The end of the school year was drawing near without mercy, and with it the realisation that her last day in… this world only? Or in all of them? — was drawing near as well. They would not keep her at the school over the summer, and next year no miracle would occur. It had been too good; such things happen once in a lifetime. If she did not remember, she would have nowhere to go. She would lose herself entirely, sink into oblivion.
She thought she was ready for that. She did not regret the time she had spent there, nor the memory that had failed to return. Memory saves time. But time is of value only when one knows one's aim and moves towards it. Otherwise, neither is worth mourning. She stubbornly pushed aside the thoughts that ought to have occupied what remained of her days. She chose to spend them as she liked, not as would have been wise.
"Professor! Look what I've found!"
She entered her office with a light step, then stopped short and closed the book in her hands. Her bright excitement vanished — the professor was not alone. Two other figures were present; he and another portrait had clearly been engaged in conversation, perhaps even in raised tones.
The Headmistress felt an immediate, disproportionate irritation. It was a day off, and not a particularly fine one. She had intended to spend it with the teacher, discussing his favourite subject — which required him in a tolerable mood — and visitors had not been part of the design.
"What are you doing here? Who is it?"
A fair-haired man — roughly the age of the dark-haired one who had met her at the beginning of the year, her age — turned at her voice and seemed to go rigid. For a moment he even appeared to stop breathing, as though afraid to dispel a vision. Something in his expression recalled the portrait's gaze on the day she had first entered this room. She understood, reluctantly, that she would have to be gentle with him, though she disliked the necessity.
"Who let you in?" she demanded of her deputy, directing her displeasure there. "Not an office, but a schoolyard."
She crossed to her desk and took her place behind it.
"Hm. I've never seen you awake before," she said sharply to the portrait of the old man with long grey hair and beard, half-moon spectacles perched upon his nose.
"I opened one eye now and then," he replied amiably. "In most cases, you were looking at someone else."
She ignored the remark. As she passed the stranger, he reached out and briefly touched her hand, as if to confirm that she was real. She withdrew it, more in surprise than offence.
"I'm sorry," she said, turning to him. "You've found me in a poor temper. Which, of course, excuses nothing."
She sat and motioned for the others to do the same. The guest introduced himself. She did not ask the purpose of his visit — it was easy enough to guess, and guessing did not make his presence any more welcome.
A silence followed. He seemed inwardly agitated, though outwardly composed. He lifted his eyes to her, dropped them to the floor, and continued an argument that had begun before her arrival — only now he conducted it alone. She watched him steadily, without looking away, trying to discern what was tormenting him.
"Were we close?"
Her eyes dropped to his hand, to the ring encircling his finger. No — not him. The wrong hand; and gold, plain, complete. Hers was silver, shaped with intention.
"We were. But it did not come to that."
He turned his ring slowly, again and again, without removing it. The answer had been given. Beneath the table she changed the hand for her own ring to make the sign easier to read. Then, she brought hands up, fingers interlaced, and laid them where he could see. He noticed.
For a moment regret — the sense of a missed instant — crossed his face. Then it settled. He exhaled, sad yet relieved. Everything was right.
"Thank you."
What had she had with this man, she thought, continuing watching him. What had they had? Did she want to recollect that? Would it be for the best?
"Is that all?" she asked at last.
"I'm not sure." The hesitation returned.
"No, that's not all," came a stern voice from the window.
"I've already gone against her will once..."
"Now put it right." The tone was uncompromising.
It was cruel. The Headmistress could not explain it, but she felt an unexpected sympathy for the stranger and did not wish him to suffer — she understood perfectly where it was all coming to.
"What makes you think he can do that?" she said irritably.
"If it isn't him, I don't know what else to try," the old witch replied — apology and insistence in equal measure.
"Nothing." So this was how it would be, the Headmistress thought. She would ask him what she asked them all; they would part; she would restore the proper atmosphere for a conversation with the teacher — and then she would simply be gone. A remarkably tidy plan. "Very well. Tell me — do you know anything about a cliff…"
"The cliff?" His reaction was sharp, almost involuntary. "It again. It's always that." After a brief silence he added, more quietly, "I know."
