Lost in the Moment and Found (Wayward Children #8)(33)
“I was a fool.
“Two days is nothing. Two days is a bad bit of fish and a necessary lie-in. Two days is negligible. But when there are doors every day, new worlds to explore, and the fee is always the same … it adds up. It adds up so quickly. If you are reading this, if you are one of those who will come after me, please, believe me in this if you believe nothing else: it adds up, and what you pay will never be returned. This is the place where all things are found, but what is lost here is truly lost forever.
“I have frittered away years in the course of months. Years. And those years are gone; they will not be recovered, not now, not ever, no matter how much I might wish that they could be. I am a woman now, as I was a child when I arrived here, and my shop is yet half-built, and more magpies arrive to help me every day. They filter through the piles of lost things, they help me find the ones that may one day be reclaimed, and they bring me what food they can carry. They help me. They know I may never find the door which leads back to my own world, and that if I did find it, taking it would do me no good; the elders of my hive would expect a child just approaching the first flushes of her metamorphosis, broken-winged and small, but good for greater growth. They would not recognize me as I am. They would push me away as a stranger to them, and by my body, I am, but by my heart, I have left them less than a year ago.
“I will see this place completed. I will see the walls sound and the roofs secure. I will see the lost things of a universe cared for and protected. I will not see much more. It seems like such a small, enormous thing to have spent a lifetime on, and I have spent it so much faster than I had ever expected. But the magpies offer me some company, and at least I sleep knowing I am not alone…”
Another skipped line, and then:
“It is so hard, to stay away from the doors, even knowing what they represent. I find myself looking at them with longing every time I bruise my shin or jam my finger. They bring me wonders and glories and revelations beyond price, but there is a price, and I know how old my people can be before we fade and fall. I am already as aged as my grandmother was when she died of time’s weight. My own grave is not too far from me. I must not be tempted, however vast the temptation may be become. I must endure. I will endure, for the work must still be done. All these things, how they sing to me, how they need to be cared for until they can be found again … the work must still be done. I want nothing more than to go through door after door until there is no more of me, to see the universe spread out before me like the fruits on a tree, each unique and each connected, part of the same whole. I cannot. I owe this place my service, for even as it has stolen my time away, I gave it freely, and the door that brought me here did so to save me.
“Had I realized the cost sooner, I could have returned home, transformed enough to be a stranger, but also safe from my father’s wrath, for he would never have dared lay hands on a woman he was not related to, even one whose wings were broken in the same manner as his distaff daughter’s. This could have been a gift, had I only used it more wisely. That I did not is my burden, and not the fault of the doors.”
Antsy looked up from the page, eyes aching from so much unfamiliar reading, and stared into the distant shadows of the shop, trying to decide how she felt about that. Was this really something that could be blamed on an inattentive child betrayed by wonders, unable to resist one more piece of cake even when they knew it might lead to a stomachache and a sleepless night? Should she have been more aware, and not trusted Vineta, the only adult she had access to, to tell her things were changing more rapidly than they should have been?
Taking a deep breath, she looked back down at the notebook.
“A new child has appeared! Like me, he came through the door and it slammed behind him, disappearing as I watched. Like me, he was fleeing from an adult who would do him harm.
“And like me, he is trapped here. He cannot go back to where he was. But he is young—so young—and I have told him how the doors work. I have explained their function, and what they will cost him to use. He has decided he can spare a little time, if it means access to such magic as I have offered him, and his own adventure is begun.
“He brings back fruit and bread and sweet jams from truly foreign lands, and he helps me build with the vigor and the eagerness of youth. Already he is learning to sort through the debris to find the gems, the things we must tend after, and he is careful to record his passages so he knows how much time is being spent. He may be able to survive this long enough to find his own door home…”
More missing pages, then, until the narrative resumed with:
“I am a foolish old woman. It hurts me to say such things, but the truth is often a blade on which to cut yourself, and I have been cut deeply. Today, I was working on what will be the stock room when we are finished, when my hammer slipped and struck my hand full-on, hard enough to break bones. We were able to set them immediately, pressing them into a cast, but the pain was so bad I thought I might die.
“The child—who is a child no longer, and thus has earned a name: the young man who calls himself Eider, opened a door and pulled me through, intending to reduce the swelling. It did not change. I understand now something I had not understood before: only the one who opens the door will pay the toll. Anyone else who passes through a door once opened will do so unaffected. I can still see the universe, so long as I do it upon Eider’s heels. I have spent my own reserves, but as long as he still travels, the worlds are not closed to me. This is dangerous knowledge. Novelty is addictive. I can see where one might be tempted to allow the next child to proceed in ignorance, to spend their days like they mean nothing, all for the sake of opening the universe to those whose time has already passed them by.