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I frown at that. At my shared history with a woman I barely know. I wonder how she even received this letter and knew what to do with it given she would’ve been the same age as me when my mother died. There are so many questions I need answers to, but for now I read on.
Lastly, I want to say sorry. I want to say sorry that I’ll ignore you when you tell me about the fire. For making you feel like it’s nothing but a bad dream. I have to do it. I can’t change the course of fate. I can’t prevent it from happening. This fire will be the start of your journey and the end of mine.
It has to happen the way it’s meant to.
I’m so sorry.
“Me too, Mama, me too,” I whisper.
My heart aches at the pain you will endure, and the loneliness you will feel after I’ve gone.
Right now, I’m writing this letter with you standing in the doorway of my bedroom knowing I cannot tell you what’s to come, no matter how much I want to. Your life won’t be easy. It will be filled with pain and anguish, but I’m hopeful that it won’t last forever. Don’t turn your back on your fate like I did. No matter how much it scares you, take the path you’ve been shown. You have to trust that it will work out in the end.
Right now, you’re just a child, a beautiful, funny, kind little girl. I’m so very sad that I only have three years left with you, but at least I have this. At least I have three years to love you and cherish you as much as I can.
I’m so sorry I couldn’t stay longer.
Have courage, my darling girl.
Find the truth in your heart. It will never steer you wrong.
But above all else, follow your path, and remember who saved you.
All my love, Mama.
Tears spring from my eyes and fall down my face, dropping to the floor in fat droplets as my legs give way beneath me. My mother knew what was to come. She saw it. She’s telling me to stay, to see this through, whatever this is.
But how can I do that? I don’t want my future intertwined with these brutal, sadistic men.
Her letter is warning me not to turn my back on my fate like she did, but if she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have fallen in love with my father, had me. How can that be wrong?
None of this makes any sense.
My thoughts spiral off into a dark place as I capture my reflection in the window before me. Lifting my fingers to my face, I press them against my birthmark. Is this what she was talking about? Did Fate punish her, by punishing me? Or maybe it was the fire that took her life and scarred me. Perhaps I should’ve died in that fire just like she had.
No, she said that was the start of my journey…
Wait.
I read through the last paragraph again, my heart pounding in my chest and my back prickling with sensation, indicating that something important is just out of reach.
But above all else, follow your path, and remember who saved you.
Remember who saved you.
I read that line over and over again. I thought that she’d meant my aunt and uncle, Kate, but as I re-read the last paragraph again, I know that isn’t true. She’s talking about the night of the fire.
I was saved.
I was saved by a boy with dark hair and an angry scowl.
Like a wrecking ball crashing through the thick wall of my subconscious, the memory of that night comes flooding back. The pain of it makes me pass out.
* * *
“Get up!”a voice shouts. It belongs to a boy, a boy who’s yanking me upwards. His face is completely covered in ash and soot like mine, his hair dark. I don’t know who he is or where he’s come from, just that he’s here in my home as a fire rages around us devouring everything in its path.
“Stop it!” I cry, excruciating pain enveloping me. I stumble, my head falling forward, my hair matted and coloured black from the soot and smoke.
