Part Thirty-Six

A bath had cleaned the nightmare-produced sweat that drenched her body. She sat in the tub scrubbing at her arms and legs with a sponge while her mother tended to her hair. As gentle as she tried to be, Aiyana ignored the pinches and tugs as Agathea combed out the tangles in the rat nest atop her head.

Her brother had left though he did not say where he ran off to. She was admittedly curious to his departure, but she passed it off as needing space from her. If she could accomplish that herself, she would. Within her twisted a darkness that she had never felt before. So much hate and anger... and violence... all of it directed at the woman that took her life away from her. The mere thought of her sent Aiayana to the brink of chaos.

She wrenched the sponge in her hands tightly, her knuckles showing white. Her behavior did not go unnoticed since Agathea could feel the change in her daughter's posture, saw the muscles in her arms flex and tense. Finished combing out the final knots, she started to hum a little song as she divided the hair into sections and began plaiting her hair. Slowly Aiyana relaxed, her posture slouching a bit, her grip on the sponge less lethal.

It was a song from her childhood - long before she met the King. The words were never important, but the melody was slightly hypnotic in a way and always made her feel better. "It's been a while since I heard that," she told her mother.

"It's been a long time since I sang it," she grinned. Finished with the braid, she circled it around itself, pinning it along the way into a large yet loose bun. "Now why don't we get you out of there before you get all pruney." She stood to retrieve a robe. When she turned back to the tub, her daughter hadn't moved. "Aiya?" she called to her. "Are you all right?"

Her voice sounded distant, her mind elsewhere than in the room. "I'm not well, Mother."

"Well then," said Agathea, "let's dry you off and get you into some clean clothes. And then maybe we can get some food into you."

"I don't like how I feel inside," said Aiyana in that far off voice.

"I know," she said with sympathy.

Aiyana turned to look up at her. "How?"

Agathea knelt down beside the tub and cupped her daughter's face in her hands. "Because you are my child," she said. "A mother's heart always feels what's in her child's heart."

Staring into her mother's eyes, feeling the love the woman had for her as well as her own love for her in return, Aiyana's eyes filled with tears. "Oh I hope you don't feel this," she whispered. "I, myself, wish not to feel this. I would scrape it from me, pull it kicking and screaming if I could. But I fear I am changed."

It was true. Seeing her eyes so close, the familiar twinkle she had remembered was no longer there. She thought back to her earlier words about the dark place. Perhaps the darkness took her light from her. "You have not," she told her. "You are still my daughter." She smoothed the hair from Aiyana's brow and smiled. "You've been through an ordeal. You just need time to mend. Then you'll be right as rain." The older woman patted her cheeks, planted a kiss on the top of her head, and stood beside the tub - the robe open. Aiyana looked up at her mother who winked as she smiled at her. Then the younger woman stood in the tub, the room filled with the song of the droplets dripping from her skin back into the tub. Carefully she stepped out tub onto the cold stone floor and slid into the robe. Agathea then turned her around and tied the robe closed. Pulling the bow tight, her daughter's next words set her off-balance.

"I am not well," muttered Aiyana. "I can't let my girls see me like this." The look on her daughter's face was worrying. "I need to do something about this part of me that has become all... twisted."

"Your brother and I will help you," offered Agathea.

"You can't," said Aiyana. Confused, her mother asked Why not? Her voice grumbled slightly as she said, "This is mine and mine alone. No one is going to take that from me." The grumble grew low as she said, "No one will take from me ever again."

"What are you going to do?" her mother asked.

Her head turned slightly until she and her mother were face to face. Agathea watched as her daughter's eyes that used to twinkle with love and light shimmer with shadow and vengeance. "Tenebrea needs to die," she said coldly. Her mother's grew wide with shock to hear the Queen's name said aloud. "And I will be the only one to do the honors."  

Part Thirty-Five

After breakfast, the girls decided to play in the garden which Georgeanne was rather relieved once they were outside in the fresh air and away from the Queen. The moment Georgeanne fell out of sight of the castle, she collapsed to the ground.

When she saw her sister's face, Blue quieted. "Georgie?"

"I'm scared," she confessed. Blue scooted closer to her.

"Of her?" asked Blue. Georgeanne nodded. "Me, too," she confessed.

"Did you see how upset she was?" asked Georgeanne. "I hate to think what would have happened if Father hadn't come in when he did." Blue considered this and felt shiver dance down her spine. "How are we supposed to live here?" Georgeanne continued. "With her?" Blue didn't know what to say, so she said nothing. "I want Devon and Aggie to come take us away right now."

"But what about Father?" asked Blue.

