With Sadi finally going to school along with her brother, Amanthia now had a lot more time to herself. Even before, she had a lot of time to herself when Alistair was at school since Sadi was never around, but with both of them somewhere where she didn’t have to worry, she found her stress already reducing greatly.

However, the second she opened the letter from the school, all of that melted. She was standing in the kitchen, preparing some ingredients for some baking when she heard the letter hit the front door. She made her way over, opening the door and picking up the envelope. She was rather confused at first. Given the glowing edges, this seemed to have been written on emergency paper. There were also strange purple stains around the edges of the envelope. She carefully opened it up and, just as she suspected, a glowing golden paper unfurled in to the air. Reading over it, she was horrified.

As if on cue, just as she finished reading through the letter, the door creaked open and through it stepped a somewhat ragged-looking Sadi. Trailing close behind her, shaking, was Alistair. The moment that his sister was clear of the doorway, he raced upstairs and away from them.

Sadi ignored him and set down her bag next to the door. There were bruises and cuts all over her body as well as far too much purple blood for Amanthia’s comfort. Her hair was a mess and her overalls were torn. Despite all of this, she looked to be perfectly fine, mentally. She didn’t even acknowledge her mother or the floating golden paper as she walked past her, heading for the back door. She wanted to go check on her traps, but her mother was not going to let her off that easily.

Spinning around, Amanthia quickly grabbed Sadi’s arm. Sadi  looked back at her, her expression a mix of confusion and annoyance. Amanthia met her gaze with a look of mild terror as she stared at her daughter. Her hand and body were shaking as she tried to hold her daughter in place, afraid of what she might do after what she just read. Even Sadi’s cursed eye which never really unsettled her before seemed to be only adding to the fear that Amanthia felt towards her daughter right now.

She finally released Sadi’s arm and, instead of continuing out the back door, she turned around fully, taking a single step towards her mother. This was met with two steps back from Amanthia as she stared in fear at her daughter.

Sadi gave her a somewhat sincere look, an almost pitiful expression on her blood-covered face. “Mommy…? What’s wrong? What’s that paper?”

Amanthia quickly snatched the paper out of the air and folded it back in to the envelope, backing up a few more steps as Sadi tried to approach her. “S-Stay back…”

Sadi took another step. Amanthia’s eyes widened as she shouted, “I said stay back! How could you do that to those children?! You are my daughter! How could you possibly think that something like that was okay to do?! Y-You’re… a monster.”

Sadi frowned at her mother’s wording. “I’m not a monster… I just… wanted to make them pay for being mean to me. You told me to make friends, but all the other kids did was call me a monster and a freak… so I hurt them and made them stop talking…” Sadi was clenching her fists and staring at the ground, tears streaming down from her eyes as she looked up at her mother. “Why did they call me a monster…”

Amanthia’s eyes widened, and she slowly backed up before rushing upstairs in to her own room, slamming the door shut behind her. Sadi remained downstairs, crying on to the floor as she clutched the many stinging injuries all over her body. Inside of her room, Amanthia fell back against the door, pressing herself back against it, needing something to support her. Her heart was racing and she tried to get any handle on it, but to no avail. After having a bit more time to think, she slowly made her way over to her bed, sitting down on the edge for a moment before rolling over and laying down, her back to the door.

Tears began to stain the sheets as Amanthia laid there crying. “Oh… Masters… Why did I have to be her mother…? I can’t handle someone like her… No one can… But maybe… Maybe if he were here…” She reached a hand over to grab a photo from her nightstand. It was on one of the first dates that her and Malistryfe ever went on. They were so sweet… They had always treated her so nicely and anytime she looked at this photo, she found herself longing to be in their arms once again.

“Malistryfe… I wish you could be here… Maybe… Maybe you would know what I should do…” she mused quietly as she clutched the photo close to her chest.

“I’m always here with you, my dear Amanthia…” a soft, sweet voice mused from behind her.

She quickly rolled over and came face to face with a floating purple flame on the other side of the bed. She sat up and smiled, holding her hand out to the fire and closing her eyes, sending love to Malistryfe and feeling the same warmth returned to her.

