“Mother Glimmer?” Bess asked, from where she balanced on the final branches of the thin tree top next to mine.

I had accepted long ago that the ditzy girl would never just call me Glim no matter how many times I asked.

“Yes, Lady Bess?” I answered her.

“Uhm, I should have told you that I am scared of heights.” She said, a funny little quiver in her high voice.

Fall had turned the forest I had chosen for my lady in waiting's training into a shining swathe of yellow gold. The air was cool and crisp atop the tallest of the trees, but there had been no better place that Bess could reach to see the whole of the place.

“I always found that a bit silly,” I looked at her. Her arms and legs were wrapped around the tip of the tree in a death grip. From the wide brimmed straw hat she wore down to the sandals hanging loose off her feet, she still looked like that same farm girl I had found asleep in a field of sunflowers all those years ago. “Heights? There is nothing to be scared of. Falling? For someone like you, there is nothing to be scared of. Hitting the ground? I understand.”

The wind made her sway just a bit and she clamped her eyes shut as the color drained from her face. “Couldn’t we not just try and talk to Yellow the way we always do? I don’t need to learn anything new. I’m strong enough already and you’re gonna be The Mother in Yellow for forever.”

“Nope! You’ve gotta learn this now. Let’s try again. See if you can hold it for more than a half a second this time. Tell me when you are ready.” I commanded.

Bess did as she was told. The pretty little bumpkin was lucky I hadn’t taken her to where acid pooled out of the ground in acrid yellow puddles. There were far fewer places in chaos that were full of yellow than I would have liked. My sisters should thank reality daily that I did not have access to oceans or mountains like they did.

“I’m sorry to interrupt whatever you are doing, but are you ready yet?” I asked.

“I’m ready!” Bess squeaked, every part of her clenched as tightly as she could manage.

She would never be able to open her soul that way, but we had to start somewhere.

“Remember, Bess, I chose you for a reason and it wasn’t because of how damn cute you are. Now, find your aura and let it swirl beneath your channel.” I began again, following my own directions as I gave them.

My aura, my essence, my soul, was nothing but wind and light within my palms. I held it there patiently, knowing that the ease I could let my aura blow and flow with had not come quickly. Bess would need longer, and since I was playing the part of the wise old mentor, I would give her all the time she needed.

There were a handful of apple trees not far from the little ramshackle cabin we were staying in. If she managed to get the first part and open herself, I would pick them clean. Lucky for me, the only thing that came more naturally to The Yellow Lady than using her power was cooking. I had tried to shower her mother and father with all manner of gifts a thousand times to thank them, but they seemed perfectly content running their little farm in their little village.

All we want is for our daughter to be safe and happy. How many times had they given me that polite refusal to accept anything I offered? They weren’t fools however, when I had filled their cellar with casks of wine and sent traders to buy all of their stores, they had thanked me earnestly.

If they could see her, squeezing the life out of the thin tree trunk, they wouldn’t think I was honoring their wishes.

I was, she was safe and happy in a general sense, but I doubted they would be able to understand that.

“I have it. I’m ready.” Bess called out. Some of the tension had left her face, which was a marked improvement from our first few attempts.

“Very good! Very, very, good,” I cheered, my delight doing nothing but making my own aura spin into a gale wind within me. “Let it out of you, but don’t let it loose. Like my wind, remember?”

From her navel, her aura appeared and surrounded the tree trunk in its color. Like the last rays of dusk sunlight beaming through the broken roof of a hay loft, the color of it was much darker and warmer than my own.

“Okay,” Bess grimaced, her teeth clenching from the effort of holding her power without direction. “I’ve got it.”

I did not mirror what she was doing, the next step was unnecessary for me.

“You're amazing, Bess! Now you have to let go. Hold your aura together, push it out, let go and feel the tree with your power.” I yelled excitedly, we had never gotten this far before.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” She laughed. The high had come over her, which was good if she could keep her focus. It would only make her stronger as long as she could handle the joy. “Oh! Mother Glimmer! I’m doing it! I can feel it!”

I squeezed the trunk of my own tree between my thighs to hold myself steady and let my own power flow down out of my palms. I shouted at her. “Look at me, watch what I am doing!”

Yellow wind, the color of canaries and marigolds, breezed out of my hands and streamed down the tree like the ribbons of a maypole. I turned my hands and my aura turned with it, painting the tree the color of my soul.

