Chapter 3 Hey, Ma

Morning had always been the only hour this place felt sacred. Before the sun rose, the world looked like a damp bruise, black and blue and aching. Salt hung thick in the air, threaded with rot and old memories. I walked the slick path alone, wildflowers clutched tight against my chest. The mist soaked through my hair and kissed my lungs raw. The closer I got to the hill, the heavier my ribs felt, like something inside me knew what waited there and wanted to turn back.

Behind me, the tavern shrank to a smear of yellow light, a dying ember in the fog. All that noise and heat and false safety folded down to nothing. Out here, there was no counter between me and the world. No walls. Just the open hush of morning and my own thoughts, loud as gulls.

The trail bent at the village’s edge where the stones leaned together like old gossips. Grass slicked my boots. Dew soaked through the leather and kissed my ankles with cold teeth. I let it. The bite reminded me I was still breathing. 

Still here.

Near the rise, I crouched and stripped the best heads from a stubborn patch of wildflowers. Quick fingers. Efficient. The tips were already browning. Summer had washed its hands of them. I twisted the stems together tighter than needed, as if pressure could make them last longer, then climbed the final stretch, careful with my steps. The moss over the older graves was thick and tender. I would not be the one to scar it.

My mother’s stone waited where it always did. Small. Worn down. Half-swallowed by time. The earth around it was bare, as if even grass understood better than to crowd her.

Cold seeped through my skirt as I knelt. I set the flowers at the foot of the marker and pressed my palm flat against the pitted granite. The stone held the night’s chill. I pushed harder, foolishly, like I might shove my words through to wherever she had gone.

“Hey, Ma.”

My voice came out rough. I swallowed and tried again, softer. “Brought you something pretty. More than I get.” A laugh slipped free before I could stop it. Bitter. Small.

I told her about the tavern first, like always. I spoke about the tap that stuck again and sprayed ale down my sleeve. About the dockhands who thought I wouldn’t notice their crooked card tricks. About the parade of men who mistook a skirt for permission. I told her about the merchant who tried to sell me a map to the lost gold of Ilydrath, swore it was genuine, swore it would change my life. I told her about the harbormaster’s toothache and the girl who ran off wearing the preacher’s boots.

The words poured easier once they started. Safer, too. Stories were simpler than truth.

I picked at a chip in the stone with my thumbnail.

“I know what you’d say,” I murmured. “You’d tell me I’m doing fine. You would say, "You're my clever girl, you’ll get by.’”

My thumb rubbed at her name. It was surprising how quickly five years can fade stone. 

“But sometimes it doesn’t feel like getting by,” I whispered. Shame clawing at me. “Sometimes it feels like holding my breath and hoping nobody notices I’m drowning.” The word lodged in my throat. I forced it out anyway. “Ma, I feel like I’m drowning.”

The fog pressed close, thick on my tongue.

I slid my fingers up to the chain at my throat and tugged the ring free into the weak light. The gold had dulled over the years. I preferred it that way. It looked honest. Tarnished, but whole.

“Still wearing it,” I said. “Haven’t lost it yet. That’s something, right?” The laugh that followed sounded as thin as the wind.

Silence answered me. Only fog surrounded me. 

I folded my arms around my knees and rested my chin there, skirt bunched awkwardly at my calves. Guilt prowled in my gut, sharp and restless. I had swallowed these next words for months. Keeping them in had turned them poisonous.

“I think about leaving,” I admitted. The confession made my chest tighten. “Just picking a direction and walking until the map runs out. There’s a part of me that wants it. Not just the wind and salt. Something bigger. I don’t even know what. Something stupid, probably. Something needs to happen before I drown…. I'm sorry…”

The hill did not strike me down for saying it. The sky did not split. Like I feared they would for daring to want more than the life I have been given.

“I know what you’d say. You’d blame it on Father’s blood. Always hungry. Always chasing the horizon.” I brushed a bit of lichen from the stone and let it crumble between my fingers. “But someone has to stay. If I go, the tavern falls apart. And I can’t let that happen. I would let you down if something happened to it. It was Dad, and yours dream. ”

The truth hovered there, raw and breathing.

“I just don’t want to stay forever, I will make sure the Tavern is taken care of before I go. Unless I have no other choice.” A self deprecating laugh escapes me. 

I leaned forward until my forehead pressed to the cold granite. The chill bit deep, grounding me.

“That’s if I ever get over my fear,” I whispered, “but I’ll come back. I promise. I don’t want to leave you here alone.”

When I finally stood, the fog had begun to peel away in pale ribbons. The sun crept cautiously and thin over the village roofs. The flowers at her grave looked brighter now, purples and yellows stubborn against the gray.

I traced her name one last time, memorizing the grooves my fingers already knew by heart, then tucked the ring back beneath my shirt where it rested warm against my skin.

As I walked toward the tavern, the silence felt softer. Less like abandonment. More like a held breath.

Each step home did not feel like surrender.

It felt like a pause.