(Photo by Sindre Strøm)

Gray light filtered down through the shelter Nis had built the night before. It was still very early in the morning and well before sunrise but Nis was wide awake. Songbirds were in the trees calling to one another and for a while Nis was content to just lie there and listen to them sing.

Her dream from the night before hadn’t been anything very memorable and yet she was glad she’d had it rather than something more exciting. She’d been an aged grandmother, sitting in a chair and watching as her children and grandchildren dug her  new well. There was nothing wrong with her old well but it was a bit of a hike up a hill to get to and her children were concerned she might be having trouble getting out to it as often as she needed.

She was having trouble making the climb but she didn’t want to stop going up the hill. Most days she tended to spend a good long while sitting up there beside the well, catching her breath and looking over the lands her family had lived on for uncounted generations. She’d certainly not give that up entirely but having a well nearer to her home would mean she could spare her knees on the days they were feeling particularly stiff and painful.

No one spoke to her during the dream and that was just fine. There was a simple joy in seeing her family come together and work side by side. She missed the days when she was young and still raising her own children, seeing them all spread out among the fields with the older ones helping their younger siblings.

Nis dreamed of those sorts of lives infrequently although she wasn’t sure why that should be the case. It only made sense that the majority of her past lives would have been like the one she’d dreamed about that night. Why then did she only have a few dreams from those lives? Having now tasted a bit of adventure herself, Nis knew which type of life she would have preferred to live.

Comfortable as she was, Nis couldn’t keep lying there all morning with so much still to figure out on the raft. Still longing for a simpler life, Nis crawled out of her shelter and began stretching to loosen up her joints and muscles. Growing up on a farm meant that she wasn’t lacking in strength or endurance, but even still she was sore from the near constant exertion she’d been forced into over the past several days.

The first order of business she saw to was digging a latrine. She didn’t bother digging very deep since she didn’t intend on being in this place for very long. While she dug the latrine she began thinking about the raft. It needed better lashings, that was obvious, but the more she thought about it, the more things she thought of that they would need. Currently, there was no way to steer the raft and neither did they have any sort of shelter on the raft. Even if they had decent weather, they’d want some shade during midday when the sun would no longer be hidden behind the trees. A means of anchoring the raft in place would also be a welcomed addition, otherwise they’d have to pull the raft all the way up onto shore whenever they needed to stop.

With the latrine dug, she turned her attention to the raft. The lashings that held the deck in place were fairly easy to remove. Nis had made sure she didn’t attach anything in a manner that would make it too difficult for them to remove in case they needed to make adjustments or even repairs later on. The deck looked to be fine as it was. The willow branches that she’d woven into it added a significant amount of structure and stability. The base of the raft was another story. She’d only lashed the logs at their ends since that was how she’d made most of the fences she’d worked on in the past. Nis couldn’t remember Mel’s exact process for building a river raft which was why Nis had built the base like a fence in the first place.

To correct her mistakes, Nis began by adding more lashings at varying intervals along each log. Those lashings greatly reduced the twisting and turning the logs had previously been prone to doing. She added a pair of logs, laid diagonally from one corner to the other and that finally seemed to fix that issue. She then replaced the deck and lashed it back into place.

Nis’ stomach growled. It was becoming easy for her to forget about needing to eat. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing, though. Stepping back from her work on the raft for a few minutes, she placing her fishing baskets into the river and then set about seeing what all she could forage in this area. Fortunately, her memories from Mel’s life proved accurate and she was able to find a number of edible roots, wild berries, and even a colony of what Mel had called sweet beetles. The beetles themselves weren’t very sweet but their larva were. Nis dug out around the beetle’s mound until she found the larva nest and helped herself to a nice handful, being careful not to take too many so that the colony would survive. The larva themselves didn’t move much, being normally contained in a sort of half cocoon and being fed by the adult beetles.

It could be difficult to tell in the forest when sunrise occurred but Nis was fairly confident that the sun had crested the horizon. The ribbon of sky that Nis could see was no longer gray and purple but instead a faint orange.

“You awake?” Nis called over to Meric who was still curled up beneath her shelter.

“Yeah,” came the faint and groggy reply.

“I’ve got some food if you’re hungry,” Nis told her as Meric crawled out and into view. “I dug a latrine over there if you need it,” she added, pointing.

