After a mid-morning nap Izzy stumbles out of her room clad in leggings and a unicorn t-shirt. She ventures outside to find her dad plucking weeds from the window boxes.
"How was your nap darling daughter?"
"How long must I relegate myself to low intensity activities? I feel energetic enough to assist with some of the chores."
"Izzy you have to take it easy for a couple of days. I'm sorry you're growing restless. Perhaps you could dig some board games out of the cupboard."
"To play with whom, exactly? HB has vanished without a word," she hangs her head. Izzy furrows her brow, and kicks the dirt with the toe of her purple muck boot.
"Then again this isn't a fairytale, is it?"
"She's returned to Cackles," he begins.
In a cloud of irritation Izzy cuts him off, "I assumed that much."
"The attitude is not required Miss Jones. Your mum has simply returned to Cackles to acquire some personal affects. She has agreed to stay while you recover so I can tend to the necessary chores. Perhaps you should give her the benefit of the doubt."
"It seems a bit difficult when she was MIA for over a decade."
He pulls wipes the dirt from his hands onto the leg of his pants.
"Izzy you have the right to any emotions you are experiencing. If you are angry perhaps you should tell her instead of acting cross with me."
"I am cross with you," Izzy grumbles.
"What have I done?"
"You could have told me before I went to Cackles. You had every opportunity to tell me the truth, and you didn't. A whole host of decisions were made in regards to my life without ever consulting me."
"All future efforts will include your input in decision making."
"Are you certain she is my mother? I don't look like her."
"I can produce the DNA test if it would put your mind at ease."
"DNA test? What DNA test?"
"It is a standard procedure to establish paternity. A sample is collected from the mother as well."
"Oh."
"I was present at your birth. I can vouch for her."
Hecate suddenly appears beside Dave with an arched brow, and a perfectly placed hat. A small wheeled bag gently caresses the ground.
"I find myself fully capable of defending myself."
Hecate finds herself relegated to a corner scrawling absentmindedly in her lesson planner as Izzy sits nearby with her nose in a book, wholly ignoring her presence. Hecate closes her book, and clears her throat. Izzy's hazel eyes drift in her direction.
"Do you need something?"
"I will not be upset if you prefer to bathe in your anger."
Izzy places her book on her lap. She furrows her brow, and considers what is being said.
"I don't know where I stand with you. It just feels as if you've made this trip out of a sense of obligation. Sometimes I can't help but wonder if you ever really wanted me, or if the concrete set of moral and ethical absolutes you practice prevented you in taking any other action."
"I always wanted you. Unfortunately after you were born I found myself in the midst of a deep dark tempest. At the time the only solution I could find was to entrust you to your father's care."
"More than a decade has passed since then."
She offers a labored exhalation. "I suppose I worried you wouldn't accept me. I have not been known to be the most maternal of characters. You deserved the best, and I was never entirely convince that I could provide you with that."
"It seems like your presence is temporary. What happens when school resumes? Do things return to the way that they were? Both of us pretend that I am nothing more than your pupil? I am not entirely satisfied with the majority of superficial exchanges about the tidiness of my hair, or the laces of my boots."
"Step forward, mistress," she insists with the wag of a finger.
Izzy vacates her seat, and crosses the room. She stops a pace away from Cackle's most venerable instructor.
"I have," she pauses, "never, and would never in this eternity, or the next stop loving you. There is not a force in nature, or a work of magic that is capable of causing it to waiver," she explains as she rises from her seat.
Izzy furrows her brow as Hecate seems to lunge in her direction, "What are you doing?"
"It is referred to as a hug."
Izzy melts in her arms. Hecate holds her close hoping that the moment will not slip away like so many others before. Eventually she releases Izzy from her restraint. Izzy tilts her chin upward in Hecate's direction.
"Perhaps my skill level for tidy hairstyles is lacking because it hasn't been influenced by a mother's touch."
"Have a seat," Hecate directs her gently.
Izzy sits in Hecate's seat unmoved as a set of long slender fingers expertly separate layers of her hair. In the blink of an eye her hair is secured into an immaculate braid. As she finishes her hand comes to rest on Izzy's forehead momentarily.
"Isabella do you have a thermometer nearby? I fear you may have developed a fever."