As foolish as I knew it was, I could not wait for noon to come.

Anna and I slept late into the morning. When we both woke, she went down to make us breakfast. I sat on the edge of the bed and remembered all the ways Mother Azza had haunted me in my dreams.

I doubted that the next Mother would have such long fingers or molten eyes. Unless they all had an obsession with sand, the threat of my next punishment being the same seemed small. The not knowing is what continued to eat at me. They would not look like Azza. They would not act like Azza. They would all punish me how they saw fit and my first impression of that had not left me impressed by their mercy.

After nearly two weeks since my living burial, I had woken up looking forward to something.

There would still be a reckoning with my mother. Which, at any other time in my life would have terrified me. At least I knew she did not mean to give The Mother’s additional reasons to hate me. She did mean to teach me how to use my aura to heal. I hated it, but I felt excited. The amount of times I had actually been how to do something with my power was one and it had been how to dry my hair. Every other charm, glamor, and working was the product of fumbling around with scraps of knowledge I had collected from The Well. I no longer had power to use, but the thought alone gave me a reason to put the bottoms of my bandaged feet on the floor and stretch my stiff body.

The long sleeved dress Anna had brought back for me fit perfectly and hung just above the top of my cuffed boots. How she had been so accurate in her knowledge of my dimensions, I did not know, but it felt natural to wear. I knew I did not deserve it and if I was dragged away while I was wearing it would undoubtedly be ruined, but I wore it just as well.

As long as it made Anna happy, I would ignore the ugly truths and continue to pretend.

When she came back into my room, her arms were full. A genuine smile spread across her face. “Sometimes I hate how pretty you are first thing in the morning. Looks like I got the size right.”

I took the bowl of oatmeal from her hands and took a spoonful into my mouth. It was thick and creamy with butter and milk. The scent of sugar and spices filled my nose. When I swallowed, I could feel the sticky warmth drop all the way down into my stomach. It was almost enough to make me do a little dance. Oatmeal was good, that was a truth that I knew with absolute certainty.

“How did you know it would fit?” I asked her before I shoveled another heap of the good stuff into my mouth.

“Well,” She said, putting the big notebook and collection of pens she had brought back with her onto her stack of books. It had been concealed within the fold of her arm, but she revealed a jar of cold milk and handed it to me. “I spend most of my time looking at you. There isn’t a lot of you I don’t have memorized.”

Just like oatmeal, milk was good. When they were consumed in combination, the sum was much greater than their parts. Within moments, I had scraped the bowl clean and drained the cold milk in one long draught.

Without thinking, I tossed the empty dishes down on the wadded blanket. Stepping to Anna quickly, I kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you. For the dress, but mostly for the oatmeal.”

She scrunched her nose and wrapped her arms around my waist without hesitation. “I’ll go back down right now and make you more if I get one of those every time I do.”

I smiled, genuinely. I knew she was playing, but I also knew she would if I asked her.

“I’m serious. I’ll feed you oatmeal until that dress doesn’t fit anymore.” She insisted.

The static feeling of attraction drew my face closer to hers.

Somewhere, in the small distance between our lips, I realized that I was letting myself get too happy. What was happening felt normal, natural even, and I very much wanted to kiss her.

At the last second, I turned my cheek and rested my head on her shoulder. I felt her sigh against me before she tightened her embrace and held me.

“I’m sorry.” I muttered into her skin. If I let my pretending convince me as well as Anna, nothing but hurt came from that. A very real part of me wanted to do nothing but kiss her. I still wanted to steal her away to the city and have our date, but how could I let us do that? I could not let myself forget the dark and painful punishments that were likely to come at any time. I knew if I felt the softness of her lips or anything that would come after, it would tilt me in a direction I could not lean back from. Days or months would pass just like they had before. My attention would slip towards her and it would hurt us all the more when I was taken again.

Anna raised my head and smiled at me. “There is nothing to be sorry about, seriously. Whatever you need, I’m here.”

She meant what she said, I could see it in her eyes.

I looked away. The end would hurt, but what about the indefinite time until then? If I really meant to hold back my desires and keep distance between her and I, would it be worth it? “What if I don’t know what I need?”

