The problem with moving forward, I suspected, was not going to be getting into the flow. I’d already learned how to do that. The problem was going to be moving at the pace I wanted to move, stopping when I got where I wanted to go. The other problem was that I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, or how concrete the future was. Would I change things by looking forward? It seemed unlikely, based on how the Fates described the weave of time, but I couldn’t be certain. I needed to be careful.

Nan had given me something new this time. It was one of the shards of colored glass that hung from the ceiling in the shop and tinted the sunlight coming in through the windows, dancing around the store. I had always loved those shards, and the effect they had in the shop, and she knew that. She explained that, unlike when I was traveling to the past, I wouldn’t be able to just fall back into my own time if I found myself struggling. I hadn’t even considered the possibility of getting lost! She told me the shard was a focus, something I could hopefully use to find my way back to the shop if I had difficulty. I thanked her, and went to begin my meditation.

I was able to feel the tug of time’s flow quickly, but I didn’t jump in right away. I continued to focus, steadying myself, until I was certain I would have about as much control as I could muster. Then, and only then, did I let myself flow along. Everything was a blur at first, and it took me another moment to recenter and focus on the work at hand. I forced myself to slow down, at least enough that I could start taking in some of the sights flashing past me. Here I was in a cabin with Rick, Matteson, and Alice. There I was at the house. I saw myself in a tuxedo and forced myself to stop.

I was standing in a room in the house, the size and layout looked like Henry’s room, but the decorations were clearly mine. The tuxedo I had on was clearly tailored, and looked damn good on me. She knew it, too, and her eyes in the mirror shifted to look directly at me and wink. I laughed; I hadn’t really considered that I would remember watching this happen. She smoothed out the jacket, then left the room as I followed. The house looked entirely different, I saw almost nothing that belonged to Matteson. What happened? When even was this? But she wasn’t lingering, and neither did I. We made our way out to a car, I suspected our car, and I slipped into the passenger seat as she turned the ignition. She sat for a moment, as if deep in thought, and then turned to me. She was younger than the mother at the crossroads, but still had those golden flecks in her eye. I suddenly felt exposed, as if she could see me with it.

“I can see you,” she said, calmly. “And also I remember this. It’s…a significant day for us.”

“Does it work? Do I get my answers?” I asked. She scowled.

“I can’t tell you that. But listen, you can’t stick around. I’ll take you where I’m going, and you can see briefly what it is, but that’s it, got it?” I nodded. “Good. Wouldn’t want to give everything away.” She smiled, turned her attention to the road, and pulled out.

“Is it because of those flecks in your eye?” She nodded.

“Yeah, they help a lot with time magic, and there’s a certain low-level awareness I have all the time now. I suspect I can see any time travelers, it just isn’t a common enough practice for me to have seen any other than myself.”

“That is a very flattering suit.”

“Thanks! Getting sized for it was a pain, but thankfully I knew the result would be worth it.” I watched out the window and realized we were pulling into Buhl Park. The car wound around a bit until it reached one of the pavilions, clearly set up for a wedding. I saw Matteson, Alice, Marz, and a few other faces I recognized there.

“Who’s getting married?” She parked the car and smiled at me.

“We are, of course!” With that she was out of the car, and I scrambled to catch up to her. “I’m glad we could do it outside. They were saying there was a chance of rain, but of course,” she pointed to the sky and I looked up into a cloudless expanse, “I knew they were wrong.”

“Wait what?”

“Well it wouldn’t be a day important enough to stop you if it was anyone else, would it?” I considered that as we walked. Alice glanced up, talked briefly with Matteson, then ran over to Jackie.

“You’re here! Good, we’re almost all ready. Don’t go snooping around behind the pavilion, now,” Alice said. I glanced down and noticed Alice was wearing a wedding band. Jackie smiled.

“Thank you so much for all of this! I really appreciate your help.” Alice leaned closer.

“John says you aren’t alone,” she whispered.

“Ah, yeah. I should’ve probably told you. That’s me from the past, she won’t be staying long, but that is how I knew the weather would cooperate.” Alice sighed in relief.

“Okay. That makes sense. I never know what to expect with you. Hello, past Jackie.”

“Hello,” I said. She clearly couldn’t hear me. “How long am I staying, anyway?”

“As long as you want, really, as long as you don’t get too close to Matteson,” Jackie answered. Alice nodded and walked away, apparently confident she wasn’t part of what was now happening. “But you’ll know when you’re risking seeing too much. I have things to do, explore a bit.” She went off toward the people who were finishing setting up, and I stood looking around for a while. What was behind the pavilion? I made my way through the ceremony space, taking in the flowers and the ribbons. It was all very nice and beautiful, and purple. There was more purple than I would have expected. I rounded the corner of the building and caught sight of her. I couldn’t see her face, she was turned away from me, but I could see the wedding dress and the women fussing over her.

