Saving Souls

“You know you don’t have to do this.”
　
Vie frowned at the older woman. “Don’t make this more difficult than it already is. Sahrinad is the only home I’ve ever had; do you think I’d leave if I had a choice?”
　
“You’d be safer here than anywhere else,” said Rikimi. “You know how well Sahrinad’s fortified, and nowhere else in the world can you find so many magicians.”
　
“These things are powerful, Rikimi. They’ll break through every defense we have in five minutes, and every being on the island will be dead, magic stolen and souls ripped to shreds. They’re going to get me, there’s no real hope of avoiding it, and I can’t bring them down on everyone else.”
　
“I know. I wanted to be sure you know you’re not being kicked out. This is your choice.” She hesitated. “I’ll miss you, Vie.”
　
Vie forced a grin. “I’d have thought you’d be glad to see me leave.”
　
“Oh, you’ve always been trouble, but never the bad kind, really.”
　
“Until now.”
　
Rikimi gave Vie a stern look, the same look she‘d given Vie so many times over the years. “You know it’s not your fault.”
　
Vie shrugged. “It would be, if I stayed and let Sahrinad be destroyed.”
　
“Knowing what we do, it would be, yes; I’m glad you’re able to take responsibility for that. I just find it difficult to believe that your fate is inevitable.”
　
“Every seer and oracle in Sahrinad’s seen them suck my life force out of me, no matter what course of future they’re seeing. Everything that’s been seen, or heard, or thought of, or prophesied says its unavoidable, whatever I do,” said Vie, her voice tinged with suppressed anger at the unfairness of it. She hesitated. “If it turns out not to be, if I find a way to beat them somehow… I’ll come back.”
　
“You don’t really have any hope,” said Rikimi, mildly surprised.
　
“I don’t know. I don’t think I’d be able to survive if I didn’t have at least the smallest shred of a chance of ever coming back here.”
　
“Well, I’ve never put much faith in prophecies.”
　
That comforted Vie more than anything else had, and she embraced Rikimi awkwardly and stepped onto the ferry.
　
Vie had no idea where to go. She’d been barely more than a child when she came to Sahrinad, and her memories of life outside the island were foggy. It wasn’t so isolated that she didn’t know of the outside world--which countries were where, what the landscape was like, how to get from one place to another. But she didn’t know where she wanted to be, except on Sahrinad.
　
Somewhere isolated, she decided, to limit the damage as much as possible, so when the ferry landed she walked west, away from the nearest town and the roads twisting around it.
　
Vie tried, as she’d been trying, to come up with a way to stop them, but her mind would only show her the fate she knew she couldn’t avoid. They--no one knew what exactly they were, and they had no name--would swoop down on her and steal magic, leaving her weakened but alive, and then her soul, killing her, or worse. She couldn’t hide from them, couldn’t fight them, couldn’t trick them. The most she could hope for was to be their only victim.
　
She passed a stand on the side of the road. She knew she should hurry on so as to avoid risking the person working at it. But she wanted that one last bit of human contact.
　
She needn’t have worried about that. As she approached, it became quite clear that the person selling whatever was being sold was not at all human. The being--Vie couldn’t tell its gender--had aqua skin, shining white antlers, and huge feathery wings. Being from Sahrinad, Vie had of course seen nonhumans before; but this person was different. She somehow felt that it wasn’t just not a human, but wasn’t a mortal at all.
　
“Hello,” Vie said, because she could at least have one last friendly nonhuman interaction before they found her. “What are you selling?”
　
“Whatever I have, or whatever I need…. But from you, I think I will be buying.”
　
“I’m sorry, I don’t have anything to sell.”
　
“I have seen you in my scrying dish, being devoured by kashiu jalt.”
　
“A lot of people have. Is that what they’re called?”
　
“It’s what I call them. It means soul rippers, in some language or other.”
　
“Do you know how to stop them?” Vie’s heart beat quickly, though she told herself she knew the answer would be negative.
　
“You cannot defend against them, or hide from them.” The being paused. “I wish to buy your soul.”
　
Vie jumped back. “What? But… how? And won’t that kill me?”
　
“No, I will take good care of it for you, and sell it back to you when you’re ready. You can consider it a kind of pawning. As for how, we simply agree on the deal and I will take it from you, very gently.”
　
“Sell it back to me… you mean, once the… soul ripper’s are gone?”
　
“Yes.”
　
It wasn’t that Vie didn’t know better than to sell her soul, but surely selling it was better than having it stolen. “All right,” she agreed. A shimmering white antler touched her forehead, and she felt… something, and then she felt nothing. She was conscious, she felt no pain, or even numbness, just nothing. She could see and hear and touch the world around her, but it could not touch her. Nothing mattered.
　
“I’m sorry, I know it’s rather terrible.” Vie didn’t know whether that was true. It just was.
　
She left, and continued walling, and eventually stopped walking and lied down and did not sleep. The sun was beginning to rise when they came.
　
Had she been able to feel, she would have felt fear, but as it was they simply were there. They picked through her mind and sucked out her magic, and as she felt it draining away she knew it was a good thing she couldn’t feel. When it was gone--when the magic that had been so much of her life was gone--they dug deeper, searching for her soul. Vie squeezed her eyelids together. When she opened them, the sun was up, and they were gone.
　
She walked back to the stand on the side of the road. The being touched his antler to her forehead again, and her soul trickled back in, and she began to cry.
　
“Thank you,” she said, and still crying, headed back to Sahrinad. By the time she stepped off the ferry, she was almost used to feeling again, almost able to deal with the loss of her magic, almost able to believe that she had escaped the inescapable.