“You start with what you do know,” She reached up and grabbed a lock of my hair. “Like this, I know that you need to brush your hair. You start there.”

“I thought you said I was pretty first thing in the morning.” I feigned being hurt before peaking up at her and letting a small smile show at the corner of my mouth.

Anna pointed a finger at me. “As soon as you are all healed up, we are gonna fight. You got that?”

Fuck. I thought, realizing just how difficult it was going to be to restrain my desires.

We separated. She took my empty dishes off the bed and sat them on the only open area on the desk. With her back turned to me, she opened the big notebook and took the smaller leather journal in her hands. Flipping straight to the back, she ripped the page that held the list of names I had written and laid it down on the big blank page.

“Your mom said to send you down after you finished eating.” She told me.

I walked over and stood beside her, reading the list. Nami, Ola, Aster, Constance, angry red, gray girl, Zara Al Gareem, Bess.

“That is wrong.” I said, picking it up.

“What do you mean? You wrote it.” Anna raised an eyebrow.

“I was wrong,” I put my finger on the name Constance. “That’s not The Mother in Brown.”

“Hmm. That’s helpful. . .Who was she, actually?” Anna asked, hesitation in her voice.

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“Mother. . .” Azza.

What the fuck?

“Mother,” Azza! Her name would only sound in my mind. When I went to pronounce the opening syllable of her name, my voice would leave me.

“Hey, what’s happening? You looked confused.” Anna questioned me.

“I can’t say. . .name! Her name is Mother. . . Fuck,” Azza, Azza, Azza! I threw the list down to the desk and tried to shout her name another hundred times. “She took my voice, Anna. I thought she just took my soul, but I can’t even say her fucking name.”

Anna seemed undisturbed by my sudden anger. She placed a pen in my hand and moved it down to the empty pages of the big notebook. “She didn’t take your soul, dummy. Write it down.”

When I pressed the tip to the page, black ink formed a round dot underneath the pen, but my hand would not move.

“I can’t! She won’t let me.” I squeezed the pen between my fingers, trying to break it in my anger.

“Try to rewrite the list. See if it’s just her name.” Anna said, tapping the piece of torn out paper.

Nami. I wrote. Ola. Aster. Followed quickly after, but when I curved my fingers to write Constance, my hand froze again.

Three sharp knocks came from my door and I heard my mother call my name. “Autumn?”

“Oh shit,” Anna said under her breath. She took the pen from my hand and closed the notebook before sliding it under my bed where she normally hid her wine. “We can finish this later, if you are up to it?”

“Why did you hide it? My Mother knows everything, doesn’t she? She is who took you to the library.” I asked, my anger giving way to confusion.

Anna stood up and smoothed her hair with her hands. She took the empty dishes from the desk and moved like she was going to leave my room. “Not everything, and I don’t think she can lie to them. That’s why she had to tell you about the bandages the way she did. Act natural, she is coming in.”

The door opened and my mother stood in the hall, her hair tied back and wearing a simple cream colored wrap. “Have you finished breakfast? I am eager to begin.”

“She wants to brush her hair first and then she is ready.” Anna said, slipping past my mother and giving me a quick wink before continuing down the hallway.

Was it natural for me to stand in the middle of the room with my fists balled? I hoped so because that was the only act I had been able to put on before my mother had come in.

“It does look rather messy,” My mother said, squinting and looking me up and down. “Be quick, my little Delpha. Mai will become progressively more difficult the longer we make her wait.”

She left the doorway and disappeared down the hall, just the way Anna had, and I was left alone.

“. . . .!” Azza! I tried to call out again. How was it even possible that she could prevent me from saying her name? Doing it when I was on my knees in front of her? I had the basis of knowledge necessary to understand that it could be done. Weeks after I had been anywhere near her? It did not make sense.

I did not go brush my hair. Instead, I pulled the tangles apart with my fingers as I took the stairs down to the second story of the manor. It was not until I reached the landing that I realized how quickly I was moving. There was no pain, no heaviness, none of the things that had weighed me down the last time I had taken them.

The anger, the rage I had felt at being unable to use my voice had carried me forward. It did not concern me the way the static moment between Anna and I did. There was no worry of forgetting my place within it because the source was the weight I felt from the punishments hanging over my shoulders.

