Chapter Twenty-Four: A Tangle of Truths
By the time Ellie returned home, the town had already begun to fracture.
At first, the corrupted tether had seemed like an outlier. A dangerous, singular event.
But lies, once spoken aloud—once witnessed—had a way of becoming invitations.
By midday, the Circle saw three more green-glimmering threads.
And by sundown, six.
Each one a false memory offered not with malicious intent, but desperation.
The townsfolk had tasted what it felt like to shift the burden, to bury pain in ritual—and now, even self-deception sought community.
---
Ruth stood at the center of the Pillars, her voice weary, her eyes rimmed in red.
"We cannot afford a web built on fictions. The Circle was never meant to carry our fabrications—only our truths."
"But truth hurts," said one voice from the crowd.
It was Mara Wicks, the apothecary's daughter. Her tether pulsed the now-familiar green sheen. "My mother beat me. Or maybe she didn't. I don't know anymore. But I remember the fear. Isn't that enough?"
Elder Price stepped forward. "What you feel may be true. But if you pass a crafted memory through the Circle, it becomes everyone's pain. That's not healing. That's infection."
Mara held her thread tightly, knuckles pale. "What if my truth was never believed until now? Should I be punished for finally shaping it clearly?"
Ellie knew that question far too well.
---
The worst came with Jonas Reddick, a respected former councilman.
His tether didn't glow green—it burned gold.
At first, everyone assumed it was a pure tether, a brilliant memory ready for joining.
Jonas claimed he'd been the one who had discovered the old Hollow Root mines long before the collapse. That he'd warned the town. That he'd tried to stop it.
A noble act. One that painted him in a heroic light.
People wept as his tether anchored.
Until Ruth ran the verification rite.
The gold flared—then shattered.
The thread hissed as it disintegrated, leaving ash in its wake.
Jonas screamed as his memories surged backward—rewriting themselves in his mind like a cruel reversal of self-hypnosis.
> He hadn't tried to save the town.
He'd signed the final clearance form.
He was the reason the supports failed.
He'd lied, and the Circle had nearly made it a shared memory.
For the first time since the ritual had begun, someone had to be restrained.
Jonas was taken to the old lockhouse on the hill—watched day and night.
"Until we know whether memories can be fully undone," Ruth had said grimly, "we can't risk his tether infecting others."
---
Back in the woods, the green threads grew roots.
Dark ones.
They slithered through the soil under the Pillars, feeding off the confusion, the blurred lines between fact and fabrication.
Ellie watched them during the late hours, unable to sleep.
She sat near the Cradle of Echoes, her lantern casting flickers across the now-barren ground where the mirror had cracked.
The roots curled around trees.
Around rocks.
Around bones.
> "Do you hear them?"
The voice came softly from the dark.
Ellie turned, startled.
A girl emerged from the shadows—not young, but not old. Barefoot. Eyes luminous like pale silver.
She looked... familiar.
"Do I know you?"
The girl tilted her head.
> "I'm part of the things you've tried not to remember."
She knelt and pressed her hand to the earth.
The roots pulsed in answer.
> "They don't want to hurt you. They want to help. You've been carrying everyone else's truth. What about yours?"
"I've already faced it."
> "You faced one memory. What about all the others?"
Ellie frowned. "I don't want lies to replace history."
The girl smiled. Too many teeth.
> "Who said anything about lies? Stories are just truths wearing masks."
---
The following morning, Ellie gathered the remaining Tenders.
"We need to change the rules."
Ruth frowned. "You want to allow fabricated memories?"
"No. I want to create a second Circle."
The room stilled.
"One for stories. Not memories. A place where people can place their might-have-beens. We'll mark those threads—let them live without contaminating the truth web."
Elder Price looked skeptical. "That's a dangerous division. People may try to rewrite their pasts in that space."
"They already are," Ellie said. "We can't stop it. But we can separate it. Contain it. Let people grieve the truths they never got to live."
Ruth narrowed her eyes. "And who decides which threads belong where?"
"I do."
That part silenced everyone.
She'd said it without thinking—but she meant it.
No one knew lies like Ellie did.
And no one had more to lose from pretending they weren't dangerous.
---
By twilight, the Second Circle was under construction.
Smaller.
Simpler.
Built of rough black stone instead of polished white.
A Circle for the "what-ifs." The almosts. The unprovable.
A Circle for the grief no one else would claim.
Some called it blasphemy.
Others called it salvation.
But the first person to step inside it?
Mei's mother.
She carried a pale silver thread that shimmered with sorrow.
"I always believed Ellie pushed her. But in another life… maybe they were friends. Maybe she saved her. I want to hold that memory too."
She tethered it.
And for the first time since the death, she smiled.
---
Ellie stood alone afterward, watching the false thread drift gently in the Second Circle.
It didn't sparkle green.
It pulsed softly—like a heartbeat.
She whispered into the dusk.
"I'll guard these dreams too."
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