I looked up, and the gallery was full. Aster stood just a few feet away, but behind her a hundred, a thousand milled, a city of another kind spread out. The gallery had no walls, no end, a never-ending horizon, thousands drawing close, watching, waiting, generations, and standing among them, only an arm’s length behind Aster, was Venda.
“They’re waiting for you, Miz. Outside. Don’t you hear them?”
My hair lifted from my shoulders; wind breezed through the gallery, swirling, tickling at my neck.
Siarrah.
Jezelia.
Their voices rose, cutting through the wind, the lamentations of mothers, sisters, and daughters of generations past, the same voices I heard in the valley when I buried my brother, remembrances that rent distant heaven and bleeding earth. Prayers not woven of sounds alone but of stars and dust and evermore.
Yes, I hear them.
“Aster,” I whispered, “turn around and tell me what you see.”
She did as I asked, then shook her head. “I see a mighty big floor in need of a stiff broom.” She stooped and picked up a scrap of red cloth left behind by the dressmakers. “And this here remnant.”
She brought the scrap to me, placing the ragged threads in my hands.
And then the gallery was a gallery again, the walls solid, the thousands gone. I held the fabric in my
fist.
All ways belong to the world. What is magic but what we don’t yet understand?
“You all right, Miz?”
I stood. “Aster, would you fetch my cloak for me? The gallery terrace will give me a better view of the square.”
“Not that wall, Miz.”
“Why not?”
“That’s the wall they say”—her voice dropped to a whisper—“they say that’s the one the lady Venda fell from.” She looked around as if expecting to see her spirit lurking.
This revelation made me hesitate, and I pushed open the door to the terrace. The hinges squealed with their own warning. The wall beyond was thick and low, just like any other in the Sanctum. “I won’t fall, Aster. I promise.”
The beads on Aster’s scarf jingled as she nodded and then she raced out the door.
* * *
I wrapped my cloak snug about me as I settled on the wall. The gallery terrace was wide and jutted out over the square. I said my remembrances first.
Lest we repeat history,
the stories shall be passed
from father to son, from mother to daughter,
and to all my brothers and sisters of Venda,
for with but one generation,
history and truth are lost forever.
Hear the stories of the faithful,
The whispers of the universe,