I took a breath and pushed it away for later.

My mother had said she needed me. My complete ignorance of anything beyond a basic glamor aside, I would do whatever she asked. She had done that and much more for me. Besides, if Ms. Lao was no longer sick, that would be nothing but good for Anna.

She was most of the reason I was out of bed to begin with, I needed to do whatever I could to actually be helpful.

When I stepped into Ms. Lao’s room for the first time, I was surprised at how bright it was. Large windows filled the back wall from end to end. The wall on the right was similar, with the windows only parting where the headboard of her bed rested. The dark haired woman lay on her back with my mother standing on her bedside. Just as I had been on the kitchen table after Mother Nami had pulled me from my tomb, my mother’s iridescent aura covered her from head to toe.

“Come, daughter. Show me that your words are true and join your aura with mine as you said you were able to.” My mother instructed me.

I understood what she meant and why she was speaking the way she was, but I did not go to her. Before the truth that there was only a void where my aura should be could become relevant, Ms Lao stopped me in my tracks. It felt wrong seeing her the way she was. It felt like I did not belong in the well lit room.

“It is okay.” Ms. Lao gave me a tight lipped smile and a slight nod.

Against my apprehension, I walked to my mothers side and tried to play the game that she was being forced to play. “When I told you I could do this, it was before my time away. I am no longer able. That power has been taken from me.”

The words hurt coming out. It almost felt like saying them aloud made it more real. Anna was wrong. Mother Azza had taken my soul, and I had just told my mother. There was no hiding it anymore.

I expected her to console me or for her to stop her working and tell me it would be okay.

She did neither.

“Now is not the time for jokes, daughter. As you already know, you can render yourself hollow if you overwork yourself, but not even The Mother’s could take your aura. You told me yourself that all you had to do was find some joyful memory and it would come back,” She placed my hands over the tops of hers and enveloped them in her glimmering power. “While you are preparing, I am going to speak the details of my work aloud so I may understand them better.”

Ms. Lao’s dark eyes shifted between my mother and I, but she did not seem confused.

My mother began. “The sickness feeds off of her. I believe that it started in her lungs, but it has since spread rapidly through her body.”

I closed my eyes and thought about the oatmeal. The memory of the warm goop brought me back to the static between Anna and I. I did not have to wonder what it would have been like if I had given into that feeling. I knew how her lips fit mine, how soft they were, and I had never felt more alive than when I had learned those things. Every small moment of happiness that I could bring to the front of my mind, I did. I held them there, all together, and reached into the dark void within me to find my aura.

“I have found ways to slow it, sever the mass, but it regrows in too short a time.” My mother continued.

Deeper into myself I plunged, searching for a spark, a glint, a glow. There was no light within me to be found, neither my colorless iridescence or my pearl pink color. Only an emptiness that no amount of happiness or passion could fill.

“As you suggested due to your prior knowledge and experience, the hope is that the sum of our powers when they are interwoven with one another and brought to bear against the sickness shall be enough to eradicate it at the source. Have you found your aura, daughter?” My mother asked, her emerald eyes flickering towards me for only a moment.

“No.” I pulled my hands from her and turned to the window behind me.

The sun beamed over the garden. Arthur stood opposite something that was the shape of the top half of a man. It looked like it was made of some thin material and tufts of yellow hay cascaded down from it whenever the tall man struck it with his wooden sword.

He was training, getting stronger, while I was inside being reminded that I had no strength at all.

My mother spoke like I had said something else. “That is a fair point. I will continue to keep the sickness at bay, and you will seek out some sort of trigger to help you find your power again. I agree that exploring other avenues than ones that have served you in the past is a wise course of action. I wish I would have thought of it myself.”

The anger that I had pushed away decided that later was actually that exact moment. I moved with the same speed that had carried me down the stairs so quickly just a short time before.

I did not believe what my mother said, she did not know how black and endless the void inside of me was. Even if I did, there was no part of me that knew where to start.

Regardless of it brought my aura back or not, beating the fuck out of something with a wooden sword seemed very compelling.

So, I found my way out the backdoor of the manor to do just that.