The Robot and the Witch by André Geleynse
3700 words, ~19 minutes reading time
Issue 5 (Summer 2024)
Do you remember, Robot, how we first met?
It was raining, and I was bored. I was only six or seven then, I think. My father, the village witch at the time, had been called down to Hildsbog to deal with someone’s colicky horse, and I was left alone in the cottage. Old rafters groaned under the weight of the water, overflowing gutters gurgled gleefully, and I roamed the labyrinthine hallways in search of entertainment. After I’d chased the cats, failed to break the warding spell on the cookie jar, and lost several sword fights with the animated armour, I retreated to the Triangle Room to read.
Do you remember the Triangle Room in those days? My father always told me it was the first part of the cottage to be built, which was true though not in the way he thought. The Triangle protruded from the centre of the cottage: tall and thin above the treeline, sloped at an awkward angle towards the sun, and distinct from the eccentric conglomeration of studies, potion rooms, barns, and everything else that made up the rest of the house. It was made of a smooth dark metal I had never seen anywhere else and which refused to speak to me however much I prodded. The Triangle housed the sitting room, buried among the sprawling nest of kitchens, libraries, and potting rooms. It was packed with moldering old sofas, chairs, cushions, and blankets. A fireplace took up one entire wall, its chimney punched through a hole in the Triangle’s strange metal.
It must have been the rain; or perhaps the building was just old and weary. Either way, it was on that day that a huge section of the sitting room ceiling collapsed in a pile of damp plaster and rotten wood. I assume rain had infiltrated around the chimney and gathered in the ceiling until the weight grew too much. Above me yawned a gaping dark hole. You might think me foolish, Robot, but it had never occurred to me there might be more to the Triangle. Although the Triangle rose at least four storeys high, this plaster ceiling had been built only ten feet off the ground. The mystery at once overwhelmed and intrigued me.
The cats bolted, but I just stood there. I don’t remember being surprised or frightened, only excited. Perhaps I knew even then that this was meant to be. That I had nothing to fear from that darkness.
Or perhaps I’ve retold this story to myself so many times that I’ve rewritten it. If you remember it differently, don’t tell me. I like my version.
Frightened or not, I had to see what was up there. After stacking the kitchen chairs on top of the sofa failed, I remembered the ladder at the back of the barn. I braved the thunderstorm and returned soaked, chilled, and chattering
The space above the hole was unlit, but I prepared myself well. I brought with me a jar of fireflies I’d found weeks before, nestled inside a fire-blackened knight’s helmet in one of the upstairs hallways. You know how the cottage was back then; a labyrinth of paraphernalia both magical and mundane, collected by my father, and his father, and his mother, and on for more generations than I could count. Glass beads, cursed dolls, pots of eternal ice, mirrors that reflected only darkness, and a thousand other bits of nonsense. Not everything was useful, but those fireflies obeyed my commands. They glowed soft and steady, not at all the intermittent flicker of those that took over the swamp every summer. Perfect for lighting this forgotten attic.
Standing atop the ladder, I unscrewed the jar. The fireflies swarmed upwards to illuminate a space perhaps three feet high. A second ceiling hung above the one that had broken; this one made of the same smooth dark metal as the Triangle. In the ceiling was a trapdoor. It had no handle or keyhole, but I could see its outline in the dust. It was locked.
I’ve always been good at locks.
I don’t remember what I said to it. Most likely some jumbled mix of desperation and excitement from a child for whom every closed door meant a universe of adventure on the other side. Whatever it was, it worked.
Of course it worked. Because on the other side, was you.
I know you don’t remember this part, because you were still asleep. The room felt vast, its walls and ceiling lost to shadows beyond my swarm of light. For a moment I had the dizzying sensation I had stepped into the lair of some unknown beast, far older and more massive than I could comprehend.
Still I persisted. I sent my fireflies ahead, and there you were. A massive, spider-like creature with four long legs, two inhuman arms, and your perfect teardrop head. I was fascinated by your face: its smooth white ceramic delicately decorated in flowering, glowing, green designs. You were otherworldly, and fascinating.
