by Erin Trampler Bell.
I didn’t think I’d get burned again. I mean, once you have felt that flame the first time you are certain it will never be that bad again… What’s old is new, I suppose. Well, let’s not get too cliche all at once, eh?
Thing is, I remember every time it has happened. The fire is not comfortable, and you never get used to it. That, of course, goes without saying. But I don’t think it’s ever really considered in all its iterations. You can ponder it, but you can’t even imagine the level of excruciating that is the inferno. And believe me, I know whereof I speak. It’s not the one you get after life, either. In fact, the afterlife is wholly different from that. But the inferno… well, Dante relayed but a fraction of that pain. Ah, we create a true hell on earth—every day.
And I should know. I’ve run the experience too many times.
But I’m ahead of myself. That will never do. Let me start with the very first time.
It is so long ago as to make me wonder if it even happened. It’s on the edge of memory, but I dream about it, every once in a while. I have a vague sense of living on the edge of a small settlement… a troupe, perhaps. The others, nearly faceless—almost not human—look at me with derision. I don’t quite fit the community. I’m old. Older than most have lived to be. And because of that, they see me as outside.
So, I live on the edge of what is the accepted society. I have a young one, I remember that, but they think I am too old to care for him. They don’t understand how I could be so old. None of them have ever gotten to be so old, and still had a young one. Even his father has now abandoned me. The babe suckles much longer than is usual, and I can’t bear to release him. He is so dependent. And they… they all begin to ignore me. How could one so old have a little one? Why mother him in that way? It’s not normal. It’s wrong.
Eventually, I starve… for food certainly, but also for affection, for my community. I have grown too old. Of course, this time it isn’t really the flame—just simple ostracism. But the root is the same, and it still creates a searing pain within. Because I am ostracized, I don’t get enough to eat. And because I’m still suckling my boy, I, instead, am the one being eaten away.
I die because they don’t think I should be the way I am. I don’t fit, or belong. The young are to bear the young. The old… well… they are not supposed to be, let alone to bear. Somehow I know that no one feels the loss. I die as my boy suckles; I am drained of life even as I feed him. Quietly, but not without intent, I am removed through the will of the society that has decided I do not have worth.
It was afterward that things got strange. The first thing I noticed after death is the voice that spoke in my mind… the second thing was the realization that mind was all there was left of me. Interestingly, I wasn’t quite sure who I was, though I could remember the details of my life. Still, that being, who I had been, was just a moment in a vast ocean of time. And I knew that. Still, I was certainly unique, separate from the voice that drifted through my newly discovered consciousness.
The voice was indistinct. I would love to be able to tell you what it said at that point, but I can’t. I couldn’t understand it at all. It talked for some time, speaking words both vehement and soothing. I felt a strange grief not being able to understand what it said. It was then that the very strong sense came to me that my boy was dead. As I had the thought, the image of him sprang into being. His body lay quietly, slumped on a riverbank, neglected… alone.
I thought, of course my boy died too. He couldn’t feed himself. He had suckled too long, and no one cared for him after me. The survival of the group depends upon eradicating the outliers, after all.
Oh, how much I wished I could cry. But then the voice began to sing, and the vision faded. I felt a strange comfort flow through me, though I didn’t know why. I was confused by such swiftly shifting emotions. My thoughts were swimming.
The singing made me feel relaxed, calm. My consciousness began to drift. My feelings evened out… went dark.
I slowly begin to waken into what feels like a dream compared to where I was just moments ago. I slip into another life, another lifetime. It’s hot, humid here.
It’s hard to explain how, but at first I know I’m still the same me, even though I’m not. At the same time, I’m wholly new. Over time, I forget much of who I was before. It vanishes from me as I grow from a babe in arms to a young woman, daughter to a wise man in the village. What was dreamlike has become my new being.
