Archive of Our Own ^beta

Dear Mother,

Dear Morgan Fey,

I knew I wanted to get away from you when I was very young. You said you birthed me quickly, within just an hour of contractions. Iris took another hour. I must have known I wanted to escape you from within, before I’d ever seen your face.

You placed a heavy weight around my neck. I liked the pink colour, and nothing more. You didn’t wear yours, and I wondered if it was because you were ashamed once you knew you were weak. I suppose you were delighted to have twins. Two chances to succeed. From the minute I was able to walk and perhaps utter a few words, you began your plans. That was when you had everything just the way you wanted it, or at least you thought so.

It was only a matter of time before they realised your sister was more powerful.

I remember the first time you forced me into that room, unlocking the door. It was cold. I didn’t like it. Iris was frightened, but I wasn’t. You told us stories of spirits instead of fairy tales. Spoke of the women before us, but not of princesses. When you asked if we could feel the energy of spirits, Iris said she could. I thought she was a liar, speaking only to please in the way she always has. You told us that this chamber was to be our destiny, but that night I dreamt that I was in someone else’s body, but it was my mind, and I could not control a thing, only watch from their eyes as I moved, like a living puppet. I decided that I didn’t want anyone else inside of my body, but I had no choice but to aspire to it.

Every evening when we trained and prayed in the Meditation Hall, you would push the palms of my hands together tightly.

“Your fingers are misaligned.” You would say, making sure my fingers lined up evenly.

“Your eyes are open.” How did you know that when your own were closed, I wondered. In the dim candlelight, my legs hurt from kneeling against the hard wood so often. You said I’d get used to it. That I’d have to.

You didn’t let us out much. Even to go to speak to your sister we had to ask permission, and that was even before they had decided you were no longer to be the Master. Playing outside was something you hardly approved of. Were you afraid we would be hurt damaged? It was as if you didn’t want us to speak to anyone but you. You were the only one we could trust and rely on. Even around Father, I remember you would never let your eyes off of us. You argued with him whenever he came to see us. I would ask about life outside the village when you were out of earshot.

Do you remember when you had heard me asking what it was like outside? Do you remember when you yanked me by my arm out of my room whilst Iris was asleep and you warned me that if I asked him or anyone again about life outside of Kurain, outside our traditions and faith that you would lock me in the Channeling Chamber and leave me there all day and that the spirit of Ami Fey would curse me forever?

I went back to bed, unable to sleep and looked up at my ceiling for hours, thinking about her Shichishito cutting me into pieces whenever my mind wandered and took me outside the thoughts of Kurain Village.

You didn’t want us to read stories beyond ones about our own people. Our minds could not be poisoned by anything. Then, one day, your sister whispered in my ear. She said, “Come to my room after dinner for a while.” She said it to just me, and not Iris, because you were busy braiding her hair.

I excused myself after dinner, promising you I’d be back for our meditation and training. The woman I had once called Aunt led me into her room. That was when I had acquired that book. There were pictures of princesses inside. They were beautiful, tragic girls, often kept locked away from the rest of the world, only to be rescued by a brave man. It was full of people and stories that were made up. They had nothing to do with our teachings. My fingers touched the pages, trembling. My skin had been tainted by the outside world, and in my head they were tingling, as if I had an allergic reaction. I told myself I should scrub my hands for hours.

“They’re stories for girls around your age.” The soon-to-be Master told me. “Mia is too old for them, so I wanted to give them to you.” She didn’t know she would soon have another daughter and handed the book over to me. I saw the name of the woman I would grow to hate on the first page of the book, in the top left corner. I crossed it out and wrote my name beside it and smiled. Even then I couldn’t stand that girl, nor the way her mother would look at her.

When I was young, I never understood how you could grow to hate your own flesh and blood, but now I understand it. I understand you, as much as saying that makes me want to scream until there is no breath left in my lungs.

I remember the day you were told you were no longer to be the Master. I had never seen you cry before. You stayed in your room all day, like when you would tell me off and I would sulk solitarily until Iris inevitably told me I should forgive you. Iris and I stood outside your door and waited and waited, wondering if you were going to train us, but you didn’t. We sat there all day, looking through the sliding doors to see your figure remain mostly still. It was dinnertime, and your sister was worried.