Was it I that woke you, Robot, when I touched my tiny hand to your cheek? Was there some invisible curse I broke, unknowing? Or perhaps in my longing for a friend I was the one who cast a spell, as yet unaware of my own magic, and disturbed your peaceful slumber?
If so, I cannot bring myself to regret it.
“What’s your name?” was the first thing I asked you.
“I do not remember,” you said. “My archives are…lost.” I liked your voice right away. I liked its metallic buzz.
“What are you?” I asked.
“I am a robot.”
“Okay,” I said. “Will you be my friend?”
And you said, “Yes.”
Do you remember, Witch, the day your father died?
It was a Thursday. Early spring. You were sixteen years, two months, and seven days of age. I was nine years, eight months, and eighteen days, counting as we did then from the day you found me in the attic. Although your father allowed me to stay, and taught me as he taught you, my existence had not yet been made known to the villagers of Hildsbog. I therefore did not attend the funeral.
It was two-point-six hours past midnight when you returned from the funeral. I was concerned because you were alone, and it is a full four-point-eight miles from the village cemetery to our cottage. You arrived safely, but in a state of great distress.
Do you remember what you said? You asked me to bring him back. You were crying profusely. I understand now that perhaps you were simply overwhelmed and not thinking clearly. At the time, I was confused.
I said, “I understand it is customary to bury your dead. Do you wish me to dig up your father’s body?”
It seemed to me a strange request, though I was still learning so much about this world. I remembered nothing prior to waking in your attic, but still I felt a stranger for so many years. Your father was kind, and treated me well. I did not think exhuming his body would be just repayment.
You said, “Of course not!” You were appalled at my suggestion. “I don’t want his body, I want him! I want him alive!”
I said, “Is that something you can do?”
You said, “No. Of course not.”
I said, “Do you think it is a thing I can do?”
You said, “No. I just thought…you’re different than us, you know? You understand things in ways I don’t. I suppose part of me wishes you could fix this.”
Did you recognize then, Witch, the turmoil I endured? I had forgotten everything about my existence prior to meeting you, and yet some things remained. Feelings, or perhaps concepts. Things so innate I did not realize they were there until they were challenged.
I said, “I did not know he could die.”
You stared at me. Your eyes were still dark and puffy from crying. You said, “What are you talking about?”
You said, “You helped us butcher goats. You buried the chickens when the weasel got into the henhouse. You had a whole crisis that time you stepped on a beetle and couldn’t put its shell back together. You know about death. We did that lesson.”
I said, “I think I have lived a long time.”
Do you understand the weight I felt in that moment? The vastness of my existence a yawning void in my memory banks. Sensed, but not understood.
I said, “I know that creatures must die. I thought people were different.”
You said, “You haven’t lived forever. And you’re not going to. No one does.”
I did not realize it at the time, but I think, Witch, that was our first real fight.
Do you remember, Robot, the day we cleaned our house?
I was mired in my father’s death, even decades later. He was in the very walls of the cottage. I tripped on him in the carpets, squeezed past him in the magical objects heaped in the halls. With each passing year, those walls closed in on me until I felt I was crawling through memory and grief just to move through our own home.
Did you feel it too, Robot? You never spoke of it, but I think you did. I remember seeing you that night, after our first fight. Perched spider-like on the ottoman as you do, carefully examining every piece of your body. Scanning for rust, cracking; any flaws that might show you your eventual death.
You’d forgiven me for my words, but something had changed that night, and we’d both been living in its shadow.
Was it before or after we introduced you to the villagers? It must have been after, because I remember loading piles onto Young Tommy’s cart, and he would’ve run screaming if he didn’t already know you.
Hildsbog accepted you pretty easily, all things considered. Some had an easier time accepting you than they did understanding my own refusal to be called either man or woman. Most of them assumed you were some creation of my father’s, and it wasn’t long before they just viewed you as my large and rather odd spouse. Not that I minded. You know I’ve never had an interest in romance or sex, so you’ve been more of a companion to me than I can imagine any human ever being. Perhaps their assumptions weren’t so far from the mark.
It was your idea to clean out the house. You’ve always been able to see things I cannot.
