Waking up a stray ray of light falling on her arm drew her attention to the red scars marking her. They did not hurt anymore. There was a time when she was young when they needed constant care, but now, in her old age they no longer hurt.
In fact, as she lay there looking at them, bright in the morning sun, Maire wondered when had she got them. The realization that she could not remember surprised her. They had been a part of her for so long, and her life had been so long that now she was at a point where she did not really know when and where she had gotten them.
Maire stood up abruptly as if pushed by an invisible spring. She pulled the covers from her legs and looked at the extensive scars covering them. Some looked like cuts, some like burns, some were just caused by years and years of walking. They were normal scars, usual scars, that every witch got in the course of their life time.
With every spell, with every interference, with every working, witches got a mark on their body so they never took their meddling lightly, and they made sure that they thought carefully before weaving their magic into the human world.
Tears started flowing down her cheeks. Was death close? Was she passing into non existence? Maire never really minded the pain of her scars, but she was now panicked by the prospect of forgetting her history, her past.
Desperate, Maire decided to make a list of all her scars, and to try to remember when and where she got them, at least some, if not all. The memories must be there for sure. Not even witches can wake up one morning and forget it all.
The list was so long that Maire had to continue well into the afternoon to catalogue all her scars. When she was done, she was ecstatic to find that, she remembered where most of them came, and the more she remembered the more she felt like coming back to herself.
By midnight Maire had a complete list of scars and their causes. She was all right, she was not losing herself, moreover, Maire could remember some scars that now were invisible to the eye, scars that had been hidden by other fresher ones.
Some scars were deep and grave. Others made her smile. She had been reckless once. Certain. Fierce in her need to matter. There were marks she would not choose again, and others she would defend still. Youth had not been foolish, only urgent.
She ran her fingers slowly along the pale lines crossing her skin. They did not accuse her. They did not demand remembrance. They simply existed, as the world existed, as the seasons turned without seeking permission.
The list lay open in her lap. She read it once more, then folded it carefully and set it aside. She did not feel the need to memorize it. The knowing had settled somewhere deeper than thought.
Maire laughed then, softly at first, and then with a fullness that surprised her. Not because she had conquered death. Not because she had understood everything. But because she no longer felt compelled to.
The scars no longer felt like sign posts. They felt like weather, passed through, endured, survived.
Outside, the trees bent in the wind. Somewhere a child would fall ill, a quarrel would rise, a roof would threaten to fall. Once, she would have felt the tug of it, the old heat gathering in her palms.
Now she remained seated. Power moved through her, vast and patient, like deep water beneath still ground. She did not reach for it. She did not push it away.
Death had always walked near her path. It did not trouble her now.
There was breath in her lungs. Warmth on her skin. Time ahead not to conquer, not to hurry, but to inhabit.
She leaned back in her chair and let the world unfold without her interference.
And for the first time in centuries, that felt like enough.