Georgeanne's brow furrowed. "Can't they take him, too?" her sister asked hopefully.

"That would be lovely, but then that would leave the Queen to rule all by herself, and we couldn't let that happen."

"Agreed," replied the burgundy princess. "But still-." The conversation was cut short when they heard a noise close by. Georgeanne opened her mouth to speak, but Blue held a finger to her lips and shook her head. Together they crept slowly along the elephant topiary toward the sound. They paused before peering around one of the feet of the elephant and was met face to face with Devon.

The two girls shrieked and Devon quickly put his hands on their mouths. It took them a couple seconds to calm down enough that they weren't screaming, but when they were ready, they both nodded and Devon removed his hands. "You girls okay?" he asked.

"You scared us half to death!" said Georgeanne in a loudest whisper she could muster, her hands flailing in weak slaps across his forearms.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"What's with the sneaking around?" asked Blue.

"I just came to check on you both," he said with a grin. "It's my right as an uncle."

"Where's Aggie?" asked Georgeanne.

"She couldn't come," said Devon, and the princess didn't like the look on his face when he said it, or the quickness in which he answered.

"What are you hiding?" asked Georgeanne. He looked up at the question, the deception obvious on his face. Blue saw it, too.

"Yes, Uncle," asked Blue. "What are you not telling us?"

*******

He had to see the girls. With the way his sister was acting, he just needed to make sure they were all right.

Devon left his sister and mother to themselves and slipped away in search of his nieces. He found them in the garden, but instead of being loud and boisterous, they were quiet and contemplative sitting in the grass near the giant elephant topiary. He tried listening to their conversation for a bit, but the girls quieted, sensing they weren't alone. They crept toward his hiding place, and he met them halfway.

Georgeanne nearly screamed bloody murder - or would have if he hadn't covered her mouth with his hand. Instead she grumbled into his palm. Pulling his hand away from both their mouths - and then warding off his niece's slaps as penance for scaring her - they went straight in with the questions. He tried playing it off like nothing was wrong and even said as much since he was their uncle and all. But that didn't seem an acceptable answer. Georgeanne saw right through him. Perhaps he was so preoccupied with his sister that he misspoke or spoke too soon.

But surely he couldn't tell them about their mother. Not yet anyway. By no means did he intend to keep that kind of news from them, but in all honesty, he just didn't trust the state his sister was in. He didn't deny her the right to be angry. She had earned that right the moment she was locked away in whatever prison she was in. But she came out a little bit the sister he once knew, and a whole lot of something else that had grown toxic and vengeful, and that part worried him. He didn't feel safe exposing that to the girls. He wanted his family back, to be reunited, but he also wanted everyone to be safe.

And right now... he wasn't sure how safe his sister actually was.

Part Thirty-Four

Agathea ran up to her daughter who sat straight up in bed, face beaded in sweat, a frenzied look on her face. "Aiyana," she said sitting beside the younger woman, "are you all right?" Her hands gripped the blanket, and her mother touched her hand which twitched at her touch. Agathea pulled her hand away.

Devon walked in, his mouth open to speak but when he saw his sister, he dropped the sack he was carrying and rushed to the bed. Standing before the bed, he looked down at his sister. "Aiya," he said. She didn't move. He repeated her name. She looked up at him. They stared at each other for a few moments before her face changed, relaxing into something less angry and more sad.

Her mother patted her hand, and Aiyana released her grip on the blanket and placed her hands in her lap. "I worry for you, my child."

"I worry about me, too," replied her daughter faintly.

Devon stepped to the other side of the bed and sat down. "We are here for you," he said.

"I know," she replied.

Devon exchanged a glance with his mother before turning back to his sister. "Aiya... we need to talk about that place." She slowly turned her gaze to him. "We need to talk about where you were."

"Why?" she said. "I already told you."

"Not really," said Agathea. "You just said it was someplace dark."

"You said someone put you there," said Devon. "A woman." Her hands twisted together, each hand squeezing the other tightly. "Aiya-."

"Her," Aiyana growled. "It was her."

"Who is she?" asked Devon.

"She is evil," said Aiyana, "and she must be stopped. I will see to that."

Part Thirty-Three

The princesses dressed and headed to breakfast to find they were the first to arrive. One of the kitchen maidens told them breakfast would be ready soon and asked if they wanted a snack before then. Nodding happily, the maiden cut up some cheese and fruit and they sat at a small table in the corner nibbling on cheese and apples.

"Georgie?" said Blue but her sister did not hear her. "Georgie? Helloooo?" She barely blinked when her sister waved her hand in front of her face. Georgeanne had brought up a piece of cheese to her lips and bitten off a corner. She still held the cheese near her mouth, but she was blindly chewing the piece she had bitten off as if in a trance.

