Water haunting

1. Start with a greeting

My heart.

2. Tell her the reason for the letter

How are you? I miss you and your letters. They burn the night the Regime came. I am searching for water for your bones. The Regime had given word. I do not trust them. I left before the Regime could change its mind.

(Optional: Apologise for the reason of delay)

It was a rushed beginning. Hina and Ed helped me pack. They are unneeded, but Hina insisted and Ed would be in regimental danger.

We crossed tunnels, through to the heart of the Bush. I left with very little. Ed the scholar is always recording, instinct built from a lifetime of missing records. Everything remembers – I remembered, but I have forgotten. I am searching for answers; for you.

I burn your letters as I write them. There is an altar at the Archives, where burned offerings make their way to the Collected. I have been burning letters to you, begged for clemency – for my letters to reach you. The Regime cannot make an exception.

3. Tell her something from home

I carry the house key with me. Around Hina's throat, I've strung the heart locket. I am always thinking about home: the shape of the house from afar, uneven windows, the table where we spread our papers. I cannot go home. Old Folk will outlive the houses they stay in. I was only home when I was with you.

In the locket, I've painted a sliver of your eye. The left one, the one you've always hated. Said it was too dark, too much. I cannot remember what you look like anymore than I can recall where the ocean might have gone to. I trace Hina's neck, the golden chain cold on her neck. We cannot pry open the locket. I do not know what is inside.

4. Tell her something from her friends

You would love Ed. He is completing his final year in archaeology. He studies tunnels and talks to rocks. Young, perhaps another ten years before the Archives repossesses this frame and remakes him. I extended protection and tutelage for his sake. He is like you. When Hina sings your songs, he tells us that the earth sings back.

I suspect you've known Kahina for longer than I have. We are a party of one rock-whisperer, one trickster and a god's used-to-be favourite. The gods are dead and nature is no more. We are trying to find Kamal and Meiling.

Hina misses you, though she scolds me for the letters. You know she will not get those. I am writing to you regardless.

Meiling found us at the lungs of the Bush. Meiling had not been themself ever since the Regime swept through the land all around. They were assigned a ministerial position (the Witch) and a name, though they have always been themself. Meiling fussed over our ragtag crew in their home. The ministerial ordained Plaguedoctor, beloved Kamal, tended to Ed who sustained scrapes from the collapsing tunnels. Kamal told us it is foolhardy to seek water, that everything must thirst and perish eventually. We walk where water used to flow, deep caverns carved deep into canyons and historical seabeds. The tracks of memory etch dark and angry on walls and underfoot. Kamal refuses to wander foolishly with us around the wide country to locate a myth. My duty is elsewhere.

Meiling offers to help, though they will venture to a different part of the country. There were more countries, back in the old paths that the ocean used to cut through land and fill tunnels. The Regime only covers so much space – what lies beyond its reach in the rest of the world, we do not know. I can only try to remember the God of Memory. She had appointed me a guardian of this knowledge, and one can guard quite well if one does not recall what the knowledge is. You were there. You know it too. What was it?

Meiling only told us to keep the locket. I gave them our house key to burn and divine a path. The gods are asleep. Dead. Only a rumble, faint, underfoot. A hungry militia, marching through the wide tunnels. No one else heard it, but Ed sensed that the earth was stirring. Something was waking up.

5. Tell her you have not stopped looking

I know it is a fool's errand, to run after a disappearing myth. What could tricks and rocks do to incite a dead memory? I am no God. I could not bargain for lost knowledge. The literature is lost and buried in the last of its bearer – me. Sickly me. Hina plays tricks, draws dreams and fragmented memories to the surface of my mind, but all I can remember is you. I am searching for the water in exchange for your bones. The rules are set: to bargain for a Collected in the Archives, the Minister must judge and weigh the value. The price for retrieving your bones is all the world's water. For you, I will do anything.

Your locket sings and I can hear your voice now, faint, but you're here. In my dream, you are always singing. You have the eyes of a river, mother said. In the moonlight, on a riverbed, I pry open the locket. Your song is louder now. Your eye tilts underfoot. It blinks, quick as a star.

A militia marches underfoot. A pop. Water fissures through a fault line splitting the earth open. Ed stares back at me, mouth slack. The water is angry.

6. Tell her you remember

This is true: I did not forget. I forgot because you asked me to.

This is true: You are the God of Memory and you have given me longevity.

This is true: I forgot out of love.

The Regime began its god-killing to create fear. Gods do not live forever. The gods are too powerful. The Regime does not like competition. It will usurp the gods' reign.

You died to punish the god-killing Regime. They took away your bones and retained me to threaten the water. Perhaps they thought that in killing a god, control will be theirs. Now they are desperate. I was supposed to be their guardian. I do not remember. I am older than the Regime. Water had been missing for many years.

Water retreated away at your death, but water predates the gods. It will ebb and it will return. Angrier. A world's flood. The price of a life lost is this: many more lives will be repayments for the initial murder.

You have asked me to forget and escape the burden of godhood, in return for your long life. I wish that I was the lost god instead, for you would still live then. I was the sicker sister. You were the beloved. The gods had always lived in you. How do I live with such a burden? But you would not want a sister who does not have my heart. I will do good. You love me despite my weak, easily-swayed heart.

Hina must have known, or remembered. She was willing to let the flood reclaim the world, see humanity all extinguished. She is more god than human, hard lines and an unforgiving mouth. It's what you would have wanted too. A human will undo your legacy.

I am willing to do anything for you and Hina is willing to do anything for me. Devotion is indiscriminate. She will not drown in the flood, should it arrives unprovoked; but she will not live. I keep things interesting, and no one else appreciates her tricks. We will have a long time together. I told her.

If you had liked Hina before, you would like this Hina better. I allow her to call me by the name only we know, but you have always called me sister. Nghiem Luu Lan, last of her kind. Beloved sister, soft-hearted Old Folk, failed vessel of a god's will, feller of a Regime, Kahina's flower. You would like these epithets. Hina certainly does. Ed thinks they are scandalous.

I will bring you home. Your eye blinks at me from the open locket.

7. Signed, dated, burned

I am burning this letter at the bank of the river. Water rises, first at ankles, then to the knees. The ground is mud.

I delivered a message. The regime ends. The flood comes. The Archives are in disarray. The Collected have burst free. Pandemonium seizes. I hold your bones in my arms. Welcome home.

Kamal is resettling as many of those who wish to live. Meiling had taken Ed. At the peak of the mountain, watching as the flood swallows everything, Hina helps me burn your bones. This is not the last letter.

I erect a tombstone of all your tiles. God of Memory. My love, my heart, my friend of the womb. My sister. My home. Nghiem Anh Diu.