She lay in bed, thinking idly about the places the cat had led her so far. She wondered if they were all places that had meant something to her during her life. Did she know someone who lived at the home with the green house? Was she an attendee at the church of Avis? And the swamp. She sat upright. He had brought her there when Ceit had been with her. She had been so concerned about Ceit’s wellbeing she hadn’t really explored the area, frightened off by the possibility of a nearby predator. To her knowledge there wasn’t that much that could hurt a ghost, so she could investigate with impunity. Though, it felt so very wrong there. She wasn’t really interested in going back, something was deeply off about that place. It was a feeling deep in her being. Some primordial sensitivity that said that area was dangerous. But if there were clues about her past life, she would take the risk.

She retraced the steps she and Ceit had taken that day, finding her way into the swampy region until she couldn’t see the sky scrapers for the bald cypress and willow trees obscuring her sightline. Small creatures scuttled about, a frog with its entire back covered with wart-like eyes blinked at her. A mouse with two heads and two tails scurried past. Even the insects were affected, the dragon flies were much larger than they should have been, with dangerous coloring, buzzing uncomfortably close, a praying mantis clicked at her menacingly, toxically colored with a large flower coming out of its abdomen, aggressive. She knew they couldn’t hurt her, but still, eerie.

She walked around through the muck and among the water lilies, trying to stir up the memories, to see if something hit her the way the light switch had. Nothing. She was getting frustrated and cranky. What was the point of coming here, there was nothing except that disconcerting feeling of disquiet. And even that was fading the longer she stayed. Ugh, this wasn’t working the way she wanted. She had rather hoped that she could just walk in with purpose and bam! Memories. But that was quickly being revealed to be an unachievable goal. She should go back. Maybe one of the other locations would trigger something. This was a waste of time. And just a waste in general. Besides being just plain wrong, the swamp was disgusting. Luckily, as a ghost she could walk on top of any muddy banks, but if she accidentally stepped in water she would go right through it. At least the mud didn’t stick. It was all so gross. Ugh. She stomped grumpily, ripplying the dark murky waters.

That same heavy slap she had heard last time echoed, much closer than previously. Two luminous eyes stared at her from the reeds, the lower face of a humanoid being submerged in the waters. ‘Why didn’t bring your new friend back.’ The girl said, lifting her head surly, dark strands of wet hair sticking to her face. ‘You didn’t bring someone else to betray?’ Her silvery fish tail lolled lazily behind her, scales glittering, giving way to wide frilled fins at the end, before she flicked it against the water again, releasing another weighty, irritated slap.

Alene was in shock. Another human. Again, and so soon after the last one. Well. Mostly human. Only this one seemed to recognize her. And dislike her. That was new. She didn’t think she much liked this feeling, as if she had been caught doing something wrong. ‘Do you know who I am?’ The girl eyed her distrustfully. ‘You don’t remember.’ Her voice was flat. ‘Ha. Ha hahaha.’ She threw back her head as she laughed, revealing gills oozing slime on her neck, fluttering pinkly in the air as they contracted in search of oxygen. The girl stilled, suddenly staring at her with that same intense flat eyed stare, made more eerie by her luminous faintly glowing eyes, cat slit pupil contracting. ‘You deserve to have something precious taken from you. Just like you took something precious from me.’ She sank back into the muck smoothly.

‘Wait!’ called Alene, desperate. She couldn’t let this girl slip by, no matter how much she was hated, she needed to know. She had so so many questions, and she wasn’t sure this girl would reveal herself again. ‘Please!’ The girl reappeared, wary. There were so many questions roiling in Alene’s head that she wasn’t sure where to start. Where had all the people gone, what had happened to the city, why she, and now this girl, were the only ones left. ‘Please, would you tell me who I am?’ She implored. The girl smiled, a sharp vicious smile full of sharp vicious teeth, needle fine with even more prominent canines. ‘No.’ Alene felt her breath catch in her chest, her eyes prickled with tears, her lower lip trembling. She had half expected this, but it still hurt. Why did this girl hate her so much? Didn’t she see that she wasn’t that previous girl, her past self anymore? She was someone different. For the first time she was a little glad to have lost her memories, to be someone new, if her past self had been so hateful.

