1
00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:04,719
Speaker 1: Magic is not learned. It remembers us Henry in one

2
00:00:04,759 --> 00:00:08,439
of his many moments of wisdom. Silver whispered the words

3
00:00:08,480 --> 00:00:11,240
into the dimming light, though she could not recall when

4
00:00:11,279 --> 00:00:14,240
she had first heard them. They lived in her the

5
00:00:14,279 --> 00:00:18,879
way roots lived beneath the forest floor, unseen, ancient and

6
00:00:19,039 --> 00:00:22,760
far older than she had reason to be. She sat

7
00:00:22,879 --> 00:00:25,640
quietly in the shallow cave as the last threads of

8
00:00:25,679 --> 00:00:30,480
sunlight bled gold and lavender across the sky. The air

9
00:00:30,519 --> 00:00:33,479
grew colder with each breath of evening, and she pulled

10
00:00:33,479 --> 00:00:36,759
her cloak tighter around her shoulders, tucking her bare toes

11
00:00:36,799 --> 00:00:40,159
beneath the folds for warmth. The pine boughs she gathered

12
00:00:40,159 --> 00:00:44,079
earlier rustled beneath her, a far more respectable bed than

13
00:00:44,119 --> 00:00:47,119
the sad, crunchy pile she'd collapsed onto the night before.

14
00:00:48,079 --> 00:00:51,640
She stretched her tired legs, leaned back against the cave wall,

15
00:00:51,960 --> 00:00:56,200
and allowed herself to pretend she was comfortable. Her hand drifted,

16
00:00:56,479 --> 00:00:59,000
as it always did when she was tired or afraid,

17
00:00:59,479 --> 00:01:02,759
to the silk over pendant resting against her chest. It

18
00:01:02,840 --> 00:01:05,760
hung suspended from a simple leather cord, warm as a

19
00:01:05,760 --> 00:01:09,280
heart beat. The charm was a tiny cottage framed by

20
00:01:09,280 --> 00:01:12,799
two tall pines, a carved wreath hanging upon the door

21
00:01:13,480 --> 00:01:17,799
and in the window, impossibly small, yet undeniably present, the

22
00:01:17,840 --> 00:01:21,719
silhouette of a girl gazing out from behind the imagined glass,

23
00:01:22,079 --> 00:01:25,920
her mother's silhouette. Silver had worn the pendant every day

24
00:01:25,959 --> 00:01:29,079
since she was twelve. Before that, she had seen it

25
00:01:29,120 --> 00:01:32,480
only once, glinting in the firelight, when her father pulled

26
00:01:32,519 --> 00:01:35,200
it from his pocket and quickly tucked it away again,

27
00:01:35,719 --> 00:01:39,239
as though afraid it might burst into flame. Not yet,

28
00:01:39,519 --> 00:01:43,840
he warned, and never touch it, which naturally made touching

29
00:01:43,879 --> 00:01:50,560
it inevitable. After he vanished, without explanation, without farewell, she

30
00:01:50,680 --> 00:01:53,120
found the pendant wrapped in linen and hidden in the

31
00:01:53,120 --> 00:01:56,640
bottom drawer of his writing desk. The moment she lifted

32
00:01:56,640 --> 00:01:59,760
it into the firelight, a warmth unfurled in her chest,

33
00:02:00,280 --> 00:02:04,719
something like belonging, something like being remembered. She slid it

34
00:02:04,840 --> 00:02:07,680
over her wild red curls and settled it at the

35
00:02:07,719 --> 00:02:11,159
base of her throat. Though cold when she first touched it,

36
00:02:11,680 --> 00:02:17,120
the metal warmed instantly, alive. Somehow the day had unfolded

37
00:02:17,159 --> 00:02:20,000
like any other. She fed the ducks, and the two

38
00:02:20,080 --> 00:02:25,199
perpetually unimpressed chickens. She tended the garden. She toasted bread

39
00:02:25,280 --> 00:02:28,520
and nibbled cheese. She brewed the evening tea her father

40
00:02:28,639 --> 00:02:32,280
always drank, more out of habit than fondness. The tea

41
00:02:32,319 --> 00:02:36,639
tasted bitter, earthy, like soil and regret, but it did

42
00:02:36,680 --> 00:02:40,319
something to her. Her eyelids grew heavy, her limbs soft

43
00:02:40,360 --> 00:02:43,800
and dream like. She barely remembered climbing into the loft

44
00:02:43,800 --> 00:02:47,439
to sleep, but she remembered waking, not in her bed,

45
00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:50,960
but seated upright on a wooden bench in a strange,

46
00:02:51,000 --> 00:02:55,680
silent village of unfamiliar buildings. There were glowing glass bulbs

47
00:02:55,759 --> 00:02:59,680
that needed no flame, metal machines covered in buttons and numbers,

48
00:03:00,080 --> 00:03:03,319
clear containers made of something she later learned was called plastic.