As my life develops, I am given by my family to a young man to provide him with his land, his babies, his labor. The land technically belongs to me, but I belong to him. He’s rough, cruel. He beats me and the children, but that’s normal, typical. We don’t have lives of our own. We are property. My father had always been a kindly man, gentle and quiet; but he was the exception. And I belong to one of the more admired hunters in the village. His pride has become power, and no one questions his behavior because he brings much food to the people, much protection from the neighboring tribes when they come to maraud, to steal women and children.
But I am a good woman. Even though I came from a lesser family, further from the village center, I have learned great skills at preparing the meat he brings, of making fine tools, of providing many plant foods, and of healing his occasional wounds. I had learned these skills from my mother. And I begin to get a reputation. I use these healing skills to help others of the village. It makes my husband puff up his chest. I decorate him like a bauble around his neck.
One day, this great warrior gets angry when my little one breaks a treasure of his. He begins to shake her, punch her, pull at her fingers until he breaks them. As I see my child threatened for her life, I can take no more. I jump at him, ripping a series of stripes onto his cheek before he can react. He looks at me incredulously as his shaking fingers reach to dab pearls of blood on his face. His expression changes from shock to rage.
He easily throws me to the ground and looses his anger on me as my little one lies weeping. He accuses me of being an evil woman, of stepping out of my place. He implies that my family is outcast, and that he did them a favor taking in a sorceress like me.
This is a new concept. He flings at me that I must be helped by evil spirits, rather than good. For how else could I know so much, do so many things well? In his anger, he talks himself into the idea that I myself must be an evil spirit, for attempting to go against tradition, for coming from an outcast family, for standing up for my little one. My healing powers must come from evil.
He casts me out, throws me away… but that’s not enough. He calls the other villagers. As I try to run away, my youngest in my arms, they throw stones. Well, to start. I’m hit with one, in the head, and I stagger. The pain shocks through me, electric and raw. I taste metal. And then he throws the rock.
This time I became aware more smoothly. It wasn’t as disjointed as the first time. The waking and the recognition of the voice and the lack of corporeal certitude happened all at once, and I even had the vague idea that this wasn’t the first time I’d been here, though I didn’t remember the details.
The voice spoke nearly as incoherently, still strident, still calming. But there’s one thing I will always have in my memory from this time—the recognition of one, single word. It was the first time I heard a word I recognized in this place, so it was striking. It’s the most vivid memory of all those I have retained.
“Remember.” That’s all it said. It was so strong, that one word. And then, the vision arose of my body, my corpse, on a pyre.
But this time, I don’t know what happened to my child. I… died… before I could know. The voice sang me to sleep again without giving me the comfort of knowing her fate, as I had known of my son’s death before. All I can think is that because I never saw her in this place, she must not have come here in the way I did. I can only hope so. No one should have to come here in the way I—or others I have loved—came here.
All the rest was singing, a lullaby to soothe me into the dream again.
I awaken. I’m in a village again. It’s cool this time, damp. Like before, I live on the edge, not in the town center. Over a lonely lifetime, I again become old, though there are others as old as I. They live in the village. They belong. I’m not sure how I don’t belong, but then there I am on the edge.
I go out to tend my garden, to submerge in work the nagging sense I’ve had throughout my life that there’s something I should remember. This work is the center of my life: caring for those plants. Vervain, monkshood, eyebright, others. I use them to help many of those in the village who are suffering. I am kindness to their pain, hope to their loss. I don’t belong, but because I provide a vital service, I am not entirely separate.
There is no one I call mine. I don’t have children this time. I don’t fit into the social structure that way. I’m an auntie to many in the village, but neither any man’s desire nor, admittedly, my own, have brought that end.
Because of my life’s experience, I know more than most people in the village, including the leaders of it. I come from a tradition of women before me who learn the benefits of herbs, who understand the process of birthing a child and can guide it, who pay attention to the seasons and observe rituals based on them. We have been here for a long time. And there are some who have also been here for a long time who don’t like that. When their wives or daughters come to me for advice or treatment, these men—and sometimes also women—knit their brows. I’m not sure what I’ve done to deserve the ire, but it is palpable. I don’t know whether it is a cause or a result of the fact that I don’t belong. But we have never belonged.