‘What did…what was it I did to you that made you hate me so much?’ She asked, voice small and thin to her ears. The girl scoffed. ‘Of course you would forget. You ruined my life and don’t even remember.’ Her dark hair swirled like ink around her as she leaned on her arms lazily, eyeing Alene. With a put upon sigh and a flip of her hair she responded, ‘you turned me into this’ she said with emphasis, indicating her tail and gills with a flippant wave of her hand, the pinkie missing, cut away cleanly. ‘You tricked me into going into the whispering woods with you then pushed me into the forest god’s pool. It was agony,’ she said, the pain of it apparent despite her flat, dissociated delivery. ‘The toxic water corroded my body for years, transforming me into whatever it is I am now.’ She pulled herself heavily from the waters, slithering onto a grassy mound, her bright tail separating into slender legs, complete with long webbed toes with tiny hooked claws at the end. ‘And when I finally gained consciousness again, the whole city, everyone I loved, was gone. You stole my entire life from me.’ Her voice was low, each word spoken with a savage repressed rage, her voice cracking.

‘So you don’t know what happened to the city? Why we are the only ones left?’ Alene asked tentatively, still hopeful for answers. ‘I survived because I’m now a god’s acolyte, I don’t know why you’re still here. I had hoped you would die.’ She said the last bit with a small cruel smile, her eyes watching Alene carefully to see the barb land. She was not disappointed. Alene’s lower lip quivered a little as she held back her tears. Maybe she should cry, this girl seemed to be owed something, and if tears were what she wanted, then perhaps she should give them to her. ‘How did you leave the forest, this place is so…so wrong. It’s dangerous,’ she whispered, her voice hoarse. The girl cocked her head, ‘don’t care about me, I don’t want anything from you. Besides,’ she sneered ‘because of what you did, this is one of the only places I can be. I can’t leave toxic waters for very long. I had to crawl here from the forest. Each step was torture,’ she said without inflection as she slithered back into the water, apparently done with her bodily display. She sighed, ‘I’m tired of you know. There’s only so long I can stand to see your face at a time. But…’ she turned to glance back at Alene over her shoulder, eyes sharp, ‘come back tomorrow. I’m bored. Mother is not a conversationalist.’ With another heavy slap of her tail she disappeared into the depths of the muck.

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Alene walked back to her home slowly. Ceit was right, in a way. It might have been better not to know. But now she did and there was no going back. Her past self. Her current self. Were they even the same? She didn’t think so. She would never torture someone like that. Maybe the naiad had recognized the wrong person. She couldn’t have been a ghost when the naiad had known her, she must have been human then. It seemed counterintuitive that she would get amnesia as a ghost. What sort of trauma would cause a ghost to lose their memories? But the naiad had wished her dead, and now she was, ergo, she must have been alive when the naiad knew her. Which meant she was a human at the height of the city. Likely she perished with the rest of them. That made sense, though she still wasn’t sure why her soul had been left behind exclusively. It made the most sense to her that she lost her memories in the process of becoming a ghost. If she had lost them as a human she doubted she would have the necessary heightened emotion to keep her on this plane. Maybe, if she persisted, the naiad would lose interest in taunting her and would tell her what her name had been. She had no remaining hopes for regaining her memories, no other leads.

‘Your name was Una.’ The girl - Sym eventually told her. They had been human together, back when the city was alive. The revelation had not brought on the flood of memories she had hoped for. Alene had asked Sym to call her by her current name, she was still resistant to the idea of becoming Una, this girl who had caused so much pain to Sym, the only being she knew in the city now, besides her cat. Sym had refused. Una was who she hated, and Una was who she was. She didn’t get to escape her actions, Sym had said. Alene had accepted her verdict as penance, but in her thoughts she was still Alene. To Ceit she would always be Alene. Would Ceit still care about her if she knew? Alene wondered. It hurt to consider Ceit’s denial of her. But I’m Alene, she reassured herself.