​Of course. It was bad luck for the couple to see each other before the wedding, so she couldn’t peek back here. Did that apply to me, too? Part of me felt a bit sad, and as I slipped back around the corner to stop looking I considered why that was. I mean, yes, it was disappointing to know Rick and I didn’t work out, but I wasn’t that committed to being with him, was I? I wanted to look around the corner again, see who she was, but then I realized that this was it. That was too much information. I sighed, focused, and stepped back into the flow.

There are those who take issue with this argument, so I should clarify right at the start that I fully believe Atlantis was real and, not only the first advanced civilization, but the very first civilization. Whether it was advanced by any modern or ancient reckoning is irrelevant and probably mistaken anyway. Different people remembered it different ways. I believe the Greek story borrowed from their culture’s memories of it. I believe the Bible is trying to describe it when it talks about Cain establishing the first city, and again when Noah escapes the great cataclysm that destroyed it. I believe the Epic of Gilgamesh does the same thing, as do countless other stories from around the world. Every legend, every religion, every bit of folklore and magic and ritual in some way traces back to echoes of Atlantis. And I believe Atlantis is where we would find the very first worshipers of Hecate.

I submit that there was a single pantheon of gods honored in that place. Whether or not the Atlanteans themselves considered these entities gods is unknown and probably unknowable. But they knew the world had a spiritual component, and engaged with it in some way, and therefore knew the things we now call gods in their most primal form. And as the earliest civilization, they would have looked out on a world that was raw, untamed, dangerous and flawed, filled with people who hadn’t yet learned how to live together in peace. What they must have thought of these outsiders! These were the first people with a border; and along with a border comes the knowledge that things live beyond the border. Whatever gods or spirits or guides they knew within their ancient cities, there was one they absolutely knew: the Guardian of the Edges. The Outlander. The One Who Paces At The Border. The Gnawing Darkness Beyond. Whatever fears or hopes drew them to form a society, whatever they were walking away from when they came together, was known to them all and associated with some primeval spirit who waited just beyond their reach.

Hecate was not her first name, nor was Hathor. They almost certainly knew the liminal spirit by whatever name they spat when they talked about the days before their city was built. The wild one. The wanderer. The hunter. She was, in those days, all that they no longer wished to know. She was the spirit of all peoples, the great power they had to throw off their backs to create civilization. She may have been the first guardian of mankind as a whole, the first spirit they knew and came to fear. The old ways of mankind as hunter and gatherer died, and she was the key to recognizing what they were leaving behind. The transition required that they know her, and then turn away. And as she in later forms would guide those entering their new lives after death, so she then served as the guide to those dying to the hunter/gatherer lifestyle and entering society. If that society knew banishment, they surely understood it as giving the person back to her. So she becomes associated also with the leaving, the outcast, those who never return. I doubt she had direct worshipers, but she was known and feared. She was almost certainly part of some great duality, the wild and unknown standing in opposition to the spirit of order and knowledge that the greatest Atlantean priests extolled.

And this would mean she was there when it ended. Those who watched the city fall would know that she, somehow, was involved. She would not be forgotten. She would arise time and time again. Some people embracing her, others shunning her, but all remembering her. Then, she stood at the crossroads of mankind’s fate. Now she stands at the Crossroads of all the places we have built and all the powers we have amassed. As the liminal spaces have grown, she has grown to fill them. But what must it have been like for her? How did she take that moment, when mankind began to turn its back on her? The eyes in the forest stalking uncivilized humanity, the voice on the winds of deserts only the desperate would enter, suddenly finding form as a thing to be left behind? And then, as mankind continued to entangle her in our affairs, piling names on her, creating new liminal spaces for her to govern while only occasionally accepting her guidance with them?

​What did she want, what desire welled in her heart when she saw the first city walls erected against her? Has she ever truly wanted anything other than whatever she wanted then?

I was planning on resting for the day, and went out to finish refreshing my energy. To that end, I was out at the shore of Lake Michigan shortly before dawn, meditating. I was deep in my trance when I heard Hecate’s voice, which sent me spinning around quickly. I was expecting that she was talking to me, but I quickly realized she wasn’t. There was a faint golden hue around her, and the Hound—and Alethea, sitting next to the Hound. Hecate was huge, probably twelve feet tall, her three faces showing.

“Have you come to take me away?” Alethea asked, turning her attention back toward Hecate. I slowly stood and walked closer.

“Where to, my dear?”

“Well, it’s...I haven’t crossed over yet, and I thought that’s what was next for me.” The Hound walked back to his mistress.

“Crossed over? Oh you poor thing, you should know by now you can’t do that until your business on Earth is complete” Alethea turned back and looked out at the lake.

“But he’s dead.” I racked my brain for a moment, and then remembered her father’s death.

