A Tale of Shadows - THE OUTDATED VERSION

Chapter 19 - Reassurance

All that happened in the previous three days meant that Griselda was separated from her mother yet again. Once more, she thought of herself as nothing more than a stain in an already ugly environment, undeserving of happiness or love. She hated it when she woke up from her dreams, and she could hardly stand up from her bed. Shortly realising that she couldn't keep behaving like this, she went to the first adult she thought of that could help her in some way.

When she entered Susanne's room after knocking, she saw that the old woman was sitting in one of her four chairs made of birch, drinking her chamomile tea from a small porcelain cup with flower patterns, looking darkly at her visitor. It wasn't exactly nice for her to see, but at least she was relieved to know that it wasn't because she was Melinda's daughter, for she saw the woman being in a dark mood a bit before she noticed who her visitor was.

"Hello, young lady. What do you want?" she said in a raspy voice, waking her up from her thoughts.

Griselda let out a deep sigh. "Madam May, I'm not sure if you'd understand how I'm feeling, but I suppose I could tell you a little something anyway. After all, it's not been easy for me to acknowledge my problems, and at least I'm trying to solve them, an important part of which is talking to others since illnesses of the mind aren't something one should deal with on their own."

Susanne nodded energetically. "Go ahead. I suppose it couldn't do you any harm."

Griselda smiled widely for a moment. "Thank you. Anyway, as I was saying, my relationship with my mother has always been complicated. She does nice things for me, sure, but there are times when her behaviour was strange, to say the least. By the way, I assume you've read Theresa's book?"

Susanne frowned. "Yes, I've read her book, and I truly can't comprehend how one woman can do so many evil deeds. I've always thought ill of you on some level just because you're her daughter, which I'm really sorry for, but now I understand how difficult everything must've been for you. No child should ever have to go through what you went through. So, apparently, there's something new about that? I don't mean to rush you, as I see from your face that you're still rather hesitant about confessing your feelings to others, I'm simply curious."

Wandering through her thoughts, Griselda thoroughly studied the room, wondering how she'd never been there before, discarding that thought rather quickly and focusing on the objects there instead. There were a lot of books bound in nice leather of various colours, and fancy furniture as well, but there were also a couple of things that really stood out to her.

On the wall across from her, instead of an expensive painting being framed, there were pinned butterflies, big and small, dark and bright, in far grander numbers than Griselda could count on one hand. 

On the nightstand, there was a beige ceramic vase with black orchids in it, and where most people wouldn't notice anything peculiar about that, she'd been taught about the symbolic meanings of flowers since a young age because of her mother's vast fondness towards them, leaving her to wonder if the choice was intentional or not. 

Death, pain, neverending despair, evil, sadness, all those hideous things. The flowers were beautiful to her, and they must've been beautiful to Susanne as well, but if it was a coincidence, it was an unfortunate one. During every second she thought about those flowers, she remembered her mother more and more deeply, and her face went pale and her eyes went wide.

"Why are you staring at those flowers so intently?" Susanne said, waking her up from her thoughts.

She laughed awkwardly. "It's nothing, I assure you. I just wandered through my mind a little. Anyway, my mother's caused me a lot of trouble, which I've had a hard time admitting to myself. I may have written about her atrocities in Theresa's book, but I feel like I shouldn't have inserted my part there.