Sorceress' Blood by Carl Purcell

driving again. No, not just driving. They were running. They
were running from someone they didn’t know to somewhere they
couldn’t see.
    “Will you tell me a story?” Rebecca asked. The
bewildering question seemingly came out of nowhere.
    “What?”
    “I told you a story before so it must be your turn to tell me a
story.”
    “What story should I tell you?”
    “Your story.”
    “But I don’t have a story.”
    “Sure you do.” Rebecca assured her.Her mother had
always said everyone had a story.
    She’d always said that she would write down her life and it’d
be a best-selling novel.
    “Everyone should do it. When I get so old I can count the years
I've got left on my fingers, I’ll write down my life. Everyone
has a story worth reading and, if they’d just write it down,
people would buy it and read about it. Being a writer is easy if you
know a secret like that.” She never did though. She never got
the chance to write it down. That made Rebecca wish she had written
something though. Anything to answer those questions she was left
with. She probably would have had an interesting story – One
worth reading.
    “Everybody has a story.”
    “Really?”
    “Yep. Will you tell me yours?” Ashley looked up at
Rebecca, wondering why she wanted to be told a story. Rebecca had her
eyes locked on the road as tight as her hands were locked on the
wheel. She was smiling though. Rebecca was smiling a cool, confident
smile. This would get the kid talking.
    “I don’t have a story.” Ashley repeated. Rebecca
felt that familiar feeling of defeat again. She couldn’t even
outsmart a little girl.
    “If you say so.”
    “Do you have a story?”
    “No. I guess I don’t have one either.” Ashley gave
her a sceptical look. Rebecca didn’t notice it. Everybody. The thought stuck with her. She could hear her mother saying it even
now.
    Everybody! Of course she had a story.But she wouldn’t
tell Ashley her story. She wouldn’t write it down either. She
didn’t know if anyone would want to read it but, the truth was,
she didn’t want anybody to read it. Her story was hers alone.
Everybody could concern themselves with their own little stories.
Rebecca didn’t even want to think about hers. She didn’t
want to . But Rebecca could no more escape the details
of her life than anybody else. Not that it was a bad life. She was
never abused, she was never starved, and her father never raped her.
In fact, she didn’t even have a father. And that’s where
it began. Rebecca Williams had a story; of course she did. Everybody has a story. She was no longer aware of the road. She
could see it and her hands kept the wheel steady, but Rebecca was
walking through her life, her story.
    She didn’t have a father. Not that she knew about, anyway. She
had a mother though. She was a good woman. Rebecca only had fond
memories of her mother. A headstrong and determined woman who
excelled at everything she ever tried. Rebecca wasn’t sure what
her job was. She had vague memories of her being various things at
various times. She was always a mother though. She put being a mother
before her career, even before being a woman. Rebecca never had a
father or a step-father or any memory of her mother getting cosy with
men. There was just Rebecca and her mother. That never seemed to
bother either of them though. Everything was pretty good, actually.
Rebecca even tried to think about something bad about her life with
her mother. There was only one bad memory. That damned memory. That
damned memory where the story suddenly became a tragedy. Except it
wasn’t a memory at all. Rebecca didn’t remember it ever
happening. Rebecca’s memories just went from living with her
mother to living with Aunty Stephie. She was seven, or maybe eight,
years old.
    Rebecca didn’t remember, she just knew. She knew her mother had
killed herself. One day, somehow, she just did it. There was no will,
no note and no word to anyone about it. Suddenly it just