Meric nodded and stumbled off in the direction Nis had indicated. While she was gone, Nis worked on grinding the roots into a smooth paste, using two stones she’d been carrying in her pack ever since she’d left the copse of trees on the outskirts of Duran. The beetle larva and berries got added to the roots and made for a sweet and tangy mash. These particular roots by themselves were rather bland so the additional flavors were a definite improvement.

As she finished with the mash, a fish began to splash around in one of her baskets. Nis retrieved the fish and was just beginning to clean it when Meric returned.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Meric said as she rubbed her face with the palms of her hands. “I’ve been staying up late and getting up early every day the entire time I was with the trackers and I never had a hard time getting up. I think last night was the first good sleep I’ve had but,” she waved her hands in the air as if she didn’t know what else to say.

Nis didn’t know what to say either and just handed Meric a broad leaf on which she’d placed half of the mash. The strips of raw fish were laid out on a leaf of their own that Nis placed between them to share.

“The leaf’s edible, too,” Nis said. “You don’t have to eat it but you can if you want.”

Nis folded one end of her own leaf and then rolled it up, forming a tube with the mash inside and took a bite. The leaf didn’t add much flavor but did help with the texture.

“This is pretty good,” Meric said, brightening. “Is this what you’ve been eating along the way? Gorvis and Trow didn’t forage much so we mostly just ate the rations in our packs.”

“Some days the foraging is pretty slim,” Nis said. “Most of the time it was just fish and some bitter roots.”

“Well this sure beats trail rations,” Meric said, “thank you.”

Nis gave Meric an appreciative nod and they both carried on eating in silence. Eating insects and raw fish weren’t unheard of in Duran but they were certainly not the most common of meals so when Nis noticed how Meric avoided eating any of the fish she had prepared she was glad Meric hadn’t asked her what was in the mash. Even Nis had to avoid thinking too much about the larva while she ate. Growing up, Nis’ parents enjoyed roasting locusts and then rolling them in honey as a special treat around harvest time, but for some reason that never seemed to bother her. Perhaps it was simply because she’d grown up with it and so it seemed normal to her, whereas the sweet beetles were something that Mel had often eaten but Nis had never come across in her own life. She wasn’t even sure if sweet beetles could be found around Duran or if they were only found in the Unexplored Wastes.

“Have you been able to think of some solutions for the raft?” Meric asked once she’d finished her breakfast.

“Yeah, I think I’ve gotten the main body of the raft fixed,” Nis told her. “I was just about to get started on the supports for the big log when I got hungry and had to stop to make breakfast.”

“Wait, you’ve already been working on the raft?”

“I woke up early,” Nis shrugged, “and figured I might as well get started on it.”

“Next time you should wake me up so I can help out, too.”

“I’m just not used to having anyone around to help.”

“Well now you do,” Meric said as she walked down to the river bank and started pulling up various branches and driftwood. “We just need a few more long poles, right? To reinforce the ones we’ve already got?”

“Yeah,” Nis replied. “If you can work on finding those, I want to see if I can figure out a way to steer the raft.”

“Good idea,” Meric said, her eyes widening at the thought of not having a means of controlling the raft once they got started.

By midday they had the raft more or less finished. Meric had been able to brace the poles that held the larger log and Nis had fashioned them a basic rudder. For a shelter, Nis took the shelter they’d made for Meric the night before and, with a few small knots here and there, were able to lash it well enough together that they could lift it up and move it directly onto the raft. With a few more modifications they made it large enough so they both could fit, and then lashed it to the deck so it wouldn’t be at risk of sliding off the raft in rough waters. For an anchor they tied a large rock to a forked branch that in turn was tied to a long piece of rope that Nis wove into the raft. When not in use, they could coil the rope up and place the anchor in the center of the coil. Then when they wanted to stop they could lower the anchor over the side until it hit the river bottom. If all worked out right, the anchor would give them enough drag to bring the raft to a stop. If needed, they could tie the raft to nearby trees or overhanging branches with some extra rope they had left over.

“It looks good,” Meric said approvingly. “ready to test it?”

“I think so,” Nis replied and together they pushed the raft gently out into the flow of the river.

