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Your daughter has just turned sixteen when you have to erase her memory. She begs for you not to, pleads for you to let her raise her newborn and be her mother.
But she’s just a kid. Far too young to have one of her own.
You blink away the tears as you cup her face in your hands and delve into her mind. Erase the last ten months of her life.
She goes limp in your arms when the spell is finished. You carry her back to her bed and tuck her in.
You can’t remember if you apologized before you began the enchantment.
—
Something is wrong.
It’s been days and your daughter hasn’t woken up yet. She should’ve after one day, two at the most.
You sit in a chair by her bed, wracking your brain. Did you mess up the incantation? Did you remove the memories incorrectly?
Or were you reaching beyond your magical prowess after years of arcane atrophy?
Not like you know. Not like it matters. Not like anything matters other than the fact that your daughter still hasn’t woken up.
You take your daughter’s hand in yours and lean into it. Plead to your family’s gods that you have long since forsaken. To anyone who can help wake her. You’ll devote yourself to them, you’ll never use magic again. You’ll do anything. As long as she wakes.
Your husband has to pull you away from her side—you’ve ignored everyone else—to remind you of your other daughter. Your newborn, who needs you too. Who needs you more.
You disagree with his use of the word “more,” on principle more than anything else. But he’s right. Juliana needs you.
So you sit up, kiss your daughter’s forehead and stroke her hair, and leave her side.
But you’ll be back every moment you can.
—
Days turn to weeks, weeks to months. No change.
Just her shallow, steady breathing. Her slowly deteriorating body.
You’re unable to care for her. Her staff tends to her, instead, keeping her alive and clean, while everyone waits.
While you wait to see if she ever wakes up.
You braid her hair and re-braid it when you visit. You can’t let her hair get matted, on top of everything.
Even this, they try to do for you. But you are insistent, persistent.
There’s nothing else you can do except wait.
—
Waiting is making you ill yourself. Caring for Juliana is the only thing keeping you sane. The only thing getting you out of bed in the morning. The only thing keeping you from doing something else you’ll regret.
Your husband cares for you. He has always looked out for you. Now, he reminds you to eat, to sleep, to take breaks from holding vigil at your daughter’s side, lest you join her in deteriorating.
Your husband holds you tight at night, trying to comfort you. He tells you that there’s no way you could’ve seen this coming. That it’s not your fault.
You don’t believe him. How could it be anything but your fault? You should’ve foreseen this, somehow. You wrack your brain each night for ways you could have known.
Even with your husband and your youngest helping, you don’t know how to live with yourself. Not when you might have condemned your daughter to permanent slumber. (You don’t know which is worse: that, or death.)
You have the lights in the home dimmed. You have the mirrors covered. You’re repulsed by your own image.
How could you have done such a thing to your world?
—
You want to tell your daughter you’re sorry. But you can’t. You don’t know if she can hear you. If she will wake up with the question sorry for what? on her mind.
It’s a risk you can’t take.
—
Five months after you erase her memory, your daughter wakes.
You don’t wait for the servant to finish the news. You don’t even pay attention to which servant has delivered the news.
You run straight for her room.
You should’ve waited. It would’ve let you prepare yourself.
Awake is not the same thing as lucid.
You find her restless in her bed when you arrive. You think she would be tossing and turning, thrashing, even, if not for the way her muscles have weakened over the last months. (It makes your stomach turn.)
You take her hand and say her name. She doesn’t seem to hear you. You say it again and again, stroking her hair and squeezing her hand. She still doesn’t hear you. She keeps muttering incomprehensibly, moving her head back and forth. Her muttering gets interrupted with sobbing, shaking, and various groaning noises.
You wonder if she even knows you’re by her side.
You can’t tell if it’s a good thing that she’s awake.
—
She’s like this for months.
Some days, she’s quiet, less restless. Other days, no one seems to be able to settle her.
Some days, her eyes remain open, and it seems, for a moment, like she might be coming back to herself. But her mind is far away.
Those days are the worst. You sit by her side and stare into her eyes, searching for any sign of her. For anything that could bring her back to you.
You try bringing Juliana around a few times to see if it helps. It’s not like you can forget how attached your daughter was to her before. You won’t forget that for as long as you live.
Bringing Juliana around only makes it worse, as it turns out.
You reintroduce her to her sister, and it’s the only thing that brings a change to her eyes. She’s still not herself, but there’s something there. Something that gives you hope and wrenches at the strings of your heart.
Then you have to take Juliana away for a nap and you regret ever taking her to her sister. As soon as she’s gone, your eldest’s condition regresses. Dramatically.
You watch your daughter convulse, hear indescribable noises of anguish escape her lips. You watch as any semblance of herself disappears from her eyes.
You don’t bring Juliana around her again.
—
Your daughter is seventeen when she’s finally lucid.
