Severed Truths

The Bookcase

                        Mage POV
                Morning After The Ball

I barely got any sleep. I couldn't stop thinking about how my mother was in my vision of those two wolves. They had nothing similar in their pasts, or even their futures, from what I could decipher.

I check my bedside clock. 8 am.

I groan, knowing I only got about 4 hours sleep in total. The visions kept flashing in my dreams the whole night. It's time I get up and go get some answers.

I arrive in my mothers neighborhood after an hour long bus ride, lucky that there weren't any other passengers to notice me jumping from my naps every 5 minutes. Also, luckily enough, my mothers house is only a block from the bus stop.

As I reach her front door, about to knock, the door flings open, my eyes widening as the seemingly non aging woman throws her arms around my neck.

"Mage! I've missed you so much!" She holds me at arms length now, giving me a once over, the bright smile never leaving her face. I notice now that there are a couple of extra lines by her eyes that weren't there the last time I had seen her. Seeing that I haven't seen her in at least 2 years, that might have made a bit of a difference.

"Mother. I missed you, too." I smile back. I did miss her, just probably not as much as she did me.

"Come in! Come in!" She exclaimed loudly as she dragged me into the living room that I knew all too well. Nothing has changed since I was a child, not even the oversized brown and black couch that I used to jump on.

"Tea? Coffee? Sweets?" She asks, waving her finger, different tableware making its own way to the room.

"Coffee will be fine." I say, grabbing a cup and pouring it myself. I look up to see her still smiling, waiting for me to start a conversation.

"Mother." I take a sip of the coffee, setting it back on the table. I lean forward, my elbows sitting on my knees while I wrap one hand around the fist of my other. I set my chin atop my hands, my forehead wrinkling in thought. She doesn't say anything, but her smile falters a bit.

"I need some answers, and I need you to be truthful. I'm not a child anymore. I go out on commissions now, too. I do everything that you used to, so there shouldn't be any secrets now." I look up at her, her brows furrowing, smile completely faded now. I avert my eyes back to the coffee cup in front of me.

"I had visions. Only two though. It was at the Solstice Ball. The two wolves were complete opposites. Yet, in both their visions, I saw.." I paused, leaning back into the cushions of the large couch, still

"You." I said, looking directly into her eyes. They widen before relaxing again. The warm smile she had upon my arrival seeming a distant memory as I look at her unmovable features now.

"Come with me." Is all she says before quickly leaving the room and going out the back door into the small yard. I follow behind her, keeping up, but barely. She waves her hand, roughly breaking the lock off the small shed that has never been unlocked since I was born.

She steps in, waiting for me. I step in and she shuts the door, the darkness in the shed eerily surrounding us. After a few seconds, she opens the door again, but what I see is no longer a backyard, but a large office.

Bookcases covering the entire back wall, a single chair in front of a fireplace, which conveniently came alight as we entered. The desk on the other side of the room neatly arranged, looking as though it's been untouched for awhile. I walk up to it, running my index finger across the edge, a thin layer of dust coating the end of it.

I rub my index finger and thumb together, trying to remove the dirt. I turn around to see my mother staring at the rows of journals filling the many shelves. I walk up to stand beside her.

"These are all the visions I've ever had, all the commissions I've ever done and everything in between. I kept a log of everything. I never knew what would happen if I forgot everything one day or when I would need to have proof of something. I guess now is one of those times." She says, looking at the very top shelf of the ceiling high book case.

"Those shelves are locked. Why?" I ask, the glass framing those specific journals, definitely drawing attention.

"Those are the journals have deep secrets and visions that lead to horrible tragedies, whether they came to fruition or not, I'm still not sure. I don't remember all of them." She grabs a letter opener off one of the shelves, pricking her thumb. I watch closely as she presses it against a thumb shaped grain in the wood of one of the cases. If she hadn't put her thumb on it, I would've never noticed it was there.

Suddenly, a long clanging trails up to the shelf below the top one, the glass drops and disappears. The shelves slowly start rearranging theirselves until the top shelves are now at eye level.

She runs her finger along the spines, numbers that I can only guess are years, printed faintly in silver. She finally stops at one, looking at it for a moment, her eyes flashing with an unknown emotion. She pulls it out, shoving it in my direction without looking at me.

I look down at it. 1999.

"Mom, wha-" she shakes her head.

"Open it. Read it. Being a Gypsy, it should show you in vision form, but also, maybe not because they aren't your memories."

I look at her, confused.

'This hopefully answers some of my questions.' I tell myself as I turn to the first page, immediately being sucked into a vortex.