Wishes and Stardust

Flashback - Sabine

In her first life, her name was Sabine.

She remembered being drowned at the age of 23 for healing a small child of an infection in the lungs that had no name in 857 AD, but would later be called Pneumonia. She had been reborn 25 years later in 882 AD, and given the name of Evelyn. She lived very happily as Evelyn, a regular child, up until her 16th birthday, at which point the memories of her previous life as Sabine came flooding back, including her watery murder and the reason for it.

Believing that she was going crazy, she told her mother about the influx of strange yet somehow familiar memories. Fearing witchcraft, her mother took her to the village holy man, who performed various rituals over her body and then blessed her to ward off any other evil tendencies from invading either her mind or body. She was warned that if these memories returned, she was to come back to see him for more in depth and invasive treatments.

The memories never went away, but she never told anyone about them again. Each day, she would retreat into the woods to hide, to remember her previous life, and to practice her healing gift on small animals who had been injured. She healed a crow with a broken wing, a rabbit who had chewed through his own back leg to escape a hunter’s snare, and a few squirrels and baby birds that had fallen from their nests.

One afternoon, as she was out searching for more small creatures in need of her assistance, she stumbled across a female grizzly who had gotten herself stuck in a hunter’s snare.

Sabine initially wanted to turn tail and run away, but fear froze her feet in place, and she stood rooted to the spot for several long moments, not moving and barely breathing.

Oddly enough, the longer she stood there so still and quiet, the bear seemed to also calm down, her aggressive stance changing and her growls and roars turning to whines and whimpers of pain. And then, as their eyes locked, she heard a voice in her head as clear as day say, “Help.”

For a moment, Sabine thought she was imagining things, but then the bear blinked at her in what seemed to be irritation, and that same voice sounded in her head again. “You. Girl. Help, please.”

Moving forward slowly, not wanting to startle the bear and still not entirely certain that she wasn’t hallucinating, Sabine asked out loud, “How are you able to talk to me?”

But the bear shook her massive, shaggy head and pointed to her own temple with one claw. “Not out loud. Can’t understand human. Speak in mind. Thoughts are universal language.”

Sabine closed her mouth with a snap at the intelligent answer and tried again, this time in her mind, “How is it that you’re able to talk to me?”

“You witch. Yes?” came the response.

“I don’t know what I am,” Sabine answered honestly.

“You hear I? You talk I?” the bear questioned.

“Well, yes. I suppose I do hear you. And I’m talking to you right now.”

“Yep,” the massive grizzly confirmed. “You witch.”

“I suppose that’s as good an explanation as any. It certainly beats the idea that I’m going crazy.”

“Maybe crazy. Me not know. But still witch,” the bear confirmed. “Me meet you kind once.”

“There are others like me?” Sabine asked, surprised at how easy it was to have a conversation with a bear.

“Yes. You help, witch girl, I talk.”

“Seems fair to me.” Settling herself on the ground at the grizzly’s feet, she leaned close to inspect the wire that had wrapped around her new friend’s leg and cut deeply into the skin, leaving a raw, bloody wound. “This wire is twisted around your leg pretty badly, and it’s cut fairly deep into the skin. I’ll have to unwind the wire first before I can heal the wound. It’s going to hurt,” she cautioned.

Giving what seemed to be a shrug, the grizzly answered, “Me know pain. Me not afraid. Do what must.”

Gently, she grasped the end of the wire where it had gotten snagged on a torn piece of flesh, and pushed gently until the skin came free and she could heal that small tear easily, then began to slowly unwind the wire, frowning over how deeply the wire had cut. “What is your name?” she asked, hoping to distract the bear from what she was sure would be a painful process.

“No name,” was the response. “Cubs call I Mama. Mate call I mate. No name. Humans like names. Bear is not human.”

That made Sabine chuckle as she continued her grisly work. “That is very true. We humans do like to put a name to everything.” Then she frowned as a thought struck her. “But how do you differentiate between each other?”

“No cubs call I mama but my. No mate calls I mate but my.”

Sabine shook her head of long, midnight black curls and frowned up at the grizzly. “Yes, but what do other bears who aren’t your mate or your cubs call you?”

“Bear. All Bears.”

“All of you are called Bear?” The disbelief was evident in her voice, and her hands stilled their careful ministrations in shock. “I don’t understand! How do you know when one of you is talking to you you, rather than your mate or one of your cubs?”

The bear shook as if she were laughing, and indeed, her voice in Sabine’s head was quite mirthful as she continued to giggle. “You funny, witch girl.”

Had she been standing, Sabine would have stomped her foot in frustration. “Very well. So you don’t have a name. I’ll give you one. I can’t just call you Bear all the time.”

“Why not?” the grizzly wanted to know. “Me am Bear.”

“Yes, but…. Well… I’m human. I like it when things have names so I can address them properly.”

“Me not understand, witch girl. But name I if must.”

Sabine was quiet for a moment as she worked, trying to think of what name would suit this giant, glorious new friend of hers. Finally, she offered, “Storm.”

The bear was quiet for a moment, too, before she nodded. “Me like. Me name Storm now.”