"Truly?" A fine needle slid into her chest. "So that's it? Is this the end? I don't want it to be."
"I'm not certain I can go through it again."
"You don't have to. I don't want to remember." She turned to the old witch. "I'm happy here. Now. I feel at home here — at last. The School brought me of its own accord. Am I not doing my work?"
"You are," the old witch answered, unexpectedly gentle. "And rather well. But the head of the school must be someone who holds magic. That is not a whim of the Board. There are things only a wizard can do. The School brought you here, yes — but not so that you might remain. It pains me to say this, but it seems you were the reason the barrier fell."
"You mean…" If she did not vanish but stayed — and damaged the school? "Then why am I here?"
"Perhaps," the witch said, "to remember."
"But you cannot help me do that."
"They can't," said a calm voice. "Because they do not understand what happened. They think it was the ritual. Only you and I know it wasn't. That is why I can."
He drew a slow breath.
"The first time I saw that cliff was in the room where I made a garden for you. We were still studying then. It had been my favourite place as a child. I shared it with you — and you shared yours with me. Yours was the cliff. You said that, despite the fury of the elements, you felt a kind of total peace there."
"Peace…" The word echoed again in her mind — in an old man's voice. She was thinking — but it was not the cliff that held her now. "And the garden, what did it look like?"
"And the garden," she asked quietly, "what did it look like?"
"The garden?" He seemed taken aback. "It stood beside an old stone house with wide windows. On one side there was a brick wall lined with flowerbeds; on another, a stream and a small grove; and on the third…"
"A maze?"
"Yes… You remember it?!"
The tenderness in his voice startled her.
"That is what the old man from the Board offered me," she said slowly. "Though he was reading my thoughts, I am certain of it. He wanted to know where I would feel at ease. He wanted it so intensely I could almost feel the desire itself. And for some reason a garden with a maze came to me. Not a cliff — but willows… their branches intertwined above the water, holding me there, rocking me to sleep."
The image gathered substance as she spoke, unfolding in real time.
"They move. They shape themselves into different forms. They lower me to the ground where… you are waiting."
She lifted her eyes to the man before her — and for the first time recognition entered her gaze.
"I remember you. I remember the station, the ball, the school, the train…"
Scenes surfaced and took their places, one by one. There was no time to linger over them yet — that would come later. When enough had returned, the shape of it would declare itself. Before the train there had been a small town. A house. Two visitors.
"I remember you…"
She turned to the portrait of the man in black. Memories stirred — one of them brought colour to her cheeks, though her lips curved in a brief, involuntary smile. Then her brow tightened and she looked towards the grey-haired portrait.
"And I remember you…"
A sharp pang went through her. For a moment she almost spoke — almost accused — but instead she shook her head, disappointed. And then the pain sharpened, intolerable. She turned back to the teacher; horror flooded her face.
"Do not rush to judgement." The portrait was suddenly agitated; his own pain was plain.
"I did it…"
"No." His voice was firm. "Do not even think it. Your father did it. Not you. You saved me."
"Only to kill you later." Tears shone in her eyes.
"To let me go. To set me free." He seemed almost to plead.
"No. You don't understand. I might not have done it. You might not have wanted it. If I had been thinking of life instead of death — if I had wanted to live — you would not have wished to die. And I…" She sank into the chair and covered her face with her hands. "What have I done?"
"So that is whom you meant. 'Beloved teacher'… I said it myself."
Meanwhile, the old witch stood utterly at a loss, ready — like her young successor once had been — to demand that she be told everything at last. Until recently, she had been certain that she did know everything about this story.
"But you did let me go."
(The young man's eyes dimmed. In complete silence he looked for a long moment at her translucent face, standing between him and the others gathered in the Great Hall. Then his gaze dropped. He knelt beside her body. Taking her hands in his, he pressed his face to them…)
"I don't understand."
The blond man lowered his eyes, heavy with guilt.
He began his story from the very beginning.