I could feel it, the life that the tree bore. Every fall and spring it had stood through small death and remained until it bloomed into new life, was evident to my touch. That life, that power, teemed within every single yellow leaf like living joy.

Bess’s mouth hung open in a slack jawed smile, still managing to hold her aura outside of herself.

“When you have opened your soul to something and can feel it within yourself,” I said through my own spurts of giggles. I would never get tired of feeling Yellow, no matter how long I lived. “All that’s left to do is take it.”

“Oh no!” Bess called out suddenly, The sunlight aura flowing out of her spasmed and burst away in a flash that sent dust raining down all around her.

She had lost her focus.

The force of her power broke the thin tip of the tree. My lady in waiting went sailing towards the ground, very much not happy and very much not safe.

I took from the tree. I took its life and its color within myself. I took all it had to give and turned it to power.

“Hold on, Bess!” I laughed, the wash of energy filling my little body too strong to resist.

I released my hold on the tree top and dove straight down towards the ground after her. Quick as the wind, I wrapped my arms around her waist in a matter of seconds.

The branches that threatened to split us in two if we hit them made for easy places for my power to push us off of. When we slipped into a bare pocket of air, I turned us upwards and pushed my aura towards my feet.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

Bess clung to me desperately and I briefly wished that I was built like Ali. Being small had it’s advantages but carrying the weight of another was not one of them.

“I’m too young to die!” Bess shouted into my coat.

“So am I,” I giggled, knowing that there were only a handful of souls in all of chaos that were old enough to call me young. “So how about we don’t?”

Impacts, loud and yellow, struck the forest floor and sent plumes of dead leaves and dirt up towards the sky. Everytime my aura slammed against the ground, the force that blew back up caught the folds I had willed around us and we slowed.

A moment later, we were on the forest floor and as safe as could be.

“I don’t want to die!” Bess shouted again, her legs shaking with fright.

“Hey, I was right,” I said, patting her back and making her look at me. “You were up high, you fell, you didn’t hit the ground. That’s the only part you ever have to worry about.”

The Lady in Yellow sniffled. “Only because you saved me. Can we take a break?”

A single transparent leaf, visible only by its stem and its veins, floated down from above and danced between Bess and I.

“Nope. You have to learn how to do that.” I smiled, and took her around the waist again.

“Wait, no, What are you doing?” She sputtered.

With nothing but my will, I sent us back to the treetops.

Just before I placed her on an unbroken tree, I felt myself fall.

The next moment, I opened my eyes and found myself back in the well house.

“Ali!” I called out and brought my feet down to the marble bottom of the pool. My skin was wrinkly and waterlogged and my hair felt hard with salt.

After Anna, my mother, and Ms. Lao left, I had not been willing to sit around and do nothing until they returned. I hadn’t been able to find Arthur, though a new wooden sword had been propped against the hayman outside of the garden. So, without any other options that were not devious or forbidden, I had gone to The Well. Yet again, I had slipped into a memory without any sign of a book or fireplace.

If you can hear me, I thought at the thing that lived inside my mind. Thank you.

“What is your name?” My familiar’s thunder voice came from where he sat at the edge of the pool.

Right, I have to get it all out while I remember it.

“Autumn Aubrey.” I answered him as I climbed out of the water and wrapped a towel around myself.

I answered his second question as I forced my aura to my right palm and dried my hair. It was still harder than it should have been, but I thought that focusing it was easier than it had been the day before. The bandages my mother had wrapped me with that morning lay in a tangled pile on the floor.

“Who was Autumn Aubrey?” He asked his final question as I pulled the big sleep shirt Anna had gotten me over my head and the lingerie shorts up to my waist.

“Glim. Glimmer. The Mother in Yellow,” I told him. I did not bother using complete sentences after that. Instead, I went through all the things that I could remember that seemed important. “Bess. The Lady in Yellow. Lady in waiting. Ali. Open your soul. Clear leaf. Giggling. Uhm, I think that's it. Can you remember all that?”

“Yes. It seems that your search was successful. Well done, my lady.” Sam rumbled before walking over to the door and sitting back down. The bones of his body clicked loudly against the stone floor and he swished his tail back and forth. How could the segments of bone bending and waving be enough to make me feel like I needed to rush.

“If you keep calling me that, I’m going to start thinking that you are growing fond of me.” I said, pulling the door open for him despite the fact that I knew he was perfectly capable of doing it himself.

