The Missing Piece

I always thought there was something missing in my life, a piece of myself I hadn’t discovered yet. Something empty that needed to be filled. I always thought it was emotional or physical or I was crazy. I thought it was a part of growing up. Never did I think it was fantastical. My life was ordinary, I was ordinary. Every night since my mother died, I had been getting these nightmares of her death, but not the way it happened. She died of breast cancer. Only, in my nightmares it was different. It wasn’t a sickness, but a murder. And I was forced to watch.

Every time I woke up from that dream, I had to remind myself what really happened. She died from cancer, she died from cancer, she died from cancer. These words became constant in my brain, only increasing my already present grief. But those nightmares felt real. She died of cancer, she died of cancer, she died of cancer. After one of those horrible dreams, in the middle of the night, I slipped into my parent's room. My father wasn’t there, of course, he was getting drunk at the bar and wouldn’t stumble home till two the way he always did after my mother died. 

I went to the chest at the foot of the bed, the one that was always locked, the one I had no interest in opening until now. I did not know what was in the chest, only I woke that night with a key in my hand, and the only other locked place in our house, besides the door, was my father’s empty liquor cabinet. I had no intention of opening that, because surely, if I was found out, it wouldn’t be pretty, no matter the fact that it was only empty bottles in there.

I stuck the key in the lock, not certain it would open the chest, but it slid it into place and as I turned it, the faint click of the lock sounded. I loosed a heavy breath. Pulling the key out, I got on my knees and lifted the lid. I always thought there were old pictures and scrapbooks and junk in there. At least, that’s what I was told. But that’s not what I found. 

In the oak chest, at the end of the four-poster bed that stank of alcohol, were strange objects which I had never seen. There were several glass vials with liquid that seemed to create light, a dusty, beaten down book that had to be very old, but most of all, there was a little wooden box, with a painted fox on it. 

The box seemed familiar but I couldn’t quite place it, so I picked it up and set it in my lap. Slowly and carefully, I lifted the lid. Inside where some old photos of my mother, father, and I in a place I had no recollection of. At the center of the box was an amulet with a ruby as red as blood, in the center, wrapped in golden wire, on a golden chain. It pulsed, called my name, so being the natural-born idiot I am, I picked it up and put it on. As I settled the ruby on my chest, stabbing, aching pain ricocheted through my body, down my spine, and out my fingertips, as picture after picture flooded into me. I tried to scream but no sound came out and I curled into a fetal position on the floor as the pain increased, as more forgotten moments overflowed my brain. My body trembled, my stomach convulsing.

As the pain subsided, I lay there, sprawled on the ground, releasing my clenched muscles. There was too much to process but one thing was for sure: that empty feeling was gone and my body, my conscious floated with lightness. There was a new thrumming in my veins that I couldn’t name or understand. Then the pictures I was shown. My nightmares but more. 

A younger, more delicate me, sitting in my mother’s lap, big, beaten down book open in front of us. A family tree of my mother’s family. Strange symbols were written all over. My mother pointing at each one and telling me the meaning. Her holding a withered rose. Light glowing from her fingertips, as she brought it back to its former glory. Her holding her palm out and instructing me to do the same. Water droplets appeared on her hand, then a puddle. My brow furrowed in concentration as a single drop appeared on my thumb. My father laughing as I stomped my foot in frustration. A blood-red, ruby hanging from a gold chain around her neck.

All happy moments. Until… 

One night, in early June, I jerked awake to the sound of my mother shouting. She was telling me something but I was too tired and fearful to know what to do. Then there was a gentle, soothing voice telling me it was okay to come out and that I was safe, followed by muffled shouting. 

I was only eleven and frightened and I opened my bedroom door. I saw my mother on her knees, hands chained behind her back, a gag over her mouth, my father unconscious on the floor, a cut on his forehead. Several men in black suits were holding my mother down. I remembered thinking that she could use her magic and she would be fine but the chains were made of iron, which stops the flow of magic until removed. 

A woman who looked like my mother, but older, stepped forward. She had a big scar that ran from the corner of her right eye, down her face and neck, and disappeared beneath her jacket. She was smiling at me kindly, but I could tell by my mother's face and current position that she was not someone to trust. 

“Hello darling,” she said, her voice raked nails down my spine, “Why don’t you come with us? We’ll take good care of you.” She waved me forward. “Everything will be all right.”

