"MORGAN! Come here a minute, will you?"
Morgan rolled her eyes as she walked into her bedroom, where her mother was currently rooting around in her closet. She didn't understand what her mother's fascination with spring cleaning was all about. As long as she knew where everything was in her room, why did it matter if it looked a little messy to the casual observer? It's not like anybody besides a handful of nonjudgmental friends ever stepped foot in there anyway.
Okay, so the piles of old and dirty clothes that had begun accumulating in her closet was making the space a little difficult to navigate, but as long as she could manage, what was the problem?
"What's up, Mom?"
"I can't find Mama Eve's hat- you know, the yellow one with the flower on it? It was in here somewhere…"
Morgan's blood ran cold. She knew the hat that her mother was referring to, and she knew exactly why her mother was having trouble locating it.
Nonetheless, the teenage girl tried to keep her tone casual as she replied.
"I'm sure it's in there. Just keep looking, you'll find it soon enough. And that's what you get for storing all your crap in my room in the first place, really. I've got enough stuff to store in here as it is without you stuffing all your stupid antiques in too."
"I've looked everywhere! And can you at least help me look? Make yourself useful instead of spending all day on that stupid computer!"
"Mom, I've been doing my homework on there! Stop bugging me about that already!"
"That picture of your favorite Monstermon didn't look much like homework to me."
Morgan sighed and stomped her way into the walk-in closet, lazily throwing clothes from side to side in an effort to look like she was searching for a hat that she knew would never be found.
A few minutes passed as the two silently knelt side by side and sorted the piles of clothing that took up half of the closet's floor space. Finally, her mother spoke up again.
"Are you even trying to sort this stuff? Your piles look as crumpled as before you dealt with them. It wouldn't surprise me if you've been looking through the same few pieces of clothing this whole time. When I say I want your help, I mean that I want you to actually try to help, you know that?"
"I am trying, Mom! You're such a… such a…" Morgan tried and failed to think of an insult that would adequately capture her distaste towards her mother's conduct without being so mean or offensive that she would get in trouble for saying it.
The two made eye contact for the first time since Morgan had entered the room, and her mother sighed and shook her head.
"Morgan, let me give you a piece of motherly advice: never play poker."
"What does that mean?"
"It means that you have the world's worst poker face. I can tell something's up." Her mother gave her one of those pointed, guilt-inducing looks that only mothers seemed able to pull off. "Now, be honest with me. What's going on that you aren't telling me?"
Morgan's shoulders slumped as she stared at the floor of the closet, which was covered in dust bunnies and some indeterminate but disgusting form of grime. "I traded away the hat." the girl mumbled.
"You WHAT?"
Her mother stood up, and Morgan was acutely reminded of how much taller her mother was than her. She hoped that another growth spurt was just around the corner, so that her mother would have one less intimidation factor up her sleeve.
"It was just sitting around here collecting dust, and you haven't bothered looking for it in years, and we have like a dozen like it just sitting in the basement and it's a stupid ugly hat anyway, so why do you even give a fuck?"
The teenager realized immediately after uttering that last word that she had made a terrible mistake.
"Young lady, you do not use that kind of language in this house!"
"…sorry, Mom."
"What was that?"
"I said I'm sorry, Mom! Jeez!"
"…what did you even trade it for, anyway? What was so important that you had to trade away one of the only things left from your great-grandmother to get it?"
Morgan sighed and ran to the box of hats that sat in the far corner of her room, digging around in it until retrieving the object in question, a miniature top hat that hovered as she held it in the palm of her hand. "This."
"…what is that? And where did you get it?"
"I made a deal with Alcor because I really wanted a hat like his floating top hat and I wasn't really sure what he'd want for it but I figured demons like antiques and memories and stuff and I figured we could let go of one of those old hats in exchange for a really cool unique one like this but I didn't tell you about it because I knew you'd be mad about it even though you have no good reason to care that much really…"
"You better believe I'm mad!" Her mother walked over to Morgan's side and snatched the top hat out of her hand.
"Mom, give it back!"
Morgan's mother put one hand on her hips, the other still firmly grasping the top hat. "I'm not letting you keep something that you got by trading one of our family keepsakes away to a demon! I'm giving away this demon hat, and that's final!"
"But Mom, that's not fair!"
"I'll tell you what's not fair! You giving away that hat of Mama Eve's behind my back isn't fair! You making a deal with a demon isn't fair! Giving away this hat that you got in exchange for something that you had no right to trade away? That seems perfectly fair to me!"
And with that, her mother left the room, slamming the door behind her. Morgan could hear the car starting up, and she knew in her gut that her mother was going to go fulfill her threat.
Her hard-earned prize had been snatched away from her without warning.
The teenage girl refused to come down for dinner that night or even leave her room, no matter how much her parents told her that she was being ridiculous and that it was only a hat. She cried herself to sleep that night, thinking of how unfair and unreasonable her parents were, and how much she hated them for taking away her stuff and altogether ruining her life. And no, it wasn't just 'a teenage phase', she knew better than that, she knew better than her parents about everything. How had she managed to get settled with such a bunch of idiots as her family?
As the sun's early morning rays streamed in through her window, inviting her to start over by beginning a fresh new day, Morgan groaned and covered her head with a pillow. Her head hurt, her mouth was dry, her stomach grumbled… and it was all her parents' fault. Somehow. She couldn't quite figure out the chain of causality that led from her parents to her current uncomfortable physical condition, at least not while her brain was still so fogged after just waking up, but it was definitely their fault, one way or another.
After a few minutes of tossing and turning, Morgan tossed her pillow to the floor and sat up, finally accepting that she wasn't going to be able to get any more sleep this morning, even though she still felt tired enough to sleep all day. She looked around the room, bleary-eyed, trying to decide whether the day seemed promising enough to be worth getting out of bed.
Her eyes fell onto the far end of her bed, where her feet were poking out from the blankets. She blinked a few times and rubbed her eyes, but the vision in front of her did not change.
At the foot of her bed was a small black top hat floating about an inch above the covers.
Her top hat. The one her mother had so callously stolen from her the day before.
But… how…?
Morgan shot up and reached towards the top hat. She could feel its silky fabric pushing against the dry skin of her fingers as she clutched it, trying to ascertain whether this was just a happy dream.
She bit the side of her cheek. Pain was supposed to wake you up from dreams, right? But she didn't wake up, and the top hat remained in place, as if it had no reason to be otherwise.
It took her a few minutes of joyous and confused contemplation to understand how her precious hat had come back.
She had asked for a hat just like Alcor's own, in action as well as in appearance.
And Alcor's top hat wouldn't desert him for good, would it?
Morgan gave the hat a tight embrace, as if it were a beloved pet rather than a mere piece of clothing, and hummed happily to herself, content with the knowledge that she would never have to be apart from her floating top hat ever again.