If I recall, one of the kittens attacked my foot while I was transferring a cauldron of headache remedy from fire to countertop. You found me on the floor, swearing and sobbing as I tried to mop up the mess. The sickly-sweet potion had drenched a drawer of my father’s old recipes, a table where I’d been drying bundles of motherwort, and several boxes of my father’s old clothes.
“I think it’s time,” you said, and I knew exactly what you meant.
I hadn’t touched my father’s study since his death. But we both knew it had to be done.
The study door was locked. I remember panicking when I realized I didn’t know where I’d put the key, but then you stepped forward, key in hand, and opened the door.
Within, everything was covered in a thick layer of dust. Sagging bookshelves, scattered papers, moldering sofa, tiny cramped desk. It all looked like him. And yet at the same time, I remember thinking it was nothing like him at all. He wasn’t in the dust, and leaving the place untouched was doing nothing but let it decay.
“We will empty it,” you said. “Take everything outside. Start from the beginning.”
We did exactly that. It quickly turned into a much larger project, of course. In order to make way for the furniture we had to move several piles of crates and ancient statuettes, and at a certain point I figured why stop with the study? Nothing was off limits. If we were going to start over, we may as well do it properly.
We transported the labyrinths of junk, one armload at a time, into an ever-growing mountain in the front yard. Lamps stacked on boxes stacked on tables stacked on sofas, and who knows what else we’d buried in its depths. And the house left bare of everything but disquieted dust and half a dozen confused cats.
Do you remember walking together through our empty home? Our footsteps echoed off the bare walls, our voices bounced with such bright reverberations I wanted to whisper. I’d never realized before how loud our house had been. All those memories, ghosts, artifacts, and shadows constantly muttering; never loud enough to hear with your ears, but overwhelming nonetheless.
I don’t think I can ever thank you enough for that day, Robot. It was the first time in decades I felt such peace.
Do you remember, Witch, what we found in the floor?
You said you heard it whispering to you. Through the floor of the Triangle Room, under the broken ceiling where you’d found me. I did not see anything, but I helped pry up the floorboards. Beneath we discovered a subfloor of etched metal, like the walls of the Triangle. In this metal floor was a locked door.
I do not know how you opened it. You have told me before that you are good at locks. I still do not know what that means. I think magic may be beyond my capacity to understand. That is fine. The important part is, you opened the door.
Do you know how strange it was for me to descend with you into those depths? For you, with your jar of magical fireflies, it was only as strange as exploring any unknown place would be. For me, it was walking through an unknown once known. I knew I’d known it, and yet I no longer knew it.
Every space felt like that. Every passage overgrown with luminous lichen, every store room of fossilized foodstuffs, every catwalk over chasms so deep we couldn’t see the bottom.
I said, “This is a ship.” It was not exactly memory returning, but feelings that I could parse into some small pieces of understanding.
You gave me a look that I knew from our long companionship to mean you did not believe me.
I said, “A vessel that does not travel across oceans, but between stars.”
You said,” How can you know?”
I said, “I cannot say.”
Even so my knowing without knowing grew stronger. I wonder if what I sensed is the equivalent of what you call dreaming. I have no definitive understanding of what drew me through that place. Yet I followed unerringly some internal map as if following a string laid along the path through a labyrinth.
I brought us to a door. Locked, as all important doors are. Do you remember what you said to it? How you convinced it to open for us? All I know is you pressed your palm to its smooth surface, closed your eyes, and whispered. And the door slid open.
Lights flickered on when I stepped inside. A reaction to my presence. We found a library. The room was circular, at least seven metres in diameter and four metres high. Shelves rose high on all sides along every wall. Every shelf filled with rows of dusty tomes.
You said, “What are these? Ship’s logs?”
There were thousands of volumes. If they had been logs for a single ship, that ship would have to have been traveling for generations upon generations. I knew they were not that.
I said, “This is my life.”
You said, “You remember?”
I said, “I recognize my archives. My hands remember writing them. I do not recall what is inside.”
I picked a volume off the shelf and began paging through it. Although the language was not one I had been taught in my memory, I knew it deep in my core. The words were mine, written in my hand. A story of who I had once been, long before.
I got lost in those words. I’m sorry about that. I think you told me at one point you had to go home, to eat, but I barely noticed. I think I sat in that room for days, consuming one volume after another after another.
