Time passed, as it always did, unrelenting in its march.

  Luna and I could not stay young forever.

  Belle could not keep being trapped in the past forever.

  And so, despite our wishes, autumn passed and winter came.

  Snow dotted the mountain tops to usher in the cold days.

  Then so cycled the sun until one day it rose to spring, and all the snow melted into lush and vibrant greens. The birds chirped, flowers bloomed. Trees danced in the wind to the breeze’s song, lively blades of grass swaying happily as it watched.

  I blinked, and before I knew it, it was almost summer again.

  A year had passed.

  Not counting those days of starvation where I hardly knew if I was alive, I had spent a full year in this strange, fantastical world.

  I had cared for Luna for a whole year now.

  I had been cared for by Belle for a whole year now.

  The pain had already started to dull by quite a bit. I didn’t find myself waking up in the middle of the night, wanting to cry anymore.

  I didn’t see phantoms of the past anymore, misshapen, intelligible words refusing to leave my tongue as I reached out to them, their shadowed faces scattering and dispersing as I touched them, revealing them to be nothing more than sorrowful mirages.

  The weight of it all; those long twenty-something years that I had lived before…

  It didn’t seem so bad anymore; it was all pushed away by happy times spent with Belle and Luna.

  When winter came around, Belle took us to Arden after I told Luna about the Adventurer Evaluation – she had gotten excited the moment she had heard about it, and constantly bugged Belle about going to see the next one for months.

  It was a bit of an embarrassing day, to be honest. Belle was hounded by people every we went, and we were all treated like celebrities for the entire event; we even got access to special seats in a VIP booth.

  It was a rather memorable experience, all of the adventurers were even more excited and rowdy then usual; the presence of the mythical ‘Belle Symphonia’, the benefactor of Arden and the sole reason behind its miraculous modernisation, spurred on an onslaught of influential sponsors and spectators, leading all of the adventurers to show off even more flashily than before to catch their eyes.

  I don’t think I had ever seen my sister more enraptured by a sight, other than the first time I read to her about the Calybcorian legends. I think she was even more emboldened that day to become a witch and adventurer.

  And when the snow melted, and the plants started to bloom, Belle took me around the Yrd’ll Mountains, showing me all the natural wildlife and plantlife, guiding me along safe trekking and foraging routes, teaching me her favourite spots to forage.

  It was exciting to just lose myself in nature again.

  It turned out that I did end up getting a hobby like my sister wanted from me, in the end. On most days, when I had free time and didn’t want to distract my sister from her reading, I ended up going on hikes through the mountains, bringing back whatever wild fruits and vegetables I could find.

  I didn’t even think much about the past when I was by myself, travelling through the woods, not even about when I was doing similar things in my past life.

  Those thoughts of running away, of the guilt and emptiness, just didn’t creep into my heart and give me anxiety anymore.

  I-...

  I’m sorry, Mother. Sorry, Father.

  It’s not that I’m ungrateful. It’s not that I don’t care or don’t still love you. I’m sorry if I’m letting you down but…

  It just doesn’t hurt that bad anymore.

  This unfilial son, it still hurts him to think about it, but…

  The day might be coming soon where he says goodbye to you, for real this time, and leaves your house to find his own path in life.

  Still, even if he might never see you again, this son will do his best to carry your memory and care with him wherever he can.

  I smiled fondly as the sun rose to its full height above me, caressing the thin, young branch in front of me.

  There was one other thing I had started to do in my spare time; I had started to grow a garden of familiar vegetables and spices, carrying a small taste of home with me into this new life.

  Auntie Chang’e still visited from time to time, always bringing gifts for me every time.

  It seemed she had caught on that I enjoyed the same food she enjoyed, and that I had an interest in agriculture, since the last time she came, she had brought a sapling for peppercorns with her, that had somehow travelled all the way across the Infinite Dark from the Eastern Continent to Tenmai.

  It was a miracle that this plant and spice existed in this world too. I was beyond lucky that some simulacrum of the culture I grew up in existed in this world, letting me enjoy the same tastes and smells for dinner again. French and Western style food was fine – I was more than capable of enjoying those every day when I travelled around the world – but there was nothing quite like the familiar taste of home, of its numbing spice and the sharp, complex assault of punchy flavours on the tongue.

