My name is Beckett. At least, it was this morning. By noon, I had to look at the name sewn into the collar of my jacket to be sure. I am thirty four years old, but my brain feels like a chalkboard that someone is cleaning with a wet sponge while I am still trying to write on it. I forget the color of my mother’s eyes. I forget the way the air smells right before it snows in the mountains. Every day, a little more of my life just leaks out of my head like water from a cracked jar.
That is why I am on this boat. I am a cartographer. Or I was. They kicked me out of the guild when I mapped a harbor three miles off from where it actually sat. They called me a drunk. They said I was sloppy. They didn’t know that when I looked at the compass, the numbers were just spinning circles. I need to find the Chronolith. It is a stone on an island that stays still while the rest of the world moves. If I can touch it, maybe I can nail my memories down. Maybe I can stop the sponge from wiping me clean.
“Beckett, look up,” Gus shouted. He was a big man with skin that looked like old leather. He smelled like fish and tobacco. He was the only captain desperate enough to take a job from a man who couldn’t remember what he ate for breakfast.
I looked at the sky. The stars were moving. Not the slow, normal crawl they usually do. They were sliding across the dark like drops of oil on water. Below us, the ocean groaned. The Shifting Archipelago was waking up. These islands are not like real land. They move based on the stars above. If the Great Bear moves left, the island of Silt moves right. It is a puzzle made of rock and salt, and I am the only one who can solve it.
I gripped the railing of the boat. My knuckles were white. The cold spray hit my face, and for a second, I remembered being six years old. I remembered my dad teaching me how to tie a bowline knot. I could almost feel the rough rope in my small hands. Then, like a candle blowing out, the memory was gone. I let out a jagged breath. My chest felt tight, like a heavy weight was sitting on my ribs. I had to get to the center island. I had to get there before I forgot why I was even looking for it.
“The stars are locking in!” I yelled back. “Steer thirty degrees to the west. The island of Moss should be sliding right toward us.”
Gus didn’t argue. He turned the wheel hard. The boat leaned so far that the deck was almost vertical. I slipped, my boots sliding on the wet wood. I crashed into the mast, and the wind went out of me in a loud “whoof.” My ribs burned. I tasted blood in my mouth. It tasted like pennies.
I pulled a crumpled map from my pocket. My hands were shaking so hard I could barely hold it. I had drawn this map a hundred times, but every time I looked at it, it felt new. That is the horror of it. Everything is always new. I have no history. I have no floor under my feet. I am just a man falling through a dark sky, reaching for anything to grab onto.
“There!” Gus pointed.
Through the fog, a dark shape rose out of the water. It wasn’t a slow rise. It was a violent, grinding surge. The island was moving through the sea like a shark. Trees on the shore were snapping under the pressure of the movement. It was terrifying and beautiful. It looked like the world was being born right in front of us.
“That’s it,” I whispered. “The center. The fixed point.”
We hit the shore with a bone-shaking thud. The boat groaned, the wood screaming as it ran aground. I didn’t wait for Gus. I jumped over the side. My boots hit the sand, and I ran. I ran like my life was on fire.
The jungle on the island was thick and wet. Vines hung down like heavy ropes. The air was hot and smelled like rotting leaves. I pushed through the brush, my skin getting scratched by thorns. I didn’t feel the pain. I only felt the panic. I kept repeating my name in my head. Beckett. Beckett. Beckett. I thought about my house. It had a blue door. Or was it green? No, it was red. I couldn’t remember. I started to cry, the tears hot against my cold face.
I broke into a clearing. In the middle of the grass stood a tall, black stone. It was smooth and didn’t reflect the light. It just sat there, heavy and silent. The Chronolith.
I stumbled toward it. My legs felt like lead. I fell to my knees at the base of the stone. The ground here didn’t shake. The trees didn’t move. Everything was still. It felt like the eye of a storm.
I reached out a shaking hand. My fingers touched the cold, black surface.
Suddenly, it hit me. It wasn’t a flash of light. It was a heavy, solid thud in my soul. Every memory I had ever lost came rushing back at once. I saw the red door of my house. I saw the way my mother looked when she laughed, the little lines around her eyes crinkling. I remembered the taste of a sour apple I ate when I was ten. I remembered the name of my first dog, a scruffy thing named Barnaby.
I leaned my forehead against the stone and sobbed. The weight of it was huge. It was a beautiful, crushing ache. For the first time in years, I knew who I was. I knew where I had been. I knew the names of the people I had loved and the mistakes I had made.
But then, I felt the island start to move again. The stars were shifting. The ground beneath the stone began to groan.
“Beckett!” Gus was calling from the beach. “We have to go! The islands are rearranging! If we don’t leave now, we’ll be crushed between the rocks!”
I didn’t move. I couldn’t. If I let go of this stone, I knew the fog would come back. I knew the sponge would start wiping the chalkboard again. I would go back to being a man with no shadow. I would go back to looking at my jacket to find my own name.
I looked at my hands. They were covered in dirt and blood. They were my hands. I remembered the scar on my thumb from a carving knife. I remembered the wedding ring I used to wear, and the woman who gave it to me. Her name was Lana. She had hair that smelled like jasmine.
If I stayed, I would have my memories, but I would die alone on a moving rock. If I left, I would live, but I would lose myself all over again.
The island jolted. A tree nearby snapped in half. The sound was like a gunshot.
“Beckett! Now!” Gus was closer now. I could hear his heavy boots thumping on the ground.
I looked at the black stone. I wanted to take it with me. I wanted to swallow it whole. I wanted to feel this ache forever, because the ache meant I was real. I closed my eyes and memorized the feeling of the stone. I memorized the smell of the jasmine hair. I tried to lock it in a vault in the back of my mind.
I let go.
The cold hit me instantly. It was like jumping into a frozen lake. I felt the memories start to fray at the edges. Lana’s face began to blur. The color of the door started to fade from red to a dull grey.
Gus grabbed my arm and hauled me up. He began dragging me toward the beach. I didn’t fight him. I couldn’t. I was too busy trying to hold onto the last pieces of myself.
“I had a dog,” I whispered as we reached the boat.
“Sure you did, kid,” Gus said, throwing me onto the deck.
He pushed the boat off the sand just as another island slammed into the shore behind us. The sound was deafening. The ocean boiled with white foam. We spun away into the dark, the stars dancing wildly above us.
I sat on the deck, my back against the mast. I pulled out my pen. My hands were still shaking, but I had to try. I opened my map. On the back of the paper, in the corner, I wrote one word.
*Lana.*
I stared at the word. I didn’t know what it meant. I didn’t know who she was. But when I looked at the letters, my chest felt a sharp, hollow pain. It was a sad feeling, but it was a real one.
I tucked the paper into my pocket. The fog was thick in my head now, but I held onto that pain. It was the only map I had left.