Chapter 30 Water from Mnemosyne #2
Kian’s expression shifted from warm to resigned in an instant. “That’ll be Hecate.”
“She’s early,” I said, suddenly very aware that I was still in sweatpants and an old t-shirt, hair wild from sleep.
“She’s always early.” He stood, taking the tray from my lap with gentle hands. “I’ll let her in. You might want to—”
I scrambled out of bed, looking around for something more appropriate to wear for goddess training.
When I made it downstairs, Hecate was already standing in the living room as if she owned it.
She wore her long trench coat, her silver-streaked curls pulled into a loose knot secured with what looked like actual bones. When her gaze landed on me, amusement flickered across her features.
“I trust you’re ready for me,” she said.
I dressed in clean sweatpants and one of Kian’s oversized shirts, but I still looked like a disaster. I straightened anyway, trying for dignity I didn’t feel. “Y-yes. I’m ready.”
Hecate chuckled and drew a vial from the leather bag slung over her shoulder.
The liquid inside sloshed thick and dark, faintly luminous, like ink threaded with starlight. The light shifted and moved like something alive.
My throat went dry. “What… is that?”
Kian stepped in beside me, his gaze flicking over the vial with calm recognition.
“Water from Mnemosyne,” he said, taking an easy sip from his coffee mug.
My throat went dry. “The river of memory? The actual river?”
“Very good,” Hecate said with approval. “Most mortals wouldn’t recall the name without prompting, let alone its significance.”
“So let me guess,” I tried to joke, “I drink this, and all my past lives come rushing back in a nice, convenient montage?”
“More like an avalanche,” she corrected.
“Nineteen lifetimes, three thousand years, all at once. Most mortals who drink undiluted Mnemosyne water go mad from the weight of it.” She set the vial down on the coffee table with careful deliberation.
“This is diluted. It will open the door without tearing you apart. But you must learn to stand in both worlds at once; past and present, memory and moment.”
The vial looked absurdly small for something that might contain the weight of me.
“Before you drink,” Hecate said, her tone shifting to something instructional, “you need an anchor. Something that tethers you to this life. Without it, you’ll drown in what was and lose what is.”
I swallowed hard. “What kind of anchor?”
“Something immediate. Your name—Melanie, not Kore, not Persephone. The feeling of grass beneath your feet. His presence.” She nodded toward Kian.
“Choose one thing that belongs only to now, and when the memories threaten to consume you, return to it. Speak it aloud if you must. Ground yourself in the present tense.”
“I am Melanie,” I said quietly.
“Good. Again.”
“I am Melanie!”
“That will be your lifeline,” Hecate said. “When the past pulls too hard, say it. Feel it. Believe it. The memories are yours, but they are not all of you. Do you understand?”
I nodded, though my hands were shaking.
“If it helps,” she added, something almost gentle entering her voice, “you may stir it into a drink.”
Kian nudged his mug toward me without a word.
I reached for the vial with trembling fingers, and tipped it into Kian’s chai, watching the memory-water unfurl through the tea, darkening it. I breathed in, steadying myself, and drank. The metallic taste lingered like copper pennies chased by sparks that fizzed down my throat.
Warmth coursed through my chest, and something inside me shifted. My heartbeat seemed to change rhythm, as if it was remembering how to beat in ways it had beaten before.
Hecate’s eyes burned into me. “We will do this outside. To reconnect to yourself, you must connect with the Earth. We will be shrouded from prying eyes.”
My legs felt foreign as I followed her into the yard outside Kian’s flat. Hecate shrugged off her coat, and I saw the runes beneath her skin clearly now, written in light and shadow that shifted when she moved. Her bare feet pressed into the earth like she was rooting herself there.
“Shoes off,” she commanded.
I obeyed with shaking hands, peeling off socks to stand on grass that was shockingly cold and damp. But beneath the cold was something else. A pulse, the world’s own heartbeat drumming up through the earth into my bones.
“Close your eyes,” she said. “Breathe. Feel the ground beneath your feet. That is now. That is real. Hold onto it.”
I focused on the grass, the chill, the way the earth felt against the soles of my feet.
“Now reach for what stirs beneath. Let the memories come, but keep one foot here with me, in this moment.”
I took another breath and cleared my mind. Images hit me in rapid succession:
His voice whispering “Kore” in a stone tunnel lit by guttering lanterns.
Pomegranate seeds bursting sweet and bitter on my tongue.
My mother’s face twisted with fury as she raged at Zeus, at the world.
His hands gripping mine as winter forced us apart. “Come back to me.”
“Stay present,” Hecate’s voice cut through. “Name what you feel now. Right now.”
“Cold, wet Grass,” I gasped.
“Good. Again.”
The memories surged harder:
Teaching the dead to garden in fields of asphodel.
His lips on my throat as spring returned above.
Century after century of this dance—surface and depths, spring and death, love split across two worlds.
Hecate’s hand gripped my shoulder. “Say your name.”
“I am—” The words caught. I was Kore. I was Persephone. I was—
“Now. Say it.”
“I am Melanie,” I forced out, and the words felt like a rope pulling me back from the edge.
“What do you feel beneath your feet?”
“Grass. Earth. It’s—it’s cold.”
“Good. Hold that. Let the memories flow, but don’t let them take you.”
The pressure behind my eyes grew nearly unbearable—centuries pressing against the inside of my skull, demanding release. Pain lanced through my temples like lightning. My fingers dug into the grass, nails scraping soil.
“I am Melanie,” I whispered, clinging to the words like a lifeline. “I am Melanie. I am—”
The earth answered, reaching up to meet me. The pressure broke like a dam bursting, and something flooded out of me and into the ground.