There’s one in particular who is very vocal about his condemnation of my activities. He’s the religious leader of the village, who came to us from another place, far away. I don’t know if it’s because he’s jealous that the others continue to come to me for advice, rather than him, or that he fears the knowledge I have, which he doesn’t understand. All I know is that his comments to the others bring me fear. They become more and more threatening, and some of the other leaders begin to whisper together. Some of the women, who have never come to see me, start to gossip with the women who do. With some hesitation, many stop coming.
One of the more confident of those who do still come defends me. She argues with the religious leader, tells him that I and others like me have been doing what we do for so long, the people can’t remember when we didn’t. We help the people. We tend the garden. We are the wise ones who commune with God in the wilderness and bring healing back to the people.
The religious leader counters simply that God has told him that this is evil.
My friend falls silent. She hasn’t heard this idea before. None of us have. Seeing her, and the small crowd that has gathered, taken aback and silent, the religious leader is emboldened and begins to ramble on the theme. To me, it seems to be blather, but he says that God spoke to him and said that women should listen to what men say, that they are unclean and must look to men for guidance; that where he comes from, this is how things are. He says that women are weak, that we have little moral strength, and that our ways will lead to the undoing of society, and that therefore the men must be relied upon for good judgment. Women like me, he says, uppity women without men and those who keep secrets to themselves, are not wise at all, but instead are proof of destructive spirits who lead normal villagers astray.
These words awake something within me. I was wrong—I have heard this before. But… where? The nagging sense of needing to remember something inches through my mind.
But I’m distracted as the religious man continues. The violent storms lately, he says, and the fact that our crops haven’t grown well this year, are proof of God’s disapproval. Then he plants the seed of suspicion: and why, at the same time that our crops fail, do my herbs always seem to be doing well?
My friend, having regained her composure, scoffs at this. Her husband, a quiet man who doesn’t like making waves, walks up behind her and puts a light hand on her shoulder. She turns to him, shakes her head, and frowns. She walks away with him, his arm gently yet firmly wrapped around her. Others look around, confused, as they begin to wander away to their homes. No one looks at me anymore, excepting a few sideways glances.
My visitors come less and less frequently. More stop coming altogether. My friend still visits, and speaks about her undying support for me, about the stupidity of superstitious sheep. This brings a sad smile to my face.
You see, I have begun to remember.
What I heard during the religious leader’s speech nags at me that something like this has happened to me before, though of course it couldn’t have. But a shifting memory in my mind, speaking words I can’t understand, begins to feel like a warning.
The rest goes by in a rush. Soon after this event, one of the people I treat, who has a bleeding illness, dies unexpectedly. I am blamed when whispers emerge that perhaps I would have willed it as vengeance on those who doubted me. I am banned from helping anyone, labeled a witch. When my friend again scoffs and tries to stand up to the gossip, more whispers rise about her. People become frightened as some imply that she and I are conspiring to destroy the village through a pact with a very evil spirit. The leaders can’t quell the fear. They don’t even try. And when an angry wild boar rips through one of the young men during a hunt, as has sometimes happened before, it is seen this time as proof of our guilt.
One night, my small hut is invaded. As I am taken outside by a group of men from the village, I see that my precious herbs are aflame. I stand, held tightly, and watch as my home is lit as well. My friend is also dragged out, bedraggled, in her sleep shift. Her husband follows silently, wringing his hands, afraid to speak. I hear the religious leader telling him that this is the only way to purge evil spirits—that his God has told him this.
They tie us together, bind our feet so we cannot run. They surround us with dried grass, wood… kindling. I feel my eyes grow wide as they touch the flame to the pile. I feel my heart race. I have no control over my body anymore, as I feel the heat grow around me, sear into my skin. I begin to scream as I hear my friend begin to scream, too. The screaming seems to go on forever.
