I’d forgotten that I’d used the last pages as a journal of sorts, and I can’t help but smile as I read the clumsy words of six-year-old me. It’s never more than a few sentences at a time, but it’s kind of funny to see the things I was concerned or excited about.
Went sleding with Waltar. Ran ento a tree. Got a cut.
I chuckle as I flip fondly through the short, scribbled entries. Then, I reach one that makes me look twice.
Da is sad again. Wunderd if I could find her. Da got mad at me forwangoen off.
I blink at the page, even as the memory of snow crunching underfoot floats back into my head. It had come up to my shin, though my shin was a lot lower back then. It was probably only a few inches deep, but I remember determinedly trudging through it, thinking I was about to embark on a grand adventure.
I’d been heading east, damn near blinded by the morning sun against the fresh snowfall. But for some reason, I wasconvincedI was gonna find her that way. Drawn deeper into the mountains like I was following some invisible trail.
My da had caught up to me around lunchtime, and I’d barely made it a mile. He’d given me a verbal thrashing and boxed my ear before he’d taken me back home. Yet on the way, he showed me exactly how he tracked me, pointing out my footsteps in the snow and broken branches I’d left behind.
I snap the journal closed even as a shiver of unease rushes through me. Like I’m being watched. There’s nothing here but memories, yet I still ask, “East, then?”
And I’m shocked when I get an answer.
East.
The word sends a chill straight through me. It plucks at another memory, and I wonder if I haven’t fully forgotten what her voice sounded like after all.
“Butwhy,huh?” Anger snaps through me as I lunge to my feet. As if there’s anything but ghosts to face here. “Answer me that!”
I don’t get one. Fool on me for hoping I’d get a second response.
My anger fades, and a steady ache takes its place as I carefully pick through the debris of the ruined roof. I thought I’d gonethrough all my da’s things when I left, but maybe I missed something. I remember that my mother had left him a note, and with luck, he didn’t burn it to try and erase the memory of her.
I check the old dresser, the shelves over the stove, before I move on to the bedside table just to be safe. I don’t know why I bother. I’d checked it before I left, emptying it of my da’s hunting knife and his leather armguard. But desperation makes me open it again to find it still empty, though some creature has gnawed a hole through the bottom of it.
Except it’s not the bottom, and something... bright is down there.
The plank flips up as I press on one end of it, revealing the small, hidden space underneath. A false bottom. And in the small space, a piece of raw magiline glows like an impossibility.
My mouth drops open in shock. The rough chunk isn’t shaped into a marble or ring. It’s just a raw, broken crystal, yet it has a sharp, pale look to it. I reach out with shaking fingers to grab it, and in between blinks, I can almost see where it chipped from. A marred edge on one of those crossed pillars.
Underneath the crystal, there’s a folded piece of paper. Time has made it brittle, but it stays together as I unfold it. It’s covered in the familiar, cramped letters of my mother’s handwriting.
Give this to him on his eighteenth birthday.
I’ll show him where to go.
I love you both.
The crystal falls from my numb fingers, clattering to the floor. For a moment, I just stare at the words, reading them over and over.
She left this for me. And my da took the knowledge of it to his grave.
For a moment, I’m not sure who I’m angrier at. Her for leaving without even telling me she was magic, or my da for hiding this from me for so many years.
Unless, maybe he had a good reason to.
Fear spreads icy fingers through me, and I shiver as that feeling of being watched returns.
It’s her. Ithasto be. Haunting me like a godsdamned specter.
“You got something you want to say to me, just say it!” I snap, loud enough that I spook a bird from where it’s roosted in the ruined thatch.
I don’t expect an answer this time, but I’m surprised when I get one. Just not from who I expected.
