Necromancer's Curse

Chapter Four

"Maylis," my mother called. "Maylis, it's time to wake up, sweetie. The sun's up; you said you'd help me with chores today." She knew that all it took for me to wake up was her saying my name. Even then, I kept my eyes shut and pretended as if I was asleep. I had no reason to pretend since once she woke me up I was normally wide awake, however I was a greedy child and sometimes my mother would sweeten the pot for me to open my eyes and stop pretending.

"Oh well," she said as she got up off of our bed. "I guess I won't be able to take you to go see the magician since you're too tired to help me." My eyes opened when I heard those words leave her mouth. I was incredibly fascinated with magic and the town we lived in was commonly visited by a young man who would perform a puppet show with a single puppet using magic. Even though he performed often, I was convinced I would die inside if I missed a single one of his shows.

"No!" I shouted as I sat up in an instant before crawling across the bed and clinging onto my mother's shirt. "I wanna go!" My mother laughed. She knew I was pretending; she almost always did.

"Then you need to help me do a few things before we go," she teased. "Come on, Maylis." She lifted me off the bed and put me down by her side as we left, going downstairs to begin whatever it was she needed to do before we were free to go watch the magic show.

When I was younger it always stunned me what our house looked like early in the morning. The sun was always in the perfect spot so that it shined through the several windows throughout the house, reflecting off of the polished wood floors and walls in a way that created a magnificent sight. There were also various plants around in the perfect spots. It felt as if my mother knew how pretty everything looked in this light and tried to maximise the beauty offered to her. She made everything fit perfectly; there wasn't a single thing throughout the house that didn't add to the amazing look in the morning.

Every time I pointed out how spectacular the house looked she told me she had always wanted to add more. She had ideas of pushing the nature theme the house held even further, she told me about it every single time I brought it up; she said my father was going to help with that. Maman always told me about how he had always tried his hardest to make her as happy as she could ever be; the way that this house looked was so important to her that she wanted to continue adding onto it until it was as perfect as their love for one another.

That day my mother had wanted us to go out in the garden and pick all of the ripe fruits and vegetables so that she could decide what she was going to make for dinner. We were running out of food and due to losing the one job that'd accept women workers which she could find there was no way for us to buy more. Even so, I was ignorant towards all of that. I just did what maman had told me to do and helped her in every way that I could. Maybe I was too young to grasp that we were in a bad situation. My mother had never showed any kind of distress except for the night she came home late and told me she got fired.

She used a lot of big words I couldn't understand and she cried more than I had ever seen her cry for as long as I could recall, which admittedly was not very long back. It wasn't rare for me to think back then and wish I could understand so I could at least tell her something to cheer her up. All I could do was let her hug me and rub her back as she told me the long story in panic. Since then she had always been positive. She always had a smile on her face and every time I begged for a toy or asked why we didn't have food or why there was less to eat for every meal compared to normal she never yelled at me or snapped. She always apologised to me with a welcoming and warm tone before explaining that we couldn't afford it since we didn't have any money.

It didn't take long for me to stop asking. It wasn't as if I had ever thrown a fit since I couldn't get something I wanted, so it didn't change much. I just always knew the answer— No. Sometimes I wish I could have helped. I wish I could have told her that it was okay since I would help her.