The small, rectangular space is lit only by a waist-high fireplace in the middle of the longest wall. The walls are made of rough-hewn wooden planks, and between every few boards are small scraps of cloth stuffed between gaps to shore up the openings against the night. Beside me on the dirt floor are two thin blankets, smudged brown, with tattered and uneven edges. Once I see the fireplace, the heat of it hits my face and I know then that this is not a dream, that this is real.

And so are the two figures in front of its hearth: a Black woman lying prone on an area of straw-covered ground whose body is mostly blocked from my sight, and the other, a middle-aged Black woman bent over her companion and wearing a long, plain dress and a white cotton cap.

The prone woman moans again, and the other soothes in a low, reassuring voice. “Hold tight, Abby, hold tight. Mary’s coming.”

Abby hisses in response, and it’s the sound of sudden pain, so sharp it steals one’s breath.

“Where are we?” My voice is barely a whisper and is almost lost to the sound of Abby’s cries. I push up to my feet. Beside me, Patricia’s face is pinched as she takes in the scene before us.

She speaks full-voiced, no whisper. “About twenty-five miles from where we sat down in the graveyard.”

“How did—”

Patricia’s face is a strange mixture of sorrow and pride. “The branch of my root allows me to work memories, understand their energy and power over our present day. I’ve taken you on a memory walk: a sort of time travel, if you will, into a memory of my ancestor, Louisa, whose grave we visited. It’s a bit unorthodox for a memory worker to bring someone from outside the family along for a walk, but I’d hoped my intentions would be clear. With my offering, I asked Louisa to help me show you the world, and the people, that birthed our craft. And this is the memory Louisa chose.” She inclines her head toward Abby, whose body I still cannot see clearly. I can just make out her head and shoulders. Her wide-set doe eyes are framed with the long lashes people pay to re-create, and her tight curls are thick and full around a heart-shaped bronze face. She can’t be more than twenty.

“This is an example of the circumstances that strengthened the alliance of energy between our living and our dead, forming the tradition we call Rootcraft.”

A chill runs through me, even with the fireplace cooking the room. “We’re inside a memory?”

No one of the Order has ever mentioned anything like this. Sel is an illusionist and a caster, and he can manipulate memories with his mesmer, but traveling into them?