don't think we'll lose her,” I said quickly, collecting clean clothes and gauze. “Could you fill that bowl with warm water and bring it here?”

She followed my instructions without question and I hoped she would learn not to trust strangers so easily without any unpleasant guidance from me. I held my hands over the patient and closed my eyes. A map of her body structures glowed in the darkness of my eyelids, each system a different colour. Red for the blood vessels and related organs, white for the bones, green for the lymphatic system, and many more.

I scanned the intertwined lines and shapes in search of any that had been broken, unbalanced, or knocked off route. I found a nest of broken blood vessels and a enlarged red tinted void close to the crown of her head that normally indicated a swelling of some kind. An easy mess to fix with enough energy and concentration –

“Great powers, are you a psychior?” exclaimed the conscious stranger.

“A what?” I asked without opening my eyes.

“Psychic warrior.” Excitement wrestled with the worry in her voice as I nodded. “It's my first time meeting one. I didn't know they could be healers. Is this Uchi one too?”

“I manipulate energy,” I said slowly. “But I need to focus to do it properly.”

“Oh, okay.” Her silence was an intense as her interrogation.

I was temped to peek and make sure she hadn't left us alone in the shop but I hadn't finished coaxing various bloods cells into the area of burst capillaries and larger blood vessels to speed up the healing process. She didn't speak again until I opened my eyes and checked her friend's breathing rhythm with the back of my hand. It was stable and the blood had stopped trickling down her scalp.

“Is she alive?” she asked in a hushed tone.

“She is but she'll have to be careful for a while,” I replied, taking the bowl of warm water that she was still holding, and cleaning the patient's face and head thoroughly. “How high up was she?”

“Someone told us the Spiritless Tree would come back alive if we reached the top of it,” she said, looking away as soon as my eyes snapped up to hers. “We didn't get that far. It was just a waste of time.”

“If she had fallen into the Jaw, it would have been more than just a waste of time,” I said softly.

People normally reacted better to flowers than they did to thorns, even if both bore the same poisonous message.

“I know,” she said, her gaze and voice alike heavy with guilt. “We won't go there again.”

“That's probably a good idea,” I said, dabbing the last of the blood and dirt off her strong chin.

She looked like a wolf-shifted one, her body large and even more muscular than the girl who had brought her in.

“You said your name was Shizu, right?” said the latter, shifting closer. “I'm Kohaku. Thank you for helping m-”

 “Shizuka, what's going on?” demanded Uchi from the doorway, her bag of herbs slung over one shoulder. Her exhausted expression switched to an irritated one as she pointed at the patient on her soiled table. “And what's that doing here?”

I blinked and clenched my teeth to hold in a gasp.

The pale brown walls of the shop switched to grey brick walls. The scent of herbs was stronger than it had been back then but not powerful enough to distract me from the scene I had just witnessed.

Uchi had been racist against the human with animal-like features. Did they call it racism here too or did they have another word for it? Either way, the elderly hands on my head were suddenly a lot less welcome than they had been a second ago. Not that I had been comfortable with their position in the first place.

“Someone stop Toshi,” said the woman behind me.

Tatsuya's arm shot out and hooked around the abdomen of the younger woman who had been about to throw herself on me.

“What're you doing?” she exclaimed as he pulled her away towards his other side. “It's Shizu!”

“The ritual isn't over yet,” he said, sitting back down again and keeping his other hand raised in front of her cautiously.

My skin crawled as if trying to escape the clingy touch of the smoke and I turned away from the smouldering hand-shape that was still pointing at me. Yua's turquoise eyes cut through the fumes, holding both questions and plans that I knew I couldn't escape. I avoided looking at the other two but their stares burned my face, hotter than the candle before me.

“You, who speak for the nature of all things, living and everlasting,” continued Uchi, twisting my face back towards the hand. The motion made my neck ache. “You are above mistakes but we lesser beings doubt eternally. Please show us once again where the soul of Shizuka Spirit-hands wanders.”

A tongue of rippling flame snaked around the wrist of the hand and highlighted its extended finger as it moved towards me. I pulled my hands out of my sleeves but Tatsuya touched my left arm, just below the crease of my elbow, and shook his head faintly. I had no reason to trust his small smile. For all I knew, I was sitting there waiting for that smoke to yank my soul out of my chest and drag it back to earth, and it wouldn't even have any feet or a mouth to kick and scream all the way there.

The breathe I drew in shook audibly, embarrassingly, and I placed my unsteady fists in my lap. The smoke stopped moving, the tip of its index finger inches away from my hammering heart, leaving no doubt about its message.

“We thank you, oh speaker of fate,” rumbled Uchi. “And promise to dedicate our hands to your service and our feet to the paths you paint for us forever. For we are one with nature and to nature we all return.”

