That’s right. Me, myself, and I – was the problem child. An only child, but still, a problem.

Not in the way most people would expect, though. No. My so-called ‘problem’, was my birth.

I wasn’t supposed to be born. Witches were supposed to not have any children at the time. It was a whole two-decade span with a ban on having kids. They were all told so and yet, here I was, the lone child my age. Everyone else was 10 years older or younger than me.

Ergo, I spent a lot of time alone, studying. Thinking. Travelling. Time with my mother…

Time…

I was losing it.

I could feel it in the deepest parts within me. There wasn’t much left. And to spend it wisely, to give her a nice farewell…

Well this wasn’t it.

Seriously.

I didn’t want to leave. Not now.

“Minnie, you must go. This is important. Trust me.”

And right before my fifteenth birthday too?

Unfair.

What happened to ‘let’s spend all of our birthdays together, just you and me’, huh? What happened to that? I wanted to shout it at her, to scream and throw a fit. I wanted to throw something, to shatter something and then pick up the pieces in quiet solitude. I wanted to… but I couldn’t bring myself to commit those acts.

Her words had felt like a promise to me, so doing this now? What kind of explanation could fit this scenario? Where I left and she stayed?

“Why?”

She coughed as she tried to respond to me. I sucked in a breath and darted off to go get her a new glass of water. She drank slowly, her eyes tired as they found mine again. She sighed.

“You have to go.”

“Then come with me. I can keep an eye on you–”

She shook her head, the motion stalling my words, holding them tight in my throat. I couldn’t let them out.

Why was she doing this?

We were all each other had!

My only family… still alive.

“Don’t worry about me. This was meant to happen.”

Meant to happen?

Meant to happen?!

“Mom…” I whined. “Why?”

“You should spend your birthday over there. You might just save the world in the process of becoming older. Maybe it’ll give you something I never could.”

I doubted that.

As much as I might’ve had a chance to inherit something from my mother, it wasn’t her abilities. I could do the simplest of spells, but… sometimes even that was a chore. It didn’t matter how much I read or how much I studied, it didn’t translate over.

Witches were supposed to gain full control of their powers at age fourteen. I had nothing to show for it. Nothing. My fourteenth year was already mostly gone.

I was useless for anything more than a basic spell.

“But I want to spend it with you.”

“Fifteen is an important age for you. Don’t let me hold you back.”

She always said things like this. I really didn’t get it. Fifteen, fourteen… I supposed thirteen was supposed to be important as well. And I supposed after those, then sixteen would be much the same.

I didn’t have a wolf and I still didn’t have full access to my witch powers.

What was so important about me getting older… when she – when this was…

Ashena Porter, the strongest middle-aged witch in existence, and she was the hardest one to understand. She couldn’t even bear to tell me about my father, and all I knew was that he wasn’t a kind man. That the things my father wanted for me were awful. That she’d had to run away with me.

I sighed, begging her silently for a hug.

She smiled and opened her arms to me.

“It’ll be alright,” she whispered into my ear. “Trust me just one more time.”

Now she was really making it out like she was dying, I thought to myself. I didn’t want her to die!

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to expel the thought from my mind.

Mom’s not going to die, I told myself bitterly, she’s going to get better. Maybe I’m stressing her out when she needs to rest.

“I’ll go.” I finally said, reluctant in every way.

It was the best thing I could do…

For her.

Just this once, I’d humor her, so long as she promised me she’d rest – actually rest.

I stepped back and looked over her hair beginning to gray in places, her tired eyes, small smile…

Without a word more, I begin to pack, shoving a few outfits of clothing into a bag, tossing it over to the door by my shoes.

I didn’t want to go to the Western Territories to look for some cave or to stop some sort of mythical beast. It sounded exhausting. I didn’t care for the whole ‘hero’ thing. I didn’t need it, nor did I want it.

Again, it really sounded tiring.

But if she thought it was this important, I guess I’d go. I’d follow her words.

Trust her…

After all, she could see the future, to an extent. And she’d been using her ability more and more often lately, wearing herself out with the taxing process.

It was probably why she was sick now. On bed rest. It was an order that had come from the High Witch Atella, not that my mother was listening to the ‘rest’ part of it. She was on the bed, sure, but she was sitting up, writing and reading several books, looking like she was doing it all at the same time. Some kind of over-working overachieving person. While I was just plain lazy.

And powerless.

My gaze drifted back to my mother, only to find her already watching me. Some hard to read emotion was flickering deep within her eyes. My hands paused and I sighed.

This was going to be a long trip, with all the extra mental baggage I’d be carrying. I stood and strode over to her bed.

“Promise me you’ll actually rest while I’m gone.”

She looked up at me, then reached up to tuck a stray strand of my hair behind my ear. No words left her mouth. Her eyes flitted back and forth as if she were memorizing my face. She gave me a smile, a smile I hated, only because I knew what it meant.

I took her hand in mine, even as mine started to shake, fear coursing through me… that she might not be here when I returned. I didn’t want to be alone. I despised being alone. I just needed one person with me; I needed her.

“Please.”

“I’ll rest.” She tugged on my hand and wrapped her arms around me before whispering gently into my ear. “I promise… I’ll go right to sleep while you’re out. I’ll just sleep…”

Sadness filled the cracks in her voice and I held onto her tighter. I knew it. She didn’t want to part either. She didn’t want me to go.

That left only one reason, only one.

She’d seen me over there. In a vision, she saw me… without her.

Which meant I had to go, because she wouldn’t just send me to my death. We were all each other had. In fact, there were times she’d seen different outcomes of the same event, and if I deviated from what she was asking of me… that could mean my death or her death. Or worse, death for the both of us.

I’d listen.

I’d go.

And as I let go and finished packing, I picked up my phone and headed out onto the terrace, the breeze pulling loose the strand that had been tucked behind my ear. It streamed in front of my face as I looked through the very few phone numbers I had saved.

I pressed down gently, watching as a new screen popped up, with a name and a face. Putting it up to my ear, I closed my eyes until I heard the ringing end and a voice begin. One I’d heard often enough that we could be called close friends. She was the one I spoke to the most over there, and even though we were five years apart in age, we were like two peas in a pod. For as long as I’d known her, there was a sort of air about her, familiar and different. Comfortable.

Maybe it was because we were alike. Kindred spirits finding each other again in a new life.

“Minnie?”

I sighed, gazing out at the view I wouldn’t see for a week, if not longer.

“Hey, I need you to do something for me.”

I said goodbye to my home quietly as I laid out what was happening to an eager listening ear.