Blue clapped her hands together loudly.

Georgeanne blinked her eyes, her hands - cheese and all - falling into her lap. "What was that for?" she asked slightly annoyed.

"There you are," said Blue. "I'd been calling your name, but it was as if you were somewhere else." The look on her sister's face seemed embarrassed, and she went back to eating her piece of cheese. "Are you all right?" asked Blue. "You seemed a little weird earlier, too."

She arched an eyebrow in curiosity. "Weird how?"

"I don't know," said Blue. "With everything that's been going on, I'm not sure what's weird and what's not." Her face grew stern in concentration as she said, "Do you suppose there's an acceptable kind of weird?"

"If there is," pointed out Georgeanne, "then there's an unacceptable kind, and I wouldn't care to think of what that might be like." Her sister nodded in agreement. Picking up a piece of apple, she looked around the room. "I wonder where Aggie and Devon are."

Just then the Queen walked in. She didn't see the girls at first, and from where they sat, she looked positively menacing. The girls were familiar with a similar look, but that was usually when they were sneaking out of their rooms and doing things that they shouldn't be. The look on the Queen's face, however, was much more than that. She looked as if she were up to no good and then some, and it made them both a little queasy. The Queen finally spotted them and walked over. "What are you doing?" she asked. "What is this?"

"One of the ladies in the kitchen asked if we'd like a snack while we waited for breakfast," said Blue.

"Would you like some?" offered Georgeanne trying to be polite.

The Queen looked down at the platter and turned up her nose. "Couldn't wait for your father and I to arrive?"

"It's only a snack," said Blue. The Queen glowered at her, but Blue didn't budge. "There isn't even that much on the plate to begin with." The girls looked up at the Queen, and she seemed so irritated with them that she could spit... or worse. Georgeanne thought she saw her mother's hand tense as if she were about to strike Blue when their father came in.

"Hello my dears," he said greeting the three of them. "How are my sweethearts doing?'

"Fine, Father," said the girls.

"What do we have here?" he said looking at the platter. Georgeanne picked it up again and offered it to the King. He scooped up a piece of cheese and a slice of apple. "Thank you, m'dear." Crunching on the snack, he looked at his wife. "Are you all right, darling?" he asked her.

Georgeanne saw her mother's hand slowly relax and couldn't help but wonder what would have happened if their father hadn't walked in when he did.

Part Thirty-Two

The sun shone through the window alighting the two princesses asleep in bed. Georgeanne was the one to wake first. Blue lay curled in a crescent moon on the other half of the bed. Georgeanne slipped out of bed and stood before the window taking in the warmth of the sun's rays. Her eyes then drifted to the mirror, something about it she couldn't let go.

"Georgeanne," Blue called from the bed, and her sister turned from the mirror and window to look at her. "You okay?"

She let out a breath she had no idea she'd been holding, and her body relaxed some. "Yes," she said. "I'm fine."

*******

The Queen stood before her mirror admiring her reflection as she was wont to do. She had dismissed her ladies after they had finished dressing her so she could be alone. Recent events spun through her mind with no logical answer as to why they had happened. On the surface everything appeared to have a resolution, but the explanations did not sit well with the Queen.

There was another answer. She knew it. She felt it in her bones.

*******

From someplace unknown, Aggie sat watching her daughter as she slept. Her emotion from the night before, although genuinely felt, worried her. There was an underlying rage that she had never know her daughter to have before. The heat of anger emanating from her grew almost to the point of scalding. They managed to calm her down, and eventually she grew tired and they put her to bed. Aggie herself couldn't sleep after seeing her daughter in such a state. Eventually she just got up and watched over her all night.

Devon walked in, saw Aggie playing mother hen and asked if anything had happened. "Not yet," she said though she had a feeling something would happen and soon. She watched her daughter, thought of the two little girls somewhere in the castle, and prayed that nothing bad would happen. But her daughter had come back changed somehow, and this part of her own little girl worried her and also frightened her some. She tried not to fret on it too much. It twisted her insides making her stomach ache.

But still, she couldn't help but feel she needed to prepare for something.

*******

Her dreams took hold. Nothing solid - more feelings mixed with a smattering of images. She caught glimpses of her life from before...

... before it was taken away from her.

She thought of her girls which filled her with a light that warmed her soul. But then the girls brought memories of her - the woman that took them away from her - and that light grew dim until it extinguished into something black and bitter.

Her body twitched and tensed until an angry heat jerked her awake.