49
00:03:04,120 --> 00:03:10,199
Everything was curious, beautiful, impossible, except for the cat. A fat,

50
00:03:10,280 --> 00:03:14,520
gray creature sat beside her, blinking slowly, wearing the patient

51
00:03:14,639 --> 00:03:18,319
disappointed expression of someone who had been waiting far longer

52
00:03:18,360 --> 00:03:22,800
than politeness required. She named him Henry, mostly because he

53
00:03:22,840 --> 00:03:25,400
looked as though he already knew his name and would

54
00:03:25,439 --> 00:03:29,800
judge her if she chose something unsuitable. Henry became her

55
00:03:29,840 --> 00:03:32,599
first friend on the other side. For a week, the

56
00:03:32,639 --> 00:03:37,240
crossings continued, tea or no tea, loft or floor. She

57
00:03:37,319 --> 00:03:40,840
always woke on that same bench, Henry beside her like

58
00:03:40,879 --> 00:03:45,840
a mildly offended chaperone. Once she attempted an experiment and

59
00:03:45,960 --> 00:03:49,840
slept in the garden shed. Henry found her face down

60
00:03:49,879 --> 00:03:52,800
in cold grass ten feet from the bench the next morning,

61
00:03:53,319 --> 00:03:56,319
and yowled his disapproval for the better part of an hour.

62
00:03:57,240 --> 00:04:00,159
It wasn't until she remembered the necklace, the warm that

63
00:04:00,240 --> 00:04:04,759
her collarbone, that everything snapped into place. One night she

64
00:04:04,840 --> 00:04:08,080
removed it. She wrapped it in cloth, tucked it in

65
00:04:08,120 --> 00:04:13,240
her night stand, and slept that night. She did not cross. Instead,

66
00:04:13,639 --> 00:04:16,360
she dreamed of her father warning her she would regret

67
00:04:16,480 --> 00:04:20,040
wearing the pendant, and of her mother's voice, soft as

68
00:04:20,120 --> 00:04:24,920
falling snow, whispering, you will carry the legacy. Be strong.

69
00:04:25,360 --> 00:04:28,360
One day we will meet again. She awoke at dawn

70
00:04:28,399 --> 00:04:31,600
with a damp pillow and an aching heart. She never

71
00:04:31,680 --> 00:04:34,879
removed the pendant again, and for the next ten years

72
00:04:35,240 --> 00:04:39,000
she lived two intertwined lives, one in the lonely woods

73
00:04:39,000 --> 00:04:42,439
of sixteen ninety four and one in the silent future,

74
00:04:42,759 --> 00:04:46,920
where Henry ruled with a fluffy iron paw. Eventually she

75
00:04:46,959 --> 00:04:50,279
found the cottage, the very one etched into the silver charm.

76
00:04:51,120 --> 00:04:54,839
It sat behind the shop called the Witch's Brew, nestled

77
00:04:54,839 --> 00:04:59,079
among trees and brambles, nearly identical to her real cottage,

78
00:04:59,240 --> 00:05:04,639
yet brighter, whitewashed stone, black framed windows, ivy spilling from

79
00:05:04,720 --> 00:05:08,920
flower boxes. Bees hummed around their hive, and she learned

80
00:05:08,920 --> 00:05:13,639
to tend them. Honey became plentiful, an arrangement Henry considered

81
00:05:13,639 --> 00:05:17,680
the bare minimum requirement for civilized tea. She made that

82
00:05:17,800 --> 00:05:21,439
place her home, as real as her own, as hers

83
00:05:21,439 --> 00:05:25,240
as anything had ever been. And now, sitting alone in

84
00:05:25,279 --> 00:05:29,040
a cave, with the forest whispering outside and destiny pressing

85
00:05:29,079 --> 00:05:32,560
heavy against her ribs, one truth glowed inside her, like

86
00:05:32,560 --> 00:05:36,160
a hidden ember. She needed to get back there, not

87
00:05:36,360 --> 00:05:40,319
just for comfort, not just for Henry, but because her survival,

88
00:05:40,639 --> 00:05:44,279
her future, depended on it. Curling on to her pine

89
00:05:44,319 --> 00:05:47,920
bough bed, cloak drawn, tight fingers curled around the warm

90
00:05:48,000 --> 00:05:52,360
leather cord, Silver closed her eyes, Moonlight brushed her face.

91
00:05:53,079 --> 00:05:56,920
The air hummed a faint, familiar thrumb, like a thread

92
00:05:56,959 --> 00:06:01,720
pulling tout between two worlds. She exhaled, Sleep took her,

93
00:06:02,240 --> 00:06:04,319
and the world began to rewrite itself,