Somewhere between helping Anna strip the ruined blanket and sheets off of my bed and trying to figure out what to do with Sam’s discarded flesh, the day that had continued to stretch further and further beyond its natural limits finally caught up with me

The unusual rain had continued to fall in the hours since we had returned from my temporary escape, and by the time we snuck out of the back door and took the path to the well house, it had become little more than mud. After months of nothing but warm sun and clear skies, I couldn’t help but be thankful for the change in weather coming after so much had changed for me.

It made the rain feel like it was for me, like something I had done had caused it.

I knew that was not the truth, the amount of things I could control was very small, but no one could tell me not to let myself believe the notion. After all, everything else about the morning felt entirely different than the day before.

I had plans.

All we had left to do was retrieve the leatherbound notebook and to clean the scorch marks that I only vaguely remembered. Then and only then, Anna had promised me that we would sleep the day away before going on our date. No Well, no memories, no Sam, the whole day would be about nothing but us.

If I was thrown into chains and locked away with the promise of release being contingent on if I could describe the perfect day, I would not have to change a thing. The next several hours of my life sounded like they would be the best I had ever spent if I could make it to them.

Halfway to the well house, my legs decided that they were done holding me up and I let myself fall to the waterlogged ground with a wet squelch.

“Anna, leave me. I cannot go on. Promise to remember me fondly. Promise that you will not let time fade me from your memory.” I begged her, throwing my arm over my face in a dramatic maneuver. Too tired for the pounding rain to be a reason to move, I really could have sat there until I was washed away.

Almost as soon as I began to sink into the mud, Anna had me by the wrists and was pulling me back up.

“Do you get dirty on accident or do you actually try to constantly need a bath,” She asked, throwing my arm over her shoulder and continuing on like I had been a fellow soldier cut low by a leg wound. “You've been out of the house for like two minutes and you’re already filthy.”

“Go on without me. Save yourself. I am too tired to walk.” I said as I limped along beside her, my false drama giving way to a genuine whine as I spoke.

“Suck it up, We’ve got work to do.” She said, her voice taking on a hard tone.

“Yes, coach,” I grunted, the strength in her voice inexplicably making me walk under my own power. I could blame it on my exhaustion or any other number of things, but my tiredness suddenly swung to a sort of delirious energy. I pushed off of her and took off towards the pink marble door of the well house. “I’ll beat you there!”

Without a word, Anna joined my sudden race and sprinted towards the well house alongside me. Small splatters of displaced mud burst up from the ground from the impacts of our strides and the rain pattered against my face as we went. A short moment later, we slid over the slick stone floor clutching each other to stay on our feet.

We came to a stop just before the edge of the pool and let out rough laughs as we regained our balance.

All I could do was watch her.

Months before, I had never seen her face, never heard her name, didn’t know she existed.

How could it be that she had been in my life for such a short time, but no matter how short it had been, that time had been more significant than everything that had come before it.

“You cheated.” Anna exhaled, out of breath with her hands on her knees.

“You need to train more. Maybe I should be your coach.” I joked back, unable to shape my feelings into anything resembling coherent words.

Sandals. I have to get her sandals. I reminded myself, knowing that a gift would be the only thing I could do to let her know just how much she meant to me.

“Fuck you,” She sighed, smiling as she said it. “Somebody has been here.”

I looked around the lowlight room, and found that someone had done our work for us. The pool was no longer empty. I dipped my foot into the water and found it perfectly warm, as it always was. The floor, bench, and the walls were all dry as could be. My dress and the towels that I had left in a damp pile were folded neatly with the leatherbound notebook resting on top of them.

“Either they brought a ladder or they can reach up there without one.”” She answered and pointed up towards the high ceiling.

The memory of the scorch marks that had been made when I had not known who I was could hardly be called a memory, as slight as it was, but the ceiling had definitely been wiped clean.

“My mother?” I asked. She was the only other person in the manor that had aura, but according to Arthur, they had practically had to carry her to bed. Had she woken at the crack of dawn and begun searching the manor for things to clean? If she had, what long and confusing series of decisions could have led her out of the manor and all the way to the well house.

Had she looked through the notebook?

What if she found my list? What if she found the notes Anna kept about my training? If she learned about what I had been hiding, I might as well write a letter to The Mother’s admitting all of the secrets I was keeping. There was no way I could lie my way out of revealing all of my lies if one was discovered.