  The peppercorn plant in front of me probably wouldn’t be ready for harvesting for at least another year, though, so sadly, I would have to make do with other food for the time being.

  I heard the door to the garden behind me open.

  “Oi, Estelle,” Belle called out to me, “lunch is ready. Come in.”

  I sighed, groaning as I got up, brushing the dirt off my hands while I stretched.

  I set my tools aside as I climbed back onto the porch, entering back into the house.

  “Sure, just let me clean my hands off, M-Mo-...” I bit my tongue and trailed off.

  I chuckled weakly, a hurtful throb reverberating through my chest as I struggled with the word.

  “S-sorry… I-I still can’t-”

  Belle just smiled reassuringly, patting me on the head.

  “It’s alright. Take your time. I know it can be hard.”

  “...Thanks.”

  After washing off my hands, I joined the other two at the dining table, where I was greeted by a bowl of browned chicken pieces coated in a thick, creamy mushroom sauce; a favourite of my sister’s.

  Belle idly twirled a fork around in her hand as she watched the two of us eat.

  She sighed.

  “You’ll probably be turning ten soon, won’t you?”

  I blinked.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No, not really,” she shook her head, her eyes constantly flicking between my sister and I, “just… thinking about the future, I guess. Well, the past too.”

  She stabbed her fork into the chicken fricassee and took a bite.

  “I started my education on magic when I was just five years old. Managed to get into the Citadel and its Royal Academy when I was nine. Most kids outside of that place don’t get their feet in the dirt until about ten or so, and admission for most academies only opens at thirteen. Well, I know that’s when Nindo opens up, though that’s not a dedicated school for witches and wizards.”

  Her gaze continued to flick between the two of us.

  “Hey, Luna, Estelle… what do you two think about learning magic?”

  Luna dropped her fork, her head snapping up towards Belle immediately, her wide eyes glimmering with excitement and anticipation.

  “Really, do you mean it, Mother!? Are you going to teach me how to be a witch!?”

  Belle just chuckled fondly.

  “Yeah, figured you’d react that way, kid.”

  “Can we start tonight!? I can’t wait! I’ve been wanting this for ages!”

  Our caretaker just smiled wryly.

  “Well, I don’t know about that. Have to prepare some stuff, see where you’re at. Lot of things you need to check off before you can actually start on magic. Reading needs to be good, writing needs to be orderly, have to be able to do math, all that stuff.”

  “I-I’ve already finished my times tables! And I’m doing algebra already!”

  “Guess I should start testing you, then.”

  Belle laughed, then turned to look at me.

  “How about you, Estelle?”

  “I…” I trailed off.

  Learning magic, that idea still roused complicated feelings within me.

  “I’m not smart like Luna is, I was just lucky to be raised well,” I looked off to the side.

  “You’re deflecting,” Belle smiled wryly, “I didn’t ask whether or not you think you can handle it, I asked if you wanted to do it.”

  “...”

  I fiddled around with my fork, and went back to eating my chicken.

  “That’s alright,” Belle chuckled, “don’t worry about it too much. I’m not gonna expect you to follow in my footsteps, that’s not a feat anyone could just achieve. Just, well… it would be rude of me if I didn’t ask. Should give you the chance if nothing else. Give it some thought, ‘kay?”

  I nodded hesitantly, a flurry of melancholic emotions swirling inside of me.

  Belle reached over and flicked my forehead, making me flinch and distracting me momentarily from my roiling gut.

  “Don’t sweat it too much. If you ever need to talk to me about it, my door’s always open.”

  “Th-thanks…” I smiled weakly, “i-it’s nothing much though… just… a few silly old hangups I have.”

  Belle just shrugged.

  “Take all the time you need. We’re not in a rush to figure it out. Thirteen’s not a hard deadline or anything. Nindo, the closest school for that stuff here, takes students up to fifteen years old for its first year. And, well, that’s just for humans. Throw in elven aging and all the other species crawling around that migrate to Tenmai because of the port, and you get a massively fucked up age bracket of kids that sign up.”

  She frowned, scratching the back of her head awkwardly, realising she was getting off topic.

  “Er, well, anyways, I’m just saying that it’s not ever gonna be too late. Worst comes to worst, I’ll dust off those pedagogy books and teach you myself.”

  I suddenly found myself being shaken around.

  “W-woah, Luna! Careful!” I dropped my fork on the table, calming my sister down as she rapidly tugged on my arm.

