The first night, there are about thirty-five people at the heart fire. By the fifth night, the number has more than doubled. I wish I could say I learned something through these days, but mostly I am just overwhelmed. First it’s by the number of new people, because I’ve gotten used to our little group of six; second, it is because I can do almost nothing but listen to everyone else talk. All of these people have some sort of past experience with each other, and I am so thoroughly disconnected from this collective history with each other and with this place that I can’t keep up at all.

  And, more than once, I get a little drunk, which makes everything even more nonsensical than it already was. At least dancing is fun.

  Thirsan is the most cheerful I’ve ever seen him, running around with a posse of teenagers which roam between campsites like grackles, eating and gathering together their peers each morning before disappearing to some cool kids hangout spot. When he reappears in the early evening, he’s smiling and almost chatty before going back to sitting with his friends at the heart fire.

  There is a roving band of small children, too, but I see less of these. Their parents are a little more invested in minding where they are, herding them toward shallow stretches of the creek to play in the water, then back to their wagons for lunch. It reminds me of geese, one or two adults always watching the goslings and their surroundings on high alert while the rest of the gaggle goes about their business. The children don’t spend much time near the heart fire; during the day, that space is for crew heads, and the kids are put to bed around sunset.

  I see almost nothing of Ma. She spends a lot of her time at the heart fire, and when she’s not there she’s with Puck. Puck is in and out of the camp, foraging or cooking or managing a trade exchange I can’t wrap my head around. I have no sense of the value of anything, and so can only watch her trade jars of tinctures and the contents of various trunks with curiosity.

  “Here,” she says, holding up several yards of cloth the green of dried out grass. It cost two jars of pain relief tincture. “What do you think of this?”

  “It’s nice,” I answer, not sure what I’m meant to be assessing.

  “Would you like it better as a skirt, or trousers?”

  “Oh — um, trousers, I think.”

  Puck looks at me, looks at the fabric, then says, “I’ll start with trousers, and if there’s enough left I’ll make a skirt. Fine?”

  “Fine,” I agree. To hide my bashfulness, I ask, “Is there something I can do to help?”

  “Hold still while I measure and get everything pinned into place. Then we’ll see about your needlework, shall we?”

  This is how I get my first skirt and pants which aren’t hand-me-downs, as well as some bloomers to wear underneath them — which is great timing, because I’ve already had one period but it was while in the middle of spending all my time in bed resting. I’m due for another, and it will be a lot more obvious now if I’m dismissing myself to bleed out in private. We have a conversation about the construction and care of cloth pads, and while we talk I discover that, as long as I’m using my left hand, I’m actually pretty good at sewing. I can tell from the ease with which I work that the body’s previous owner must have done a lot of needlework; I’ve never hand sewn a thing in my life, but my hands assume an attitude of confidence which can only be the work of muscle memory. I can feel where the faint, faded callous is from working stitches for hours, the skin intimately familiar with the practice even if my mind is not. There is a sense memory for the quarter inch of fabric that makes up the inner seam of the trouser leg Puck has pinned in place for me. I barely need to think about how far apart my stitches are to get a clean, even line.

  So not only was the previous resident probably some kind of seamstress, but she was left handed. I’m not sure how to adjust to this. I know how to use my right hand, and intellectually, it’s still what I expect to do — but if I’m this good with a needle in my left hand, maybe I could write left-handed and do just fine.

  Not that I’ve seen a pen or pencil the entire time I’ve been here. Writing might be a moot issue.

  I’ve had to use my left hand to do most everything for a while, since my right arm has hurt too much to use. It is only after using it for the fine details of sewing that I appreciate how easy this change has been.

  I learn, as well, that I might have retained the memory of the karate classes I took during middle and high school, but this body has none of the muscle memory to support it. I start slipping off after breakfast every morning to retrain myself. If I want to be able to defend myself, I have to start over from scratch. I also have to train very, very slowly, because in addition to practicing in a body which never learned any of this, my right arm needs rehabilitating. I can’t do a head block — I can barely manage a regular chest block, and cross blocking lights up a bunch of muscles in my upper back with a startling burst of pain. Speed training will have to wait; I need to re-master moving first. I was never a stellar student but I did practice outside of class, and the classes did work. Turns out, if your bully tries it on you and you pop them a good one in the nose, they start looking for easier targets.

  I don’t how much good it will do to retrain in martial arts when my most likely opponents are ghosts that freeze skin on contact. Trying to remember karate lessons and teaching my new body how to move feels a lot more productive than sitting around silently eavesdropping on other people’s conversations, though, and it’s the next most useful thing I can think of to do when I’m not taking over clothing repair from Puck.

  Finch is in and out, sometimes sitting with me while I patch holes in things, sometimes off at other camp sites socializing. He and Thirsan occasionally go hunt or fish, but mostly when I see him he’s either being a social butterfly or joining me with a sort of self-consciousness about leaving me alone for too long. He picks up on my shyness early and doesn’t try to force me to go around with him. If no one else is at the camp site, he sits with me and tells me what he’s heard from others.