“Is that all you wanted, though? Did you really stay bound to this world for so many years just to kill an old man?” Alethea rested her hands on her belly and looked down. Hecate began walking forward, shrinking as she went.

“I…well, no, but—” Hecate rested a hand on Alethea’s shoulder and knelt next to her.

“Roger was not the only man who let you down, was he?”

“How do you know?”

“I know much, my child. I know about you, and I know about John Matteson; and I know how to bring you together, if you will let me help you.” I gasped and took a step backward. She removed her hand from Alethea’s shoulder and stood, then held her hand out as if inviting Alethea to take it. The girl began to reach out, then stopped and looked up at the woman.

​“What do you get out of helping me?”

​“Is there a price too high to finally bring your child into the world, and be free of all this pain and these men?” Alethea paused, then took her hand, and they vanished. I stood in the silence for a moment, taking shallow breaths as I tried to process what I’d just seen. Hecate had been behind this? She sent Alethea to Matteson? What was her game? I knew I needed to tell Matteson what I’d seen, but not yet. First, I needed more information. I decided that I couldn’t wait. I was going to try and see the future today, and get whatever I could out of that. I gathered my things and headed straight back to the shop.

I fell asleep quickly that night, but soon found myself standing in The Crossroads. I looked around, confused, since the Hound hadn’t come to summon me. I just seemed to be there.

“Hello?” I heard my voice, but I hadn’t said anything. I spun around and there, coming down one of the paths, was me. I recognized her. This was what I looked like, back in elementary school. Nearly twenty years ago, well before my first trip to The Crossroads. But she was alone, and confused. I lifted my hand to wave, and opened my mouth.

“Hello, child,” my voice said. Again, it wasn’t me. I looked to my left and there was a woman, old and frail, like Abuela in her last days. She looked so much like her, but I knew that wasn’t the case. One blue eye and one brown, flecked with gold, peered out of that wrinkled face. “Let’s take a look at you all.” All? I turned around again and there, coming up from another direction yet, was another me. Another future, she looked to be maybe twenty or so years older. She looked confident, powerful. I stepped forward finally as the three other woman came together. The maiden, the mother, and the crone. Assuming I became a mother, I guess, but these are the titles we take in such a form. But what did that make me, the me watching this? The crone ran her hands along each of our jaws, looking us over.

“What is this?” I asked. The crone smiled.

“This is where we make the choice,” the mother said. “This is when we settle the path ahead.”

“But wait,” the maiden said, pointing at me, “if I’m here, and we’re all me, why doesn’t she remember?”

“You don’t know how to do this yet,” I said, piecing things together. “You were pulled here, rather than walking into it through magic.”

“And so it feels like a dream, and will fade like one,” the crone said. “But your input is valuable anyway.”

“How can we be doing this? How can we be here?” I asked. “The Crossroads isn’t ours to do with as we please.”

“This isn’t the Crossroads. I don’t know what it is,” the mother answered.

“You will,” the crone said, smiling.

“But—”

“But if I tell her,” she said, pointing a bony finger at me, “then you will know, and the cycle will be changed.”

“I don’t think we should break the cycle, whatever it is,” the maiden said.

“Valuable indeed.”

“So what’s this cycle?” I asked.

“Oh, that’s complicated,” the mother answered. “You’ll be told it isn’t a cycle.”

“And they’ll be right,” the crone added.

“And…I suppose they’ll be right. But we’ve learned much about time, and about The Crossroads, and about things we can do.”

“And who we know,” the crone winked to the mother, who sighed and scratched her hair.

“I don’t know if you remember how recent that is for me.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Don’t worry,” the crone said, “it will all make sense. When you return.”

“Okay, okay. You said we were here to make a choice? What choice?”

“What we will trust.”

“Who we will trust,” the mother said.

“What path we will take?” the maiden asked. The other two nodded.

“So how do we do that?” I asked.

“We do not choose. We have chosen,” the mother said, pointing between herself and the crone.

“So…?” I pointed to the maiden. The mother and crone shook their heads.

“She is here to advise. You choose.”

“How can I advise?” the maiden asked. “I don’t even know what’s going on!”

“But you remember what we wanted when we started,” the crone said, resting a hand on her shoulder. “And that will be helpful here.”

“What I want? I want to understand! You all talk like you’re in on some secret!”

“I’ve been trying to understand,” I said, “all my life.”

“And that understanding has shaped more than you know,” the crone said.

“Oh!” the mother said, stepping backward and putting her hands over her mouth. “It’s…we told him, and then—”

“That’s quite enough!” The crone stomped her foot with authority as she said that, and the mother stopped.

“Sorry, sorry. I hadn’t realized yet.”

“I remember.”

“How does this help me decide who to trust, exactly?” I asked.

“Who are we not sure about trusting?” the maiden asked.

“Hecate,” both older women said in unison.