  “Estelle, Estelle! Come on! Let’s do it together! We can be witches together… twin witches!”

  “L-Luna, we’re not even twins, we’re four years apa- Luna!”

  I didn’t get much time to focus on those thoughts, as Luna’s excitement immediately bubbled over and she started to make a huge mess of the dinner table.

  Belle just laughed and sat back and watched as I tried to wrestle my sister to safety.

  My relationship with the supernatural, divine and religious was complicated.

  It was a deep-seated problem I had, haunting my life all the way through to my adult years.

  It was one of the main reasons I continued to run away.

  I wanted to believe that there really was something that was out there. Out there, there was surely something divine and mystical, which would grant me salvation from the longing. I would go on a pilgrimage across the world, and beneath the stars and heavens, be blessed with enlightenment and an ultimate answer for everything.

  There had to be a reason for it all, why everything turned out the way it did.

  It couldn’t just have been the simple whims of the world. It couldn’t just be because of biology. It couldn’t just be because of my own weakness.

  I was always searching for something to tell me that everything would always be alright, that it was all part of some grander plan Destiny had for me, that at the end of my road and journey, I would be rewarded for the pain I went through, that I would be forgiven for all the mistakes I made.

  Did my mother really go through a miscarriage? Were her words really just a lie to veil the truth of what she had gone through in front of an ignorant child?

  A part of me never let go of those words she told me in the hospital. Some part of me really, really wanted to believe what she said, even after I found out what truly happened that day.

  Maybe God did just make a mistake, maybe He really did mean to just send her to the neighbour’s family.

  If that was the case, then everything would have been just fine. God was all-knowing, He was all-loving. He surely would have come to relieve our family of our pain. He surely would have guided me on the path to reconciliation.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  But no matter how much I looked for it, no matter how much I continued to run and run, searching every crevice and corner of the world, no matter how many kind strangers I met and how many beautiful memories, stories, and tales I was regaled with, humbling me and making me grateful to have even just been alive…

  I never found what I was looking for.

  God never answered me on my journey.

  There were only ever one set of footprints in the sand. I never found out whether that was because He was always carrying me, or if it was because He was never by my side in the first place.

  There was no meaning, no greater destiny for me.

  All I found was that I really was just weak.

  There was no excuse for who I had become, or what had happened to my family.

  It really was just an unfortunate accident. And I was just unlucky enough to have never gotten the strength to move past it. I was just a coward down to my very core, refusing to just move on with my life.

  It was a silly thing to say, but seeing that magic in this world was real, it-...

  It made me envious. It made me a bit hateful, even.

  It was stupid to hold resentment for a metaphysical concept, like a simple law of physics or reality, but I couldn’t help it.

  If magic was real in this world… were gods real too? Did the goddess known as Sol at one point really exist? Could she bless people with miracles and divine power?

  If I was originally just a denizen of this world, would my previous mother have been able to give birth to that daughter of hers?

  Would Sol have blessed her with the miracle of life?

  Here, there were priests, wizards and witches with the awe-inspiring power of healing, capable of denying all sorts of tragedies and despairs; would they have been able to undo what had happened in that hospital room?

  Why couldn’t that world have had magic? Why was it just this one?

  If magic existed in that world, magic that could heal wounds and cure diseases, none of this would have happened. I’d be sitting next to my parents, watching my little sister grow up, eating hot pot together.

  It wasn’t fair.

  It wasn’t fair to my little sister I never got to meet, and it wasn’t fair to me.

  I hated that I was being so petty, but… I just found I couldn’t let go of that resentment.

  I looked up at the night sky, its stars twinkling radiantly, uncovered by the smog that had polluted their light in my previous life.

  Three weeks had passed since Belle made the offer. Summer crept forward on the horizon with every rise and fall of the sun.

  I had still yet to answer her on what I wanted to do in the future.

  I slumped down onto the marble railings of the balcony in front of me, just staring out into the wide foresty mountains.

  I heard someone knock on my door.

  “Estelle?” Belle’s voice called out to me.

  I sighed.

  “Come in!” I shouted.

  The door behind me clicked and lightly creaked as it swung open.

  I heard the tinkling of porcelain echo around me.

  A sigh rumbled.

  “You know, Estelle, if you’re gonna sit outside and wistfully look at the stars all night, you should at least cover yourself up a bit more. You’ll get a cold.”