You don’t believe Laurie, one of her aides, at first when she tells you. You’ve started to resign yourself to this being the rest of your lives. You’ve started to come to terms with the loss of your daughter. And now she has finally returned.
You believe Laurie when you walk into your daughter’s room. You can feel it right down to your bones. You see her scanning the room as you approach. See her actually able to use her eyes finally. See them focus on you.
You’re still not sure how much she has lost, though.
You have to hold in the tears that are moments away from pouring down your face. You have to be strong for her.
How are you feeling, sweetheart? You ask her.
She whimpers before she can speak. For a moment, you worry she’ll never be able to speak to you again.
But she does.
I want…she begins. The slur of her words makes a sob rise in your throat. It kills you to hear her like this, but she’s speaking to you for the first time in over a year, and there’s nothing in the world that can top that.
to see…my… she continues.
You know in an instant she’s referring to Juliana. For a moment, you’re terrified that the next word out of her mouth is going to be “daughter.” That, after everything, the spell didn’t work at all.
The baby.
You’re so deeply relieved and saddened at the same time. It worked, but at what cost?
Your sister, you tell her.
My sister… you watch her absorb the word into her addled mind. Can I see her?
You hesitate. She’s finally back with you, and you can’t risk it happening again. You can’t risk losing her again. If you do, you don’t know that you’ll get her back again.
Do you think you can handle it? I don’t want to overwhelm you so soon.
You watch her try to process the words. She seems to understand some of it, but she can’t catch all of it. That worries you. She gets enough of it to reply:
Please.
You see her head shift. She’s trying to nod, but can’t. She can’t even nod.
It’s clear in her eyes how badly she wants to see her sister.
Okay, you say before you can think any longer about it. Before you can talk yourself out of it. I will go get her.
So you do. You stifle the tears to go retrieve Juliana from her room and bring her to meet her sister again.
As you walk, you think about how Juliana is the only thing your daughter seems to be able to remember. How she is the first thing she asked for.
You understand it, intimately. A mother’s love remains, even when the memory is erased. It’s the most obvious thing in the world, really.
You return to her side with Juliana in your lap.
What’s her name? she asks.
The tears threaten to down you.
You named her, sweetheart, you want to say.
Juliana, you say, instead.
Juliana squirms in your arms and tries to escape. To make it to her sister. To her mother.
You let her, and guide her onto your daughter’s chest. You watch your daughter laugh for the first time in ages.
You watch her try to sit up. You watch her barely move her head from the pillow; muscles too weak for any further movement. Even still, it disorients her.
You wonder how you’re still holding in the tears.
Take it easy, now, you tell her.
You watch her try to reach for Juliana. Watch her fingers twitch, but her arm remains still. You watch her start crying. You watch Juliana see this and crawl towards her face, grabbing at it, wondering what’s wrong. Grabbing at her hair. You watch your eldest laugh through her tears as her baby sister tries to comfort her.
You can’t take this.
You reach for Juliana to hand her to Laurie.
No, your daughter begs. I want her.
Juliana is agitated, too, when she is removed.
You can’t find the words to reassure her as you get up from your seat. You gently maneuver your arms under her and carefully raise her into a seated position. Then you climb into bed behind her and ease her into your arms.
It’s too familiar; how limp she is. The biggest difference is that she’s crying this time.
You gesture for Laurie to put Juliana in her lap. She settles when she’s placed in her sister’s lap.
Then you take your eldest’s hands in your own, intertwining your fingers, and you wrap them around your youngest. And you pull them both close.
Your daughter chokes on her sobs, caught between despair and relief. Eventually, you soothe both daughters this way.
You bury your face in your eldest’s shoulder.
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
It slips out as a whisper.
You hold them tighter and swear to yourself that you will never let anything happen to her again. To either of them.
Not as long as you still breathe.
—
You take as active a role in your daughter’s recovery as the staff will allow you to.
You sit with her while Justine takes her through strength training exercises.
You watch her struggle to move her limbs when Justine says to push her leg against her aide’s hand.
I said push, Justine chastises.
I am, your daughter protests.
She’s doing the best she can, you tell Justine.
You can’t help but hate yourself, in this moment, for everything you have taken from her. That this is her best, and it’s her best because of you.
Your daughter huffs in frustration and closes her eyes. She wants to give up.
You can’t let her give up. Not when she’s come so far, when she still has so long to go.
You run your hand through her hair. You tell her, You can do it. I believe in you.
She opens her eyes and looks at you. Any and all words are lost to you as you hold her gaze. You want to tell her that she will not be taking this journey alone. That you will be with her every step of the way.
You want to tell her that you’re sorry for doing this to her. More sorry than she could ever know.
All you can do is hold her gaze, swipe your thumb through her hair, and nod.
It’s enough for her to try again.
