The Guides And The Memories
They stepped forward like shadows made curious.
Unlike Fen and Lys, who have genderless appearance, the three of them were distinguishable but neither were children nor quite grown; they were the kind of faces you couldn’t place an age to, but they were small in stature. One had a crown of twigs tangled in her hair, as if the forest had claimed her thoughts. Another wore layers of woven cloth that shimmered faintly when she moved, the colors shifting like rain-soaked stone. The last was the tallest and slight, with a fox’s wariness in his eyes and a slingshot at his belt.
Alex straightened instinctively, frozen on her spot in surprise, heart thudding with a sharp awareness. She had spent so long surrounded by people who didn’t see her that the feeling of being truly noticed startled her more than she expected.
The girl with the twig crown tilted her head. “You’ve heard the Lake, didn't you?”
“I… what?” Alex asked, thrown off balance by the directness.
“The Mirror Lake,” said the one with the shimmering clothes. Her voice was soft, almost like it was layered with distant echoes. “It calls when someone’s ready.”
Alex glanced at Fen and Lys, but they only watched with the same unhurried calm as the trio walked towards her slowly.
“I—I didn’t hear anything,” Alex replied, stammering but didn't know why. “At least… not like that. I heard about it—from Fen and Lys.”
“No. It was before you came.” The fox-eyed boy gave a little shrug. “Sometimes it’s not a sound. Sometimes it’s a pull in the chest. Or a dream. Or a name humming in your ear. Doesn’t really matter how it comes.”
“We weren’t sure you’d come this far,” the twig-crowned girl said. “Most don’t. They get scared and turn around.”
“Well, I almost did,” Alex admitted. Her hands tightened slightly in her lap. “A dozen times, actually.”
There was a beat of silence, and then the girl smiled. A quiet, approving smile. Not patronizing but… kind. Like she understood more than she let on.
“Well, we’ve been watching,” she said.
“But not in a creepy way, no, no,” she added quickly. “More like… er, making sure the forest didn’t swallow you whole.”
“Which it might’ve,” remarked the fox-eyed boy, “if you weren’t meant to be here.”
Alex frowned, her heart lurched. “What does that mean?”
But they didn’t answer directly. Instead, the girl with the twig crown knelt near her, studying her face with a sort of unfiltered wonder like Alex was a story unfolding.
“Hmmm, you don’t see yourself clearly yet,” she said, “But the Lake might help.”
Alex’s stomach flipped. “So it does give you something?”
“Not necessarily, no,” the one in shimmer-cloth said.
“And it isn’t always what you expect,” chimed the fox-eyed boy.
Alex looked from one to the other. None of them felt threatening, but they didn’t feel completely safe, either. Not in the human sense. Not in an uncanny feeling as well. They seemed different from Fen and Lys; they were kind of wild in an unusual way, like the forest itself, with rules she didn’t know, patterns she couldn’t predict.
Still, something in her leaned forward.
“Will you take me there…?” she asked quietly.
“No,” said the girl, rising.
Alex blinked. “Oh.”
“You’ll find it yourself. If you keep going.” The three simply said in unison.
Alex turned to Fen and Lys, half-expecting them to intervene, to make sense of it all, but they only nodded in silence.
“What…” she said, turning back to the trio as she stood up, “...what are you?”
The girl with the twig crown exchanged a glance with the others, her eyes flickering, as if a wind had passed through her thoughts.
“We’re memories,” she said at last, looking up at her.
“Of what?”
“Of what one used to know. Or maybe still know,” the boy said, walking a slow circle around the clearing now, his slingshot swinging lazily at his side. “We’ve always been here, even if someone has only just remembered us.”
“We’re not guides,” shimmer-cloth added, glancing over to Fen and Lys. “Not the kind like them. The forest doesn’t work like that. But we’ve walked it longer than most.”
Alex took that in, unsure how to hold it. “Then, are you… part of the forest?”
“In a way,” the girl answered, nodding slightly. “We’re made from what lingers here. From what others left behind. Fears. Hopes. Dreams. Ideas never finished.”
“Echoes,” the boy said.
“Fragments,” added the third.
She stared at them. “So… you’re not, er, real?”
“Does it matter?” the crowned girl asked, almost gently. “You’re here. We’re speaking. And you feel us, don’t you?”
Alex opened her mouth, then closed it again. Because the truth was, she did. Deeply. As if these three had been hiding just beneath the surface of her awareness for years. Not strangers, exactly, but more like forgotten memories walking around in new shapes, indeed.
