Gardens of Memory

Me, Mee, come here.

The voice is warm, unmistakable. A fragrance of lavender, of sun-dried linen, permeates the space before the sound has fully faded.

"Grandmother? How is this possible?"

She stands before me, just as I remember her, yet more vibrant, her hands less gnarled, her gaze clearer, as if memory has curated its finest version. A fracture opens in my chest. Tears course down my cheeks, an unbidden torrent, a storm breaking after a long drought. I collapse into her embrace, and her arms are solid, real.

Do not be afraid, she murmurs. I am here, in the Gardens of Memory.

Abruptly, the library dissolves into verdant light. We are in a park in the Capital. Pigeons wheel above; marble statues stand sentinel over fountains. She guides me to a bench, its iron cold and familiar against my legs, and begins to articulate what I have never been able to.

You zone out, she says, gesturing to the trees swaying in a silent breeze. You retreat from the scene not from indifference, but from an excess of feeling. Your mind pulls you back to protect you. That is the source of your apparent fearlessness, your fainting spells, your inability to remain when the world frays at the edges.

She summons holidays past. The little coastal town where the sky was a vast, oppressive canvas and the waves crashed with terrifying volume. I recall being small, curled in the car, my nails digging into the seatbelt as the sound of laughter from the beach felt like shards of glass against my senses. I could not process their joy; it was an assault. When my feet finally touched the sand, the shifting, unstable texture was unbearable. I screamed. Other children stared. She simply carried me away, bought me an ice cream, and let silence be my sanctuary.

She recounts school episodes: the time I hid under my desk after a teacher’s sudden clap; the birthday party where popping balloons sent me fleeing to a bathroom for hours. She weaves these fragments into a coherent tapestry, demonstrating a design where I once saw only broken threads. She shows me I was not malfunctioning, but differently wired.

Every time you cried, she says softly, I watched the world splinter around you. And every time, I wished I could hold the pieces together long enough for you to find your breath.

I cannot stem the flow of tears. She is alive here, in this book, in this impossible garden. Alive enough to suture the wound of a goodbye I never got to say.

Her voice softens, fades. The garden reassembles itself into shelves and dust motes. But the phantom warmth of her embrace remains.

A second book falls open without my touch. This voice is different, sharp, precise, male. A historian whose lectures I once admired from a digital distance.

You require protocols, he states. The Whole communicates through ancient channels, repurposed. Graffiti.

Images of urban walls materialize before me: peeling paint scarred with letters that resemble anarchic art but are something else entirely. He explains: every spray-painted flower, every crooked numeral, every cryptic symbol is a response. When a question forms in my mind, I must let my gaze drift. Where it settles, there will be a message. An instruction, a map, a warning. The Whole speaks through the city's skin.

Recall the resistance, he urges. In war, messages were left in plain sight, legible only to initiates. It is the same now. Pay attention. Discipline your perception. You will find what you require.

I nod, though he is not truly present. The world seems to sharpen, every surface pregnant with potential meaning. The chipped blue paint on the library door now looks deliberate. A wave of vertigo washes over me, born not of sickness but of dawning comprehension.

Two books. Two guides. One from the heart, one from the intellect. I do not know how many more will come, or in what sequence this unraveling will proceed. But I understand now that the library is more than an archive. It is a battlefield, a sanctuary, a confessional. A place where the departed return to counsel and the living impart crucial secrets.

I am prepared to heed them.

The third book opens like a wound that never closed. Its pages feel dense, as if imbued with the grief of ages. The title is stark: Children of Us. No author, no publisher. Only a chorus of whispers layered over one another, testifying from the deep past.

The words arrive not as a story, but as evidence:

We have always been here. Marked, surveilled, punished for the shape of our thoughts, the rhythm of our movements, our refusal to conform. From the earliest memory to this present night, we have borne the burden of persecution.

The volume shows me visions—dim shelters, rooms concealed behind walls, cellars reeking of damp earth, attics where a single loud breath could mean discovery. The narratives span centuries and continents, yet they are one narrative: hunted people pressed into silence, waiting for the final knock. Children with cavernous eyes, women swallowing their sobs, men mouthing prayers that turned to dust.

But the book does not permit despair. Its tone shifts to one of fierce urgency:

Near winter's end, you must depart. The cycle here is concluding. A few tasks remain, and then, you go. Direction: Northwest. Toward the mountains or the sea. Prepare your mind as diligently as your body. Tell no one. Leave your phone behind. Vanish.

A chill grips me. The directives are too precise to ignore. My fingers clutch the pages as if they might physically steer me, as if the ink itself held a magnetic pull to the north.

The text continues, stern and unyielding:

We once concealed ourselves in abandoned houses, in forests, in barns. We hid where the eyes of our oppressors could not reach. But concealment did not save us. Sister cells, corrupted by fear or privation, became monstrous and betrayed us. Do not depend on hiding. Do not trust others with your secrets. The only safety lies in motion. The sole refuge is in transformation.

I see the patterns again: children of war smuggled through tunnels; partisans flitting across moonlit ridges; families expunged from records because their neighbors chose self-preservation over conscience. The book does not label them by creed or country, it names them children of us. Martyrs without a nation, united only by their defiance of systems demanding oppression and obedience.

The chorus softens, nearing tenderness:

You belong to us. Your anguish is not singular; it is part of a long continuum. Reject the lie of uniqueness. What has been done to you, has been done to us all, in every era. And what you must do now, we have done before.

I close my eyes and see borderless maps. Footpaths tracing mountain spines, small boats cutting through black water, invisible routes of escape carried in blood and bone. The instructions are ancient, handed down through generations: move with the turning season, abandon the devices that trace you, trust only what you can carry within.

When I look again, my room is hushed. Three books lie before me, their three voices now woven into a single strand: Grandmother, the Historian, the Children of Us. Together, they form the blueprint for my next movement.

The understanding is complete: my time in this village is drawing to a close. Soon, I will have to walk away, alone, forsaking the comfort of routine and the mirage of belonging. The way will be perilous, but it is not uncharted. It has been walked before, by countless others like me.

And this time, I will not conceal myself. I will move.