“Girls? Girls, it’s time for dinner.” She called out to us and I glared at her, and at her daughter, sneering at her brown hair that was lighter than all of ours, like she was better than us. My hair was still as raven as yours then.

“Please, I haven’t seen you eat at all today.” She stepped closer to us. Iris looked at me. Her stomach growled. I shook my head, but she still followed her. That was the first time I had been betrayed by my sister. I rested my back against the door, knowing you were behind it.

I stayed by you.

The next day you found the book your sister gave to me in my room and burned it in front of me, whilst I cried.

After that, you pushed Iris and I further in our training, desperate to see any signs of improvement. Iris insisted she could feel the spirits. She could call to them.

“Yes, yes, Iris, that’s good!” You praised her. “A little more and you’ll be ready.” We were maybe six or seven then.

“Dahlia, you’re not applying yourself.” You scolded me. “Don’t strain like that. Let your powers dictate it.” I screwed my eyes shut, willing myself. I had read all the books. Listened to all of your advice and lectures. I had seen Mia channel someone as a demonstration, one of our own ancestors, only briefly. Her mother had been against it, but you were insistent on seeing if the Master’s daughter had any abilities to make her a worthy successor.

Every time you spoke to her I wondered if it would end in an argument. It was beginning to feel that way with father too.

Watching Mia and her mother channel spirits made it increasingly apparent that I did not have the same understanding or ability. Iris was a little stronger than me. Her meditative state reached deeper. She told me it was like a cold feeling down her spine when she was able to contact a spirit, but then it would stop, like the ties were severed completely.

I asked you one day if you could show us how to channel a spirit properly. Perhaps it would help us to understand. You would make excuses. You were too tired. You weren’t in the right mental state. You couldn’t sense any wandering spirits or think of anyone safe enough to channel.

With training, Iris drew closer and closer to being able to tap into the ability. I watched as the Master’s body changed and felt my stomach turn imagining my own small body expanding. You said you knew it would be a girl and you were right. I had never seen a baby before, and Iris was delighted, but afraid to touch her. Maya. The next Master, but no one knew that then.

“You can play with her, just be gentle.” Her big sister stood watch. I leaned over the cradle, standing on my tip-toes. I pinched her cheeks hard. She screamed and wailed and I covered my ears. Then that horrible girl yelled at me, pulling me by the hand out of the room and I lied and said I didn’t mean to do it. She saw through me then, too.

I knew you didn’t like Maya. Maybe I was foolish enough to pinch her for your sake. Your sister’s marriage had allowed for her to have another child, securing her bloodline’s future, but it only pushed you further, didn’t it?

You put us through our paces. We had less breaks between training. Less time to play. We hardly saw Maya or Mia, and definitely not their mother. It was me, you and Iris. You saw how promising Iris was. You began to spend more time with her alone, brushing her hair and teaching her songs passed down through the generations. I told myself I didn’t care. I sat out on the Winding Way. I stretched my hands up to the butterflies in spring and listened to the cicadas in summer. I watched the flowers die in autumn and the rain come down in winter.

“Let me braid your hair.” You would say after you were done with Iris. Your fingers have always been so thin. Your nails were sharp. When you would separate my hair, you would sometimes scratch my forehead and scalp too hard and I’d hiss through my teeth, or wince. You pulled on my hair, and I wondered if you were pulling so hard on Iris. You yanked the strands, raked sharply through my tangles, making my head jolt backwards, and grasped my face tight. Sometimes, tears would prickle in my eyes and I’d wipe them away with my sleeves before you saw and scolded me. I’d sniffle lightly, sat in front of you and you never noticed. You always braided my hair so tightly, never a strand out of place. I didn’t enjoy sleeping with them in my hair, so I would undo them, pulling them out with the same force you braided them with. I’d feel so free, but I knew tomorrow you’d put them back in.

When the Master fled, I thought you’d be happier, but you weren’t. You had to look after what she had left behind, but you still did not have the title. We believed it would be Mia who would succeed her mother, but she was killed, and I find myself approaching the same fate.