The smoke collapsed back on itself and dissipated, its movement as unnatural as ever, and the candle went out. Its wick spewed thin curls of vapour along with the incense sticks that formed the points of the triangle on the table.

“Open the windows,” said Uchi as she released my head.

I wanted to curl in on myself, if only to avoid seeing the thoughts of the people around me, but it didn't make a difference. I could feel them all, like a shoal of curious fish swimming in the air, nibbling at my clothes, my hair, my flesh. Some of them harmless, others like potential piranhas waiting for my reaction.

The evidence in this world was in favour of me being Shizuka.

But the me who came from another still couldn't align with such as admission.

Even if those memories felt like my own. Even if everyone in this world wanted me to be Shizuka, for better or worse. Even if rejecting the apparent truth of this existence could lead to me being thrown back into a world that had given up on me already.

I wasn't Shizuka. I was Sheila.

But there was no reason they needed to know I still thought that.

Kohaku and Washi had cracked opened two windows on either side of the room and the smoked cleared, taking the overwhelming musk of the smouldering incense with it. Toshi quivered like a chihuahua in my peripheral vision, waiting to unleash herself on me as soon as I accepted my fate. Tatsuya's hand remained on my arm but he didn't say anything. They were all waiting for me to pick a path and then speak.

“Well, that was scary,” I said as soon as I trusted my voice to emerge in one piece. “We don't have smoky hands like that in my world. Not that I've seen, at any rate.”

“Your world?” asked Yua. I wondered if I had imagined the stiffness in her tone.

“The one where I was known as Sheila.” I examined my hands but that didn't block out the wave of misplaced relief that crashed over me from all sides. “I don't think I'll forget about it for a long time but I did remember something else.”

“What did you remember?” asked Uchi, walking around the chairs to stand at an angle to me.

“I saved someone – a shifted one – the day I met Kohaku.” Despite my decision, the act weighed down my muscles, my gaze, and even my voice. The muscular woman's attention was fixed on me. “Is she still alive?”

She laughed and closed her eyes for a second. The low yet sweet sound melted away the apprehension that had been clogging the room.

“She is,” she said, moving away from the open window and holding a hand out to me once she was standing next to Uchi. “She'll still got the scars though so we never forget.”

“You all seem very good at remembering things.” I grinned and hated my own performance with a passion, bracing myself as I took her hand. “Unlike someone we know.”

She pulled me out of the chair and into yet another hug that was only slightly less breathtaking than the last, her chuckles genuine enough to make my eyes water.

“Welcome back, Shizu,” she said.

“Don't say that like I've remembered everything,” I blinked the tears away, hidden by her shoulder, then tried to pull away.

“But you remembered me,” she replied smoothly, tilting my face upwards with a crooked forefinger.

My heart stuttered and I wondered if Shizuka handled Kohaku's seemingly unintentional flirting better than I did.

“She remembered me first,” said Tatsuya, pulling her hands away from my chin and back, his lips pressed into an warning line.

I stepped back and tried to breathe, failing as Toshi took advantage of the distraction and flung herself at me.

“Why don't you remember me?” she whined, holding onto me tightly.

“I'm sure it'll all come back to me eventually,” I said breathlessly as I tried to pull her off.

I could have sworn my ribs creaked under the pressure and my eyes were still blurry.

“Don't take it personally.” This time it was Washi that peeled her off me, shaking his head with a knowing grin. “She doesn't remember me either.”

“You can't say I didn't want you,” I told him as soon as I had enough air in my lungs to form a sentence.

“I don't mind,” he said, holding Toshi back. “Take all the time you need. I can wait.”

“Thanks.” I backed off even further and the door was so close I almost felt the grass beneath my feet.

But I couldn't run off now. Not after I had made them all believe I was their long lost friend and definitely not before I had gathered all the information I needed to survive in Nippo. I had to find out if Nippo was a town or the name of this new world. If the first, were there other towns? If the second, how did people make a living here?

Despite the feigned success of the ritual, I wasn't sure if I could live here as Shizuka indefinitely. No matter how happy my companions were, I couldn't forget the hatred that had warped Ras' face before he attacked me. The way he hadn't been willing to confirm who I was nor hear me out. Shizuka had done something to him and possibly to someone else. Someone who could make a flying wagon lose control.

“He's right, Shizuka,” said Yua. “We're happy to wait and make new memories in the meantime. What we have to do now is decide how to bring you safely back to Nippo.”

“About that,” I replied, turning my back on Uchi who had still hadn't responded to me indirect confession. “You can tell me now, right?”

“About what?” Her careful articulation told me that she already knew what I meant.

 “Why Ras wants me dead,” I said bluntly. “And why it's not safe for me to go back there.”