“Amanthia… What is wrong?” they said from within the flame.

Amanthia sighed, holding her head in her hands as she tried to find the words that could possibly express her current situation. “It’s… Sadi… I… I just don’t know what to do with the child…”

“Ah… Her… Yes. She is… definitely the… most concerning of all of my children. The other ones are not so… unique. Though, she possesses the cursed mark of that vile being… Even still… to see it manifest to strongly and at such a young age… It is unsettling to say the very least, Amanthia,” Malistryfe attempted.

Amanthia shook her head. “Malistryfe, I simply don’t know. I thought that giving her time to herself would help her to try and work things out a little bit better, but it’s clear to me now that that’s only made things much worse. And then I thought that maybe if I sent her to be with other people her age, normal people her age, it would help her to become more grounded, but…” she shook her head, the words sticking in her throat as she tried to utter them. She looked up at the flame, tears streaming down her face. “Malistryfe… She attacked them… all of them… They tried to fight back against her, but before the teachers could get there… half of them were already critically injured… Even the teachers were horrified by what they saw…”

There was a moment of silence as Malistryfe processed her words. “Hold your hand out to me, my dear,” they finally spoke.

She followed their directions, holding her hand to the flame and feeling as a pleasant, comforting warmth passed over her body. “Thank you… Malistryfe.”

“Of course. Now, I must ask, have you tried to enter her mind and perhaps guide her through some therapy. After all, she is just a child,” Malistryfe offered.

Amanthia simply shook her head solemnly. “I don’t think I could ever even think about going inside of her head. Every time I try to talk to her about how she’s feeling, she seems to be positively delighted and not at all affected by the kind of thoughts that she’s having…”

“I see… Unfortunately, my time has run thin. I must leave you now, but please know that I love you and… no matter when, you may call on me and I will answer,” they said as the flame began to flicker.

Amanthia held her hand out and smiled slightly. “I love you too… See you soon…”

As the flame faded, she heard the door creak. Her attention shot towards it, panic flashing in her eyes as she sat up quickly. She calmed as Alistair peaked around the corner. She sat back down on the corner of the bed and patted the spot next to her.

“Come here, sweetie.”

After a moment of hesitation, Alistair complied and walked over to the bed, taking a seat next to his mother. She turned towards him, wrapping her arms around him and gently running her fingers through his hair.

“Is Sadi in trouble…?” Alistair asked meekly.

Amanthia shook her head, looking at the photo of the three of them on the wall. “No, sweetie. Sadi isn’t in trouble. She just… has a lot of things that she needs to work through…” She bit her lip, cursing silently. “Alistair… I think that you should probably try to stay away from your sister, at least for a little bit.”

“Is that because she’s a monster?”

Amanthia’s eyes widened. “I… Where did you hear that?”

Alistair looked up at her innocently. “I heard the two of you talking earlier. You called her a monster and she got mad at you for it.”

She sighed. “No… She’s… I shouldn’t have said that… Your sister isn’t a monster, she’s just… troubled…”

“Then why did you call her a monster?” Alistair pressed.

“I was upset with her… and I lashed out… After what she did… How could I not call her a monster… I mean…” Amanthia swallowed as she noticed something in the open doorway. Her hands shot to her mouth before she quickly moved Alistair off of her lap and raced out the door to chase Sadi who had just heard their entire conversation.

Sadi raced down the stairs and out of the back door, a bag slung over her shoulder. As she saw her mother running after her, she began to concentrate on a closed off spot of the forest she liked to hide from Alistair in sometimes. Her mother was catching up with her, shouting after her.

“Sadi! Please! I’m sorry!”

Those were the last words Sadi heard before she vanished in to a shadow, falling out of it in the woods. She picked herself up and continued to run far away from her home. As her anger and sadness rose, she felt a strange searing pain in her eye. It pulsed and intense pain shot through her eye. She stumbled over a log and collapsed to the ground hitting her head and passing out.