That was how everything ended.
Yes. This was how it happened. So many things had happened so quickly that I hadn’t remembered anything properly, but when I went back, I realized it.
Mom saved me.
Primrose tried to save me, too.
Then Mom tried to save Primrose, who tried to save me.
And then she died like this.
My sister, her short hair soaked in blood, screamed like a mad person. As if this was happening for the first time, as if she had completely forgotten that we had come here briefly from the western forest.
I was scared and my leg throbbed, but I shouted with all my might.
I spoke loudly to my sister right in front of me, as if to someone on the other side of the mountain ridge. I told her to come to her senses, to listen to Mom, to take me to Mom.
My sister immediately grabbed Mom’s soft body. She embraced the body that had become a target for arrows. She opened her mouth, as if trying to say “I love you,” just as planned.
But Aunt Marilyn, as you know, we weren’t raised in a family where those sentimental words flowed naturally. My sister couldn’t bring herself to utter those unfamiliar words, and she just stared at Mom with her mouth open. From where I was, I could see Mom’s face too.
Mom was smiling. Really. She wore that satisfied smile at the corner of her lips, like when she boiled tasty soup until it was hot and placed a big bowl with the most ingredients in front of Willow.
Mom tried to reach out toward Primrose. That attempt ultimately failed, but she managed to open her lips and speak. A weak and faint voice, on the verge of dying out, spoke.
“My baby, my Prim, thank goodness…”
Her words broke off there. My sister made a strange sound like a wounded wild animal crying.
I just shouted, “Quick, Sis, hurry.”
I thought my sister said she loved her. I thought she whispered, “I love you, I love you.” Mom’s hand fell limply to the ground about the time my sister said those words once, twice, three times, four times, five times.
Aunt Marilyn, I didn’t think it was too late. I didn’t feel regret that I couldn’t save Mom or Willow even after coming back. I never dreamed of that. It couldn’t have been possible, right? Just like the wizard said.
I merely recalled what Primrose had calmly said earlier in the western forest, as if it were a confession. That even if someone died with eyes shut and lips closed, their ears stayed open. So I crawled on my arms, lying flat. My sister came to her senses and pulled me by the arm.
We both hugged Mom. And as if we had promised, as if it were a spell we learned and memorized together at school, we whispered in unison.
I love you, I love you, I love you.
I love you, I love you, I love you.
That was all.
Nothing changed. I only saw Willow’s back as he ran; I never thought of stopping or saving him. I couldn’t change the cannon, the spears, the war, or Mom’s death. There was no time or chance to do so.
At the moment it seemed we would go on forever, hugging Mom and murmuring that we loved her, my eyes suddenly closed. Drowsiness overcame me.
When I came to my senses, the shimmering starlight filled my vision again. Then darkness passed, and light returned. As I followed the light, I realized we were already sitting in a grassy field filled with clovers and trefoils.
At the edge of the western forest—where spruce, pine, elm, and oak trees stood thick, a wide field where baby bluebells newly bloomed like a clearing created by a fire, at the rarely traveled boundary of the western woods.
A pale blond color, shining like the late-morning moon, flickered before my eyes. The wizard, that shining figure, sat beside us and gently wiped the tears from my cheeks.
I stayed still like a newborn lamb and didn’t refuse that touch. After I calmed down a bit, I opened my mouth.
“Did you hear it? Sis?”
“Yeah.”
Primrose answered in a husky voice, like she had just woken up.
“Mom said she was relieved.”
“Yes.”
“She knew you were her daughter. And she was relieved because you were alive.”
“I know.”
“I said it too. That I love her.”
“Yeah.”
“Sis, you said it too, right? We both said it. Over and over.”
Like someone who had found it so difficult to say “I love you,” my sister couldn’t easily say thank you either. She only moved her lips while looking at the wizard.
The wizard smiled faintly, as if he knew exactly what my sister felt. A white speck, shimmering like silver or gold, drifted downward over his long hair that gave off a hazy glow.