“Hey.” Anna said.

Her voice brought me out of the spiral my mind had taken and I refocused on her.

“You are thinking about a bunch of bad shit aren’t you?” She asked, an amused look on her face.

“No.” I lied.

“Of course you are,” She rolled her eyes. “But I’m about to teach you my most valuable lesson yet.”

“Oh?” I asked. She had taken the dry dress and journal from the pile and folded it over her arm.

“Whatever you were thinking about, is a tomorrow problem.” She said, saying the words with considerable weight and emphasis.

“How? If it was my mother and she looked through the-” I started.

“Easy,” She held her palm up at me. “Even if she did, there is nothing we could do about it. All we have to worry about today is sleeping and our date, got it?”

It was going to become a problem if I was rendered powerless anytime she used the words we or us.

“Got it,” I nodded. “A tomorrow problem.”

Anna breezed past me, pulled open the pink marble door, and looked out at the unrelenting rain. “What do you say you make us an umbrella?”

“A what?”

“Goes over our heads? Has a curved handle? Keeps the rain off of us?” She asked, waving her hand over her head in demonstration.

“You do not like the rain?” I said, beginning to piece together how I could do what she had asked of me.

“What's the point of having a magical girlfriend if I can’t ask her to defy nature for me?” She winked at me.

I understood that she was being humorous in some way, but did not understand how. That was one of the unfortunate side effects of being locked in a room for most of my life. Her intention was enough to give me the spark necessary to step forward and push what little aura I had left out of my palm.

“Shall we?” She asked, using her free hand to take my own.

Her touch, the feeling of her fingers interlocking with my own, inspired my working and a wide dome formed above our heads. It extended out past the doorway and the pounding rain pitter pattered against its surface, causing momentary pulses of iridescent light to wash out and over my umbrella of aura.

“We shall.” I agreed. We made our way back down the side path towards the manor where we would get some much needed sleep.

The walls of my mothers power that had surrounded the garden the day before no longer loomed over us. The natural barrier of vines and ivy had reclaimed its position with a newfound depth of green. They seemed stronger, more alive, in the sudden rain and I found myself feeling much the same. It had been messy, I had nearly maimed Anna, and had defleshed my familiar, but I had grown since the last time we had been walking away from the well house hand in hand.

My umbrella lasted long enough that when my strength gave out and the working failed, we only had to take a few quick steps to make it back inside.

“You need to change again, but I think all of your dresses are dirty,” Anna said, pointing to the patches of wet mud darkening the hem of my dress. “Let's go find you something comfortable to wear in my room.”

We passed Arthur’s door and stepped into the kitchen to find that we were not the only souls up early that morning.

Plates and cups and bowls and spoons all flew out of their place in the cabinets and glided through the air before settling into their proper settings on the table. Thick and sweet smoke rose from a pan on the stove top that was filled with sausages jostling from the heat. Eggs, bright and yellow, were being slowly stirred by a wooden utensil with a flat end and the contents of a tall pot bubbled and boiled gently, each burst sending the smell of spices into the air.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

I had never prepared a meal before. The stew we had made the night before was the closest I had ever been to cooking anything. Even with my lack of experience and knowledge, I knew that for a meal to be prepared, there had to be a cook.

Food did not wake up and decide that it was time for it to be eaten.

As if my disbelief had been the last required element for whatever performance I had walked into, the double doors at the front of the manor swung open and my mother breezed in. Her red hair was not darkened with moisture the way mine was. No part of her, in fact, was even slightly damp despite the rain that pounded outside.

“Good morning, girls. I see that I am not the only one who is enjoying this gloomy morning,” She smiled. With a gentle lift of her arm, she cast the basket off and it rose above the table. One after the other, glass bottles of milk came out and down before settling onto the table. “Breakfast will be ready shortly, perhaps you should both put on something dry,” She raised an eyebrow at me, taking in my muddy dress. “And clean.”

“I agree.” Anna nodded and started me towards the stairs.

“Good morning, Samsara. Would you like breakfast? You are looking a little thin.” My mother offered, her emerald eyes sweeping over every joint and ridge of my familiar as he descended the stairs.

“I do not require sustenance while I am in this state.” Sam stated simply.

Without another word, he vanished under the table with nothing but the sound of his claws clicking against the stone to mark his dissipating presence.