  He’s most interested in the rumor of a white mage roaming the forest with one of the crews.

  “She’s upriver, right now,” he says. “Traveled up this side of the river with Galren and his, said she wanted to see what the far end is like — completely mad to go that way over the winter, but some people are into that kind of thing.”

  “Are white mages rare?” I ask.

  “These days, yeah. She’s probably not the last of them, but she’s the only one anyone’s seen in years. The rest all retired to shrines or temples or something.”

  “What do white mages do?”

  “They’re healers. They can fix all kinds of injuries. Illnesses. Scars.” His eyes flick to to my temple, even though my hair falls over the mark left by my fall. “Maybe, if we can find her, we can do something about your shoulder. She might even be able to help with your memory.”

  I try to look impressed by this suggestion, even though I know that is patently impossible. “Are we traveling her direction?”

  “I’ll bring it up with Ma. It sounds like Galren will be coming back down on our side of the river, so if we do the summer quarter meet at Hollow Pool we’ll probably catch up with them there.”

  “Are we always on one side of the river? Do crews have territories?”

  “Some of them do. Sort of. Our crew sticks to the northern end of the river; we don’t go so far as the sea, usually — Star Point is about as close as we get. We don’t go all the way south, either, but that’s a long ways upriver for anyone. Galren’s crew travels up and down, east and west sides. Fawn’s usually the only other crew west and north, but she’s more north end and we’re more central.”

  I fit this into the rough map I’ve constructed in my head of what the Sunken Forest is like. “So Star Point is the only reason to go east?”

  “High Hollow, too, in winter. There are other meeting points, but those are the ones we tend to hit.”

  “Why not travel around more?”

  “We have good arrangements around west central. Ma knows people.”

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  Finch says this so lightly I can almost pretend I don’t notice how intentionally vague he’s being again. I make a mental note and don’t press for more details. One way or another, I suppose, I’ll find out eventually.

  *

  The person I see the least is Brand, and it isn’t until early in the second week that I find out why.

  Every last hibbovin has been brought to a meadow a little ways from the edge of the last wagon camp site, and a number of the crews have at least one crew member who is invested in the hibbovins’ wellbeing. Brand is that person from our crew. When he isn’t minding the animals and talking shop with the other beast keepers, he’s flirting shamelessly with women from the other crews.

  That’s right. Brand’s a ho.

  And it works, too, evidenced by how many evenings he spends partying only to end up in someone else’s wagon. I know I said he looks like a tanuki, but it’s working for him.

  From my position skulking in Finch’s shadow, I ask, “Are any of those women Chazey?”

  Finch glances over at Brand as a fourth woman joins their laughing circle of dancers. “Not a one of them.”

  “Is Chazey fine with this?”

  “Chazey is…. Chazey.” He notices this has been no explanation at all, and elaborates, “She’s got Brand’s heart, but she doesn’t mind what he does with the rest of him.”

  I almost ask if that’s normal, here, or if some people are into it and others aren’t — but I don’t think I can do it without being obvious that I already feel a little inappropriately territorial about Finch. I’m not dumb; I know I’ve gotten attached to someone very attractive and very kind who has been a perfect gentleman, guiding me through a world I don’t recognize, and who also happens to be just about age appropriate. It’s not like he’s got competition. I know, too, there’s a term for it when someone acts the hero and the person they saved starts projecting all kinds of powerful emotions onto them. Even if I can’t remember the term and will never be able to Google it ever again, which is annoying me about as much as you’d think, I know this is a psychological quirk and not a trustworthy way to develop feelings for someone.

  Rationally reminding myself of something that I learned from a police procedural show doesn’t make my heartstrings any less plucked, though. I don’t like the idea that, if I go to bed, he might stay up and wander off into the woods with one of the young women around our age who smile at him and start overly familiar conversations and ask things like, “Who’s your friend?” before looking expectantly at me. Like I’m just hanging out with him until he finds something better to do.

  But I’m okay with it when his hand very lightly touches the middle of my back while he says, “This is Akasha, she’s been traveling with us after losing her memory in an accident.” He’s said it repeatedly. He touches my back every time. Every time, I have to remind myself to smile at the stranger he’s introducing to me and not up at him.

  There are so many people, too many people, at Star Point. I feel like a burden and a failure to thrive, not making new friends. But that feeling has come from me, from the inside out, and not from anything Finch has said or done. If anything, he’s been very supportive as the only friend my age.

  I feel a little bad about this, too. He knows these people. He only sees them during quarter meets, and I’m taking up a lot of his time. I am also doing nothing to chase him off, either. Around our camp site, when it’s just the two of us, he sits a respectful distance away on the next trunk over. At the heart fire in the evenings, he stands close enough that I can feel his body heat.

