The small girl played the harpsichord badly, but it was the only thing between her thoughts and the noises at her back. Sadly, her legs were too short to reach the pedals. It was all up to her clumsy, tiny fingers to drown out the shouts and screams.

  It wasn't all rage. Sometimes the two women behind her would coo or flirt with each other instead. Invariably, though, they would return to the painful roaring and fighting the girl was trying so desperately to ignore. She played wrong notes constantly, and her rhythm was nonexistent. She wished she practiced more. She wished she hadn't insisted on skipping the easy, boring songs.

  For some reason, the harpsichord was outside, in the open. How it managed to do this without being destroyed by the elements in this green, rainy land, the girl didn't remember. Maybe they carried it out just for her and then took it back in after she was done. Maybe this harpsichord was special, somehow. She knew the moons in the sky could do all sorts of strange and wondrous things.

  After some time, one of the voices took on a new quality. A manic quality, as if the owner was suddenly looking at life through a pair of interesting glasses they couldn't remember putting on. It was the voice of her maamel, or non-birth mother. She had never spoken like that before.

  The girl played louder. Not better, but louder.

  Then, her maamel's voice returned to normal. She stopped saying frightening things. She was still yelling, and she was still angry at the other woman, but it was an improvement. A period of relative peace followed between the two.

  When the girl's playing was starting to improve, the other voice gained that perceptible manic quality. Her maamvi, birth mother, was doing it now. She waited for it to pass by restarting the song all over again. Finally, it did, and they were back to screaming at each other in their normal voices.

  Then, there was the sound of glass shattering, and everything went quiet. The girl didn't notice the silence around her until she reached a rest, and when she resumed, the keys stopped working. They went down when she pressed, but no sound came out.

  The girl didn't dare turn around. She heard footsteps. Tiny ones. She realized that her legs had extended and could now reach the pedals. Her fingers were larger, and her body had matured. She was still a child, but no longer tiny.

  Any doubt of who was walking behind her disappeared when they spoke in her voice. Or rather, wept:

  "Maamel, please make me forget!" There was a thumping of small hands on a bigger person's clothes. "I wish this didn't happen. Please, make me forget! I know your moon can do that! Please, maamel! Please!"

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  The girl’s body grew older still, barely an adult. Her hair disappeared from her head. The girl looked down at her hands. Silver magic was starting to curl off of them. For a moment, she didn't know why. Her cheek burned, and she remembered.

  The girl, whose name was Phoebe, blinked. The harpsichord was gone. She wasn't out in the open anymore. The voices behind her stopped. The pain in her cheek subsided. She turned. She was alone in an attic. There were no windows, but she could tell it was still night. The air was warm. She remembered where she was. She was sitting on her tiny mattress in the attic of the farmhouse. And she was a slave.

  There was an engram on her cheek. She knew what it was supposed to do. Given that she'd just woken up, could remember what her dream was, and that her magic hadn't gone away, the engram wasn't working. Not fully; it only stung a little. She could remember almost everything. Her name, the town they bought her from, all the reasons they branded a memory engram on slaves in these parts. She could even remember how to read and speak her native language, and she could recall the arrangement she’d been sold into, only for them to close every exit in the deal.

  Except for one, she thought, wrinkling her nose.

  The engram still made her cheek feel warm. It might start working again at any moment. When all its subordinate spells worked properly, the engram blocked all of her memories from before it was placed. It could be updated to remove connections and friends she’d made with what few sympathetic people existed. It could be used to hurt her and disrupt her if she strayed too far from its tether in the farmhouse.

  Phoebe didn't have time to dwell on all of it. She just needed to move. She couldn't run; her master had a horse, and knew how to ride it. He also had the tether to her engram on his body. She would have to deal with him first. She smirked, looking down at the silver magic wafting from her fingers. She wouldn’t have it any other way.

  But to her own surprise, the thought of facing him terrified Phoebe. The more she took in her old memories, the more paralyzed with terror she became. What was she thinking? Escaping was one thing, but attacking her master? He’d be furious. She wouldn’t stand a chance.

  What the hell? she thought, looking at her glowing hands. She wished she had a mirror. Where had all this fear come from? And why did it make so much sense? She fantasized about beating the shit out of her creep of a master every day. She attempted escape at least once a season. Why was she so afraid of upsetting him, now that she had these abilities back?

  Another voice Phoebe didn’t recognize came to her rescue. This voice didn’t speak with words, but it spoke with feelings instead. This voice was impulsive, eager, and confident. Contagiously so. The slave girl grabbed hold of it as tightly as she could to drown out the voice of paralytic terror coursing out of her engram. She had to move, now, before it dragged her down again.

  Phoebe turned to her door. The lock was the only thing protecting her master during the night. She had to move quickly. She gathered up a silver charge of magic, pressed her hand to the knob, and thrust.