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For me, however, it often feels cruel. Like my father is still here and yet unable to help me with my mother, a weight that is mine alone to carry on shoulders that feel far too weak these days.

“I’ll be leaving soon,” I say to my mother, my voice soft and flat, talking to her as if she’s a wild animal I don’t want to spook.

“Going where?” she asks absently.

“To university,” I say with patience. “Across the water. To Collegia Mortis, remember? I’ll be back by the end of the week, perhaps sooner, and Gibson will be here in the meantime.”

She turns her head slightly to look at me and, for just a second, it’s as if a door is opening somewhere far back inside her mind, light and clarity spilling in.

“The Mortis…” she begins and then her gaze tightens, that clarity shining through. “They’ve got our dead in those walls. We’re all in the walls.”

“What?” I ask, my heart lurching at her words.

“Don’t let them know what you are,” she says and suddenly she’s gripping my hand painfully tight, her strength making my breath catch, her eyes wild as they search my face. “You stay hidden. For all our sake, or they’ll put you in the walls too.”

And then as quickly as it came on, the strength bleeds out of her and her hand and expression go slack. She looks back toward the water, gazing in the same direction as my father’s skull.

I sit there with my pulse going wild, waiting for her to come back. But she doesn’t.

“You should take your gold one,” she says, her voice dull and flat again.

“My gold what?” I ask, my heart still going like a frightened rabbit in my chest.

“The shawl. It’s going to be a cold one tonight,” she says. “You always did underdress, Morena.”

And there it is. I hear it so often, and yet it hits me like a pile of bricks every time.

I’ve learned how to handle it over the years. I know I shouldn’t correct her, that I shouldn’t say I’m Saturna, your eldest daughter, and Morena’s been dead five years. And I don’t go on and add And so has Papa, and we were all there when it happened, don’t you remember? How can you forget that horrible, unspeakable day where my world ended and our lives changed for the worse? It only angers her, because in those moments, my little sister is alive, or my father is, or perhaps her mind has stumbled upon a perfect world set five years ago where they both are and everything is fine and good and back to normal.

I envy her more than pity her, truly. The fact that she can look at my father’s skull and not get what it is and what it means is something I wish I could bottle into a potion and drink. Alas, I’m not that talented of a witch.

But I hope by the time I’m finished with my studies at Collegia Mortis, I’ll become a talented enough necromancer to bring my father and sister back. I don’t tell her that, of course.

I never tell anyone that.

I pat my mother’s hand and get the gold shawl off its hook and wrap it around my dark brown dress, the gold making the deep wine tones of my hair shine. I stir my tea and take a seat by my mother on the worn couch, taking in the room, the cozy fire that blazes against the early morning chill and the fog that creeps up from the water. I blink back tears and try to keep my emotions in check.

We sit in silence as I drink my tea, my mother humming occasionally, a tune that my father would play on the fiddle. When I’ve finished the dregs of it, peering down at the pattern that the tea leaves left in the cup and deciding it’s no help to me, I throw another log on the fire, then I walk back over to her and kiss her on the cheek.

“I’m going now,” I tell her. “Gibson is taking me to Bracken Cove so I can catch the ferry. I’ll be back by week’s end.”

She doesn’t move. I pull back and watch her anxiously. I swear, if she starts crying or acting distraught or asks me to stay, I will. I’ll unpack my trunk and write a letter to the school to cancel my studies.

But she doesn’t. Instead she slowly looks up at me and gives me a weak smile.

“Be a good girl,” she says. “And don’t let them make you feel small. Remember who you are deep down.”

I swallow the lump in my throat. “I promise.”

“Good.” Her free hand finds my hair and goes through it the way it did when I was a little girl, catching in the tangle at the back where it always knots. “Better tell your sister, so she knows that you’re gone.”

“I will.”

I kiss the top of her head and try not to breathe her in.

I’m always so afraid I’ll catch a whiff of death.

I say goodbye to the chickens, giving them extra corn and telling them to not forget me and to watch over the house while I’m gone. Then I hurry after Gibson who has walked ahead of me, lugging my trunk. I’d help Gibson with the trunk if I could but strength is not my forte, despite having wide shoulders, thick thighs, and an even bigger behind. I merely look like I’m someone who could wrestle an ox.