Aimee's Crossing

You are standing at the start of a storytelling journey. Your responses will contribute to a story that will tell itself. The story will be made by many minds...woven into a pattern that no-one can foresee...the unthought tale…

There will be questions and challenges.

Let them echo in your memory. Use that memory as your starting point.

Challenge Number One

Please answer the following questions:

Cautious or risk-taking? < Aimee chose Risk-Taking

Nature or gadgets? <Aimee chose Nature

Birds or fish? <Aimee chose Bird

In the middle of the night you arrive at a camp site and pitch your tent in a gale. There is a forest nearby and you walk into it. It is completely dark. You hear voices talking. One of the voices asks you for a story. What do you tell them and why?

Aimee wrote

I tell them I have a purpose. I tell them I'm taking a break from my busy life, and I want to connect with the world around me. I tell them I was called to this adventure, I felt vibrations through the earth and followed its pattern as it weaved its way across rivers, fields, and forests. I found myself here unexpectedly, but it feels right. The earth sang to me, like a blackbird sings to its lover, drawing me in to her secrets, and pulling me out of this constructed world to find something new yet unfathomably old. The earth sings her songs, and I dance towards it. I can feel her history, and she wants to show me everything. She's cross. Ever so cross. She wants to blow us all away, but she's scared she'll be alone. In the four and a half billion years she's lived, we've been a friend to her, but we've taken advantage, and she wants back what is hers. She tells me to be quiet, to sit with peace in my heart and to listen, and only then will I hear her story. So I let the dark consume me, and there it is, that light in the back of my mind that says she's here, she's listening, and she's ready.

Onwards...step by step...the dark beckons you on...the forest shifts around you...touch of leaf, drip of water, creak of bough...sigh of wind...and then singing….an endless eternal song...half lost in the sound of the living forest...a song that draws a song from you...before you know it...you too are singing...chanting….speaking ancient syllables that have resounded here before.…a spell….that takes root in you and speaks through you….too late...you have spoken it…..what consequences you do not know…..

What spell is it that you have spoken?

Aimee chose the Summoning Spell

Spirit of good will, I bid thee enter The Outer Circle. The Second Circle. The Inner Circle. I am protected by this Pentacle upon my breast. Which bears the name of you. I bid thee, Spirit, Reveal thy Earthly name

Slowly, a seeping fog spreads around you, and you sense a presence, a mind, a spirit, a figure...pointing….whispering…."find the library in the forest….it’s hidden….go forward in faith and you will find it….but remember it will ask you for something in exchange"….as you go, you find memories rising unbidden, as the forest helps you….and one memory is above all...the memory which you will offer when you arrive….

What is this memory?

Aimee wrote

The memory is hazy, as if it didn't happen to me, but was told to me once long ago. It comes in whispers that don't form a complete story, but somehow, I know it is me. There's an understanding there that I have lived before, a sense of déjà vu of a life now closed to me. Perhaps it is my ancestors telling their story through me. But it feels too personal. I remember a book, and if I close my eyes, I can feel it. Its soft vellum cover sighs as I stroke its spine. Are these the secrets I'm looking for? I peel it open gently, desperately hoping it won't break. I can feel the crinkle of well used paper, the pen dipped in an ink made of violets, scratched lovingly across the page. But when I look down to read its story, my hands are empty.

I take another step forward. That figure, that person, they want me to find a library, so I must move. Every step is a new jumbled memory. I can smell the sulphur of a match struck to light a candle. I can hear a soft blessing. "Guide her, and she will find you." A breath as the candle sputters out. There was light in my minds eye, but that drifted away into the fog. I can't make sense of these memories and so I have nothing to give. I can feel the panic building in me. I take another step.

The memory hits me then. Clear, sharp, cold, and so painful. I can hear a crowd around me, screaming my name. I can hear a child sobbing. And then I remember who I was, why I was here, what happened to me. I open my eyes and see myself in a town I have not seen since 1612. There are men with anger in their eyes, women that fear for their children. I was only trying to help them. They didn't know there was a bigger threat to humanity, and that my life was the only power they had against it. The blood that coursed through my veins was filled with the love and strength that Mother Earth gave me. How could they know that burning me would break that barrier and allow the night to consume them? They feared me, and they were probably right. I am a Malkin, after all. They light the pyre and I'm pushed back to this forest with it's dense fog, screaming into the night.

Now I know my purpose. I will gladly offer the memory of my trial and my suffering and my death. My legs were pulling me forward to where I needed to be. I'm finally there at the doors of the Malkin Tower. I'm amazed it still stands after all this time. It's not where it's meant to be, but it's where I need to be. I crack open the rotted doors and step into my old life. After all, a witch never truly dies.

Aimee replied

I feel so at peace here. Everything that has happened, that is yet to come, washes away in the moonlight. I feel new, charged, ready. I've felt this before, all those years ago, when I was preparing for the biggest fight of my life. But this feels different somehow. There is not that pressure clouding my every thought. I feel like I can fly. If I spread my arms wide enough, if I take a step, I just might fly.

I feel a figure standing behind me, small and timid. I catch her scent on the breeze, earthy and old, but when I turn to look, she's young. She's exactly as I remember. Alice Gray, the girl who threw us to the fire. She was one of us, but she was so young and scared. When they came for us, she was the first to break. She looks stronger now, but there's still a wild light in her eyes, like she's ready for a hunt. I turn back to the moonlight.

"I waited for you," she says, hope in her voice. I don't reply.

"I'm sorry". Her voice breaks just a little. I know I should be so angry at her betrayal, but it's just not there. She's lived for over 400 years thinking about what she's done. Time like that changes people.

"Are there others?" I ask, thinking of my sisters, my coven, who suffered with me. She stares at me for a moment, then gives a very small shake of her head. I already knew the answer, but I couldn't help hoping.

"What now?", I gesture at the world around us. "Where do we go from here?". She looks at me, smiles, and reaches out her hand.

"Now, my dear sister, we run."

She grabs my hand and pulls, over the edge and into the moonlight. We fall for what feels like an eternity, my stomach twisting as we plummet towards the ground. I hear the blood rushing in my veins, singing a song for my lost sisters. Alice chants words I've not heard for centuries, and I feel my body shifting and reshaping. The ground reaches up to us with her ivy tendrils. We land on padded feet and stalk away into the night.

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How does the search conclude? Are you

• Found wandering in the forest

• Never found. Where and what are you now?

Aimee chose: Never Found.