“Who?”

“Oh,” I said. “I…I don’t know yet. That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

“You’re going the wrong way,” the mother said.

“The beginning hasn’t happened yet,” the crone said. I gasped and looked between them.

“I don’t have to be looking backward!” I cupped my hands over my mouth as soon as I said it, and thought about that. “I can be looking forward, can’t I?”

“And you will meet others,” the mother said.

“Are they nice?” the maiden asked.

“They are…something like nice, yes.” The mother looked at me, and I noticed for the first time that she also had the golden flecks in her brown eye.

“Is that another spell gone wrong?” I asked, pointing and hoping she remembered what I meant. She smiled.

“It’s more like a spell gone right.”

“Do you trust Hecate?” the maiden asked me. I took a moment to think.

“I don’t think I do, anymore.”

“But you are still in her debt,” the mother noted. “You will need to do the job she has for you, and you do not want her to think you hesitant.”

“What is it? What does she want from me?”

“You are a means to an end for her,” the crone said, waving her hand. “It isn’t about what she wants from you, it’s about what she wants in general.”

“And I give it to her?”

“No,” the mother answered, “but you must do the task she gives you. And then, when you know the truth, you know what to do about it.”

“So I’m right not to trust her.”

“But what about the others? Can we trust them?” the maiden asked.

“Who are they?”

“You will know very soon now,” the crone said. “Very soon indeed.”

“Heed their warnings. Do not forget that they have different goals than you,” the mother said, stepping closer to me. “What is good for them is not always good for you.”

“Are their goals good?” I asked.

“That is a matter of some interpretation,” the crone answered. “I may have an answer, soon.”

“You must decide whether to trust them or not,” the mother said. “We can only advise.”

“What do you advise?” I demanded.

“Caution,” the mother said.

“Diligence,” the crone said.

“Hope,” the maiden said. We all turned to look at her. “Well? You both made it through, right? There’s hope, then.” The crone smiled.

​“Perhaps the most valuable of all,” she said, mussing the maiden’s hair. I was about to ask them another question when I suddenly found myself sitting on the couch in Nan and Sergei’s apartment. I made my way into the kitchen and poured a glass of water. The clock read 1:11 as I drank, and I couldn’t help but feel like the timing was important. But I doubted I would get any more answers tonight, so I finished my drink and went back to bed.

I do not think Hecate is the first name she had. I do not think that was the first people to know the Guardian of the Edges. Is it possible there were multiple different entities who slowly became one? I don’t know. I tend to think it’s the other way around, that there is one spirit who holds this office, and each culture that comes to know it only knows some part of it. I think the people of her first known tribe learned of her from somewhere else. I think, before she was Hecate, she was Hathor.

No, I don’t think Hathor was her first name, either. We’ll get to that. But think about it. Hathor is primeval, like Hecate. She is of an old guard that are eclipsed and absorbed by some body of upstart gods. And what did she look after? We know her primarily for her role in fertility and femininity, but her first worshipers did not. Not that she didn’t have those traits, but that she had others. Hathor was also the goddess who guided souls on their way to the Underworld and helped them adjust to their new existence, in the same manner as Hecate did to those souls on their way to Hades. And she was the goddess of the outside, the patron of goods coming from lands beyond the borders of Egypt.

We think of the Guardian of the Edges as the darkness beyond the light of civilization, but that’s because we’re used to her as Hecate and Trivia and the Devil at the Crossroads. Even Trivia was not so dark, though; and perhaps the Egyptians had a more natural curiosity and love for the beyond than we do. Where other cultures viewed outsiders with suspicion, Egypt praised the goods they brought. Where Mediterranean peoples viewed death as a dreary place from which no one returns, the Egyptians embraced it as a waiting friend. They did not fear the world beyond themselves. They romanticized it, embraced it, lusted after it. I submit that it is not incidental that the goddess of undeath is the goddess of fertility, that the goddess of the outsider was a goddess to be lusted after. The Greeks feared her place in the cycle of death and rebirth, as the Egyptians praised it. The Greeks looked to the darkness beyond their cities with fear, while the Egyptians looked to it with desire. But perhaps it is not that they saw something different when they looked there. Perhaps they simply had different appetites.

Hathor comes to Egypt at the edges of all they know, carrying the gifts of lands abroad, stirring the hearts and loins of the Nile people, promising them a welcome transition to their next home. The Crossroads was not a thing named, but they knew where to meet her. They knew how to trade with her. They knew she would understand their desire, their longing, and would reward it. Is this not the same mistress of the Crossroads, the same three-headed goddess who stands at the fringes of life and death and day and night, the same goddess who guards travelers as they move from one land to another, the same stranger who meets the outcast under a moonless night and grants a wish in exchange for something of equal value?

​Hecate was Hathor. And before that? I think she may have been known even farther back.