  I heard fabric shuffling behind me.

  A large black cloth draped itself over my back as Belle patted my shoulders.

  I turned to the side to look at her.

  I frowned.

  “I feel like you’re less covered up than me.”

  Her shoulders, armpit and cleavage were completely exposed to the cool air of the night, since she decided that the fact my forearms weren’t covered up was more important than keeping herself dressed like a normal human being with shame.

  Belle just shrugged, the tea set in her other hand lightly jiggling as she did so.

  “Your health’s more important than mine.”

  She nudged her head towards the small table by the side of the balcony.

  “Come on, let’s have some tea. Your favourite.”

  I grumbled, but did not reject, curling into the thick cloak and wrapping it tighter around myself.

  It was cold. Yrd’ll was the tallest mountain range on the continent, after all.

  My eyes stuck to the teacup as a bright orange, steaming liquid was poured into it.

  “Here you go,” Belle gently slid it over to me.

  I took the cup into my cold hands, letting the warmth spread across my palms, before taking a sip.

  A familiar refreshing, herbal sweetness tickled my tongue, giving me comfort.

  For a minute, we just sat in silence, taking turns sipping on the tea.

  “You know,” Belle started, “Luna… she’s a pretty smart kid. Might be looking at a genius, really. Went from being illiterate to being able to solve quadratics in about a year. She has a bright future no matter what she chooses to do. Will make a fine witch when she grows up.”

  A cold puff of misty air left my mouth as I exhaled.

  “A witch… what do witches even do?” I found myself grumbling again.

  I couldn’t help but let a little bit of that resentment through. Maybe if there was a witch all the way back then…

  Belle just shrugged.

  “Depends, really. Word can mean kind of anything. The only common denominator for witches is that they dedicate their lives to the study of magic, but what kind of magic, how they research it, and what they want to use it all for, all of those just depend on the person in question.”

  She looked away, following my gaze as it trailed into the distance.

  “Magic’s just ‘power’, in the end. A means to an end. It’s up to you to decide what that power means for yourself, what you want your life to mean… it’s just a way to realise your dream self, the version of you that you want to be.”

  Self-determination.

  I frowned enviously.

  How nice that must have been. Having the strength to decide your own path in life, able to reshape the world to your whims.

  I wish I could have had that strength. I would have been able to fix everything.

  “It sounds selfish,” I couldn’t help but let the bitterness in my thoughts leak out.

  “Eh, I guess,” Belle just shrugged, “don’t really have a good answer for that one. All pursuits are at least a little bit selfish. Your goals are as selfish as you want them to be. On one hand, you have idiots like me, trying to do the impossible because we’re just really stupid and bullheaded. Then you have the Citadel shitheads, who are all either snobs with their head up their arse trying to prove themselves and their fragile egos, or the most insanely amoral, dedicated psychopaths in the world who just improve magic for its own sake.”

  “...”

  “It’s not all about lofty, immaterial desires either. Sometimes it's all very worldly. Just a way to get a job for some. Research and hopes doesn’t pay your rent, after all. Lotta important stuff is invented and discovered by them. One guy went out and discovered vaccination, fermentation and pasteurisation by himself. Met him a couple times when I was in the Citadel for approval and stuff… nice guy, just doing it out of the goodness of his own heart. Pay check doesn’t hurt either.”

  “...”

  “They don’t exactly call themselves ‘witches’ nowadays either because of the implication the word's come to have because of the Citadel shitheads, but a lot of doctors and healers have backgrounds in magical education too. They’re witches in all but name and reputation, really. Just like us, they travel the world, keep improving their spells, widening their knowledge… but instead of doing it because it's magic, they just cast spells because it's the best way to heal people.”

  I knew I wasn’t making any sense. I was just-...

  I was just frustrated at all of it. Just a lot of years of built up anger and disappointment. All of a sudden the resentment of all those fruitless years of searching for something out there that was greater than me and the disappointment of never once ever having been able to grasp it, only for that opportunity to come just so easily and naturally to the people of this world, I just-...

  I sighed.

  If I was being honest, if I could put that all aside, it didn’t sound that bad.

  It sounded like a nice future.

  I wouldn’t have to worry about whether or not I would be able to grow food, I didn’t have to worry about whether or not my sister would get hurt in dangerous battles and adventures…

  It did sound nice to be able to fix all of those issues with my own two hands.