In what reality did it make sense that my mother could craft a glamor as large and complex as she had the night before and have enough strength to stand, let alone cook a whole breakfast while she went out for milk. Her inexplicable awakeness did nothing for me but bring back the spiral of thoughts that led me ever downward.

“Little Delpha, wait and allow me to steal a moment with you alone please.” She said just before we slipped up the stairs.

“Yes, mother.” I tried to say calmly, but I feared my voice gave away the prickling nervousness that began at my fingertips and ran up through my shoulders. It was over and there was nothing I could do to stop it. As soon as she asked me about the notebook or the scorch marks, the floodgates would open. I knew that no part of me was strong enough to wade through the rush and only come clean about what she had asked specifically.

Anna gave me a comforting look before taking the stairs and leaving me alone.

That had to be why she had gotten up and made breakfast. The next words out of her mouth would be that she had read through the notebook and though she did not wish it to be so, she must tell The Mothers that I had somehow found my color despite their seal.

“Why does your familiar shed his skin? Does it have anything to do with the argument you had with him this morning?” My mother asked, her back turned to me as she directed the various pots and pans to the table and began serving equal portions of food onto every plate but one.

Fuck. How had she heard?

The yelling, the destruction I had wrought on my bed, all of it ran through my mind in a red blur.

Of course she had heard, how could she not have?

“We, uhm. . .” I started.

Anna swept back down the stairs and saved me, taking my answer from where it was dying in my mouth and breathing new life into it.

“We may have had a bit too much to drink last night and Samsara played the part of the disappointed adult,” She said, dragging her hand across my back as she passed us. “Ma is on the way down. What can I do?”

“There is nothing to do, dear. Go have a seat.” My mother answered and stepped to where I stood at the base of the stairs.

Anna did as she was told, and after a silent moment, I gave a quick smile and moved to go change, to distance myself from the person that could send me into a hysterical truth telling if she said the right words.

Before I made it a step, my mother gently placed her hand on my shoulder. “There is something different between you two this morning.”

I knew as soon as she spoke that she was referring to Anna and I, but how could she tell? The ribbons, the closeness, our moment we had shared standing outside of my door, was it truly so easy to tell that those things had happened?

Fuck, of course she had noticed. She was my mother. We had been each other's sole company for most of my life. Of course she could tell.

“Yes.” I nodded, unable to prevent the corners of my mouth from turning up into a smile.

“Thank you for being honest. Every place is made greater when there is love present.” She smiled back and hugged me. “It is about time. You should count yourself fortunate you have met someone who is willing to be so patient with you. It is a rarity.”

Her embrace calmed my nervousness immediately and I let my weight lean into her. In the arms of my mother, every minute and moment since the last time I had slept came to bear. A yawn that threatened to force me to the ground wracked my body, but she did not waver. She held me up until it was done and made no move to hurry me off afterward.

I did not deserve it. She had done nothing but try and make me happy despite the terrible things I had done. In all of chaos, I doubted there had ever been or ever would be a better mother and all that I had done to repay her kindness was lie and put her in danger. She had told me the night on the bridge that she could not bear to lose me. If I truly held any shred of respect for her, I would have taken that into account before I willingly broke out of the boundaries that had been rightfully placed around me.

“You must sleep soon, my little Delpha. You are exhausted,” She separated us and turned me up the stairs. “Go and change. We shall eat and then you should take the day to rest. The mother’s can wait a little longer for you to be done with The Well.”

Arthur and Ms. Lao stepped down onto the landing above me, the tall man helping his mother keep her balance with his arm looped around hers.

I turned to my side and stepped past them on my way up, the hunger the smell of my mothers breakfast had awakened momentarily giving me the strength to resist my exhaustion. Just as I turned to climb the last set of stairs, I heard Ms. Lao raise her voice.

“When I am better, we will be going home.” Ms. Lao snapped.

Arthur disagreed. “I can’t do that, Ma.”

What had she just said?

I sprinted to my closet, stripped, pulled the cleanest dress I could snatch off the floor over my head, and took the stairs back down like all the secrets of reality lay at their bottom.

Ms. Lao and Arthur stood around the table and Anna had turned in her seat to face them.

“You will do no such thing. We do not belong here.” Ms. Lao replied to something that Arthur had said that I had not heard.

“No,” Anna said, a sudden laugh slipping out of her. Though there was an open mouthed smile on her face, her dark eyes were deadly serious. “You can leave if you really want to, but I’m not going anywhere. No fucking way.”

