When do you leave? 
Why do you cry? 
Why can’t you stay? 
I didn’t say goodbye.

I went straight to my mother’s room and clutched her hand. The tears I was holding back broke free when I saw her sleeping peaceful face. She looked so calm under the dim light of the house, tucked up in her blankets.

Would I ever see her again?

“Mother… I’m sorry, I should have shut the door,” I sobbed. “Did I? Oh mother… I don’t remember if I shut the door. I don’t remember, I don’t remember, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have run away to go find that boy, but I felt alone… and now I’m going to be… I have to leave. Oh mother! Are you going to be alright? Oh mother, mother. Please, tell me that you are going to be alright… mother, please. I wish you would wake up and tell me that I’m going to be alright. That we will be fine. Tell me we will be fine. Will I see you again?”

Mother could not answer. I could not help but worry. I could not do anything but hope and pray. I clutched her hand tighter and cried on her shoulder.

My body refused to leave her, but I was running out of time. I had other things to do. With a final squeeze of her hand, I reluctantly left her side. I rushed to my room and scanned around quickly. There was nothing I needed to take. Nothing that I could think of taking. But I wanted something. Anything. Something to hold on to.

But if I didn’t take anything, I was at least going to leave something behind for mother.

I reached underneath my bed for the notebook. I wanted to write her a note, to tell her that I loved her, but what if the king or someone entered and saw? Would they take it away?

I tore a page from my book and scribbled hastily.

Dear mother,

I am to be taken away to Nocturn Castle. I’m sorry. They were to take you and I offered to go myself. Do not blame yourself. It is I who would have been at fault. I don’t know if you will remember me, but I love you. I will always love you, no matter how far our separation.

Love your darling daughter,

your little Roxanne.

I put the note underneath my pillow. Mother would have to find it. I hoped that she will. Then I wrote the last name and description I would ever write in my notebook. My own.

I did not return the book to its hiding place. That I left on the top of my bed, waiting for mother to find. Then maybe she would look under the pillow, searching for clues. Maybe the men outside would come in, see it and take it away. But to them it would be just a bunch of descriptions with names. Why should it matter to them?

I looked around my little room, with my meagre belongings. I only had two dresses. One to sleep in and one that I wore around the house. Mother would patch it up if I needed it. If I grew taller she would find whatever scraps we had lying about in the house and make a new one. If there was any material in the market she would find it and make another new dress. She was going to make me a blue dress soon. I could feel the tears fill up again. But I brushed them away.

I looked to my bookshelf filled with clay figures of various sizes. I took one, the first one I ever made that I was happy with enough to put on my shelf. A little clay bear. I cradled it in my arms. Then I went back to my mother to kiss her on the cheek and bid her farewell a final time, and I went out to meet the king. I silently promised to myself that I would come back. Somehow. Someday.

We did not linger long outside the house. We did not linger as long as I wanted to.

The three men were atop their horses when I shut the door. The young prince galloped onwards, leaving and muttering things under his breath as soon as he saw me. The king glanced at me, with an odd expression still in his old face, and then went onwards. The other man, with the sharp nose, got off his horse, picked me up with and placed me on his horse. Then he jumped up behind me.

“Hold on to it’s mane,” he said. His voice was haggard. Odd. Jarring. But not unpleasant.

I held my little figure with one hand and with the other hand I grabbed the horse’s mane. Its hair was soft and beautiful. Silky, under my chaffed fingertips.

I cried silent tears as we left my mother and the house, the house I knew so well. Every little inch. Every little corner. Now to be left behind and remembered only in my dreams.