Chapter 232: Cloak of moonlight
Present Day
"For years," the old woman says softly, her voice trembling with age and memory, "I’ve wondered how she was... if she was okay. It’s... disheartening to know she passed away so young."
Her gaze drifts beyond the garden, past the sunlit flowers and neatly trimmed hedges, into a distance I cannot see. I follow the direction of her eyes but find nothing there—just the endless sky and the faint rustling of leaves in the breeze. But she isn’t looking at the present. She’s looking into the past, searching for the girl she once knew, the one she helped escape all those years ago.
My mother.
Mirelle Vetara.
The woman who raised me with laughter and endless love, despite the weight of the world she carried. And yet... this woman beside me speaks of her like she was someone else entirely. I try to reconcile the images she paints with the mother I remember—the carefree woman who hummed while braiding my hair, who insisted that scraped knees were just "warrior marks," who once chased a wild goose through our garden because she thought it stole her herb basket.
It feels surreal.
"She... never really talked about her life before," I admit, shifting on the garden bench. The cool stone presses into my palms, grounding me. "She always said the past wasn’t as important as the present."
The old woman—Joan, I remind myself—smiles faintly. Deep lines crease the corners of her eyes, softened by the warmth of her expression. "That sounds like her," she murmurs. "Always looking forward... even when the past never really left her alone."