How many times had I taken the stone path through the twists and turns of the garden to have lunch with my mother?

Without the will to stop and count backwards, I plucked the werelights out of the air from where they hung. I was certain it should have been enough to prevent me from getting lost as soon as I had passed through the mouth of the garden but my certainty was misplaced.

When I had turned back to look at my mother, all I was met with was a wall of green ivy that reached far higher than it had a moment before.

I turned back to the werelights, grabbing every single one that I could reach before following the stone path further into the garden. The stones were warm, they always were, but something about them felt different on the soles of my feet.

I was doing something. Snatching the werelights, punching them into the bag, looking out for my mother playing the stalking demon, I was taking part in a tradition I did not understand. Anna and Arthur were doing the same. We were doing something together. I had never seen what I was doing through the eyes of another in a memory. It was a completely new experience and I should have been enjoying it more than I was, but it wasn’t real.

I stopped, gathering a cluster of lights I had wandered into and pushing them into my bag.

It was constructed, contained, controlled, the same way everything else in the parts of my life I could remember had been.

The heart. The thought sounded in my mind, louder than the others that kept me from what I was doing.

The heart, The heart of the mother in red. What could be in that little chest? What treasure could my mother possibly have gathered? I did not care, not really, but what if I won it? Could I trade it back to my mother for permission to go into the city?

I started again, finding myself reaching for the lights as quickly as I could gather them, but before I could take more than a step, I ran face first into a wall of ivy. I turned around and found the way I had just come down blocked by more ivy.

“How did I get turned around?” I said aloud. The path to my left and my right were open and shimmering with the wine colored lights.

Stuffing the last of the lights I could reach from where I stood into my bag, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. A shiver ran down my spine and I whipped my eyes to each side of me, one after the other, finding nothing that had not been there a moment before.

I chose not to trust my eyes. I had felt that same feeling often enough to know what it was.

I was being watched.

“Anna? Arthur?” I called out, deciding it was better to be watched in motion than to remain still.

A half second after the sound of each of my steps, a strange sound followed behind me, like the shallow echo of the well house. I walked faster and left the werelights where they hung as I passed them. The little echoes stopped suddenly and I could not keep myself from throwing a quick glance over my shoulder.

Where nothing had been, my mother stood only a few steps behind me. Bent at the waist with her arms dangling limply in front of her, she wore an orange mask with terrifying features carved into its surface. Two sharp horns rose from its brow and I could not see my mother’s eyes within the holes cut into the mask

“This is supposed to be fun, right?” I asked, holding two strange feelings in my chest. I knew it was Idensyn Aubrey hunched before me in the garden. The same woman who had helped me out my mind back together after The Well had flooded it, the same woman who had welcomed me back after I had run away and accepted the mortals I had drug along behind me into her house without an angry word, the same woman who had kept the secret of my most recent escape a secret despite the damage it could cause the mothers. I knew she loved me and would never harm me, but in that moment, despite my knowledge, I was absolutely fucking terrified of her.

One of her limp hands twitched and I broke into a full sprint away from her, my bare feet pounding against the stone as I plunged deeper into the garden.

Left.

Right.

Left.

“Fuck the heart, I don’t want it,” I yelled, letting the werelights I was supposed to be collecting stream past me. Turning again, I dared not look back. She was on my heels, I could feel it. “The garden is not this big! You cheated!”

I took the next right, hoping my mother would not be crouched and ready to pounce on me.

I slammed into something hard.

My upper half stopped dead.

My lower half kept going without me and I slammed to my back onto the stone path. A weight landed on top of me and drove the air out of my lungs in a harsh “Uhfff.”

Anna pushed herself up from me, rubbing her arm. “Damn it, that hurt.”

It had not hurt me nearly as bad as it should have. Being landed on had not felt nice, but crashing into her and falling down shoulder have hurt more.

“Did you just?” Anna asked, surprise in her voice. She straddled me and I pushed myself up until we were face to face.

Iridescent light streamed out of my right palm and down the back of my arm. It trailed down my legs and held me off the ground by a thin layer. As soon as I looked at it and realized what had happened, it vanished into dust and I dropped a miniscule distance to the ground. “I think I did.”

Both of our satchels had opened and spilled the wine light around us. Anna, her face very close to mine, patted my cheek with her hand. “All those late nights are starting to pay off. Do it again.”

She pushed me back down and jumped off me, sweeping our scattered lights into her open satchel.

“Hey, wait, that’s not fair!” I shouted, throwing myself into gathering the were lights.

“Life’s not fair, dummy.” Anna said, laughing.

“You’re right,” I agreed, my aura still ready from the fall. I focused on the lights in Anna’s satchel and swept my hand towards my own. Just like the bottle. Dozens more than what I had gathered before we had crashed into each other were pulled from her bag and the ground and swept into mine. “It isn’t.”

“That’s not fair!” Anna shouted. She tried and failed to grab a single light before they vanished into my bag and I snapped it shut.

I stood up, pushing off the top of Anna’s head as she tried to drag me back down.

“Stop,” She shouted, clutching her head with her hands. “That really hurt.”

