On the outskirts of the witch village was a small flower field.
When she was a little girl, Cecily often enjoyed playing there, and would carefully pick the beautiful flowers in bloom. She liked putting them in a vase by the window, or making flower crowns to give to her father, mother, or her cat, Rolo.
On this day in particular, it was incredibly windy. Petals of all colors and dandelion seeds were caught by the breeze and danced in the air.
In this stunning, dreamlike scene, Cecily was clasping a flower crown in her small hands as a young boy who was standing nearby began to speak.
“I’m leaving tomorrow,” he said.
“Leaving? Where are you going?”
A puzzled look came over Cecily’s face as she turned to look at the boy. She wondered where this outing would be taking him, but saw that his face was scrunched up in a grimace of pain.
“I’m going far away. With my family.”
“How far?”
“But,” he said quickly, trying to reassure Cecily, who had fallen silent after her brief reply, “I’ll come back.”
“Right...” Cecily said, drawing her lips tight as she held her emotions in check.
If he was going far away, then there was no chance of him coming back soon. He was the only one in the village close to Cecily’s age, so this news made her a little upset. Cecily was about to tell him this, but as she looked at him, she noticed that he wore a pained expression.
Of course...
He was the one leaving, so it was obvious that he would be far more upset about his departure than Cecily was. If so, then I need to send him off with a smile, Cecily thought. She held the flower crown out to him.
“This is for you!”
“Huh?”
His voice contained a trace of confusion, but Cecily paid this no heed, and placed the crown onto his head. She looked at him, her one-of-a-kind crown of white flowers on his head.
“Yeah! Just as I thought—it suits you. You look super cute.”
“‘Cute’?”
The boy’s face flushed with embarrassment, but this just made Cecily giggle more.
The pouting boy placed his hands on Cecily’s shoulders. He wasn’t clasping them with any strength, just allowing the weight of the hands of a boy his age to rest upon her. Cecily stopped smiling as she asked, “What’s up?”
“Um... I want you to promise me something.”
“A promise?”
Even as she said these words, Cecily found herself nodding with slight embarrassment. She couldn’t take her eyes off him—she couldn’t look away from his eyes, that were more beautiful than any flower or fruit...
“Cecy, when I come back as a grown-up, then I...”
“Mmf...”
Cecily let out a stifled groan as she was dragged into the waking world. Rolo had smacked her cheek with his front paw. This was his usual wake-up call for breakfast. The greedy black cat wouldn’t hesitate to use slightly violent methods to rouse Cecily, who wasn’t much of a morning person.
“Jeez, Rolo. Can’t you wake me up a bit more gently?”
Rolo merely meowed in reply. He slunk off the bed and began licking his belly without a care in the world. It was evident that he had no intention of listening to Cecily’s request.
Cecily shook her head in exasperation before pulling a big stretch in bed.
A yawn escaped Cecily’s lips as she thought back on the fading memories of her dream.
“That dream really takes me back...”
It had been almost ten years since that day, but Cecily hadn’t seen the boy since then. She wondered what he was doing now. Was he well? Her mother would probably have filled her in if she asked, but all the same...
Cecily’s memories from back then had grown foggy and vague, and she couldn’t remember his face anymore. But one thing that remained steadfast in her memory, even now, were those beautiful eyes of his, which had almost seemed to glow.
“Of course... He had red eyes too.”
As Cecily’s sleepy brain began to ponder the meaning of that, she remembered something, and it was pushed completely out of her mind.
“I completely forgot! Zeke invited me over to his home today!”
Cecily tumbled out of bed in a rush, and before long, the eyes of her childhood friend vanished from her thoughts completely.