words against her skin.

It took every ounce of her will to show no reaction when she saw the black book slide silently out of the fidgeting candidate’s oversized cloak and gently onto the floor; her bony fingers dug fiercely into her arms hidden deep inside the long sleeves of her shapeless outer robe, sharp reminder to keep herself in control even as her spirit screamed in shock. Her face maintained the habitual blank mask that all women had learned to cultivate in public as she deliberately steadied her breathing, sinking deep into her carefully created facade, perfected since infancy.

She calmed herself, waited for him to realise his error and hastily snatch the precious treasure back but it lay there, hidden beneath the heavy lower edge of the long wooden bench at the very back of the echoing auditorium, his bored form wriggling as he carefully engaged his fellows seated beside him in muffled disregard for the Speaker droning endlessly at the podium far to the front.

The session seemed to last an eternity as she waited for him to discover the loss, the thin black line burning into her mind with its potential, the great weight of the small book landing on shoulders that looked too narrow to bear the load but belied a heart and will of steel; to her astonishment he continued in his careless oblivion, clambering to his feet at the moment of dismissal and jostling away with the others, the crowd flowing out the door like a fast moving tide until there was no-one but the Observers, the ever silent women spaced like ornaments around the room, waiting to clear the now empty hall of its collective energy.

Carefully she made her way forward towards the almost invisible black edge on the floor, her head down, concentrating on keeping her movements natural as she arranged the thin seat cushions back into their proper alignment. It was a simple act to feign the narrow square in her hand falling to the floor; a deft movement of retrieval and the book was hidden, tucked solidly into her snug undergarment, an instant death sentence sitting silently against her skin. She followed the actions of the other women as by remote, her hands following the specific movements that would clear the dank and heavy energy now stagnating in the space, concentrating focus in her usual meticulous fashion until some invisible signal turned them together like a flock of birds following a hidden leader towards the doors and their chambers beyond.

She walked in her usual careful measure along the hallways leading towards the underground chambers that housed all women, five generations of patient waiting burning against her skin where it touched the soft cover; she refused to let the weight of this surreal moment overcome her, letting the span of her life and the histories of all the women she knew carry her like a leaf along a destined current, depositing her at the safer shore of the familiar entranceway of her family enclave’s home.

As she closed the door her fingers fluttered briefly against the wood, drumming softly in a random staccato and the women around her shifted imperceptibly in their tasks; within minutes the youngest of the clan had been engaged in the unexpected delight of baking in the far off kitchen, leaving the older women tidying and cleaning in their usual fashion while inkpot and pen materialised next to her bed, nestled neatly into a grooved nook underneath that seemed to have been built for just such an event. In the same invisibly mysterious fashion the book shifted from the depth of her robes to beneath her pillow as she discarded her outer garments and sat with careful focus, gathering the memories loaded into her hands as she felt the pen and ink being moved silently into the hidden space created by her crossed legs, her thighs a living desk.

Time, they knew, was the one thing that could work against them all if the loss of the treasure was discovered and she wasted none of it, grasping the book tightly for a moment before opening to the first fresh blank, ignoring the scratchings on the earlier pages, banal and self important indulgences of small minded aspiration against the intention laser focused within her. She reverently slid her fingertips across the impossible smoothness of the fine paper, feeling the crackle of power arc between page and skin, visible blue line of electricity leaping momentarily into life that she suspected someone, somewhere, may have felt; with careful focus she loaded the pen with ink and paused to look each of the watching women in the eye, decades of training and focus on each of their observing faces.

She had dreamed so long of this moment that the words spilled effortlessly across the whiteness, the soft sound arising from beneath her great grandmother’s bed alerting them to the first alteration; the old woman moved with a speed that belied her age and reached out to grasp the chest that had materialised, flinging the lid back to reveal the money neatly arranged within.

As one they knew what it was- the impossible price of liberty set generations ago by the conquering dominators for the freedom of an individual woman: twenty thousand dollars, stacked in neatly tied bundles, the kind of currency that hadn’t been observed in use for over thirty years, the price that her entire enclave had striven for five generations to accrue to save even one of them but had never come close to.

She watched the grey haired woman contemplate the box silently as similar whispering sounds beneath the other beds revealed the same boxes and contents, the same symbols of freedom and liberation; her head was already bent over the book again as she began to write, words forming swiftly across the page-

and in the centre of the room a pile of black books materialised, some aged, tattered, hand worn and clearly very old, others shining with untouched newness and possibility, as every one of the living books in existence found their way to that specific moment and place. Suddenly in the distance a great roar began, muffled and yet clearly both panicked and furious, jangled with the confusion of not knowing if they were being betrayed by their own or from within the silent enclaves of those long thought thoroughly beaten and subjugated; swiftly every woman moved forward, reaching for a book, pen and ink materialising as each sat and bent over the pages, their long nurtured in secret knowledge of words finally unleashing across the pristine pages as they formulated their own addition to the unfolding narrative. The deep bellowing suddenly silenced, walls growing and stretching, opening up to the world around them, windows blooming like breaks in heavy cloud, streaming light and fresh air; the sounds of women and children calling to one another, lighter male voices now coming from the distance, excitedly calling the names of their children and lovers as their prison cells dissolved, the cries of joyful reunion and wonder-

hearing the words of her mother whispering in her ear as pen softly scratched the next chapter of the long ago planned story arc-

“Remember, my darling daughter, remember,” the soft voice murmured in the long nights of her childhood, loving fingers repeatedly stroking the forbidden symbols against the soft palm of her young hand, mouthing the sounds in warm breath against her ear; showing her how each sound came together to form words, the words into sentences and the sentences into the foundations of ideas that would bring matter into being nntil eventually it was her own fingers that traced the symbols and formed the words back onto the living book of her mother- ‘remember that the books they carry contain power that needs the words in order to create, because words speak that which we desire to bring into existence-”

as the door to the enclave flung open and her mother and sisters tumble into the room the women scream, no longer silent as mothers and daughters fall into one another’s arms, reaching for each other, and now her mother is there, framing her face with hands that had faithfully carried the knowledge of words for a lifetime, kissing her over and over, finishing aloud the quote that had been so carefully preserved for decades within her own mind-

“remember, beloved, that one day our writing will speak the great visions within us, and these writings will utterly transform the world.”