  Maybe noticing this makes me a little bit of a creep. Even before I landed here, though, it had been a while since I was in a relationship; on a soul level, I am only too conscious of him. He’s an attractive guy my age devoting a lot of attention to my wellbeing and humoring my weird questions without judgment, so I don’t think I’m out of line — not even with all the savior/victim dynamics complicating everything.

  Whether I’m a creep or not, I enjoy having him so close, and I take a little reassuring comfort from watching him go to his own wagon each night after he’s seen me to mine.

  The days again develop a rhythm. I wake up in the mornings, eat with whoever’s nearby, and practice basic forms alone, stretching out the soreness from the day before. I sit with Puck, reviewing what needs repairs or what she’s got pinned together to be sewn into new clothes. Finch comes by for a while, then leaves with a crossbow or a fishing rod. The sun sets, and we gather at the heart fire. The exact beats of what happens each day vary a little, but the essentials remain the same. Roving bands of children or teenagers aside, it’s peaceful.

  *

  “What are you doing?”

  Thirsan’s voice startles me badly enough that I yelp, stumbling — stumbling! — out of my horse stance, which probably says something about how good a stance I’d taken. I turn towards where he’s watching me, squatting beside a shrub with his elbows on his knees. I shoot him a resentful look, which he doesn’t acknowledge at all.

  “Trying to get some exercise.”

  “Looks like you’re getting ready for a fight.”

  “It’s good for that, too.”

  “Where did you learn it?”

  I hesitate. I’ve mostly just been doing the blocking form and the kicking form, which doesn’t look like much of anything, but I’ve still been going off by myself in order to avoid explaining it.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “It just felt like a good way to practice moving.”

  This is an absolute bullshit answer, but the truth is batshit and between bullshit and batshit I’m probably better off with the former.

  Thirsan stands and strides slowly around me like he’s trying to be casual. “Is that some Eastern continent style?”

  “What?”

  “It’s not Western continental. Nothing that’s ever made it near the forest, anyway.”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t know there were East or West styles of… exercise.” Would they call it ‘martial arts’? Probably not ‘karate,’ right, that’s too culturally specific, but ‘martial arts’ are the arts relating to Mars. I’ve been thinking about this, how it is that we’re speaking the same language but some words are probably off limits; no ‘Internet’, no ‘airplane,’ but what about words with roots in mythology? Where’s the line? How far does this shared English extend?

  He glares. I can’t fault him. Thirsan isn’t dumb, and he can tell I’m being dishonest about something. He just can’t figure out what.

  Buddy, I think, It is so much more complicated than you know.

  “So you’re just out here doing fight training you don’t remember learning because it seemed like a good idea?”

  I half-shrug. “Yeah.”

  He sits down in front of me. “Huh. All right. Carry on.”

  “What? No, go away.”

  “I wanna see.”

  “I don’t care, this is private.”

  “Why is it private?”

  “Because I don’t want you staring at me while I’m trying to remember what I’m doing.”

  This is the wrong answer. Thirsan’s scrutiny only intensifies.

  “So you are remembering something.”

  “I’m remembering how to move my body, that’s all.”

  “You haven’t had any problem sewing.”

  “Falling off a cliff didn’t mess up my sewing skills.”

  “But it messed up your fighting skills?”

  I roll my eyes, head block with my left arm, and attempt to do the same on the right side. My elbow doesn’t even rise to shoulder level before I wince in pain and freeze. Then I drop my hands. “I don’t have fighting skills. I just have a memory of how to move, and I’m trying to follow it.”

  Thirsan observes this with something bordering on interest, though he is clearly still invested in his suspicions and not ready to let them go. “So you just happen to have memories of Eastern continent exercises you’re doing to retrain your shoulder.”

  “I don’t think that’s where they’re from,” I say, because I don’t want to lie and I’m pretty sure the Eastern continent is not, by cosmic coincidence, well versed in Shorinryu. “I just want to work on my physical health in privacy.”

  He doesn’t believe me. Or, perhaps more accurately, he doesn’t trust me. I can tell from the look on his face that any truth I’m speaking is too mixed up in the vast lie of omission to pass as honesty. But I’m not about to explain myself to him, so instead I start to stretch and pretend he isn’t turning the full force of his skepticism on me, like some teenager’s glaring is going to have any impact whatsoever.

  It definitely does. This is purely bravado. I haven’t forgotten the way he blew up before, and his constant simmering moodiness gives the impression he is always one snarky exchange away from blasting off. I chose this spot far enough away from other people to reliably not be disturbed, and I chose it without considering the possibility that an emotionally unpredictable teenager might come snooping like a cop with a vendetta. I don’t have any of the skills I developed when I was younger to self defend — he is literally interrupting me while I try to recover them. But if I run, if I show him that his intimidation tactic is working, he will likely double down. I don’t want to find out.

  So I ignore him, and I stretch, and his irritation grows until, finally, he sighs in disgust and leaves on his own.

  At which point I relax, lie down on the forest floor, and vow to find somewhere else to practice for a little while.