I paced the room. The ticking clock, small yet repetitively annoying, echoed inside my head. The rain pattered on the windowpanes like tiny fingers.

All these sounds that I couldn't stop… everything so… loud…

I sat in an 扶手椅 由 the crackling 火, 消防 as my eyes scanned the room around me. Forest green walls, a spiral staircase to my left, the living room was the same yet so different from before. There was an emptiness in the chamber and in my head and soul that had always been filled 由 her.

And now…

I sighed and closed my eyes. My fair hair trickled behind me like a waterfall. Her hair.

"WHY DID 你 TAKE HER AWAY!?" I suddenly screamed at the high ceiling. "WHAT DID SHE EVER DO!?"

"Ms. Roland?" A timid voice made me whip toward the door. "Are—are 你 all right?"

"Physically? I'm fine. Emotionally? Doubtful. Mentally?" I sighed. "It's hard to tell anymore, Felix." I rested my elbows on the desk.

The small, balding man nodded sadly. "Do 你 need anything? I-I mean, 食物 或者 water?" he corrected himself when I cringed.

"No. I'm fine."

He came and sat 下一个 to me. "We all feel your pain, Ms. Roland. Your father especially."

I kept my head in my hands. "I don't think anyone understands the connection that a daughter has with her mother. Not even the daughter's father. No one can perceive it the way I do."

His eyebrows crinkled. "Just remember, Leah. I am like family to 你 as well."
He left the room as quietly as he had come, not letting even the huge oak door creak.

It was not until twelve hours later that I shed the first tear.

"I'm sorry."

My hand shook as my cherry-and-phoenix-feather wand lowered to my side. "Now she won't be lonely."

I swallowed hard. "Now she has someone to talk to."

My breathing was ragged. "Now 你 can be family to my mother, Felix."

The old man lay on the floor, eyes unseeing, glasses crooked, mouth open in surprise.

I knelt down on the floor 下一个 to Felix's body.

And I tasted the salty sweetness of grief turning into insanity in the form of a single tear.