"After I sent you away, I locked myself in the room. I didn't want to see anyone. My parents contacted the Headmistress and told her everything. They did the right thing. You took off the pendant — you didn't want to go on living like that. To keep you in the house would have meant holding you against your will." Even so, he sounded as though he were trying to convince himself. "Mother did the right thing. Only… very quickly. I don't know how she managed to get me away from prison. And you were taken away. You were a blank slate, and they wrote your fate upon it. I could have done it — it was only your memory that had been erased. But I was too angry, too stupid to see it. I thought you wanted to be rid of me. That you'd found the cliff and thrown the pendant into the sea."
"I would never have done that." She leaned forward across the wide desk between them. "It was your heart. How could I? I returned it where it belonged."
"I know. I found it. I kept going back to that room — to think, to remember us. Even the time when it was your prison, and we were allowed to see each other… twice a week. I remembered our conversations about the only safe subject we had. I was going through the books in the cabinet and found the one with the poem I used to read to you — the one you loved most. The pendant was between its pages." He shook his head, reproaching himself once more.
"I was truly looking for it — the cliff. You were against it, so I searched in secret. I was certain it was the only way. That once I stood there, I would understand what had to be done. I found it at last. And there… I remembered everything. The school. Us. All of it. How I died. Why I did it. Who I took with me—" she turned her head slightly towards the portrait behind her, "—and that I could have done otherwise. I wanted to forget that wretched rock. But to forget it, I would have had to forget everything. Entirely. So I chose to."
"You were counting on me. You left the pendant in that book on purpose — believing I would understand. That I would remember what you'd said about memory and the heart. But I failed you. I realised it only when you were already far away, and…"
"I should have let you speak." The old witch's lips trembled. One hand gripped the arm of her chair; the other pressed against her chest, as though to steady it.
"No," the woman said firmly, turning back again. "Because I was wrong. Again."
For the first time, she reached across the desk and laid her hand over his, squeezing it — asking him, once more, not to take the blame upon himself.
"As you can see, it followed me into another world as well. It has always been with me. Not only in joy, but in sorrow. Because it isn't part of memory. It's part of the heart. There was nothing you could have done. It was never your task."
***
It had been with her from the moment she decided to ask the wand about its components. From the day the Head showed her the chamber. To enter the chamber was to step onto the cliff. It became both refuge and source. Chaos and serenity. Unceasing motion and, at the same time, immutability. A place where constant transformation suggested the absence of time, the absence of meaning. The absence of life — where there was only being. Where there was only freedom. Absolute. In everything, from everything. From form, from thought, from feeling, from people. Where there was only emptiness.
When she stayed at her father's prison and he was away, she would spend the time inside his mind. If he sensed her presence, they sometimes engaged in a silent contest — each attempting to read the other at once. Each saw only himself. It could last for hours, until he got bored of it. Then one of two things would happen, depending largely on his mood; it never occurred to him that she might share what she saw with anyone. Either he relented and allowed her to observe, or he forced his way through her gaze, dragged her to the cliff, and vanished, leaving her there alone. She would pace along the edge, back and forth, contemplating the horizon. It was a perfect hiding place. Her father believed that she concealed something there, and so he did not attempt to break through that mental boundary. Yet she concealed nothing. There, everything lay open, plain as a palm. He simply could not see it.
She had ample time to think about all this. It was not hatred that led her to her father — not hatred of him, nor of the old wizard, nor of anyone else. She did not know how to hate, just as she did not know how to love. The Boy did. Not she. The malice that began to grow in her two and a half years earlier was not hers, but her father's. He had returned, gathering strength, and with him his former feelings about the world. Why were they so? Was the world cruel? No — it was indifferent. Some might call that cruelty, but it is not the same. Cruelty presumes will; indifference does not. The world is neutral, reflective, empty until we look into it. If we are displeased with what we see, it fills with enemies. If we are content, it fills with friends. I cannot foresee who I shall become, but I would like to be myself, whoever that is — I cannot do otherwise.
