(Photo by James Wheeler)

The archives had no bedrooms. At the end of each day, the archivists and apprentices all retired to a building across from the archives where they lived. For those who were married or had children, they were given larger accommodations with additional rooms. The apprentices were given a pair of small rooms.

Within the archives were a number of private reading rooms. They were just large enough to hold a desk, chair, and bookshelf with enough space left over to stand and stretch. It was into one of those that Nis had been relegated for the time being. They’d set up a small bed in the room, taking up almost all of the remaining floor space and leaving Nis with almost nowhere else to stand besides right in front of the door. Nis used to feel sorry for the apprentices with their cramped quarters but as she sat alone in the reading room that first night, she envied them.

The bookshelf in her room was filled with her journals and a fresh journal sat on the desk, ready to be filled. With the bed in the room, there wasn’t enough space for a chair so for her to write at the desk she would have to sit on the edge of the bed.

She wanted to sleep but every time she dimmed the glow lamp and closed her eyes, events from the day would begin to play over again and again in her mind. The distant and uncomfortable looks from her parents, the missed opportunity to say good bye to them, but particularly she was haunted by her thoughts earlier that day about how little she would miss them, or even remember them in her later lives. Regardless of how true that may or may not turn out to be, confronted as she now was with this separation, she wanted nothing more than to be back in her old room, still a part of her family.

Was this outcome worth her journals? Worth her being allowed to remember and record her past lives? If she had known what the outcome would be, would she still have chosen this path?

“Yes,” Nis was surprised to find herself saying. The weight of all her lives bore down on her and it was only through her journals that she had found relief. If she had returned home, unable to record her dreams, unable to examine the memories, it would have been too much for her. She would have tried to keep a secret journal but her parents would have eventually found out.

Even such acknowledgments brought little comfort to Nis and she buried her face into her pillow and wept. She cried into the long hours of the night, making no effort to stop. She had to let the emotions out, had to feel them, to let them take their course. Like so many children she had raised in lives now past, Nis eventually ran out of tears, ran out of sobs, and was left empty, drained of everything that had been dumped onto her that day and at last she found that she could sleep.

The sea was calm, its waves rising and falling against the shore in a smooth and even rhythm. The rising sun pierced through the trees behind and the long shadows cast by the forest looked like writhing tentacles on the water’s surface. Morning birds called to one another and insects buzzed. The sand was still cool from the previous night and Mel relished the relief it gave her sunburned skin.

To her left, the river she’d been navigating poured out from the land and mixed with the sea in a long, blue-green ribbon stretching out towards the horizon. To her right, the sea carved inland slightly making a sheltered cove where she’d anchored her boat.

Exploring was a lonely existence, she had to admit, but it was these moments, sitting on a shore untouched and unseen by any other person in recorded history, that made it all worth while. She could care less about trade routes or untapped resources. In her experience, the people who spoke in those terms tended to ruin whatever places Mel discovered for them. That was why she kept the best for herself. She couldn’t keep people from finding them all eventually but she could at least slow them down a while. This particular spot, though clearly an excellent route for shipping thanks to the consistently deep and rapids-free river, was too beautiful to spoil. The merchants would want to widen the river in places, they’d clear the forest along the banks and use the wood to build docks and towns along the river, and eventually there wouldn’t be anything left of this beach as it would most likely grow into a major trade hub, a bustling city on the sea.

Someday, she knew, that would be the fate for this place, but she wouldn’t help to hasten its arrival. For now she would tuck away this map with other dozen or so that she kept hidden from the world. Places that were too good, too beautiful, to be spoiled by people.

Of course, having finished this leg of her exploration it was now time for her to begin making her way back to civilization. Mel frowned at the thought of returning home. Everything was always so different when she returned. It seemed the world was changing so rapidly, especially whenever she was gone. The last time she’d returned home it was to discover that an entire war had been started, fought and ended, and an entirely new government installed, now with a governing body of nobles rather than a king. Mel had avoided asking whatever had happened to the old king though she was pretty certain she knew the answer.

For all her love of discovery, she had to admit that she disliked many of the discoveries she’d encountered when returning home. It was a point of contention between her and those she counted as her friends. They often viewed the changes as a sign of progress whereas Mel just wished things could stay the same. What was wrong with walking or riding in a cart? Why did people need to fly in those skyships? Some tried to argue that skyships would make exploration easier, flying high above the dangers down below but they clearly didn’t understand what the point to exploration was. Anyone could draw a map. Anyone could follow a river or mountain range. Only an explorer, however, could understand those places, could tell where the good land was, could make sure to avoid certain areas, and could know when to keep their mouth shut about certain discoveries. Every other explorer that Mel knew felt much the same way as she did. Just because some river had gemstones lining its shores didn’t mean it was worth telling people about. People would die, tripping over each other in their mad rush to get rich, and in the end the river would be fouled and the surrounding area would be filled with graves. Even those who survived, who struck it rich, would be ruined in completely other ways because of the things they would have had to do to survive in such an environment.

People just didn’t look to their past lives like they used to, Mel concluded. More and more, people were looking to the future, rather than the past. They seemed frustrated with being reminded of the old pursuits of their past lives and instead wanted to drown them all out in the commotion of this strange future they were envisioning for themselves. A future of value and control rather than the one of balance and peace.

“We used to move our farms every few years,” Mel said aloud to herself as she often did while alone in the wilds. “We saw how the ground lost its strength if we over used the land. But now people just stay put and throw tons of manure over everything.”

“Does it work?” she asked herself in a sing-song way.

“They can cram more farms into the same area, and they get a good harvest, but now the farms smell of manure year round and the children get sick more often.”

“But if they need less land for farming they can leave the wilderness alone.”

“They just make their towns bigger, which leads to needing more land for homes, and then they need more farms, and then they build more homes, in an endless cycle.”

Mel opened her mouth to voice another of the many arguments she had heard before but couldn’t bring herself to say them. Instead, she lay back on the beach and stared up into the sky, watching the clouds pass and wondering how long it would be before people would be exploring the clouds because they’d discovered everything else there was beneath the sky. It was a depressing thought.

“I should be getting back,” Mel sighed.

She did not want to get up, to go to her boat and begin the journey home. Return trips were never exciting, never enjoyable, since the end of them was always the same. Still, she needed to get back. Her employers would be expecting their map and she did need to get paid so she could make the repairs to her ship that were needed. She’d leave this river off of the map she would give to her employers but there were plenty of other so-called valuable rivers and things that should keep them happy and distracted. She’d found a potential gold vein in a wide valley, as well as a few lakes where the fishing looked to be good.

“Come on,” Mel grunted and pushed herself back up to her feet.

She walked slowly, enjoying the sand between her toes for just a while longer before turning inland and making for her boat. It would still take her a few months to get back home and that, at least, was a comfort to her. A few more months to herself. A few more months without the noise and distractions that people made. Already Mel was thinking of where else she might next decide to explore and how she could sell that idea to others to finance her expedition. She hated having to do that, to justify her explorations, but even she couldn’t fully escape the requirements of living in society. If she could, she would leave them all behind and spend her life just wandering, exploring one place after the next. Sometimes she asked herself what was holding her back and it was always her family that came to mind. Perhaps someday she’d decide not to go back, but not yet. She still had her parents to think of, her brother too, and they, at least, would miss her and that meant something to Mel. If there were those who would still think of her, miss her, then the least she could do was go back home from time to time.