“You’ll see more,” shimmer-cloth said with a reassuring voice. “This place—your place—it holds what you bring and what you bury.”
“And what you need,” the fox-eyed boy added.
Alex swallowed. “And if I don’t know what I need?”
“Then just keep walking,” the crowned girl said. “The forest listens. Even when you don’t.”
A breeze stirred the trees above them, and a shower of golden leaves danced once more towards the ground like applause. Alex stood still in the middle of it, the scent of moss and woodsmoke curling around her like a story just beginning.
The trio vanished back into the woods. No rustling of underbrush, no sound of parting footsteps. Just one blink after the leaves have fallen, and the clearing was just trees and loam again, dappled in soft twilight.
Fen and Lys didn’t speak much after that.
Alex decided to kept walking a short way to clear her mind, the two following next to her, until they reached a mossy hollow beneath a wide-limbed tree. Its roots cradled the earth like gentle fingers, and above, its canopy filtered the light into glints of honey and smoke. They made a small camp there. Not with tents or fires. But with folded leaves and petals that curled into cushions, and stones that radiated a quiet warmth when touched. Reminded by their warm touch, Alex's mind wandered to the stone Nara gave, lost in thought as to where she put it last. But the memories she had in the real world felt like faraway dreams now, slowly slipping away from her grasp.
She sat with her knees drawn up, arms wrapped loosely around them. Fen perched nearby on a stump, carefully slicing fruit plucked from the tree with a curved silver blade that hadn’t appeared until now. Lys lay stretched across a low branch overhead, one leg swinging lazily as it watched the sky twinkled with colors not quite found in the real world.
The forest didn’t seem to sleep, but it hushed, like it knew the day had settled into its softer hours although the sky remained stuck in twilight.
Alex stared at the patterns in the bark before her. “They were strange,” she said finally.
The two hummed a quiet agreement.
“Do you know them?” she asked.
“We’ve crossed paths,” Lys answered, voice dreamy.
“They said they were memories.” Alex frowned. “What does that even mean—like, my memories?”
Fen passed her a piece of the sliced fruit that Alex absently ate without question. It was cool, tart-sweet, and left a sparkle on her tongue like stars fizzing out.
“This place holds pieces,” it said softly. “Old thoughts, unfinished stories, echoes that haven’t settled. Sometimes they take shape. Sometimes they speak.”
Alex turned that thought over in her mind. “So they’re real?”
Lys looked down at her. “Real enough to leave you wondering.”
Alex nodded slowly, eyes gazing back on the bark. “They said I don’t see myself clearly yet...”
Fen didn’t reply at first. Then said, “Few do. Until they do.”
She gave a small huff of breath, almost a laugh. “That’s still vague.”
“It is,” Lys agreed and smiled like it preferred it that way.
Silence came. Not empty but charged. Alive with meaning. Leaves rustled, distant birdsong sang, and the slow pulsing quiet of a place at peace was heard. And under it all, something just beneath the skin of the world, a hum you didn’t notice until you stopped moving.
“Do you—do you think the Lake can help me?” Alex asked finally, almost to herself.
“Maybe. Maybe not,” said Fen.
“But people go there for something, right? Because they want to become something. And then, the Lake grants it to them?”
Lys’ tail twitched above. “Or, because they want to see if they could become something.”
“But sometimes, the things we need to see are simply hiding in plain sight.” Fenn added.
That thought struck deep into Alex’s chest like a drop of water on dry ground. Where had she heard it?
A flicker of the trio’s words came back to her: this place, your place. And for a moment, she felt it: not lost, but held. Not somewhere random, but somewhere meant.
She laid back on the moss. Wiggled slightly to find a comfortable position, adjusted some warm stones around, and looked up at the twilight sky as it rippled overhead, soft as silk and shifting through impossible hues.
“They said I’m ready. But maybe I’m not ready to know, ready to see,” she murmured.
“No one truly ever is.” Fen simply replied.
“But they go anyway.” Lys added.
And there, under a sky that didn’t turn dark but deepened like a long exhale, Alex let her eyes drift closed. Not with fear but with the strange, silent hope of someone learning how to listen.
She didn’t have all the answers. But, surprisingly, she didn’t feel like that was a failure; maybe, it just meant the story wasn’t over yet. Or maybe because, now, she wasn't alone anymore.
And that thought didn't suffocate her; instead, it eased her. A feeling she hasn't felt in a long while.