The morning after her visit to the gate, Sela awoke with a melody in her head.
It wasn't like the songs she had heard before—fragments carried on wind or whispered through stone. This one was inside her now, stitched into her breath and bones. It rose unbidden when she stirred, humming softly beneath her lips before she even opened her eyes.
She sat up slowly, clutching the silver pendant at her throat.
It was warm.
Not from body heat—but with something deeper. A pulse. A presence.
A memory stirring.
Downstairs, the house smelled of tea and toast, but no one was eating. Her mother, Elias, and Marina sat around the kitchen table, speaking in hushed tones.
They looked up as she entered.
"You're awake," Luna said gently.
Sela nodded. "I remember more."
Marina's hands tightened around her teacup. "What did you see?"
Sela hesitated, then closed her eyes. Without thinking, she began to sing.
The melody was soft, lilting—like waves against smooth rock. But the words weren't hers. They came from somewhere older, shaped by voices long gone.
"Where the tide forgets the shore,
There lies a path we knew before.
Through the veil where memories sleep,
The Songkeeper walks where others weep."
Silence followed.
Elias exchanged a glance with Luna. "That's not from any lullaby I know."
Marina stood slowly. "No. It's one of Elira's old verses."
Sela blinked. "I didn't learn it. I just… knew it."
Luna stepped forward, placing a hand on her daughter's shoulder. "Then it's beginning."
Sela looked up at her. "Beginning what?"
"The training," Marina said. "If you're to carry the song, you must learn how to shape it. Control it. Or it will shape you ."
Sela swallowed hard. "Is that what happened to Elira?"
Marina's expression softened. "Yes."
That afternoon, they returned to the tide pool chamber.
The pools shimmered faintly in the dim light, their reflections flickering with half-formed images—memories waiting to be remembered. Sela stood at the edge of the smallest one, the one that had shown her mother's reflection years ago.
Now, it showed her own.
But not as she was.
As she might become.
A girl with her curls, yes—but wearing robes woven with sea glass and moonlight, holding a brush in one hand and a lantern in the other. Behind her, the gate stood open, its edges glowing with ancient symbols.
Sela reached out.
The water rippled.
And for the first time, she felt the weight of what she had inherited—not just memory, but responsibility.
Marina knelt beside her. "This is where your training begins."
"How?" Sela asked.
Luna crouched on her other side. "By learning the oldest Rememberers' songs. The ones that bind us to this place."
Elias held up a small leather-bound book, its pages worn and edges frayed. "These are the lyrics Elira left behind. Not all of them were written down—but enough remain to guide you."
Sela took the book carefully, feeling the same hum she had felt in the gallery, in the storm, in the cave beneath the sea.
She opened it.
The first page held only three lines:
"To remember is to keep the flame alive.
To sing is to give voice to those who've died.
To walk the path is to choose what survives."
Sela traced the ink with her fingertip.
Then, without hesitation, she turned the page.
Over the following weeks, Sela trained.
Each day, she learned a new verse, each tied to a different part of the town's history. Some were joyful—songs of harvests and festivals, of children running along the shore. Others were sorrowful—ballads of loss, of fires and storms, of people who had vanished without a trace.
And some were warnings.
Songs that spoke of the gate.
Of the cost of remembering too much.
Of the danger of forgetting too little.
One evening, while painting near the cliffs, she sang a new verse aloud for the first time.
The moment the final note left her lips, the wind shifted.
Something responded.
From deep within the earth, a low hum echoed back.
A reply.
Luna stopped mid-brushstroke. "Did you hear that?"
Elias nodded. "The land itself answered."
Sela looked toward the sea.
"I think it knows me now."
One night, as the full moon hung heavy over the horizon, Sela dreamt again.
She stood at the gate.
Only this time, it was open.
On the other side, figures waited—Rememberers from every generation. Isolde. Elira. Her great-grandmother. Even her mother's mother, whose name had been lost to time.
They smiled at her.
And behind them, the sky pulsed with stars that moved like brushstrokes across an unseen canvas.
Elira stepped forward.
"You are ready," she said simply.
Sela shook her head. "Not yet."
Elira studied her for a long moment.
Then she smiled.
"Then return when you are."
And the dream faded.
Back in the waking world, Sela woke with tears on her cheeks.
She climbed downstairs and found her grandmother already waiting by the fire.
Marina didn't ask what she had seen.
She simply pulled her close.
"You'll find your way," she whispered. "In your own time."
Sela buried her face in Marina's shoulder.
"I'm not afraid," she murmured.
Marina kissed her hair. "Good. Because the past needs someone brave."
Outside, the sea whispered once more.
And Sela, the youngest Songkeeper in generations, lifted her voice to answer.