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?”