Forever

She had all the self-assurance of one who had seen too many victories to remember the losses. She had made up her mind that she would always be right, and she was. Her mother had always been like this and to those who thought to question this unwavering confidence - naivete, they called it - for those who thought it a little extreme, she would point in her mother’s direction and take shelter beneath the woman’s great reputation. 

But to those who knew to look a little closer, they would have seen that where Freya was fierce, her daughter was merciless. Although their actions were the same, Freya’s had a certain heat to it, as if her looks and words were drawn from an intense, passionate fire. The girl’s nature had nothing but the cold and sharp edges of broken ice. This one difference created a gulf between them as big as that of estranged relatives. 

Still, sometimes she missed her mother. 

But no amount of love would make her regret her decision. 

 

Fina, Seraphina, had been named by Freya, with even Freya’s last name. She had been fed, clothed, entertained, held, kissed, nurtured, educated, broken down and built up by Freya. She had opened her eyes for the first time to see Freya above her and had seen her face every day for the rest of her life since. She had asked for only Freya’s permission, only Freya’s blessing, only Freya’s approval. The only thing she had made for herself was: Fina; two syllables chopped off from the rest of Freya’s four-syllable name of choice. Even that started and ended the same way as Freya did.

She didn’t know how to tell Fina apart from Freya. That was when she rejected her mother’s warmth altogether. She had always liked the cold better anyway. She flourished in it and grew into a lifestyle where she no longer remembered what it was to be sheltered. 

 

Fina was stirring her dinner on a stove when she remembered with a jolt that she had dreamt of something the night before. She had woken up with a nauseating feeling and had resolved to think about it when she had the energy and the mind for it. But the dream had melted away from the front of her mind as cotton candy does in one’s mouth and she forgot that such a thing existed, until she watched herself stir the soup round and round just as her mind was doing that morning - going in circles. 

That night Fina sat at a table big enough for two and ate the remains of a salad left over from the day before. The soup was put away in the fridge. She was afraid to go to sleep and didn’t want to, but a small part of her mind told her that there was nothing to fear. If lightning didn’t strike twice in the same place then Fina couldn’t have the same dream for two nights in a row, she thought.

The next morning, Fina woke up with one thought in her head. I was wrong. Now there was only one thing she knew: the dream was going to torment her every night afterwards. But there she was wrong again. The dream didn’t come back that night or the night after. She knew she had only to bide her time though, it would come again. 

What exactly the dream was, she could never remember fully. Any residue the dream left was a light voice that carried her name. She could hear her name being called clearly, only one time, but she was sure it was repeated again and again. 

After a while, Fina started hearing that voice in the daylight. She knew it couldn’t be any more real than the dream itself was. But she didn’t know if what she knew was right. Sometimes she imagined the voice calling out across the room plainly. She couldn’t stop thinking about it. 

When she walked down the hall, she imagined the voice calling from one of the rooms. When she was cooking breakfast, lunch or dinner, she imagined the voice calling from the table. When she walked down the stairs she imagined the voice calling from below. As she grew older, the voice grew louder. Until Fina lost her hearing altogether. 

For years, the voice never troubled her, but came again one day when she was going down the stairs for the last time. The voice cried loudly, ringing in her ears, pushing her off the steps and causing her to tumble to the bottom. She looked up to see Freya watching her, calling to her as she had called since the day Fina left her.