When she looked into it, she saw nothing. So she tried on the reflections of others, one by one, as though they were garments. None fitted. Each time she returned to emptiness. She never spoke of what occupied her thoughts. She behaved as normally as she could, spoke when speech was expected, but formed no attachments. She stood aside and watched. Sometimes someone approached her of their own accord. If their presence intrigued her, she did not drive them away. It could be amusing with them, or sorrowful — she liked both. When they chose to leave, she did not hold them back. She knew she would not miss them. Perhaps they sensed it. That may have been why they left.
When she lay in oblivion, having spent the last of her strength on the unicorn in order to shield the fair-haired family from her father's wrath, he entered her mind again. As ever, he began with command, then persuasion. Neither availed him.
"You have no future—no more than I do. Can't you see it? Don't you understand why my family saved my life that night? They were obsessed with blood status because of a prophecy given to their ancestor centuries ago. It said that if they failed to preserve it, their line would be extinguished. They feared it so much they withdrew into the forest, lest 'infidels' reach them. But you did. You became their fate. You were the cause of their apostasy — and you were the one who carried out the sentence for it. Yet by entering into a pact with them, you bound yourself to their house. Which means the prophecy is not yet fulfilled. They kept me alive for one reason only: so that I would come for you, and we would go to them together. You see, I am as obsessed with death as you are with immortality. You all played your part. You — when you killed me; they — when they delivered me from it... You all make the same mistake. You don't see that the only way to oppose fate is not trying to flee from it. But it's too late. I'm going to die and I'm going to take you with me."
"Do you think if I hadn't assaulted you then, you would be able to threaten me now?" He hissed like a snake infuriated by being stung itself. "Without me, would you possess even a fraction of what you possess? No. You imagine you were born merely half-blood? No. When you were born, there was not a drop of magic in you. Not one. You are not a witch — you are nothing. Everything you have was given to you after your birth. By me and by your mother. Without us, you are nothing."
He left her with a laugh that rang too loudly in the void.
The words shook her. She did not know whether to believe them. If you make a game of invention, you must be prepared for invention in return. She came up with the non-fulfillment of the prophecy. It had fitted the big picture so neatly that she could not resist using it. He had been failing again and again; she had hoped to unsettle him further. Yet his version, too, aligned disturbingly well.
...the lightness of a balloon suspended in the air… tethered to the earth by a heavy stone… The old wizard's phrase returned to her.
"What if my invention was only partly a jest? What if I live only to kill him—to die with him." The date had already been entered in the book, yet in that moment it seemed irrelevant. "Perhaps that is all I want. All I have ever wanted. And there is nothing beyond it."
And again, the cliff rose before her.
The Boy went to his death in order to become a victim. She became a victim in order to die. The decision had already been made, and the teacher's death only hardened it.
As soon as the trio had gone, she rushed to his collapsed body. Moving her hands from one wound to another, she worked the spells he had once taught her. The thin streams of blood that had been spreading across the floor reversed, creeping back, slowly returning life to the mentor's body.
"What's happening?" He stirred, still terribly weak. "What are you doing?"
"Saving you. Didn't I tell you I wouldn't let you die?" She did not look at him; her focus remained on the spell.
"But the snake… the venom…"
"I didn't release the venom — only bit. And then — I'm sorry — I had to make you lose consciousness. Otherwise they wouldn't have left."
"You didn't... what?"
"Don't try to understand it now. Don't waste your strength. Tell me — does the Boy know?"
"No. But soon… my blood… my mem…"
"I understand. Be quiet."
His body strengthened under her hands, yet with the return of physical life she felt the surge of his inner anguish—sharper than before. His heavy hand rested on her; she understood, and refused to accept it.
"How did I ever earn your sympathy?" he asked.
She looked at him in astonishment. She still answered, lowering her gaze.
"Through intelligence, composure, fortitude?" His lips curved faintly. "You never needed anyone's pity."
Their eyes met again.
"Otherwise," he said quietly, "it would have been too hard to preserve all that."
The sadness at the bottom of his eyes softened into tenderness. For her? Or for that woman? The tragedy between this man and that Boy had taken its full shape before her today. She had known about that woman for years.
(The dark depths… this pain, it had a shape. Two people: a dead woman and a man embracing her body.
