The Chosen One Is My Mother

How it begins

The prophecy arrived while my mother was clearing a blocked gutter. Its messenger stood beneath the ladder holding a scroll in both hands, waiting for her to become appropriately impressed.

'The kingdom has sought you for thirty years,' he said.

Ada Senn dropped a clump of wet leaves into the bucket. 'It could have tried the electoral register.'

I came through the gate carrying river plans and a bag of oranges. I had intended to inspect her ladder, which she said was none of my business. The royal messenger complicated this ordinary argument by kneeling in the mud.

'Mother?'

'Apparently I'm chosen.'

'For what?'

She looked down at the scroll. 'It gets rather vague after the part about the stars.'

He read the identifying marks. A burn on the left wrist. A house built against the prevailing wind. A person who had raised a life from water. My mother glanced at me. I had been born during a flood, in a fishing boat she later converted into a shed.

The messenger's voice trembled with relief. Mine did not. I was an engineer. I knew what happened when people trusted a description without testing the load.

'She's sixty-eight,' I said.

My mother stopped scraping the gutter.

'I can count, Mina.'

'I mean they should have found you sooner.'

'You mean something else.'

The messenger produced a ceremonial sword. Its hilt shone. My mother asked if there was a lighter one. When he looked alarmed, she added that she could use a hammer perfectly well.

I wanted to tell him she had a bad knee, that winter stairs troubled her, that a kingdom should not build its future on one woman's body. All true. None of it answered the question she asked me next.

'Will you come because you want to help,' she said, 'or because you think I need stopping?'