My Death Saved My Life

I was born in 1843. I turned sixteen in 1859. I turned seventeen in 1999. No, I did not mistake the digits in that date.

It begins, I suppose, with my life in the 1800s. Suffice it to say that I was unhappy. I was an intelligent woman, which at the time was considered to be something of an oxymoron. I thirsted for knowledge and freedom I could never have.

The worst came when I was sixteen. I was engaged. My fiancé was a friend of my father’s. He was old, stupid, and cruel. I would not marry him, I insisted, to no avail. Plans for my wedding were made. I was measured for my dress. My fate was anchored in stone.

So it was that I climbed to the highest, steepest cliff I knew. I stood on the edge, taking in the breathtaking view one last time before I allowed it to literally take my breath, permanently. And then I jumped.

I did not expect to survive the fall. I did not intend to survive the fall. So you can imagine my surprise at slowly waking in a plain room, with a woman standing over me. Something was different about her from every other women I’d known, I observed, as I slowly pulled myself to awareness. She had short hair, for one thing, and she wasn’t wearing a dress. She asked softly but firmly, “Are you awake?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’m dead, aren’t I? Is this… heaven?” I had not expected to end up in heaven, but this place hardly fit the description of hell.

“No, you’re not dead. You had a bad bump on the head, but you should recover with no more than a concussion.”

“Oh.” I didn’t see how it was possible. The cliff was far too high for the fall to give me only a concussion.

“What’s your name?” the woman asked me.

“Fidelia Williams.”

“How many fingers am I holding up?” She held up three fingers.

“ I believe three is the answer you want, though technically your hand is holding up all five of your fingers.”

She smiled. “And what year is it?”

“1859.”

Her smile faded. “I’m going to have another doctor come in and examine you, okay?” she asked too gently. “Fidelia, it’s 1999.”

I knew that was impossible. But so was being alive, and I could tell by her face that she was not joking. And I did not want to be thought mad.

“I was joking,” I told her, in a tone that implied that should have been obvious.

I eventually persuaded her that I was well enough, both physically and mentally, to be released. I had, apparently, been found unclothed; I was given some new clothes from the hospital’s lost and found so that I would not have to walk around in a hospital gown. It was incredibly strange, wearing the new, unfamiliar clothes I’d been given—trousers, called jeans, and a plain shirt in an unfamiliar style. But the people I observed around me, men and women, were wearing similar clothes, so I knew I had not been tricked into wearing a fool’s costume.

I did not mean to tell them that I had nowhere to go. But they pressed for me to have someone come get me, and I eventually let it slip that I was an orphan. I’d hoped that would be enough to make them let me leave on my own. Instead, they called “the proper authorities.” When I was finally discharged, it was into my new foster home.

I was incredibly lucky there. My foster parents were good people, a couple who desperately wanted children of their own but were unable to have them, and they opened their hearts to me.

Still, those first few weeks were the hardest. I spent most of my time at the library, reading up on the history that had passed between my time and the present. Events had happened, things had been invented, society had changed utterly. Once I had at least a basic grasp of the present world, I began to read popular fiction, to get an idea of how the society I was now a part of worked, how people interacted, what was expected.

I was shocked by what I learned, but not unpleasantly so. Here, in this time, dreams I’d never dared to have could come true.

That was ten years ago. Eventually, I learned to fit into the present world, and if I was considered a bit old fashioned and socially awkward, it was a mild inconvenience at worst. I learned everything I could, both academically and culturally, and when I graduated, I went on to college.

I received a degree in women’s studies. I wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. I’d been given a great gift, and I wanted to repay it. I just wasn’t sure how.

It was then that I first thought of going back.

It’s not that I’d never thought of it before, but until then, it had been a fear rather than an idea. I’d lived in terror of suddenly finding that I’d been pulled back to when I’d come from, or of waking up in 1859, my whole life having been a dream. But this was different. Though I still dreaded the past, I thought about the difference I could make. I knew things that I hadn’t known before I’d left, things that nobody would know for over a hundred years. If I went back, I’d have power. I could make a difference, help others get the same chances I’d had.

I wrestled with the idea. I didn’t know how to get back, but somehow, I knew that if I chose that path, I would find a way. It was not how to go back that worried me, but whether I should. I would be giving up so much. Would people be ready to listen? I knew the history, and I knew they wouldn’t. Could I persuade them anyway?

No. But it didn’t matter. I had to try.

I spent a year of research finding out how to do it. Finally, I knew for certain I would be able to make it back to my own time. It was not time travel as it is popularly thought of, that is, I could not travel at will to any time I wished, but as I had been born in that time, I would be able to return to it.

But not back again.

But could I really make myself do it? I’d tried to kill myself to escape it once; could I just willingly return? It was unlikely that I would do any good by going. But maybe I would. If I helped just one woman who would have been a slave to society get the chance to chose her fate….

But would I get that chance? And if I went back, I would be throwing away the chance I’d been given. I had been freed from that life; how could I throw tt away? Especially if it was for nothing?

I think I made the right choice. I do help women who might not otherwise be able to do so decide their own fates.

Now. In the twenty first century.