You were braiding my hair when you said, half angry, half disappointed, “You will never have powers, it seems.” I wasn’t surprised. It was a truth we had both accepted, but never said.

“You don’t either.” I replied. You didn’t say anything for a few minutes. My mind drifted off, thinking of your sister. I had read that book she gave me before you incinerated it. When I was reading it, I was away from Kurain Village. I was in someone else’s body. Or were they in mine?

“Dahlia.” You spoke again, nearly finishing my hair. “You’re a beautiful girl.”

“I know, mother.” I said.

“My mother didn’t say things like that about me.” You said, as if this therefore made you the world’s best mother now, to rectify one simple thing.

“I know that.” I sighed, seemingly having the attitude of a teenager at just eight years old.

“I always wanted a daughter. I prayed for so long.”

You lifted my chin up so I could see myself in the mirror. You leaned to the side, and I could see you reflected beside me.

“It’s painful, Dahlia. Don’t you understand?” You sighed. “For me to have a daughter and for you to– to be like this to me!”

I didn’t understand what you meant, yet guilt jabbed me in the stomach. I gulped away the pain in my throat. My inability to channel spirits and understand you must have seemed like a betrayal to you.

That was the night you came into our room to tell us father was taking us with him. Iris sobbed. The Village was all she knew. All I knew. She had these childish hopes that you and father would be happy again, like when we were little, even before we knew he was leaving you. I’ll be honest and say I had these silly notions in my head for a while too.

“I can’t stay with him. He has made it clear to me.” You explained, omitting the fact that he was the one who left you. “You will go, tomorrow.” Iris begged and pleaded, her muffled tears and runny nose staining your clothes.

“What does it matter?” You scoffed. “We are the branch family now. You don’t have a future here.”

Iris tried to negotiate, saying that if she could channel a spirit here and now, that it would prove we had powers and that we could stay here, but all she did when she tried was make herself sick, since she was so overwhelmed by emotion and you had to clean her up, yelling at her for being so ridiculous and childish.

The next day, you braided our hair for the last time. We left without saying goodbye to anyone else but you. I saw the truth of that place, and of you, and was ready to go. I didn’t look back out the window of my father's car as he drove us away. I thought I was finally escaping you and that place.

My step-mother was completely different to you. She didn’t know how to braid our hair, but Iris remembered, practicing on me, and then herself. She would keep meditating. She wore her Magatama. I think, in her mind, she was still Iris Fey.

But me? I was content being Dahlia Hawthorne, even if I never understood my father, his new wife and her daughter. It was like he had his perfect life with those two, but then had me and my sister there too. His past that he couldn’t escape. Iris wanted to see you again. She said in the night, crying, that she missed you, and I would do my best impression of you to try and cheer her up. I always changed the subject when it came to you, but then a part of me felt cold.

Now exposed to a world of stories and new norms and expectations, I knew for sure that it wasn’t just an expectation of our culture to respect one’s mother, above almost everyone else. I learned of ‘Mother’s Day’. Did you ever receive what Iris and I had sent to you? It was all her idea. She paid for it, and forced me to sign the card.

I was expected to talk highly of you. At first I did. I think it was around the time of my first period where I realised you loved me for my potential. You loved me for what I could do for you. The power I could secure for you. Iris and I, your precious blooming flowers; you had once held us in such high regard, but as I was awake at night, my emerging womanhood causing me great pain, I saw that we were nothing but vessels, spawned from your body, empty shells born to be inhabited by those who are gone.

I bit my lip as tears streamed from the corners of my eyes and dampened my pillow, so I didn’t make a sound.

Is this what it means, I thought, to be a woman? All you had ever taught me was to uphold a reputation, to be beautiful, and to marry to secure power, not to love. Never love. I looked at Iris, sleeping soundly, probably dreaming of you. I realised that I couldn’t love her either. You couldn’t love your sister for what she did, and I decided I wouldn’t love Iris, fearing what she would do to me. She was still part of the Fey Clan, and belonged there.

Father didn’t need the both of us anyway. All he needed was one trophy from his first marriage, and it was me. He didn’t like that I was becoming more beautiful by the day. He said I should be more like Valerie and less like you. That filled me with a hot rage, but there wasn’t anything I could do.