Before I knew I was doing it, I dropped down to her and ran my hands over her messed up hair, a string of apologies streaming out of me. “I’m sorry. What happened? I didn't mean to hurt you. I got carried away.”

“Dummy.” Anna said, pushing both her hands into my chest and tipping me over backwards. She stood up and tried to run away from me.

She tried.

When she went to pull her back foot off the ground, I held it to the stone underneath it with my aura.

“Let me go!” Anna shouted, hopping on her free foot to keep from falling.

“Give me your bag and I will release you.” I said.

“Fuck you!” Anna shouted back at me, laughter in her voice.

Using my power was new to me. I had been and was still forbidden from using it. Inexperienced as I was, I was confident in my ability to out might and maneuver a mortal that had no power to speak of.

Unless, that mortal was Anna Lao.

Pulling against my aura, she bent at her waist, threw the hem of her dress up, and mooned me.

My focus on my aura broke immediately and she was freed. She found her footing and vanished back into the garden without another word.

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It had only been for a moment, but the shock of what she had done left me stunned on the ground. When I was able to feel anything, I found myself smiling. That smile gave way to a laugh. Anna had shown her ass to escape my magical clutching and it had worked.

Only because her underwear had matched her dress. I assured myself. The sheer improbability of anyone having the will to color match their outfit down to what they wore underneath it had been so unexpected that it had broken my focus.

Before I could pick myself up, heavy steps sounded from the path to my right. “Fuck, my mom!”

Arthur sprinted into sight, his bag held open above his head, catching all of the werelights I was too short to reach in groups.

“Hey!” I shouted, climbing to a knee.

The tall man nearly trampled me before he skidded to a stop on the heels of his boots. “Why are you always on the ground or falling when I see you?”

I grabbed his wrist and used it to pull myself to my feet. “That is a very good question.”

“Have you run into your mom yet?” He asked, looking back over his shoulder.

“It seems like we both have,” I answered, looking back at the way I had come. “Arthur?”

The ivy on both sides of the path had detached from their respective walls and reached toward each other. The green tendrils met and wove themselves into one another, closing the path off as they intertwined. The sound of them rustling and rubbing against one another sent a chill over me and I shivered as I watched it.

Stepping through the intertwining vines, my mother appeared in her orange demon mask.

I whipped my head around to see the other paths being closed in a similar fashion, nothing but moving ivy and shrinking spaces.

Arthur stepped in front of me and pushed me back with one of his massive hands. “Go, I’ll distract her.”

My mother, if it really was still my mother behind the mask, took a terrifyingly awkward step towards us. “You will lose?”

“And you will win. I’m hungry anyways. Go.” Arthur insisted, pushing me further behind him.

I knew it was a game, I knew no one was going to get hurt, but as I crawled through the quickly closing ivy behind where Arthur had made his stand, I knew that I or any of the people I had been had ever met a better person than Arthur Lao.

Glamor, my mother had to have cast a glamor over the entire garden. There was no other explanation for the garden’s sudden expansion or arcane capabilities. I ran until I could no longer tell which direction I had come from and then I ran some more.

With Arthur out, all I had to do was outlast Anna. I had taken nearly all of her wine lights and if I could avoid my mother and pick up a few more lights along the way, whatever was in that chest would be mine.

A high pitch scream echoed through the enchanted garden and I was powerless to keep myself from running towards it.

“Anna?” I called.

Another scream.

My feet stung with every impact on the stone path, feeling raw from running over the rough surface as I had that night. Any gathering gone from my mind and moving faster than I had when my mother had been shambling after me, I turned a corner just in time to see Anna back against a wall and dump the contents of her bag in front of her.

“Take them, I quit!” She yelled, pressing the back of her red dress against the writhing ivy.

Where the werelights were, crawling over them without a care, my mother moved towards Anna with her hands outstretched.

The way she moved with the demon mask on her face, the fear in Anna’s eyes, the memory of being mooned, I forgot it was a game.

I forgot my mother was my mother and not the demon Othilie.

Without slowing down, I ran straight towards the demon and buried my shoulder into its side. Both of us went crashing through the greenery in a struggle.

“Got you.” I heard my mother say and then I crashed out of the ivy and landed on the grassy ground of the alcove.

I patted myself down frantically, not understanding what had just happened.

“Here you are again, on the ground.” I heard a voice say.

Arthur kneeled beside me, a stray leaf sticking out of his raven hair. He helped me to my feet for the second time that night.

“Lean down.” I said, finding that focusing on anything was all I could do.

The tall man did as I asked and I pulled the leaf from his hair and smoothed it back for him. “Did that happen to you?”

“I don’t know what happened to me,” He laughed. “She caught me and then I fell out of the bushes. Your mom can be scary when she wants to be.”

As if on cue, my mother walked into the alcove, still wearing her orange demon mask. “You would do well to remember that fact, Arthur Lao.”

“I would do well to forget it.” Anna said, walking in after her.

