Chapter 9: The First Circle Rekindled
The Midwife of Story stepped back into her sanctuary, gesturing for the others to follow. Inside, the air was warm and scented with crushed juniper, wild thyme, and something floral that seemed to grow only here — a scent like honey braided with dusk.
The interior was shaped like a womb: curved walls, rounded corners, soft earth underfoot. Pelts and woven blankets were scattered around in a great spiral for sitting or resting. Bundles of herbs hung from the rafters, their leaves whispering secrets as the breeze moved through.
At the room’s center, a low, circular hearth burned — not with fire exactly, but with a soft amber glow. A story-flame. A threshold light. It shimmered whenever someone spoke the truth.
The three women sank around it slowly, as if returning to a familiar pattern their bodies had never forgotten.
The Awakener pulled her knees in close, wrapping her arms around them.
The Midwife sat cross-legged, palms resting on her thighs, steady as a mountain.
The Deep Listener lowered herself with a sigh, her shawl pooling around her like a settling dusk.
For a long moment, they said nothing.
The soft glow pulsed…
once…
twice…
three times.
The Midwife broke the silence first.
“Do you remember,” she murmured, eyes distant, “the night we first sat in circle as girls?”
The Awakener laughed softly.
“Oh, gods. In Elder Marai’s hut, with that awful smoke coming out of her fire pit?”
“It wasn’t smoke. It was her stew,” the Deep Listener said.
“It was both,” the Midwife corrected.
“And all of us — trying so hard to look solemn while the windows wouldn’t stay open.”
“I sneezed so hard I nearly set the mats on fire,” the Awakener admitted, cheeks pink.
The Midwife grinned, the expression softening her whole face.
“You sneezed fourteen times.”
“It was the juniper!”
“It was your nerves.”
The Deep Listener chuckled — low, warm.
“I had forgotten that. All of us pretending we weren’t terrified to be chosen.”
The Midwife’s gaze softened even further.
“You weren’t terrified,” she said gently.
“You were curious.”
The Deep Listener blinked. “Was I?”
“Oh yes,” the Awakener said with a nod.
“You leaned forward so far during the elder’s blessing she had to put a hand on your forehead to stop you from falling into the fire.”
The Deep Listener touched her chest, surprised by the warmth blooming there.
“I… don’t remember that.”
Her voice trembled.
“That’s all right,” the Midwife whispered.
“We remember it for you.”
A stillness fell — not silence, but the warm, mossy hush of belonging.
The story-flame flickered, its light brightening with each shared memory.
The Midwife exhaled slowly, her hands moving instinctively to knead the earth at her sides — grounding, steadying.
“I think that’s the part I fear most,” she admitted.
“Not the unraveling itself.
Not the thinning.
But what it will take from us.
From our remembering.”
The Awakener reached for her hand.
“We haven’t lost each other,” she said softly.
“That alone will hold far more than you think.”
The Deep Listener joined her hand to theirs.
“And together,” she added, “we may remember what the world has forgotten.”
The circle closed.
Not by intention —
by instinct.
Three hands intertwined.
Three heartbeats steadying.
Three old souls remembering their first woven bond.
The story-flame glowed brighter, warming the room with a honey-gold light. The Midwife closed her eyes, feeling the pulse of it in her palms, in her ribs, in the deepest chamber of her spirit.
“This…” she whispered.
“This feels like the beginning again.”
“It is,” the Deep Listener murmured.
“And never the same at all.”
A soft vibration rippled beneath them — subtle, steady, unmistakable.
Another keeper stirring.
Another thread tugging.
The Midwife’s eyes flew open.
She looked to the west.
The direction of truth.
Of clarity.
Of awakening edges.
The Awakener felt it too — a sharpness, a spark.
The Deep Listener inhaled sharply.
“The Truth Teller,” she whispered.
And the story-flame answered with a bright, sudden flare —
a lick of golden fire reaching upward as though naming her too.