“Do not use that language with me, young lady! I understand that you have found a friend, but you can make new friends. And, Arthur, you get that thing inside of you and you think you can run around and play soldier all of sudden. We are going home. That. Is. Final!” Ms. Lao commanded.

“Can we not talk about this right now?” Arthur asked, his demeanor not matching the anger that was evident in his mother and sister.

I watched my mother’s eyes perk up when she heard Ms. Lao say “that thing.”

Fuck.

“Everyone, come and sit, it seems that I picked the right morning to prepare breakfast. We all have much to discuss,” My mother said. She pointed to the seat at the table that had not received an equal portion of food, but instead was piled high with three or four extra servings. “Arthur, you sit there please.”

Everyone listened to my mother, except for me.

I did not move. The feeling that I was witnessing an argument that should have taken place between the Lao’s in private and the realization that my mother did not yet know what that thing was, but she surely would discover it soon kept me frozen where my feet were planted on the last step.

Anna stared daggers into her mother, her jaw clenched and her lips held tightly against one another. “She is not just ‘a friend’.”

“I know it feels that way, but you are young. You will see that I am right when you get older.” Ms. Lao sighed, shaking her head.

“Ma, leave it alone.” Arthur begged.

“Has it occurred to you that you don’t know what the fuck your talking about,” Anna crossed her arms and I could see her knuckles turning white from how hard she gripped herself. “While you’ve been waiting around to die, she has been the only thing that has kept me going. You barely even know her, how do you know anything about how I feel?”

“Shut up, Anna.” Arthur sighed.

“Enough! That is enough,” Ms. Lao shouted, slamming her fist onto the table. “I am your mother and you are my children! I am sorry for the times that I have been lacking recently, but this place is not for us. We will go home. Both of you will return to school so Arthur can find a career and you can find a husband. I will not argue about this any longer.”

“No. You can’t come out. Not right now.” Arthur whispered with his chin tucked against his chest and both his hands pressed against his stomach.

Barely, just barely, I could see pale blue light leaking through his fingers.

“Arthur, dear, who are you speaking to?” My mother asked, standing at the head of the table with her emerald eyes focused entirely on the tall man.

“Oh, shit. I, uhm. . .” Arthur’s head rolled to one side and then over to the other before his eyes flitted closed and he went limp.

A shape made entirely of pale blue light erupted from his stomach and took flight. It circled the high ceilings of the kitchen one, twice, three times before descending and landing square in the middle of the table.

Arthur’s ghost, the owl spirit, had picked possibly the worst time imaginable to reveal himself to the only person in the room that did not know its existence.

My Mother. . .

With three clicks of its ethereal beak, it spoke in its strange, crystalline voice. “Click, click, click. Boy is sad, sad, sad. All will stop, stop, stop.”

“I understand that by the looks on all of your faces that I am the only one who has not met this spirit as of yet. Why?” My mother asked, her words careful and a look of wonder painted across her beautiful face.

Sam joined the spirit atop the table, his skeletal form sending the owl into a bout of sudden feather ruffling.

“Well met spirit,” My familiar said in greeting before turning his yellow eye lights and subterranean voice towards my mother. “I forbid the mortals from mentioning it to you, Lady Aubrey.”

“Why would you do such a thing?” My mother questioned.

“To protect my lady.” Sam stated simply.

“Protect her from who?” My mother whispered.

“From you, Lady Aubrey.” Sam spoke in a tone so low that it rattled the plates on the table.

My mother turned to me with tears brimming in her right eye. “Autumn, is this true?”

Before I could try and answer her, one of the doors at the front of the manor swung open and smacked against the stone wall loudly.

Click, click, click. The owl spirit clicked its beak three more times before taking flight and beginning to circle the room again.

“Lady Aubrey!” Bool appeared in the doorway and grunted. The guard wiped the trails of rain water off of his face and stared at my mother.

“Yes, what is it?” My mother answered him.

“A gatekeeper, my lady! They have come for her! The Mother in Brown has sent her summons!” He replied.

The air in the room dropped in temperature and a chill ran up my spine. Every soul in the room that was awake and not flying turned their eyes to me.

“Oh,” My mother said, leaving the table and rushing over to where I stood. She pulled me into her arms and buried her face in my hair. “It is time, Autumn. I am so sorry, but it is time.”

Fuck.