Someday, Maybe

The wind was skirting about the edges of the village. Flirting with the wild. Calling the moon down. It was a quiet place, on the boundaries of nowhere, but soon the walls of this simple nothing would be home to a great magic.

Whim had lived a small forever in this place. Her mother, her grandmother, and her great grandmother, had all grown up in the same village. Moving to the city to attend university was the first time Whim had ever lived away. When her mother grew ill, she had left her future to come home to her past.

Whim now lived alone in a small stone house that had always belonged to her family. Since her mother's passing, just last year, she couldn't seem to find the will or want to leave. She spent most of her days in the garden, tending to her mother's Tranquility roses, drinking fresh mint tea, and writing in her small black notebook; while dreaming of romance and far off places.

Whim had fallen in love with the world from the stories her mother had read aloud to her as a child. "There is so much out there," her mother whispered to her once after finishing a brave adventure. "So much world. I want so much for you to see it. To gaze from the tops of mountains. To swim in the clearest warmest waters. To know a love that is bigger than any story I could read you. I want you to have a magical life."

"Oh well. Oh hum," Whim muttered to herself, pulling the weeds from around the stone foundation of the house. "Someday, maybe."

On days Whim would get too restless from all her quiet wanting, she would walk down the road to the local pub, have a dark beer, and dream there with her pen.

"Here," her mother held out a pale and shaking hand. Whim didn't like to dwell on the effect the virus had on this beautiful defiant woman. Her mother had once been strong and freckled from all her time hiking the hills in the sun, working in the garden. "Here silly!" Her mother's smile cracked light into Whim's grey thoughts. Whim shook her head to escape. She had failed to see the small brown paper package that was now being thrust at her from her dying mother's hand.

"What is this?" Whim asked.

"Just open it," her mother said. “Now."

Whim gingerly tore the paper away. It was a small black notebook.

"Now you can write to me about all your great adventures. Promise me you will."

Whim stared at her frail smiling mother, overwhelmed at the idea of writing to the person she loved most in the world, a person who would very soon no longer be here. "I...I promise," Whim softly responded. There was nothing to argue. She would write to her mother.

Dear Mom,

Today I accidently broke grandma's teapot, and then spent the rest of the afternoon gluing it back together. It seems like it's holding water alright. I'll try to brew tea with it tomorrow. Sorry about that.

Whim took a slug of beer to wash down her disappointment.

At that precise moment, the door of the pub flew open and a muddy stranger walked in and made a beeline to the bar. "Excuse me. Excuse me. I apologize, but it's rather urgent. I'm looking for someone with the name of Whim Grace."

The stout village bartender gestured to the slouching figure in the corner. "Silvie's girl. The small gal with black eyes and brown hair. That'd be her." His stained teeth grinning, "But you can't be in my bar without drinking, so what'll you have?"

"Hello," the stranger sat down in front of Whim, planting his pale ale loudly on the wood table. "I'm Robert, your mother sent me."

Whim looked up from her writing, only to be caught in sea glass eyes framed by bushy golden red eyebrows and a very muddy concerned face. "Is it raining outside? Why are you so wet and dirty? Did you fall?" Whim wasn't sure if she'd had too many beers or not enough. "Are you well?"

"My name is Robert. I am well. No it is not raining outside, and I haven't fallen. I did come a very long way to find you. Your mother sent me." He placed a very large unsealed yellowed envelope on the table. It had her name on it. Whim picked it up and looked inside. There was a note that looked like it was in her mother's handwriting.

Follow Robert

In the envelope there was also an elaborate gold rose key and about $20,000 in cash.

The bar suddenly seemed too warm and too quiet. Whim told her brain to tell her body to breathe. She forced herself to stand and walked over to the bar.

"Hey. I'm gonna need another beer."