  It would have been nice to be someone like Auntie Chang’e, who had no need to care for the thoughts of others around her because of her pure, overwhelming strength that toppled the sense and logic of the world.

  It was just that twenty-something years of resentment was…

  It was a lot of time.

  Even though I was currently doing fine in this life, even though the peace and happiness from the past year was starting to wash away all of that pain, and I really felt like I was just that little bit away from putting it all behind me and moving on…

  It still just hurt.

  “You said the closest school was a place called ‘Nindo’, right?” I mumbled, looking for a way to distract myself, “What’s it like?”

  “Well, it’s not so much a dedicated school for witches and wizards, it’s more so just a place to raise the next generation of talent in Tenmai, it’s basically their equivalent of the Royal Academy,” Belle shrugged again, “it’s more of a place for those who generally want to become an adventurer. Tenmai’s really big on nature, spirituality, fulfilment, self-actualisation, all that philosophical stuff. Nindo teaches you more about survival skills, how to get through combat, what it’s like working with a team or in a company, how to forge friendships and all that stuff, not so much focused on pure magical theory like I was brought up on.”

  “How was the Royal Academy, anyways?” I asked idly.

  Belle just snorted in response.

  “Fucking hell, unless you’re a lunatic. Well, the sorcery department was, anyways. From what I understood, the swordsmanship department was always a little more rowdy and lax. Anyways, I wouldn’t wish that environment on anyone. Shit’s a fucking nightmare unless you’re either delusional, egotistical, a genius, or all three, like I used to be until he broke me out of my sheltered shell.”

  She chuckled fondly.

  “Nindo’s a much better environment from what I’ve seen. Got invited to do a few guest lectures from time to time while I was in my sailing years with the Expedition. Tenmai’s not that big of a place, so going from the port to Nindo was pretty easy. Not that far from here, either. Pretty cheap and easy to hire a gryphon rider to ferry you back and forth.”

  She giggled.

  “Don’t think they’ll ever invite Chang’e back though. That was a disaster.”

  I smiled.

  “I could imagine.”

  I liked her, and I even enjoyed playing with her, but even I understood that she was a bit too much for anyone besides her husband to handle.

  I wondered what kind of monster a man like him must have been?

  Well, aside from his ‘endowments’, I had heard way too many details about that from Auntie Chang’e.

  Belle snorted.

  “Honestly, don’t think they’ll ever invite Selenia back either. Got way too excited and overzealous about the whole thing, put the class through hell since unlike me, she never quite stopped being a Citadel witch.”

  She smiled.

  “The kids there are a bit too normal. Talented and ambitious for sure, they have to be, it’s the best school in all of Tenmai, but they’re not the unhinged, deranged, amoral psychopaths of the Citadel. They just dream big and happen to be a bit more talented than their peers. Like anyone else, they just wanna make friends, forge lasting relationships, and become an adult to achieve their lofty dreams.”

  She looked out to that strange, infinitely large tree far out to the east.

  “Maybe strictly speaking not the best place to learn how to be a textbook ‘witch’, but I don’t think that’s what you or your sister are looking for, despite her eagerness. If you want to learn how to be a ‘hero’ or an ‘adventurer’, Nindo’s definitely the best place to go on this continent. If you just want to be a ‘knight’ or a ‘researcher’... eh, you should probably just give up, that would mean submitting yourself to Citadel hell.”

  Belle chuckled at her own past foolishness.

  “It’s a good place, you’ll like it. You’ll make good friends there, something you and your sister desperately need.”

  I was getting a bit lonely, even with my sister by my side.

  I did miss the days where I had an endless line of people I could talk to, ready to access just a touch of a phone screen away.

  It would have been nice to talk to a peer again, like my best friend. The times we spent hanging out together and getting lost in the most asinine possible arguments on topics neither of us knew anything about, only for us to be proven both wrong, were some of the best times of my life.

  “The system kind of forces it, really. The school loves to put its students into teams of four, microcosm of what it’s like to be in an Adventuring Company if you ever want to do that. Course, not every Adventuring Company abides by that unit size, but it's come to be the standard over the last century. Number just works when it comes to spreading roles out efficiently without redundancy.”

  She shrugged.

