The doctor finally admitted to me to-day that there is nothing more he can do for me but ease the pain. It has grown so bad these last few days. The minister came around this after-noon to discuss matters with me. I told him the truth, that I had always had faith and still did; I left out the part about trafficking with spirits. I think he suspected, when he was looking at the books, but he did not ask. I am no Catholic, and neither is he; there is no need to make confession. It would be a lie if I did, anyway. I do not doubt I made the right choice about Aaboukingon, or that he made the right choice to return to the water. But I still stare out my window, looking off toward the Mississippi, hoping to see him come and make this all right again.

Fell ill earlier this week. Coughing something terrible, sometimes feels like I'm drowning, terrible pain in my chest. Doctor came around to-day and gave me something for the cough and pain, told me to rest and hope it blows over. When he listened to my lungs he looked concerned, I think he was sparing some some pain by not telling me what he heard. I only just managed to find solid work here, and with the way the world is now I do not know if the work will still be there if, and when, I feel better.

Have not been to the river since this began. Never realized how much comfort the water brought me until I could no longer get there. Left the Ohio long ago to find work along the Mississippi, but that water was still my refuge and my only connection to Aaboukingon. I miss him terribly. As I lay in my bed, I find myself playing through our times together over and over again. I fear this is some curse; the drowning feeling is my fate coming for me, punishment for turning aside from my god and family in favor of a water spirit.

​But I made my choice, and I will take what it brings.

"This is it, isn't it?" Huginn asked. The Two were in raven form, perched in a tree and watching the window of Lori's apartment where she was screaming and throwing things from her broom closet.

"Sure is," Muninn replied.

"How can you remember her memories, but not Aaboukingon's?"

"Aaboukingon is fully spirit. There was no human to access. But her..." The Two sat silent for a moment, as the screaming died down and was replaced with sobbing.

"Are you telling me Lori remembers all of this?" she asked, turning to the other raven.

"Everyone in her situation remembers. Not everyone chooses to recall." Huginn shuddered.

"That must be horrible!" Muninn nodded. "And you get stuck feeling all of that? From everyone? At the same time?"

"I also remember all of the good, all the time." Huginn sighed, and looked back to the window.

"I suppose that's something. For you, anyway. But for her-"

"She has complex feelings about the miscarriage," Muninn interrupted. He took a moment to scratch his beak with his foot, then turned to Huginn. "But that will become apparent very soon."

Even within the metaphysical realm itself, the true spiritual nature of water is somewhat elusive. For most spirits going about their days on land or sky, the waters look much the same in that world as they do in ours. It is those few spirits who can dive deeper, slip not into the water but past it, that ever manage to find the true realm of water hidden behind the waves. There are a few distinct realms in Water; rain and clouds do not directly commune with rivers who work with but keep their distance from seas and oceans. They all work in concert, they all understand the importance of the others, and communication travels freely between them, but they are distinct and would remain so forever given the choice.

The River Network is as vast a plane as any in the metaphysical realm, stretching well past the borders of the actual rivers in the physical realm and branching out through underground aquifers and the artificial rivers mankind shapes with canals and pipes. It is a hectic, bustling realm, or collection of realms with oceans filling the enormous spaces between them. Scattered throughout the River Network are smaller waters, each governed by territorial spirits who cannot cross from one territory to another. The nature of these waters is a matter of ongoing dispute; in Africa, there is still a battle raging over whether the Upper and Lower Nile are two distinct waters or should be governed by one of the primary spirits in residence. A few other lands have access to the River Network, usually the homes of spirits associated with water but not part of it. Iravati is one such land, straddling  the banks of many rivers near the Indus Valley.