I blinked a few times, wondering if I felt dizzy or if some dust had gotten in my eyes. After a while, I finally realized it.
That was not a speck of dust in my eye. It wasn’t one of those stars that blocked my vision when I felt faint.
Aunt Marilyn.
It was snow.
Snow was fluttering down at the edge of the western forest, where a barrier had been set so that winter could not arrive.
Soft sleet-like snow fell, as gentle as the first snow during the Capital’s Knot Month.
The ground turned white, like the perpetual snow piled on the mid-slope of the tall mountains in Reutlingen, the great empire to the north.
Snow fell quietly, as if settling onto the broad shoulders of Sir Arthur Gillen’s silver armor in that painting where he waited 99 days in front of the princess’s castle.
White snow piled on the top of the beech tree, with its spiral-shaped pretty leaves that bore fruit in hanging clusters. Fluffy snow stuck like cotton on the sharp needles of the graceful, tall silver-blue spruce that rose like a spire.
My sister and I were taken aback and just looked up at the sky. The sight of snowflakes, white against the sky that had been so clear and blue just moments before, was astonishingly beautiful.
Only after the cold snow touched his fair cheek did the wizard say, “Ah…,” and look at the air above, then he reached out as if wiping away dust and gave a small swipe of his hand. And instead of speaking in his usual long-drawn tone like our great-grandmother, he spoke in Reutlingen tongue.
[We tried to cross the barrier of time, but we ended up awakening winter.]
I had learned Reutlingen tongue from childhood, since I was born after the war started, but I had never heard such a formal, refined accent. He spoke almost like he was reciting poetry.
He said that, while trying to cross the barrier of time, he hadn’t managed to hold back the changing of the seasons, and in doing so, he had awakened the winter that had been put to sleep.
He spoke of these magical things as though they were nothing special.
Yes, Aunt Marilyn. This was what I wanted to tell you by wasting all this paper and ink.
Have you ever experienced something like this?
Have you ever felt like nothing changed, that you merely had a brief dream, yet everything seemed different?
Like how simply getting to know one new person suddenly made your world feel bigger.
Like you realized the world was no longer the one you knew.
Or perhaps, have you ever witnessed something like this?
Have you ever seen dandelion seeds floating in the wind in spring while snow was dancing down from the sky at the same time? Have you ever marveled at the sight of those white dandelion seeds and pale snowflakes meeting and disappearing together among the tender grass, like a scene from a painting?
Have you ever seen winter peeking out through a gap in time, then someone waving a hand in the air as if to shoo away insects, driving it away?
For a mere twelve-year-old, all of this felt strange and new. I felt like I understood how a wet pinecone opened up its tightly closed chocolate-brown scales into a rounded shape. I, too, revealed my caramel-colored interior and became a plump, round pinecone.
My heart swelled with courage. I thought that if I confessed all this to you, Aunt, you wouldn’t scold me for wasting time and ink on a boring letter.
So, how was it? Was my story fun? Even if it wasn’t, please say it was. It was a once-in-a-lifetime special event for me, you see.
It was the day I fell head over heels for someone for the first time in my life.
Primrose, who believed she was the most perceptive person in the world yet always misunderstood everything, seemed completely clueless. But I was sure you would know right away, Aunt.
Just like you knew, seeing the white mark on my lips, that I had sipped Primrose’s share of goat’s milk instead.
You didn’t have the heart to scold me then, and instead you found it cute. I was certain you were grinning from ear to ear this time, too. And you would have said:
‘Our Hyacinth, you’ve fallen in love.’
I suddenly missed you so much, Aunt.
I’ll write again if something else exciting happens.
From the western forest,
Hoping you enjoyed this long-overdue letter,
Your most beloved niece, Hyacinth Blossom.
P.S. I love you too, Aunt. I realized we shouldn’t hold back these words.
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