  “You’ll spend a lot of time with them, live together with them on school days. Sol knows that if I had something like that, I probably would have turned out to be a much better adult.”

  I sighed again.

  “It sounds like a nice place. I’ll think about it.”

  Belle smiled wryly, before reaching out to ruffle my hair again.

  “Don’t feel pressured or anything. Don’t have to follow your sister or me everywhere, just… well, want you to have a good future, and Nindo’s a nice place to secure one. I’ll support you no matter what you want to do when you grow up. It’s not too bad of a place even if you want to do something completely normal and civil, decent chance there might still be a course over there for you. They have a lot of supplementary courses for businesses, entrepreneurs and artisans and stuff. Lotta business supply these days tends to circle through adventurer hands, so Nindo opened a lot of support stuff for that too.”

  “Thanks, for everything, a-and, again, I’m sorry, I-... I still can’t call you like that.”

  Belle’s hand lowered from my hair to my forehead.

  She flicked me again.

  “Stop worrying about that shit. I’m not doing this to be thanked, or because I want something in exchange from you. A mother doesn’t care about anything like that. As long as you’re alive and your happy, that’s good enough for me.”

  She smiled again, leaning back into her seat as she took another sip of tea.

  “There’s one more thing I wanted to ask you about.”

  “Hm?”

  “You have a birthday?”

  “...”

  I frowned.

  Did I have a birthday?

  That-...

  That was a good question.

  Certainly, ‘I’ might have had a birthday in the past, but did I still have one now?

  Did the girl known as Estelle Symphonia have a birthday?

  “I asked Luna about it. She seemed a bit confused by the whole idea of birthday, to be honest,” Belle shrugged, “but you… you’ve definitely celebrated one before, haven’t you? Put it off for a while, but it’ll be summer again. That means a whole year would have passed since I picked you girls up.”

  “That-...” I hung my head, “it was a whole lifetime ago.”

  Her smile turned wry, tinged with an understanding sadness.

  “So, not anymore, huh?”

  I nodded silently.

  “Do you have a date in mind? Any of them sound good to you? Doesn’t even have to be in summer if you want.”

  Slowly, my gaze started to drift upwards.

  A birthday.

  The specifics of which exact day didn’t matter much to me, but, if it came to the topic of just important days in general…

  “I-… I’m not sure,” I whispered to Belle as I focused on the starry night sky, “I don’t know if I would call it a ‘birthday’ but there is a day that’s special to me. Could I ask you for a favour?”

  “Shoot.”

  “The 7th of July, could you… could you take me up to the summit of the Yrd’ll Mountains? To that place, where you sat next to him and watched the stars together? It-... it would mean a lot to me.”

  Belle raised an eyebrow.

  “Really, huh? The 7th of July… I see, it’s that festival, huh? I should say I’m surprised you know about it and the story behind it, given they don’t celebrate that over in Litanus, but, well, you’re just full of surprises, aren’t you, kid?”

  She shook her head and chuckled.

  “It’ll be a good night to see the stars. Sure thing, Estelle. It’s a promise. I’ll take you and your sister to the tallest place on this continent, and I’ll show you that view.”

  Belle groaned, stretching as she got up.

  “Ugh, it’s getting kind of cold and late. You should probably pack it in for the night. C’mon.”

  She walked over to me and simply just scooped me up, wrapping me under her elbow as she threw me back onto the bed.

  She took her witch’s robe off of me before tucking me into bed, throwing it around herself.

  Just before she left, right as she was at the door, she turned around, giving one more concerned look my way.

  “Think you’ll be alright, Estelle?”

  “…Yeah. Bed’s warm. I’ll sleep fine.”

  Another sigh left her lips.

  “You’re deflecting again.”

  “...I’ll be okay. It’s just-… it’s a lot to think about.”

  “Well, take your time. I’ll be here if you need anything. Just don’t keep it all bottled up, okay? I’ll make these chats a regular occurrence if I need to.”

  “I’ll try my best to not make it a habit.”

  She chuckled.

  “Well, let’s just put all of that aside and think about the 7th of July for now. It’ll be a night to look forward to. Think about all the stuff about birthdays and the future later.”

  She closed the door behind her.

  I snuggled into my blankets, closing my eyes.

  The future, magic, witches, Nindo, birthdays…

  There was a lot to think about for the next few months.

  I hoped an answer would come to me soon.