The painting sat on the easel in the corner of the gallery, unfinished but already alive .
Sela Marrow stood before it, paint-smeared fingers gripping her small brush like a sword. She was eight now—old enough to understand that some things could not be explained, only remembered.
The canvas showed a woman standing at the edge of the tide pool chamber, her back turned to the viewer, long dark hair curling in the sea wind. She wore a dress from another time—flowing linen, weathered by salt and sun. In her hands, she held something wrapped in cloth.
A baby.
Sela didn't remember deciding to paint this scene. It had come to her in pieces—a flicker of light beneath the waves, a lullaby sung in a language she didn't know, the scent of lavender and brine when no bottles were open.
She had simply seen it—and painted what came next.
"You're doing it again," Elias said gently, stepping into the room with two steaming mugs of tea.
"Doing what?" Sela asked without looking up.
"That thing where you forget to breathe while you work."
She blinked, realizing he was right. She hadn't taken a deep breath in minutes.
She exhaled slowly. "I think I'm close."
Elias set the mugs down and studied the painting. His eyes softened.
"She looks like your great-grandmother," he murmured.
"No," Sela said, tilting her head. "She looks like someone else."
Luna entered moments later, wiping paint off her hands onto an old rag. At first, she said nothing. Just stared at the canvas.
Then she inhaled sharply.
"Oh," she whispered.
Sela looked up. "You see it too?"
Luna nodded slowly. "That's… not Isolde."
Elias frowned. "Then who is it?"
Luna stepped closer, eyes scanning every detail. "It's my grandmother. Before she was mine."
Marina entered the room just then, drawn by the silence.
She froze mid-step.
Her gaze landed on the painting.
And for the first time in Sela's life, she saw her grandmother cry.
Later that evening, they gathered around the fire in the old house on the bluff.
Sela sat cross-legged on the rug, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Luna and Elias sat side by side on the couch, while Marina paced near the hearth, her hands trembling slightly.
"I thought I'd buried that memory," Marina finally said.
Sela tilted her head. "Why did you forget her?"
Marina hesitated. "Because remembering hurt too much."
Luna leaned forward. "Was she… your mother?"
Marina nodded slowly. "Her name was Elira. She was the one before Isolde. The first Rememberer of our line—the one who started it all. But unlike the others, she never left her memories behind through paintings."
Sela frowned. "How else would you leave them?"
Marina's voice dropped to a whisper. "Through song."
Elias straightened. "A different kind of remembrance."
Marina nodded. "She sang to keep the town anchored. Her voice carried stories the way your brush does, Luna. And yours will, Sela."
Sela looked back toward the painting.
Elira.
Not just a forgotten ancestor.
But a missing piece of their family's past.
And she had returned—not in spirit, not in dream—but in color, in light, in memory reborn.