Unfinished Goodbyes

  What does my heart want to say?

  Looking to her left as she ascended the hill up to the Academy of the Graces, Ty could still remember how sore it had made her to run the entire way up a year ago. When Darius hadn’t yet said those words to her, Do what your heart say.

  “Every time,” her mother mused from beside her, hands tucked into the pockets of her long, black woolen coat, “it feels like yesterday that I was ascending these stairs, on my way to my last lecture of the year. Silently complaining to myself about how unfair the assessments were probably going to be or how the material provided during class wasn’t sufficient preparation for the examinations. Thinking that I’d do a far better job than the professor.” Her eyes were shining, pointed forward as she chuckled lightly.

  Ty didn’t speak, continuing to look at her mother, whose expression gradually became flat and unreadable again, the only thing to puncture the silence their light footsteps on stone as the Academy buildings came into view.

  “I didn’t expect the carriage to take so long.”

  A realization suddenly struck Ty, who stopped and blinked, furrowing her brows and opening her mouth dumbly. “Mom...you were a caster, right?”

  Joanie stopped when she did, looking down at the tiny tactician curiously. “Yes, you knew this.”

  Ty tilted her head. “You probably think that apologizing is a waste of time, huh?”

  The thought didn’t seem to have occurred to her as she paused for a second. “I’d agree with that.” The statement was without explanation, without frills. It was to the point and uncomplicated.

  A smile crept across Ty’s face as she laughed aloud, continuing up the steps. That was why her own caster felt like home. It made so much sense.

  “I wanted to spend time walking with you.” Her mother caught up with her easily, not offering an apology even after being teased.

  “Yes, I know.”

  They had even caught the first carriage of the day from the small neighboring village—granted, it was in the afternoon, and they had been dropped off at the other end of the village to the Academy, so that meant a fair bit of walking.

  “A tomecart would have been far more efficient.”

  She could now see the uppermost floor of the library, where there was a giant window. Is Halle sitting on the other side, I wonder? “The townspeople would have been very suspicious to see us take one in broad daylight.”

  Stone-faced, her mother nodded—the location of their home had been chosen on account of it being as far away as possible from any magic users. As a result, however, everyone was averse to magic and disapproved of anything to do with it; her mother often had to venture out for several days at a time to find specific tomes or research material for her work.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  As they continued to ascend the hill, the campus becoming clearer with each step, Ty could not help but feel like she had so much more to ask her mother. So many more pieces of the puzzle that she would never get to finish. Pieces that she would have to either ask now or never.

  “Hey, mom.”

  “Yes, dear?”

  “Do you still love her?”

  Ty had been so focused on her mother that it was only after her she froze and stood silently for a few seconds, eyes fixated on something behind her, that the child finally thought to turn her head to look.

  Across the gates, her profile illuminated by the setting sun, was the Headmistress.

  Without taking her eyes off her, with a quiet voice and a soft expression, her mother finally relinquished the puzzle piece she had kept hidden away for as long as Ty had been born.

  “I wish I didn’t. I wish I could forget her. I wish I could forget about how contagious her laugh was, how soft her hands felt in mine. How sharp she was, how she lit up every room with her brilliance. I wish I could forget how warm she made me feel, how glad I felt to be alive when I was by her side. I wish I could forget everything.”

  She turned to Ty and gave her a wry smile, her wavering eyes glittering in the same light that exposed the world for what it was. “Because then it would be easier to accept that, like time, the past moves on, too.”

  Ty’s eyes widened as she watched her mother’s face change slowly in front of her: it was full of pain, regret, and then forlornness. Then her smile dropped entirely, and her face became cold and blank, almost hostile as she turned back to the figure on the other side of the gate.

  “Welcome back, Tyche.” The Headmistress bowed deeply and then straightened her back. “Jeanne.”

  “Zoi,” her mother reciprocated icily.

  “Did you have something to say to me?” smiled the Headmistress threateningly.

  Joanie’s entire figure stiffened, and Ty could swear she could hear her mother clench her fists inside her pockets. “I’ll be back for her.”

  When the Headmistress did not deign to answer the comment and walked up to the gate to prop it open instead, Joanie loosened up.

  “Thank you for letting me be selfish today,” her mother smiled, placing an unclenched hand onto Ty’s head and stroking it. “Take care of yourself, okay?”

  Ty nodded and looked up at her mother, trying to ingrain in her mind exactly how she looked at that exact moment. So she wouldn’t ever forget. So she wouldn’t ever regret saying goodbye to her so quickly, when so much was unfinished.

  The faint wrinkles on her forehead between her thin, dark eyebrows. The light brown spots on her pale cheeks. The black mark on the edge of her chin. The scar that ran down the left side of her face until it reached the middle of her neck, one that Ty had made when she was a child.

  Don’t fall apart.

  “Oh, come here,” sighed Joanie finally, wrapping Ty up in a hug.

  “I love you, mom,” whispered Ty into her shoulder, repeating her mother’s earlier words in her mind like a mantra to stop herself from crying.

  “I love you too. To the Earth Mother and back.”

  And just like that, she gave Ty one last kiss on the cheek before walking away. Her dark brown hair, held down by a black woolen cap, fluttered in the wind, a beautiful gold in the sun’s glow. Her hands in the pockets of her favorite black coat again, a coat so long Ty could barely tell that her mother had been wearing her best boots today. The ones she only wore on special occasions, like when she was going to visit MATS, or attend a meeting, or see an acquaintance because she had no friends. The ones she’d never bring on a trek because she bought it more for its appearance rather than its practicality.

  Just as her mother’s figure disappeared down the hill and Ty turned around to enter the Academy, to face the fate and responsibilities she had sworn to take up, she caught a glimpse of the Headmistress’s expression. At first it was indecipherable, but then it changed. And she knew.

  Pain. Regret. Forlornness.

  She turned to Ty.

  Cold. Blank.