I was able to read what I liked. That was the only way I could leave home. I wrote poetry, thinking I was profound, but it was all drivel, fueled by angst and longing. I even wrote about you, but I crumpled it up and threw it away swiftly. I think there was some part of me still, fearing you would find it somehow. Even though you weren’t there, everytime I came across something that I knew you would disapprove of, my heart rate quickened, the way it would when your footsteps approached my door as a child.

It became apparent to me, just as it had done when I was in Kurain Village, that I did not belong in my own home. Father wanted me to be locked away too, like a princess in a tower. I’d watch the butterflies float away from the window, and in the garden, drift over the fences, and I wondered when it would be my time to be saved.

I may have been reading more advanced literature and poetry, though I was still the girl I was when I read that storybook in secret, but now I was tired of waiting for a saviour.

You know all of what I did.

I’m not sorry. Not at all. I’m only sorry that we ended up in prison together.

It’s funny. I had told myself I didn’t recall my time in Kurain Village, but I remember so much now. It’s strange how being on Death Row forces you to think of the life you failed to have. But by the time you’ve read this, I’ll have been hanged already.

You’re probably wondering, why write all this? You’re going to face my fate too, soon enough.

I wrote this after you spoke to me this morning. It’s evening now. My last.

At first, this was going to be a small note, just to say, that when I hugged you and sobbed pathetically, that I had only done it because that was when it had finally hit me. The fact that tomorrow I will be hanged to death. I only called you mother as a formality.

When you rubbed my back with your hand, your nails were like daggers. If you were holding one, I know you would have killed me right there and then. I could tell when you whispered your plans into my ear, rocking me gently in your arms as I cried, that you wanted me dead.

You need me to die to be a good daughter for you. A good girl always obeys her mother, even if it kills her. That's what you would say.

I remember every time you said I wasn’t a nice girl. Or when you said I was a terrible daughter. You told me about Pearl. Your new daughter. It sounds like she’s special to you, but you and I both know you don’t care about her, not one bit. You haven’t changed at all.

I was nodding along when you held me before, like an idiot. Did you want to kill me yourself to spare me from being hanged? A part of me thinks this way. You looked at me with such pity, yet there was not an ounce of compassion. You were disgusted by me, and my hair, fading from the roots back into the black I was born with, that you gave me.

That’s when you offered to braid my hair. And I said yes, but only to remember one last time, what your sharp fingers feel like in my hair, the same as they were before, with more wrinkles. At least I shall die beautiful, I thought, when neither of us said a word to each other.

You will die a miserable old woman. I sat and pondered, letting you manipulate my head however you pleased, separating the strands perfectly. You’ll die knowing you lived your whole life in that dismal village, where control slipped away from you, again and again.

But me?

I won. I might have cried in front of you, but I escaped you in the end. Yes, it was you who made me cry then, and when I was a girl. You sowed the seeds in my head, that I was all at once, beautiful, horrible, special, useless, strong, selfish and twisted, the same way your mother had done to you, and hers before.

But when I was away from you, and father, and Iris, finally free as a butterfly, and not rooted to the ground like a flower, forever cursed to be admired, until cruelly plucked, I was so happy. My hair was a stark red, instead of boring black, and I could choose my own name. For a brief time I was Melissa Foster, who had no cowardly sister, no uncaring father, no prying step-sister and no cruel mother, and that was the happiest time of my life; my mind in my body, using it the way I wanted!

And I’ll be gone tomorrow. And when I do, I want you to know, that nothing of what I will do with my spirit is for you. This is the only time I will ever sincerely thank you, and it's for the fact that you taught me to live only for myself and no-one else. You taught me that I had to be selfish, if I was to ever attain my freedom. It’s only because of Mia Fey that my life is being cut short, and to hurt Maya is the only way I can hurt her now.

You are an evil, spiteful bitch, and my only regret is that people will think this of me, and compare us.

When that rope is around my neck tomorrow, and I make that final drop, my feet will finally be off the ground, and I’ll never cry, or wait, or be held down to earth again.

Farewell.

–Dahlia.