You step not so much into a memory but into a place, but a place so deeply filled with love and memory that every stone and leaf of it bubbles with familiarity. A feeling of peace, of home, of nature. You are outside to it, and you tend to it. You walk through what is both a verdant garden and an ancient graveyard, caring for the plants that grow here, checking the growth of plants on the plots surrounding you. Harvesting, gardening, thinking.

Here is what you see:

Behind you is what may at first look to be a stone cottage, but it is something older, something that comes to a steeple at the top. It’s a temple, made of stone, old and ancient. Vines crawl across its exterior, grow out of the cracks, and a layer of moss and lichen colors the stone a deep green. The open windows of the temple are overgrown with vines as well, and the wide wooden door at the front looks cracked and warped with its own layer of green and pink moss. Surrounding the temple are rows and rows of gravestones. Most are so old that no names can be read on the stone, though others are newer, fresher. The graveyard looks well tended, but not manicured. There are plants growing everywhere, wild, from the earth of the graves. Vegetables, fruits, lush vegetation and flowers, mushrooms and fungi. All well cared for, springing from the gravesoil.

Aside from the ring of gravestones, this “garden” is more swamp like. It’s temperate and bordering on humid, lush with vegetation. Flowers of many different varieties and meant for many different climates grow freely here, almost as though protected by some magic. It is dark here, due to the many, many overgrown trees that surround this place, the canopy overhead projecting shadows interspersed with sunlight. There are a few crystal clear pools of water, one steaming with heat and another welling up from a spring, deep blue and cold looking. There are smaller pools, as well, and bits of bog where the soft greens and browns of compost fall into green, thick, algae covered water.

But outside this immediate area of lush, beautiful vegetation, about a dozen yards away, rings of iron fencing surround the grove. There are two concentric rings of fencing, the furthest one about fifty yards from the stone temple. It is immediately clear why these rings exist, because past the fencing, dark and twisted bramble and razor like gray-purple thorn vines are encroaching, overtaking the grove. The outermost fence has been entirely covered in these vines, overtaken, now part of a twisted forest that exudes the energy of death and decay. The inner fence has been partially overtaken as well, purple vines wrapped around it in places, bringing down parts of the fence, gnarled branches reaching over from dying trees.

When you look upon this forest, you feel a deep sense of despair, fear, and revulsion at the dead forest. You love nature, you even love the decay that rots and dissolves what is old and dead and from that rot grows something new. But what’s happening to the forest beyond the fence is not that type of decay. It is a death that exists outside the natural order of death, death from which nothing will recover or grow, the feeling of curse and blight, magic that warps. It feels wrong, and it is growing closer and closer each season, overtaking this grove that you love.

You are here with your sister, or the sort of pinkish greenish blur of wild, bright energy that you believe to be your sister, though how distinct she is in this memory comes and goes. You get an impression now and then, pink hair streaked with color, a wide smile, a mischievous laugh.

It's only the two of you now. How long has it been now since you'd built the second fence, and four other pairs of hands joined along with both of you? At least a few dozen seasons now. The grief you feel towards the parts of the grove you lost to the forest mingle with the grief at the thought of your older sister's stubbornness, how mad your brother always made you. Your aunt's wise advice, dad's cooking, the sound of mom's voice... The blighted forest has long overgrown what you built together, and you and your younger sister and now working on a third fence, an inner ring that will perhaps protect your little patch of earth a dozen seasons longer. It's taken you many, many days not just to put it up but to infuse it with the magic it needs to protect the grove, and it's still only halfway done.

Meanwhile, this morning, you find some of the bramble that's crossed the second fence trailing out like a grasping hand, reaching for the nearest little patch of gravestones. You find your sister near the patch, clearing the bramble, a seriousness to her posture and to the expression you can make out.

"C..." You know she's addressing you, but it's faint somehow. You don't remember. "Look."

Her voice reflects the dismay you feel when you see how the little burst of zinnias that grow from the fresh plot out here have gone black, started to wilt. It shouldn't be this close. You have a sacred duty to protect the dead who have been brought here to be cared for and honored in your temple.

"Only this much," you reassure her, softly. "Once the fence is done, it'll hold off. Long enough for help."

Help should be on its way. Help was sent for a while ago. Too long ago. The last one to leave - dad - how long ago even was it? None of you know exactly what this garden needs to save it, so you were expecting goodbye to last a while. But none of them have ever returned, and on dark days, you can't help but think that they must have all...

You shrug off the thought, notice she's trying to get your attention. "I had the dream again," she says, a little hesitant. "The zinnias were in it. I think maybe it's time, C..."

No. The thought is strong enough, if unpleasant, to shake you out of those other more distant fears. You remember every time one of them left. First your mother and your aunt, a formidable pair together, so very long ago now that you were still adolescent, knowing that you children would be safe here together. A little after the second fence went up, your sister left, always the fiercest of all of you, brave and tough enough to take it alone. Your brother had wanted to go then, before her, and it had been an argument, and then when she didn't return he barely waited a full four seasons before he was insisting it was his turn. You don't know if you even believe he waited to be called to it. Dad did wait, maybe longer than he was supposed to, even, but the second fence started to fail and it was time.

The next should be you by age but by temperament...everyone's always known you are the one who is supposed to stay. The best caretaker, a good gardener, good at talking to the ones who come here to bury their dead. A homebody, never inclined to leave. Your little sister has always had dreams of seeing the world. She'd never abandon you, she may be a pain but she's too good-hearted for that, but you know she's stayed only for your sake, so you won't be left alone. The calling each member of your family has felt, to venture out into the world to find a cure for the blighted forest and save your home, seems to have skipped over you and gone to her instead.

You were raised with a strong faith and a belief in listening for signs and guidance and you know the dreams matter, but even so...

"Yeah," you have to agree, because it's your responsibility to agree. "I'll be okay. You're doing..." you hesitate, but make yourself continue. "You're doing the right thing."

You look at her, and you can see for a moment a more distinct image. Her face, like yours, with the gentle animal nose and floppy ears, pink hair and gray skin, kind and open. You try not to resent the relief she feels, and try not to think about how badly you're going to miss her bright smile.