"On the night when the moon bleeds red, a child will be born under its glow. This child will grow to foresee the withering of the very soul."

Such a simple prophecy. Amazing how it has done nothing but ruin her life. Amelia didn't know about the prophecy until she was eight years old. Some adults, maids who had become bold in recent years, had been discussing the young lady and her curse in the small pathway leading into the manor. 

"Have you heard her talk about flowers? She tried telling me mine was purple or something. Ugh. She's a little freak..."

"At least she doesn't come out of her room often. I can't stand her talking about it, or how I sometimes catch her staring at my chest."

"I've noticed that, too. It's incredibly creepy. The child of misfortune who sees dying souls. I guess it's poetic that she has the coloring of flowers. A shame something so evil could look so innocent..."

Their chatter continues. Amelia, a little girl who wants to be accepted in her own home, stares at the picked flowers in her hands. No small part of her regrets leaving her room now, coming to their gardens. She had planned to give them to her father. Does he also think her evil?

Is that why he never talks to her? Sees her?

She slides to the floor, the maids' chatter dimming as they walk off together to some task or another. Amelia doesn't care. Let them go away. Far away.

She curls around her flowers and waters them with tears. 

When petals fall, misfortune follows. It's the simple, clear truth Amelia has known since she was little.

She remembers sitting at her mom's bedside, about six years old. Her mom had been sick lately; her skin was clammy, and her pretty blue eyes were always closed. Amelia remembers when her mom would read her stories to make her feel better, so she does it in return. She reads to her mom.

This one is about dragons and princesses. Those were always Amelia's favorites. It upsets her to realize she doesn't know what her mom's favorite stories are. She resolves to ask when Sienne wakes up.

She doesn't know what's wrong. Mom has hardly moved in weeks. Her food tray used to have only crumbles, but now it always remains almost full of food.

Amelia's tummy rumbles, but she keeps reading. Mom's health matters so much more than being a little hungry.

When she's done, she puts the book gently on a table. 

"Be gentle with them, Ami. When people write those words, they create worlds. They're a piece of that person's heart."

Amelia took those words seriously and set the book down as gently as she could, then shuffled back to her mom's side. She holds her hand. It's cold and sort of sweaty, but Amelia holds on anyway because mom would do that for her, too.

Father visits often. It's the softest his face looks when he stands at his wife's side. Softened in a way that Amelia is sure she's never seen before, or since. He doesn't say much, not that he ever really has been a big talker. He wipes her sweat after sending the maids away. Sometimes he asks Amelia if she's working hard to help Mom. 

A silly question. Of course she is!

It may have been one of the only times she saw her father's smile, a mere twitch of his lips. It still made her so happy. He smiled. At her!

That joy is snuffed away when Sienne wakes up one day a few weeks later, her eyes glassy. They lock on Amelia. 

She calls for the maids, loud as she can. She can't leave her mom's side, something telling her she can't leave her. 

Sienne's smile is a shaky thing, strained but no less beautiful. She might have said something, but in her young, desperate mind, she wasn't able to latch onto her words. They slip away as though she were trying to grip water. 

Sienne's hand passes through her hair just once. It shakes, catches on her hair as though Mom has no strength left to push through. Amelia watches, scared and unsure, as her mother opens her mouth. Her eyes close.

She doesn't open them again.

Amelia had cried, screamed. The maids finally rush in, the one with the yellow sunflower, Kayra, grips her shoulders and tries to hold her. 

She's almost being pulled away as her father comes in. He collapses at his wife's side, an expression on his face Amelia would like to never see again.

She blindly reaches for her mom one last time, her small fingers curling around a petal. The last one. It fell? When did it fall? Why was it so yellow? It's not right, it should be pink, pink like her hair-

She tries to show it to Kayra, asking desperately if she puts it back, will Mom be okay?

She's met with confusion. 

"Petal? Ah... now now, let's get you somewhere quiet, dear," Kayra was trying to console her. It's making her hysteria worse, her tears blinding her. She only sees bright yellow, Kayra's flower. It's a nice yellow. Not like the mockery she clutches in her hand.

"Mommy's last petal, the last," her voice trembles, cracking under what she now knows to be grief. She screams again as she looks at it, the petal turning to ash in her hands, dissipating before her very eyes. She holds her empty hand close, wishing away this horrible nightmare.

There's a terrible, terrible pain in her chest.

Her mom loses her last petal, and Amelia loses her first.

She doesn't remember anything else, only days of crying and pain. Kayra is the only one who stays by her side.

That was the beginning of her misery.

She's nine years old. She has been growing out her hair, just like her mom's. Hers had been so long, down to her waist in light waves. Amelia is glad that as hers gets longer, it also starts to wave.  It sits just below her shoulder blades now. She works hard to take good care of it with Kayra's help, since it is already sort of hard to manage. The woman is in her late twenties, and she is now her maid alone since her mother's passing.

Amelia clings to this kindness. The other maids avoid her, and the men of the house, her father included, never stick close. She doesn't talk about flowers anymore.

At least, she doesn't with anyone but Kayra.

It makes sense that Kayra has a sunflower. She's warm and happy in a way no one else in her life is, a sun spot in her own right. Amelia doesn't look at it much, is too scared to even though she knows Kayra doesn't hate her for her flower talk. She knows it has a lot of petals left. This soothes her.

"Kayra?" She asks on a sleepy afternoon, the soft patter of rain outside. She likes the rain. It smells nice and it makes the real flowers outside happy. Her fingers comb through her hair.

"Yes, my lady?" Kyra returns, lifting her head from her task. She's stitching  Amelia something. She makes her many things, like scarves and puppies. They don't keep dogs at the manor. Father dislikes them, or so says Clainon.

"I noticed... I'm having a harder time remembering mom's face," the admission is an unhappy knife. She flinches at the cut of it from her lips. "Do you think... if I asked father, he'd put the paintings back out?"

The silence from there is long. It's an answer enough.

"I see. I'm sorry my lady, I don't think your father is ready for that yet. How about I tell you about what she looked like? Maybe you'll be able to paint her in your dreams!" 

Kayra says this in a rush, moving to her young charge. She pats Amelia's head, moving soft pink hair to examine her face. She looks sad, of course, but Kayra worries.

The young miss is becoming adept at hiding her emotions at a too-young age.

Amelia's lips tremble before she offers Kayra a facsimile of a smile. "Do you think you could write it down? Then it's a piece of heart."

"Yeah," Kayra's voice cracks a tad. "Yeah, of course."

Her knitting is forgotten in the scratch of pen to paper. They talk about what Sienne looked like together, eventually trying to draw her in the corner.

Neither of them has much talent in this regard, the blotch little more than a shock of red and two blue dots on a messy attempt at a body.

"Well... mommy probably still would have said we did a great job," Amelia nods. The drawing is placed within her bedside table, a precious reminder of the mom whose warmth she remembers, but whose image is fading in the smoke of memory.