The big cat skeleton slipped through the doorway and ignored what I had said. “Arthur came for you while you were away.”

I stepped out of the well house and found that the sun had already begun to set.

“Wait, hold on. How long was I in there?” I asked, not understanding how so much time had passed.

“Nearly nine hours.” Sam said without turning around.

Why does it seem like he is in such a hurry? I wondered, that pulling my attention more than the day that I had floated away.

“Samsara, where are you going?” I demanded, making my voice sound serious.

My familiar arched his spine and snapped his yellow eye lights back around to me. In the low light of dusk, I realized just how fucking terrifying Sam would be if he was not bound to my will. He had more than tripled in size since he had first entered my service. If that trend continued, I wouldn’t have to worry about him killing birds for very long. I would have to find a big bell to strap around his neck so he couldn’t sneak up on people.

“My flesh is beginning to reform. It is unpleasant and I wish to be alone.” Sam growled.

I opened my mouth to say something sarcastic, I hated when he got moody, but I didn’t. There had been a time not very long ago that ago I had been actively trying to let myself die. I did not regret that, it was a small wonder that I had been able to think at all, but Sam was the reason that I was still here. He was annoying, mean, and down unpleasant, but he had been there for me when I needed him most.

“Take your leave, my familiar. I shall not have need of you until your change is done.” I said, choosing to not be the contemptuous little girl that Sam thought I was.

Without a word, he quick stepped towards the manor and by the time I left the side path to the well house, he was gone.

Arthur stood on the other side of the hayman with his sword raised. When he noticed that I was there, he let it fly out of his hands and began to approach me.

“Hey, there you are! We’re matching!” He smiled and pointed to his shirt.

Sure enough, he had on the same long sleeved shirt that I did, complete with the open neckline and ties. Seeing him wear it, I was nearly certain that the one I had on was exactly his size.

I know they aren’t exactly the same, but they are the closest I could find. That’s what Anna had told me the night she had given me my new clothes. The sweater I had stolen out of the laundry on my first day in the boarding house had been Arthur’s. She really did get the closest things she could.

“I think mine is a little big.” I said, pulling the sides of it out and looking down at just how much fabric there was around me.

“Maybe you're just small,” He laughed. “I thought you were never gonna come out of there. I’ve been waiting around all day to train with you.”

“Really? I’m here now!” I said, excited at the thought of having something to do. There was no part of me that wanted to go inside and exist within the Anna-less manor.

“Yeah, but I have to go. There is a points tournament down in the city. Driskt and Daphne are waiting for me out front.” Arthur sighed.

“Then why are you still back here?” I said, turning away from him. There was yet another thing I couldn’t go do. I hadn’t been able to go with Anna to The Mother in Blue’s domain. I couldn’t go with Arthur down to the city. My stupid cat didn’t even want to be around me.

“Because your mom put me in charge of you while she’s gone. I’m supposed to tell you to not worry about your bandages. You just have to stay inside.” Arthur said through a laugh.

I spun on my heels and hit him in the chest. “Even if she did, you are not in charge of me!”

“I am, my word is law,” He insisted, seemingly unphased by my violence. “Go up stairs, shower, and go to bed. It is too late for you to be awake.”

I was going to kill him. I didn’t know how I would manage to bring him down, he was practically a giant, but I would not be talked to that way.

“Fuck-” I started.

“While you do that, I’m going to walk down to the city and wait by the river right over there,” He said, pointing in the direction that the patchwork tents stood on the riverbank. “If I meet someone that acts like you and sounds like you but isn’t dressed like you and doesn’t look like you, then there is nothing wrong with that is there?”

Arthur. . .I thought, realizing what he was saying.

I threw my arms around his middle and squeezed the tall man as tightly as I could. “I was going to hurt you, you know? Thank you. Let’s go now.”

“It’ll be our little secret, alright? I really don’t want to get on your mom’s bad side.” He laughed, patting me on the back.

My stomach groaned audibly and the realization that I was starving struck me.

“Before we go, can you make me something to eat? I don’t know how to cook.” I said, stepping back and giving him the most pitiful look I could manage.

“You're helpless aren’t you,” He continued to laugh. “ When we- when I meet someone down by the river, I will buy her dinner.”

He left then, going out front to meet the guards he was going to the tournament with and I made for my room. I would change, change my face, and then break out of my lonely prison for the second time.

The only thing that could have made me happier was if Anna had been there.