“What about my mother? Are you going to hurt her?” I asked, my voice quivered. 

“No, of course not. But it definitely won’t be pleasant.” She glanced back at my mother and I used that moment of distraction to my advantage. I leaped out with my little, untrained magic, trying to hurt her, get her down. All I managed to do was give her a small pinprick that leaked blood on her forehead before a man appeared behind me and clamped iron chains around my wrists. 

“You little brat!” the woman barked, as she wiped the blood off her face. 

My mother shouted, barely understandable and to anyone else, they would have thought she was screaming. But I heard her. 

“Run, Amethyst!” But before I could, I was hit on the back of the head. When I awoke, I was chained to the chair, wrapped in iron, and unable to move. There was a window in front of me and before the window was my mother, chained to a table in the same iron. 

She was unconscious and surgeons were cutting her open. I knew what they were doing. What they were looking for. Something precious to steal or learn about. Probably the former. This world was corrupt. Any smell of power caused feeding frenzy, a fight to the death, to ruin. 

I screamed and I screamed but no one heard me. I prayed, but nothing happened. Soon, my throat was raw and I couldn’t make a single sound. I cried hot, ugly, silent tears. After several hours, the lady with the scar came in. Her gait was stalking, like a predator.

“Hello, darling. How are you?” she asked sweetly. 

“What do you want?” I asked, my voice barely a hoarse whisper.

“What do I want?” she laughed. “I think you know want I want. And you’re going to give it to me.” 

“I’m sorry but you’ll have to explain yourself. I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I snapped. 

“Those surgeons can keep cutting her up until they find what they are looking for, or you could tell me now and you and your mother will return home safely. But without the magic.” 

“If you take her magic, she will die.”

“Will she? I don’t particularly care  if she goes home dead or alive. Until you give me what I want, you will stay here, forced to watch.” With that, she walked out of the room and slammed the door behind her. As soon as that door closed, a green smoke started filling the room, filling my lungs and darkness came. 

Every day, they would wake me up long enough to watch my mother. I knew they were watching me too, I could feel eyes on me but I didn’t care. I wasn’t hungry either, they must have fed and watered me at some point and let me relieve myself because I felt no need to do anything but cry. Maybe it was the smoke, the smoke that filled the room each time they were done. I lost count of the hours, days, years. 

After many times of watching, I wanted her to die. I wanted her to die after I realized there was nothing I could do to help my mother or myself. I wanted her to die after I understood that plotting and wishing were futile. Death would be a blessing, a gift.

My whole body ached, but no doubt anything like what my mother was facing. Feeling. 

It was the same thing over and over. Chain, cut, smoke, repeat. Chain, cut, smoke, repeat. Chain, cut, smoke, repeat. Over and over and over and over. There was nothing I could do. I was helpless and I hated myself for that. 

When I awoke, one of many times, I was still chained to the chair, but instead of the surgery room and table on the other side of the glass, there was my mother on her knees, iron shackles on every limb and pooled around her. A man in a suit was holding her down. 

I heard a gasp from my left and I turned to see my father chained to a similar chair as me. We looked at each other, fear filling our eyes, then back to my mother. She must have been able to see us because she was looking at me directly, tears slipping down both of our faces. She nodded and mouthed my name as a silent goodbye. The man holding her down raised a knife to her throat. 

“Are you going to willingly hand over your magic and spare your life?” he asked. 

“No. Either way, I will die!” My mother spat. 

“Then you deserve what is coming to you.” 

“I deserve none of this and—” She didn’t get to finish her sentence before the man swiped the knife, slitting her throat, and letting the body slump to the ground. My voice was hardly more than a hoarse scream. I screamed and so did my father. I sobbed and so did my father. I felt my mother’s magic pass to me, filling me up, and making it unbearable as I understood what was happening. Then, green smoke started to fill the room and I felt complete and utter despair and I didn’t give a crap if the whole world burnt in hell. 

When I awoke, I was lying on the surgery table, chained down with surgeons hovering above me. 

“We are going to take away memories,” one of them said simply. 

“Why?” I asked, my voice broken from sobs. 

“So you don’t have to endure the pain.” 

“Why do you care?” I didn’t say it sharply. The looks of pity in their eyes took me by surprise but they put the mask over my mouth and nose. Then darkness.