—
Maybe you should’ve had your husband let your daughter’s aide, Ana, go. Maybe then she wouldn’t have left the estate in tears.
In your defense, she said heinous things to your daughter. Implied that she had to earn the right to decide what clothing to wear. To decide anything about her care. As if being ill means she’s unworthy of agency.
(Agency you robbed her of, you remind yourself.)
You said some things to her that you don’t care to repeat.
In Ana’s defense… Actually, you’re not sure she has one.
You bitterly think that this could have been avoided if the staff ever let you help dress your daughter.
—
Your daughter insists on trying to get out of bed on her own. You’re not sure that she’s ready, but you have to let her try.
You stand a few footsteps away from the edge of the bed.
You watch as she slowly, shakily pushes herself off the bed. You have a fleeting moment of pride as she succeeds.
Then you watch one of her feet fall out from under her as she shifts her weight. You watch her fall too quickly for you to catch, but you try anyway.
The force of her body colliding into yours sends you both to the ground.
She’s crying before you can even ask her if she’s hurt.
You wonder if this was the gods’ condition for waking her. That she would lose the rest of her childhood to your illness anyway.
You feel that tidal wave in your throat again at the pain you have caused your daughter.
You wish you could turn back time and keep yourself from casting the spell. Whatever responsibility she’d have as Juliana’s mother would have to be better than this. Surely.
All you can do now is hold her shaking body while she sobs in your arms. And help her back up when she’s ready.
You lay on the floor with her for a while. You lose track of how long.
—
Your guilt is assuaged over time as your daughter’s condition improves.
Assuaged isn’t the right word, really. It will never truly lessen. You will always feel this guilt woven through your body as long as you live.
But it becomes easier to cope with. You’re finally able to lock it away in the corners of your mind as you watch your daughter become independent again.
As she is able to move about the house on her own, using only a cane to aid her balance. As she is able to pick up her little sister and play with her for the first time.
You watch her hold Juliana every opportunity she gets.
Your heart swells when you see her lift her sister in her arms and swing her in a circle. Even though she almost knocks herself over in the process.
You’re indescribably glad she can finally manage it.
—
Your daughter comes into your room in the middle of the night to ask to talk.
She asks you to come back to her room with her. She’s unsteady on her feet as she enters, even with her cane.
You offer her your arm to help steady her on the walk. She refuses. So you keep an eye on her as she goes, but you let do it herself.
When you arrive, you sit on her bed and wait for her to begin speaking. You note the shaking of her hands.
Your daughter is nineteen when she tells you she’s a man.
You take a moment to digest the news, looking him up and down. Reorienting how you view him, performing a nonmagical rewrite in your mind.
You take his shaking hands—you realize the tremors are from the fear he’s feeling. Not of you, but of the weight of what it means—and tell him it’s alright.
You call him your son for the first time and he bursts into tears. You wrap him in your arms and hold him until he’s no longer shaking.
Then he asks for your help in choosing a new name.
Of course, you tell him.
You run through all the male names you can think of from your childhood. From your home.
His favorite is Mavis.
It suits him.
—
Your son is twenty when he stops doing his strength exercises.
When you ask him why, he tells you he doesn’t need or want them anymore. You try to tell him that he still needs to do them, because he still hasn’t regained everything he lost.
You stop pushing him when you realize he’s stopped picking up Juliana. That’s when you put the pieces together. Juliana is growing faster than he can recover his strength.
You stop reminding him of his exercises.
Your husband keeps reminding him, until you convince him to lay off, too.
You have to fight to keep the guilt from rearing its head again.
—
Your son is twenty-two when you have a rapier custom-made for his birthday.
You watch him improve his balance over the years. You watch him train his endurance. You watch him chase Juliana around in all the ways two noble children should not be behaving. But you let him. Because you watch him become himself again.
You watch him pick up sword-fighting—only allowed to learn it once he is known as a young lord, rather than a young lady—and fall in love with it.
You and your husband have the rapier commissioned by your go-to blacksmith, Angela. You design most of it, instructing her to find the right balance between lightweight and durable.
You ask Juliana to draw a design for the hilt. She’s overcome with excitement to do so. Angela can only use the design as inspiration; Juliana has not refined her artistic skills enough at six years old to make a design that can be perfectly replicated.
Nonetheless, Mavis loves it.
It’s perfect, he says when you give it to him.
You recognize the unsaid thanks in his eyes.
Thank you for listening to me.
—
It’s been nineteen years since you erased your son’s memory; fifteen since you stopped regretting it.
You haven’t regretted it since. Until now.
Until you lose him. Until the world is collapsing around you. Until you’re choked by your own sobs. Until you’re on your knees in your husband’s arms.
Until he was murdered.
And you wonder: what might have happened if you hadn’t intervened all those years ago? If he’d never lost so much, only to gain a fraction of it back? If he’d been able to defend himself?
Would he still be alive?