"Who was this woman?" the girl had demanded.
The professor had been unable to hide his shock.
"Who killed her?"
He had turned away sharply, fists clenched.
"Did you use this memory to stir hatred in yourself for that person — and then direct it towards me? Was that your way of testing whether I could fend off an attack that had not yet been made?")
Only now did she learn who that woman had been. And that it was the father of another of his wards who had killed her. Yet he had carried the blame himself.
"But I can't do this again," he said now. "I can't live through another loss."
She knew he meant her. Shame rose in her.
"When did you realise?"
"When I delivered you to your father with my own hands."
The words struck like a blow to the stomach.
"So the Headmaster never told you… Nor did I…"
She felt sick. She longed to promise him he would not have to endure it. But that would have been a lie.
"I should have understood," he went on slowly. "From what you were hiding. From the way you insisted on meeting your father… and that the Headmaster allowed it. I didn't know why you needed it. But that night I saw… it was not a step towards salvation, as your admirer believed."
He fell silent for a long moment, his eyes resting on the bowed head before him.
"I have done all I was meant to do. Let me go."
A violent tremor passed through her. Tears blurred his face. He tightened his grip on her hand — both plea and reassurance.
"We shall meet again. There…"
"I don't believe that," she whispered, more sharply than she intended. "I'm sorry… I simply don't. We won't recognise one another there. Here, we were parts of a whole. Here, we were someone. There, we will become whole again — and no one. We will become eternity…" She paused. "But you will meet her."
The light faded from her hands. Blood began once more to seep across the floor. However fiercely one may desire it, one cannot restore life to someone who does not wish to live. One should not.
"Let me do this for you — once more."
"Thank you…"
She wanted the last thing he saw in this world to be her eyes — green, soft, almost cheerfully kind. She wanted to return to him the moment she had taken.
She had been wrong to tell the blond boy that she was saving her soul from her father. She was saving it from herself.
***
"I should have learnt to live with it. To live — not to be obsessed by it. It gave me the strength to strive for something; but once I became fascinated by it, I began to strive only for it, and reality ceased to exist for me. It was meant to be a guide; I turned it into a goal. The same thing is happening now."
The woman paused, then looked at the blond man opposite her.
"And I would not have understood that if you had not brought me back. Being with you made me want reality. I have never regretted that you did it. You gave me the chance to be happy. With you. With someone else. I think I lost that connection again. But now I know where the problem begins. So now I can choose again. Go back and look for the ways… The important thing is to remember your core — to remember that it is a choice, not a battle. Go back and look for the ways…"
She realised she was still holding his hand, her fingers resting against the ring on his.
"I'm glad you've found it."
She hesitated to ask whether it was that very girl. She was not certain she wanted to know. He smiled and inclined his head.
"I hated myself for what I said to you. It didn't matter that your memory was erased — I was afraid the words would remain in your heart, and I despised myself for that. But one day, thinking of you for the thousandth time, I understood that my fear was pointless. I knew you well enough. My hysteria could never have altered what was essential in you. Nothing could. You always sensed the reasons beneath things. You were never provoked. On any ordinary day I would have come to you; you would have taken my hand, explained everything, smiled — and it would have been well again. We would not have returned to that moment, just as we did not return to so many others. When I realised this, I finally calmed down. I let go… of myself."
It was time.
"Thank you for coming. For walking through all this with me again. You brought me back — again. Thank you."
She smiled at him without regret, without hesitation. He embraced her as he never had before: still firmly, still warmly — but this time without fear.
"Farewell, teacher. Now I will not forget… and I will try…" There was something in her eyes the man in the portrait did not have time to decipher; she had already turned to the old witch. "And thank you — for using the last resort."
"You are a brave, strong, kind and intelligent woman. That is what you must always remember." She went to the headmaster's desk and drew out a golden object on a long chain — something between an hourglass and an ancient calendrical disk. "This is a prototype. Give it to the owl that brought you the letter."
"Tell your friend he has nothing to apologise for. But if he still believes he does—then I forgive him. And tell him he was wrong about that other person. Well. In my case."