Aaboukingon was once the sovereign over a river that shared his name, when the people he knew spoke of their river with no regard for the names it had further up or down its banks. When the white man came they renamed it the Allegheny, then debated among themselves for years before deciding the Allegheny ended at Pittsburgh where the Ohio was born. Aaboukingon, being out of commission for significant portions of this process, woke to found himself a very powerful resident of someone else's river. It took some convincing for him to reclaim his waters, even if under the authority of Ohio, and still retain the freedom to move among Ohio's other waters. As soon as he could, however, he sent out messengers to scour the River Network for Joanna. By that time, the pressures of society against her occult leanings had paired with the uncertainty of the Great Depression to drive her away from Ohio's banks.

When word returned that she had been located in a small cottage in Arkansas, he immediately went to petition Mississippi for passage. But Mississippi did not know Aaboukingon as Ohio did, and anyway, what is one mortal to a spirit as grand and powerful as Mississippi? After a great deal of pleading and rebuttals, Aaboukingon accepted that he did not have time to continue this route and instead sent one of his messengers to find her and tell her to come home, that he was waiting for her, that he would give her everything he had ever promised and more just to see her again. When the messenger arrived, Joanna was not at the bank of the river, and it called out for bird or land or any other spirit who could hear it and bring Joanna to receive her summons. All day and most of that night it called out, and as dawn began to break, a young man stopped at the edge of the water and knelt down.

"Who are you calling for?" he asked the water, softly to avoid drawing the attention of other mortals.

"Joanna Matteson, bride of Aaboukingon! He has been searching for her, and now would welcome her home; and I have been sent to bring her home, but alas, I cannot leave these waters," the spirit replied. "But you are Riverborn! Do you know her? Can you find her?"

"I know her," the man said, "she is my mother, and Aaboukingon my father. I am on my way to her now, I--" he paused and looked away for a moment, then turned back to the water. "She is not well. I will see what I can do for her, but you go. Tell my father I will bring her home, one way or another." The river spirit poured out thanks, and as Jeremiah stood and turned his back to the river, the spirit rushed north to carry its new message.

The front of the bank was hectic, people arguing with each other and with clerks about money that was lost as the world made less and less sense to them. The Roaring Twenties were ending, not with a celebratory shout, but with a deafening howl. In a back room, two men were discussing a similar problem; and finding themselves in no better condition.

"Oh come on, Charlie! You can't do this to me!" Jeremiah railed, hitting his hat against the desk. Charlie, the unfortunate man who had just informed his sixth client of the day that they had no stocks of value remaining, was trying and failing to clean his glasses, if to take his mind off of what his job had become.

"I'm not doing it to you, sir," he replied, in an even tone. "I'm sorry to say that the world is in something of a panic right now, and those of us who have invested in the stock market are dealing with rather unprecedented failures."

"I didn't fail nothin! I put my money where it was supposed to go, and now you're telling me it's just flittered away?"

"That is not the best description of what has happened, but I suppose it will do." Jeremiah leaned over the desk and began jabbing it with his finger for emphasis. Charlie leaned back slightly in response.

"Now listen here, I worked hard for that money, and I need it to get through this thing!"

"Yes, well, that puts you in the same boat as everyone else, I'm afraid. We are all the same in the end, Mr. Matteson, and I suppose we are suddenly in this mess together." Jeremiah growled and glared at Charlie, who suddenly found his vision growing impaired and his breaths growing more difficult.

"The one time a mortal actually thinks we're the same," he muttered, as the left side of Charlie's face began to droop and his arm went numb, "and it's some sniveling little roach who thinks I need more suffering in this life."

"Sir...sir pleashe...doctor-"

"I am sick and tired of every trace of humanity being nothing but weakness and loss! I'm done with you, all of you, do you hear me? From now on, I claim my rightful place!" Jeremiah stood up straight as Charlie tried reaching out, weakly, with his right hand. Jeremiah looked down at the hand, then scowled and waved his hand in front of Charlie's face. Instantly, Charlie's eyes glazed over and he froze, just for a moment, before blood began leaking from his ears and nose and his face fell onto his desk. Jeremiah turned toward the door, then stopped. "If I am spirit," he muttered, "maybe I can travel as one." He took a slow, measured breath, reached his hands out slowly, and stepped forward into the metaphysical realm.