I went for lunch with my older sister today. During our conversation, she broached the topic of our father, along with his old documents. We agreed it was best that they were destroyed.

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Light hit Antoinette’s eyelids, and she woke with a great rush of butterflies in her stomach. Throwing off her bedsheets, she pounced with such urgency she could have spewed out said butterflies and have them completely fill her room. First she shot out with her feet, then dashed from the bed and pulled open the curtains, letting the sun splash inside.

She lunged for her perfectly-made stack of clothes on her bag and began, as quickly as she could, replacing her pyjamas. These, as she threw them off, went all over the room, bits on the bed, bits on the window sill.

“Maria!” she cried as she struggled with a sock. “One moment! Maria! Don’t go yet! Wait for meeeeee!” She yanked on her last sock, buttoned up her blouse and then skidded to her bag, neatly packed from the night before.

“Ahhhhh!” she groaned, looping her hands through the bag handles and picking it up. The bag was super heavy, but Antoinette was strong. She lifted it up and barely squeaked out another, “Ma-Maria, waiiit for m-meee!” before hauling herself and her bag out the bedroom and rapidly down the stairs.

When Antoinette made it into the kitchen, there was nobody there. This was a terrible sign. The house was too warm. The sun was too bright. The birds were too loud!

It was far too late in the day and she had slept in!

She let go of her bag with a great exhale, sending it to the floorboards. The only things inside it were clothes, her favourite toys, and her favourite toothbrush, so as it thudded to the floor, it sounded like nothing more than a dull pillow landing. “Maria? Hello?”

The weird thing was, it hardly looked like anybody had been down here all morning. Maybe it was earlier than she thought. Could Maria still be asleep? And miss the train!

Oh no! Oh no, oh no, oh no! She pirouetted around and ran back to the stairs, hurdling her bag as she did this and almost falling over the first step.

“Mariaaaaa!” she cried.

She emerged onto the second floor landing and skidded to a stop in front of an opened door. Prim was there in an almost absolute state of undress. Behind her, Antoinette saw a dim room with lots of plants and herbs growing in little pots. Prim rubbed her eyes and looked down at Antoinette. “What is going on? Racing about like you’re being chased?”

Antoinette half-covered her eyes. “So sorry, Prim, need to find Maria.”

“Well can you try not to twist your ankles, An?”

“Sorry!” She bit her teeth lightly together and slowly began to remove herself from Prim’s line of sight, as the door eventually swung shut and locked. Back in the hallway, she continued her pursuit of Maria skilfully, navigating the tall multi-level house light on her toes.

Antoinette wasn’t really allowed to go inside Maria’s room usually, so she approached the door with trepidation. It seemed larger than it normally did, but already slightly-ajar, which was odd.

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Antoinette pushed it open and peeked her head inside.

“Maria, we’re going to miss the train!” she said. Through the small gap created, she saw several spherical mason jars on a shelf, some of them filled with odd concoctions, others empty. Those were Maria’s spell jars. Surely if she had left, she would have brought some of those with her. Then again, Antoinette doubted she’d notice if any were missing.

She guided the door open a fraction more, checking for signs of Maria’s bags, any sign that she had either left without her (unlikely) or was still here, somewhere (likely).

She’s definitely not in her room, she thought.

Antoinette spun around, pulling the door shut, and descended back down the stairs to the kitchen. Once here, she picked up her bags and flew out the front door into the breezy street. A quiet hubbub of people roamed the neighbourhood, little bells going off, feet scratching the cobbled roads. The bicycle that was usually here against the wall was gone, and most strangely, in a pile against the brick wall were clothes.

“Someone left their clothes here. Weird.” Releasing the ache on her shoulders, she dropped her bag again and shook out her arms. Okay, fine, the bag was heavy.

Her attention turned to the train station. As long as she ran there as fast as possible, she would not miss Maria and could get on board the train. Why Maria had gone without her, it was a question she’d have to answer later, but there was no time to hang around.

“Come here, you gigantic heavy thing,” she said to her bag. Slipping the handle through her arm and over her shoulder, she hefted up the bag and took off.

Before she’d even made it to the end of the street, she got tangled up in her own feet and fell forward, bag flying. “Ugh!” She doubled over her bag and rolled off it onto the sidewalk, scraping her skin on the hard ground. Come on!

She found her knee, used it to help herself back up, collecting the bag on the way. It was as if the damn thing kept getting heavier. She looped the handle over her shoulder and ran. There was blood starting to come through where she’d scraped her skin.

She took the many winds and bends of Bellvoir for what seemed like forever, legs aching and completely winded by the time she arrived at the station. The platform was empty. It never was very busy; few were going in and out of Bellvoir, particularly at this hour of morning. But if Maria wasn’t here, then could she have already taken the train?

Antoinette was glad to finally put down her bags and run up to the ticket booth, peering up at the man behind the bench. He was mid-yawn when she reached him.

“Was there a woman here? She’s quite ol...” She didn’t want to say “old.”

The man jumped. “I didn’t see you there. What was that?”

“Was there a woman here, stup—” She stopped herself from saying “stupid.”

“No. There are no passenger trains running today,” the man replied.

What? How could that be? Unless...I have the day wrong?

“What about to Carcassonne? I mean...There has to be one. Otherwise, it makes no sense! Why are you here if there are no trains, huh! Double check it!”

“Little girl, there are no trains on Thursday.”

“There must! We were meant to go there today. She said I could come along!” But the more she tried to convince herself of it, the more she started to realise, Maria had never planned for her to come along at all. No matter what she said. No matter anything!

The man briefly double-checked by looking at some charts in his little office, but by “briefly” double-checking, it was more like pretending to.

“Nope. No trains to Carcassonne today,” he said.

Antoinette’s stomach dropped. Why would she just go? She said! Was it because of something Antoinette had done? She began to think about everything that had occurred up to this point. It had just been her birthday, too! They had purchased shoes. She even helped Otto for a whole day! Maria had been distracted (Antoinette was not exactly sure of what was happening in Carcassonne) but that was not Antoinette’s fault.

She sniffed, but held in her tears. She could still get to Carcassonne. It was just a train away, even if that meant she had to wait here until tomorrow.

“Well then,” she said indignantly, her neck starting to hurt from looking all the way up to where the man’s head poked out. “Get me a ticket for the next train. I’ll wait here.”

“But...seriously?”

“Yes! Now!”

“The next train to Carcassonne isn’t today, I already said. You’ll be waiting here a while, little girl. Well, you’ll probably be waiting until tomorrow morning.”

“You heard me!” Antoinette snapped.

“Oh, to have such time to waste. If you say so.”

He wrote out a ticket and Antoinette took it from his hand, before storming with her bags to the closest bench and sitting down. She was not tall enough yet for her shoes to meet the ground. She sat here, and crossing her arms, she waited.