The stars did not fade.
They paused.
Like a hand above a page, hesitating before the next word.
And in that stillness, the Garden felt something ancient—not in age, but in truth.
The story had learned how to wait.
A girl stood at the northern edge, facing a sea that had no water—only memory.
It lapped against the soil not with waves, but with questions.
Each tide a soft whisper:
"What have you chosen to remember?"
She didn't answer with speech.
She stepped in.
Her feet pressed not against sand, but against unfinished endings.
And instead of sinking, she stood.
Because she carried names no one else did.
She had held them.
And when she began to walk forward, the memory-sea parted.
Not in reverence.
In recognition.
She was no longer a survivor of erasure.
She was a keeper.
Of forgotten songs.
Of unloved chapters.
Of all the things once deemed unworthy of plot.
And the Garden bent gently toward her path, humming in the rhythm of the stories she reclaimed.
