Is she being fed properly?
Does she miss me as much as I miss her?
Am I a terrible mother for leaving?
Will she survive all this?
WillIsurvive all this?
Her sneaky mind then traveled to the beginning of it all, to the moment she found out life was forming inside her, and to how Dhalia had completely transformed her life from that moment forward.
First, it was her body that changed, when a bump first appeared on a stomach that used to be flat, when her breasts tripled in size, and stretch marks drew maps of hertransformation forever in her skin. Her heart was the second to transform when she held that baby, so small and fragile in her arms, she feared she could break it. It changed when she felt for the first time the kind of love that was excruciating, undeniable, uncontrollable. And when Alissa had thought she couldn’t possibly change any more, she saw her fears and her priorities transform, she saw her obligations and maturity evolve into something she had never even imagined until her baby came along.
She reminisced on all the years after, every moment they shared together, only the two of them. She remembered Dhalia’s first words and her first steps, along with all the promises she had made to the girl, promises she wasn’t sure she would be able to fulfill anymore.
Dhalia was a catalyst in Alissa’s life, the reason everything had changed. She would never be the same woman again. Dhalia came from Alissa’s body—formed inside of her, expelled from her core, and fed from her breasts. But Alissa was the one brought to life the day the girl came into this world. After so many years alone since her parents passed, Dhalia’s arrival became a symbol, a promise, that Alissa would never feel lonely again.
How would Alissa survive a loss such as this?
The answer was simple. She wouldn’t.
Dhalia
Of all the places in the Weller’s cottage, the window seat had become her favorite. The rustic wooden corner, covered in pillows and duvets, was not the most comfortable spot to sit forhours on end, but the privileged view of the streets of Bryniard made it the best place to calm the child’s heart. She didn’t know how to write, so she drew instead. The colors and lines of her drawings always varied, but there was one constant in this child’s messy art: her mother. She drew Alissa hunting, cooking, sleeping, holding her hand. Still, she wouldn’t leave the window seat, afraid of missing her mother’s return.
The girl had only learned how to count to twenty, so when the nights without Alissa exceeded the number of fingers on her hands and toes on her feet, she started over. She did not know how to add up all those numbers she had been counting day by day, nor how long it had been since her mother left. All she knew was that she was almost out of fingers to count once again, and that filled her eyes with tears.
One should know better than to rely solely on the track of time kept by a five-year-old with the attention span of a goldfish. Especially because the simple act of lifting her own small fingers was capable of distracting her enough to mix up the numbers along the way. What mattered was that this child, in particular, cared deeply, and each day she counted without her mother, her joy slowly faded.
Aside from the hours left alone at the cabin when her mother was usually hunting, Dhalia was never away from her mother. The pain of Alissa’s absence on that innocent heart would come unnoticed to the eyes of a stranger, but not to the Wellers, who could see the signs of her sadness in the way Dhalia started wearing Alissa’s scarf even on sunny days, or how she had denied every new recipe Lorena prepared only to eat the ones Alissa used to make for her.
The gentle steps of Mrs. Weller startled her. The child handed her most recent work of art to Freyah’s mother—a drawing of Alissa making a cake.
“It’s beautiful, sweetie,” she said, gently running her hand over the girl’s head.
“Is she coming back soon?”
“I’m sure she will be back as soon as possible.”
“Do you think she doesn’t love me anymore, Grandma?” The wobbling of that sweet voice could have broken the heart of the most ruthless of men.
“Your mother loves you very much!”
“Why did she leave me then?”
Mrs. Weller took the girl’s hand in hers to stop her from biting her nails any further. Answering Dhalia’s daily questions on Alissa’s whereabouts had been too hard. Her strategy had been to deflect her questioning, shifting the child’s focus to something else, feeding her with vague responses that said nothing at all. Perhaps hearing the child doubt her mother’s love was the last straw for Lorena. She would never let Dhalia wonder whether she was loved when love was truly the reason her mother had to leave.
But what could she say? That her mother had ventured into a world inhabited by monsters in hopes of saving her life? That her life could end before her next birthday? It wasn’t fair for Dhalia to learn just how cruel life could be at such a young age, that fairness was merely an illusion. The woman watched the child as she waited patiently for an answer. Opening her mouth to speak, Lorena found herself doing the one thing she had vowed never to do: lying.
She leaned in closer and whispered, “I wasn’t supposed to tell you this because it is a very special secret.”
The girl scooched closer, eager in anticipation.
“If I tell you, do you think you can keep this secret for me?”
Dhalia immediately sat up straight, her eyes wide and hopeful as she nodded frantically.
“Do you remember the princess of your dreams?”