Nis and Meric each held onto the anchor’s rope to keep the raft from floating away without them. The raft bobbed and fought against them as the river tried to push the raft away but everything looked solid.

“That’s good enough for me,” Nis said.

“Me too, I guess,” Meric said, albeit with slightly less confidence.

They’d already cleaned up their camp and were ready to go so after a quick count to three, they both leaped onto the raft. The river began to carry them along right away. Nis hurried to the branch that controlled the rudder and steered them into the middle of the river while Meric coiled the anchor’s rope.

“We’re on our way now!” Nis exclaimed, feeling as though she were finally regaining some measure of control over her life. Of all the things she’d done in following in Mel’s footsteps, rafting down the river Patience was the most satisfying thing of them all. She could almost feel Mel standing beside her, eager to share the secret coves and wonders of the Unexplored Wastes.

Meric sat on the deck near the middle of the raft and stayed there, silent, for some time. Nis assumed it was the fear from her experience on Fools Fall. She couldn’t really blame her for being nervous after almost drowning.

As the forest moved by them on either side, Nis began to recognize certain patches here and there. A bend in the river, a place where it widened out before splitting only to come back together a while later. Nis had her maps that she’d drawn of the Unexplored Wastes but found that she rarely needed them as memories of Mel going this way countless times came easily to her mind.

“Can I ask where we’re going?” Meric asked after a few hours.

“One of Mel’s secret places.” Nis said. “She had dozens of them, scattered all over the Wastes..”

“And then where?” Meric asked.

Nis frowned.

“What do you mean? We’re not going anywhere after that,” Nis said. “I mean, I guess we could try a few of the secret places out, see which one’s our favorite or maybe go from one to another every once in a while.”

“You mean you’re going to just live out here?” Meric gaped. “For the rest of your life?”

“What else can I do?” Nis demanded.

“I don’t know,” Meric admitted, her anxiety noticeably rising. “I thought you were going to go to some other city, or maybe another country where you could just hide out for a while. Maybe even settle down and just stay there but I didn’t think you were just running away to live in the Wastes!”

“I can’t risk being around people. What if I went someplace else and they also wanted my dreams?”

“I get why you left the archives, I wouldn’t be able to stand being kept locked up like that either,” Meric said, “but why are you suddenly so afraid of people knowing about your past lives? I thought you were always happy to tell people about them.”

“I was,” Nis said, lowering her voice as she noticed how both of them had been steadily approaching shouting, “but then, after what happened to Kyneh –

“What did happen to Kyneh?” Meric cut in. “All anyone ever said was that he kept bothering you with his questions until you lost your temper and he got hurt or something.”

“No,” Nis breathed, “Kyneh didn’t do anything wrong. I was happy to answer his questions.”

“Then what happened?”

Nis remembered the sensation of being taken over, controlled by that past life, and having to watch as her own hand picked up the knife and moved to stab Kyneh, to kill him because he was learning things that the past life didn’t want uncovered. She felt that past life close to her now, as though watching and waiting to see what Nis would tell Meric and whether or not it would agree with Nis’ decision.

“Nis?” Meric prompted.

“It was someone else,” Nis managed to say. “I told Kyneh something from one of my past lives that the other person had tried to erase from history. They tried to kill Kyneh but I stopped them and Kyneh was able to escape. I knew it was only a matter of time before they’d return and since it was me and my knowledge, my memories that they wanted to keep hidden I had to make sure I kept myself hidden.”

Meric eyed Nis, skepticism heavy on her expression.

“Who was it?” she asked.

“I don’t know her name.”

“What did she look like?”

“I didn’t get a good look at her.”

“Was it one of your past lives?”

Nis met her gaze but couldn’t speak her answer. Instead she simply nodded her head and hoped that her past life wouldn’t find this admission too unpalatable. Nis tensed but nothing happened and soon the sensation of being watched passed.

“So there’s no going back to civilization?” Meric asked.

“Not for me,” Nis said and it came out more like whisper. “But you could go back. Tell them I captured you and that you had escaped, or something like that. You don’t have to live out here for the rest of your life.”

Meric didn’t respond and Nis was glad for that since it allowed her the possibility of not spending the rest of her life alone even though she expected Meric to eventually leave to return to Duran. This life clearly wasn’t what Meric had expected and nor was it something she was seemingly ready to accept.