‘Why would I push you,’ Alene who was also Una had eventually worked up the courage to ask her. ‘You didn’t mean to hurt me, I think.’ Sym said, thoughtfully, propping her head up on one webbed hand, what was left of her pinkie curled around her cheek, tail slowly swaying behind her, muddy water swirling behind her. ‘You said you knew a way to help me have the power to fight a god. And I suppose that’s what you did.’ Her eyes cut sharply to Alene’s, luminous slits under heavy half closed eyelids, water dripping from her lashes. ‘Don’t think that meant that I wanted this. I never asked for it.’ That was enough time with Alene for one day apparently, she turned tail and rippled away leaving a flurry of disturbed reeds behind.

‘It would be much easier to hate you if you had your memories,’ Sym sighed a few days later. Alene perked up. Perhaps to Sym she was still different from the girl Una. And though she wasn’t as desperate to get her memories, was slightly scared to have them back, she still wanted them. She felt incomplete, as if she had opened a book and only read the ending. ‘Maybe you should go visit Mother. Maybe she could restore you.’ She stirred her sharp nailed finger in water, delicate webbing stretching between her digits, a whirl in the eddies trailing behind. ‘Who is Mother?’ Alene asked, Sym had mentioned her before, when they had first met, a mother that was not a good conversationalist. Sym looked at her askance, who do you think accepted my acolyte-hood? Mother is the great lady Csialeide - my goddess,’ she said, with emphasis.

Alene who was also Una was standing in front of the entrance to the forest of whispers. She had crossed over to the island, walking over the sandbar, still slightly submerged with a thin layer of sea lapping at her ankles. She imagined from a distance it looked a bit like she was walking on top of the water. The sky’s clear reflection rippled beneath her steps.

The entrance to the woods was a giant carved doorway, framing the stone path into the darkness. An altar with a pile of salt lay at the base of the rust red structure, paint chipped away by time to reveal the underlying wood. Alene picked up some of the salt in her hand, letting the coarse grains pass through her fingers and trickle back into the pile with a soft sound as it returned to the pile. She wondered what was done with it, by those passed away people. She could hear the whispers now, a sort of soft humming sound that lowly resonated, a sound that was almost felt more than heard, like a heartbeat. She felt her form losing coherence, just a little from the reverberations. With a steadying breath, she set off down the path, towards the humming.

The forest was unnaturally still. No birds flew in the trees, no deer grazing on foliage, not even any insects buzzed. Just that pure steady hum, seeming to fill the air and come from all directions at once as she walked along the smooth stone path, somehow welcoming. Massive flowers and mushrooms towered overhead, giant crystals jutting from the grounds beneath them. All of them pulsing softly with that unworldly hum. As she walked gradually deeper into the forest, the sky above was completely obscured by the interwoven canopy. It was somehow soothing, a warm dark comfort.

Eventually she came to a pool, a beautiful silvery thing, stretched out like moonlight. Though the canopy above was too tangled to let the natural sunlight in, some sort of algae fluorescenced on its surface, glittering like stars in the sky and lighting up the glade with a subtle, mysterious blue light.

The humming crescendoed. A giant snail slowly emerged from the pool, oozing its way onto the shore in a smooth slick sliding motion. Its shell was a majestic, arcane thing, bones and skulls warped into a hypnotizing spiral. Six great branches emerged from it, apparently growing from the calcium, upon which wisteria garlands grew, draping elegantly, swaying in the still air, dripping silvery droplets with soft echoing chimes onto the disturbed waters beneath, rippling the algae.

Alene could feel the snail’s thoughts, she realized, just like she felt the hum. The ancient delight of an ancient god. ‘You’ve finally come home, Daughter.’