Don't Go

“She never used to be this bad.” Disseus could recall warmth and laughter and rolling through flowers and being tackled by a woman in skirts dropping out of a tree.

Days of sunshine and laughter. He looked around him now and saw everything through darker eyes. Reminding himself that those days were long gone.

Almora was still giving him a quizzical look.

But I don’t have any answers to offer her.

Almora clearly wanted to know what had changed so much in Nim.

I don’t know. It wasn’t my fault. She left me. His thoughts turned bitter, and he shifted away from the witch. Making it clear the conversation was over and he cared to discuss it no further.

***

But thinking over what Almora had said made him curious.

I know some of the more ugly parts of her story. Of the time she was gone. But I’d like to know the rest… Yet he feared asking to fill in the blanks would likely cause him pain.

But his hunger to know was making him restless.

What did happen to her the years since I knew her? Other