Then, there was silence. That is, until the voice started speaking again. As I slowly awoke into the void a third time, I heard it, bell-clear and pervasive. As it spoke, the feeling that was me dissolved into dry tears again. What on earth was that?
“It is pain,” the voice responded. “The pain of a society that is not aware. Remember.”
My thoughts stopped as soon as I realized what I had just heard. I understood! I understood what the voice was saying.
“It is always burning.” The words came clearly through again. “But the burning can end. Be aware. Remember.”
Clear thoughts rose through my disembodied mind in response. “How can I remember? How can I be aware? I feel that I am only aware when I am here. How can I carry this through?”
The voice continued, heedless of my questions. “Through awareness only can the chain be broken. Only through knowledge and understanding of the source can all see the predicament. No one is truly alone. All are outliers, and none are. This is what binds everything together.
“Remember!”
The voice went silent. Then the calming, wordless singing began again.
“Wait, no!” I called out as my mind began to drift into the song. “Help me remember. How do I remember?”
But the words were gone. My mind faded away, and…
I’m awake again. This life I’m born, grow up, and live a slave in a wealthy community. The children become ill, and no doctor can explain it. Because I am not of their kind, I am an easy target. I am burned for casting evil spells on the children, as are several of the poorer women, a few unmarried women, and widows. A man who speaks up for us is killed, too.
In the void, everything passed as it did the last time. The voice gave me the same messages, and I asked the same questions. There was still no answer.
Next life. I’m a young woman in an oppressive culture. I must wear garments that cover my body, completely. One day, I trip and fall, and someone catches a glimpse of my ankle. The men begin to stone me. When I throw a stone back in fear and anger, they descend upon me. I am burned for the demon in me that dares to fight back.
In the void, the same messages followed me again. Silence, and the voice spoke and sang. And again, life after life. I am a mother carrying my child as I flee from the soldiers who have overrun our land and now cut us down and burn our encampment while the men are away. Then silence and the voice spoke and sang. I am a small girl, descended from freed slaves, attending church. I don’t even know why the church blows up and burns with me in it. Then silence and the voice spoke and sang. I am a woman fleeing from a mob in a poor third world country, burned alive as a witch. Then silence and the voice spoke and sang. And I get the sense that there are more lives in between, hundreds of thousands of lives, some mine, some not. It’s blurred together in the history I read during my lives, and in the way the void brought them all into focus outside of each one. Over and over, the burning. Over and over, the voice, always saying the same thing, but with no solution. Remember. How can I remember?
Now here I am, in a strange waking dream. I am alive, and yet the void is present, persistent, around me. Somehow, for some reason, I remember it all this time. It is now, as it always has been. And all around, there are strands, threads of past lives. I see them in others. I read about a young woman pelted with acid for daring to speak out about her oppression, and I wonder if it’s me. I see it in many ways, around me, every day, haunting my dreams with my own past lives as I see them lived out in others. But no, I’m here in this stronghold, on the fringes but happy. I have a job, I have a home, I have a dog. I don’t have much money, but I do what I can. And things are better where I live, partly because, for the first time, I remember. My mother, for one, is part of a generation that has fought to change things. I work with others and I fought to help change things even more. There’s a history, and most people remember that history, and things have changed. I can vote. I have a voice. And I can care for myself. I get health care from a local clinic, from women who also have voices, and strength, and healing in their souls. In fact, I have an appointment there today.
As I get out of the car, I see the protesters. I walk through them, jostled a bit… but I have to have this appointment; I have a cancer that is growing, that they can help me control, that I can afford. But something tugs at my stomach from within, some fear. Is this where it will be? As I stand at the desk, something comes flying through the window. It bursts, and I hear the screams again.
So again I find the void. I really thought that it would be different this time, because I remembered. I did! And I tried to make things better. I’m hoping that the voice will have answer to this change. But I suppose I need to not be the only one who gets the message. And it comes to me: has anyone else ever heard it? Has anyone else ever understood it?
I’m waiting to hear the voice again, here in the void. I wonder if others ever hear it. Because next time, I don’t want to burn.