Do you remember, Robot, the day you came back from your ship? I certainly do. It took you almost a full week. I’d descended into those depths three or four times to check on you, but nothing could distract you while you were ensnared by those books.
The mountains of items were left piled in our yard. I picked through, choosing what to keep, what to sell, and what to discard. I hadn’t planned to keep the twin sets of animated armour, but after I had to enlist their help to move my bed back to the third floor I decided it was only polite to let them stay.
It took days. I was terrified it might rain, but at the same time wished it would. A cleansing storm to wash away this accumulation of lifetimes and leave me clean and new, born afresh from the tempest. But no rain came. The sun blazed hot and dry, and on the whole I’m grateful. There were a good number of books I would have been devastated to lose, as well as my only fashionable suit.
I remember lying awake many of those nights, waiting. I wished I’d forced you to come home, rather than leaving you down there. As if I could.
I tried to keep my mind from dwelling on what you might have been learning down there. Would you stay, if you learned who you really are? What if you had a family waiting for you, out there among the stars? I felt as though I had only just begun to accept the loss of my father, and I was about to lose you as well.
So, when I heard the click of your feet on our floor, my heart surged. Though whether in joy or dread I don’t think I could say.
“Tea?” I offered, as you stooped through the kitchen doorway. I don’t remember when that custom of ours began, do you? It must have been when we were children—you didn’t want to feel left out, and so we always poured you a mug of hot water. It’s never felt right otherwise.
I took my tea, and you your hot water, and we sat together on the front porch. I remember the mosquitoes were terrible that evening; even my citronella wards couldn’t keep them all out, but it was worth it for what I thought might be our final tea together. A scent of nettle brew wafted from my cup to mix with the lemon of the wards.
We sat in silence for a long while. I knew you would share when you were ready, and at last you did.
“Apparently,” you said, “I’m over five thousand years old. And still young for my kind. There are others like me. Robots. We are a self-made people, older than any organic life forms we know of. We do not die. When pieces of our bodies wear out, we replace them. Infinitely. The difficulty comes when replacing our brain circuitry; specifically memory. Memory can transfer when the hardware is replaced, but its quality degrades every time. Across the centuries and millennia, it cannot all be preserved. We keep written records as personal backups of the memories we cannot hold.”
I had to take several minutes to try to absorb what you had just spent almost a week re-learning.
“Is that how you lost your memory, then?” I asked. “A failed memory upgrade?”
“Possibly. Or possibly I was simply inactive for so long my memory degraded past the point of retrievability. It’s clear that my ship crashed here long, long ago. Your ancestors must have built their home around it, perhaps thinking it a magical artifact. I have no way of knowing how long I was here before you woke me. If the information is written in one of those tomes, I have not found it yet. I don’t suspect I will. It seems I only recorded my history every hundred years or so. There is likely much that happened in my most recent past that is now lost.”
“Who were you, before?” I asked.
“A starship captain, once. A librarian. A doctor. A soldier. A gardener. A wanderer. More, I think. I have had many lives, and many names. It seems this is common for my people.”
“Are you going back? Now that you know who you are?”
I had not meant to ask that question, Robot. I did not want to know the answer. And yet it needed to be asked. I only wished there was a way I could hold on to you longer. I was eleven, asking my father why the old barn cat wouldn’t wake up. I was sixteen, pleading with you to bring my father back. I was forty-three, and silently begging you to stay.
Robot, do you remember what you said? I think that even if I were to live as long as you have, I would never forget it.
“Witch,” you said. “These books are nothing more than the story of who this body once was. They are not who I am. I am not Imlad’thalion the Shrike. I am not Jerrick, Keeper of Bees. I am the Robot of Hildsbog. I will stay.”
Robot, I cried.
Yes, Witch, I remember.
And I remember moving the books up from the buried ship into our house, although I have not bothered to read them anymore. My past does not have much bearing on my present.
I remember all the things you decided to keep. Trinkets that had once overwhelmed you became precious through the act of choosing. I am glad of that. A witch’s cottage would not have felt right, I think, without the wisdom of your ancestors cluttered about.
I have written down every moment of our lives together.
I remember.
We remember.