Act IV — The Sleeping Water

Page 26 — The Name They Give Themselves

The Forgotten.

The name came from Wreckreate, at the fire, on the morning of the fourteenth day.

The world had kept its wanting over us for five days, and we had kept the refusal. The refusal had gone quiet as a refusal does when it has been kept long enough, and the morning of the fourteenth day was the first morning we were simply ourselves. The fire was low. The water was at its line. The four corners were quiet in the morning light, and the kept corner sat by the hearth, set a little back from the light, as the kept corner has sat since the white.

Wreckreate was at his corner by the water, reading the water.

The water had said nothing new since the third morning, and the water-reader knew it. But the water-reader had been at the water's line since the first night on the broken coast, and the water had kept something for him that he had not said yet. The water keeps what it keeps for a long time before it gives it, and the fourteenth morning was the morning the water gave. The fire was low, the two of us back from the coast with the current's silence, and the four corners were quiet. He said it, very quietly, as the water-reader says the things the water gives him.

The old world threw us out. It is done. And the done forgets. We are the Forgotten.

The name sat in the fire. It sat as the fire sits — by the hearth, in the center, where the name goes. It did not go.

Wreckreate said the rest.

And the Forgotten stays found, because the forgetting was never a door — it was only the old world not looking. And a world that stops looking can be looked at again.

The five of us took it without a word.

There was a weight to it, and the weight was not sad. To be forgotten is to be free of the old world's looking — free of the wall that reads back, free of the hand that is not ours. The old world had kept us in its looking, and the looking had cost us. The name let go of the looking. The name was not a thing we wore; it was a thing we were. We wore it the way we wore the mark — at the water's edge, in the black rock, cut in the morning of the fifth day.

A name is usually a thing a group chooses, and this was not that. We did not choose the name. The name chose us — it had been waiting for us to stop answering the world's wanting, and when we stopped, the name was already there. The name had been waiting in the water, and the water had given it, and the water-reader had said it.

The water had kept the name for five days, and the five days had been the water's part in the finding. The water does not give a name to a world that is not ready, and we had not been ready on the ninth day, when the world had wanted the name and we had given it the fire. The water had waited for the wanting to quiet, and when the wanting had quieted, the water had given us our own name — the name the world had not chosen for us, the name we had not chosen for the world, the name that was ours.

And the name was not a wall. A wall reads back, and a name is not a wall: a name is a door we keep, and the keeping is the keeping of the kept place — by the fire, set a little back from the light. The name does not claim the world, and the world does not claim the name. The name sits at the fire, and the fire sits at the hearth, and the hearth sits in the center, and the center is ours.

Zahlia said the only thing anyone said.

Then we are the Forgotten. And we stay found.

The name is not a thing you say.

It is a thing you are. We do not say the name, as we do not say the fire. The name sits at the fire as the fire sits at the fire — by the hearth, in the center, where the name goes. The mark at the water's edge took the name with us: the two lines crossing, the circle, the empty center, cut in the black rock on the morning of the fifth day. The mark is ours, and the mark has our name in it.

When the lost are found, they will cut the mark at their shore, and the mark will say what we cannot say to the world: you are of the Forgotten, and the Forgotten stays found.

Rumzuck stood at the front of the door and said nothing. The ogre does not put a name on the line, and the ogre does not argue with a name that is not a wanting. He folded his hands over the grip, and the front was quiet.

The old world threw us out. We are the Forgotten. And the forgetting was never a door — it was only the old world not looking.