The Everlasting

by Alix E. Harrow

Running away, I decided, was more of a spiritual state than a specific speed, so I walked.

only knelt for a while in the place where the woods had once been, but were no longer, until I understood what every person understands eventually: that I had left home and could never return to it, and that there would never be a time when I did not miss it.

“A gathering with slogans is called a protest, Dad.”

“A country with colonies is called an empire, son.”

“You argued that a nation is not a boundary on a map or a flag on a pole, but only a story we tell about ourselves.”

I am not sure which I prefer: To be taken for something I am not, or to fail at being what I am.”

You know that history is mostly happenstance. Accidents piled on top of mistakes, a series of dice rolled in dim rooms by careless hands. It is not a lesson, until we learn it. It is not a story, until we tell it. And every story serves someone.” This was an abbreviated version of the lecture

Sawbridge used to say that a good historian tells us what’s in the records, and a great historian tells us what isn’t. And I had been a great historian, once.

“I have loved you since before I was born, I think. I have studied you, worshipped you, lost you, mourned you. I have wept at your bier and fought beneath your flag. I have killed you, Una, over and over.” Your voice dragged now like a dull blade, whetting itself against me. The tips of your thumbs pressed into my flesh. “This once, please—let me save you.”