My mother lined us up in front of herself, an unnatural darkness welling behind her where the statue and bench normally were. She took off her mask and let it drop from her hand. As soon as it lost contact with her fingers, it vanished from sight without a trace. “Arthur, though it was an honorable sacrifice, I caught you first. Your bag?

Arthur ducked out of the bag and handed it to my mother, his chest puffing out just a bit at her words. My mother opened it and waved her hand above it, sending the wine red werelights swirling out of it where they gathered in front of Arthur.

“You would have gotten half of that if you weren’t so damn tall.” Anna muttered. She must have seen his over the head strategy as well.

“I would have gotten double if you hadn't tripped me.” Arthur glared at his sister, letting his honorable stature slip for just a moment.

I have more, I thought. I didn’t know how much I had but I felt like it was more than what was floating in front of Arthur.

I can still win. I thought excitedly, still not caring about the chest or what was in it.

“Autumn, you were next.” My mother continued, reaching a hand out and grabbing my bag. The same display followed, with the werelights I had gathered spinning out and hanging in front of me. I could not be certain, but my collection of ethereal lights seemed slightly larger than the one next to it. “

“That leaves you Anna. Arthur sacrificed for Autumn and Autumn sacrificed for you.” My mother said, waving her hand over Anna’s bag.

A single wine light drifted out and hung lonely in front of my friend.

“You only did that because you felt bad for stealing what fell out of my bag.” Anna said, bumping her shoulder into mine. That wasn’t why I did it, but I would let her think that if she wished.

“You all did very well,” My mother said, turning her eyes to the clouds of light. “And I admit I may have let myself sink into Othilie a bit too far, but,”

“Do not forget about me.” Ms. Lao commanded, appearing from the path.

“Oh, Mai, I am afraid I did,” My mother crossed her arms. “After I caught the children,” she sighed. “I was having a bit too much fun myself, my apologies.”

Ms. Lao shrugged out of the bag. “You have not named a winner. Do not apologize.”

The small woman shook her bag over her head and a handful of werelights came floating out, barely more than what her daughter had ended up with.

“That’s it?” Anna asked, counting the little red lights.

“Ma, what were you doing, taking a nap?” Arthur laughed, his eyes shifting between his own collection and his mother’s sparse grouping.

“Not getting caught. That is what I was doing.” Ms. Lao snapped back and dropped her empty bag onto the ground where the others lay.

“That is true,” My mother agreed, tapping her lips with the tip of her forefinger. “In the spirit of Morrow’s night, one who does not get caught by Othilie should be rewarded for it would have mattered none if Morrow had collected all of the lady of the isle’s light and then got caught.”

My mother waved her hand from Arthur’s group, to mine, to Anna’s and finally to Ms. Lao’s. The werelights danced beneath her suggestion, coalescing into a swirling mass of wine red light that stained us all with its light.

“Mai Lao has won the heart of The Mother in Red!” My mother cheered, throwing her hands above her head and sending the werelights into the sky above the garden where they hung like hundreds of small lanterns. The welling shadows behind her were cast out and revealed a large wooden table set in the center of the alcove. Set for six, two high backed chairs sat on either side with one at the closest end. On the far end of the table, just in front of the pink marble statue, a chair upholstered with red velvet cushions and ornately carved wood headed the table.

The lights glimmered in the Lao's eyes and each of them were smiling. The setting was beautiful, we were all the right kind of tired from the game, and my stomach was rumbling in anticipation of the oncoming feast.

Why did I feel sad? Why was it not enough?

“What’s wrong with you?” Anna whispered, pulling me into the circle around her mother.

“I wanted to win.” I muttered, telling her the part of the truth I knew. I had wanted to win, there had been little room for games in my life before that night and I was more competitive than I believed myself to be.

“At least you got a nice memory from the experience,” Anna sighed, patting me on the back. “I bet you can’t find something like that in The Well.”

We stood in a circle around Ms. Lao and when my mother swept her hand over her other, the chest reappeared.

“Open it.” My mother smiled.

All of us waited with held breath as Ms. Lao unlatched the small chest and lifted its lid. Golden light flashed out of it as it opened and revealed a sphere covered in thousands of tiny rubies that were set into its bronze surface.

“Oh my.” Ms. Lao said.

“What is it?” Arthur asked.

“How much is it?” Anna followed.

I had no clue what it was or how much of what it was, it was, but I had never seen something so opulent in my entire life or any of the lives I had lived through.

“Take it, Mai. You have earned it well.”

Ms. Lao raised her hands and cupped the sphere of rare stones and metals gently, her dark eyes focused on her prize. She turned it over, running her fingers over the small rubies that dazzled us all with its beauty.

Suddenly, she stopped and raised a suspicious eyebrow at my mother. “Is it?”

“It is.” My mother nodded excitedly.

“What is it?” Arthur repeated, asking the question for all of us.

Ms. Lao raised the glimmering sphere of rubies and metals to her mouth as if she was going to kiss it. “Something I have not had in a very long time.”

“Ma, you’re old. That could be anything.” Arthur said.

Ms. Lao didn’t answer her son. Instead, she sank her teeth into the stones and bit a chunk out of the sphere and spoke as she chewed. “A candy apple!”