Sometime after that day, I found myself going into the Mistress' office. The last time I had gone in that room was when Nui and I had rescued our little sister, the one she abused. It felt alien that I would even go into that room but something prompted me to. It was an instinct, I could come to say, and probably her ghost possessing me to go into that room. As I had went into the room, I felt an immense amount of guilt and sorrow, which beyond the distant melancholy I had been feeling for some time. I cannot seem to describe exactly how strong the feeling was but I could say it was almost sickening.

Either way, I had walked into the office, closing the door behind me. I found myself, almost as if prodded, going to the bookshelf. On the bookshelf, laying flat, was a book. At first, I thought it was some kind of novel but I found myself wrong once I wiped the dust off. Some things I've come to expect but this was something I would have never expected.

The book I had found was the Mistress' diary.

I wasn't very keen on reading it but something told me to. I wanted to put the book down but my hands refused. By this point, I was willing to accept that, somehow, our mother was possessing me. I can't be for sure if that was the case but, if she was, then she wanted me to know something. Whatever she wanted me to know was in her diary and she wanted me read it.

I opened it to the first page, apparently being around the time I was born,

May 12th,

I had a little girl a few days ago. She's beautiful, I won't deny. I'm not going to lie about this and it seems odd but I feel I cannot take care of her. Soichiro thinks otherwise and he might be right but I still feel like I cannot take care of her. I don't know why this is but I assume this to be postpartum depression or some form of it. Fact is, as much I seem to love her, I cannot seem to shake this feeling. The doctor and my husband told me the feeling will pass eventually and that this sort of thing is normal, doubly since this is my very first child.

At least, Soichiro's here to help me through it.

-Ragyo.

I knew my parents really loved each other, very much so, at one point. Going by this entry, I would assume that she was troubled by the feelings she was experiencing. She seemed to want very much to connect with her offspring but her feelings got in the way and she didn't know why or how.

I read through the diary with entries detailing her, our father, and us but, as the entries went on, her once warm and kind feelings turned to bitterness as she notes that her and our father had grown distant, as he focused less on her and more on other matters, us, Nui and I, included. I continued to read until I came across an entry that stuck out. It was the second to last entry and, frankly, it seemed she wanted me to read it.

January 2nd

This is not fortunate. No, not at all. I am pregnant again and the marriage I have isn't the same. He doesn't know I am carrying, then again, he spends so much time away from home! My marriage is falling apart and I am carrying another. I an a little over a month pregnant and I am not sure what to do but I can tell this one wants to live, whether or not I want it to. I know he plans to divorce me in so little time and he'll probably take the children away. Should I give birth in that span of time, he'll take this one, too. I'll keep this one to myself and I won't let him have it

Oh, he thinks I'm acting strange and he told me that's he worried about the children. He asked to me to seek help and we argue frequently. I don't need any help, yet, if I did, then is he so insistent on abandoning me and taking the children with him. I will do just fine taking care of them, by myself, thank you, and I don't need any sort of help. I think he plans on locking me away, just so he can have the kids.

I won't let him know about this one and I will not allow him to lock me away.

-Ragyo.

I didn't know what to think of that. I always figured something was off about the Mistress-our mother-but we couldn't question otherwise. I felt such an overwhelming pain that sent me to my knees and that grief and sadness grew stronger. I suppose I had an explanation as to why she had turned cruel but I am not sure if I can call it a sufficient explanation. I couldn't make sense of it, really. Our father cared about her, cared enough to suggest that she'd get help to deal with her issues, to get well of whatever illness he thought she had. He wanted to keep us safe from her and her erratic behavior. Some pieces started to fall into place, as I remembered one such episode of hers. A memory, it seems, I had long suppressed.

She had lashed out, as I recall. She was rambling and screaming and it was shortly, about a day, after our father left. Nui had ducked under the bed. It was the one time I didn't remember to hide or flee. No, I didn't do either one, I just stood there, in the hallway, in front of our room. Rei was at the bottom of the stairs and she-the Mistress- was coming right for me.

I don't remember much else but I was slapped and, after about a few seconds, I awoke tasting blood and Nui dabbing my lip.

I never forgot the taste of blood but that was my only memory of getting slapped by her. As far as I knew, her behavior was always erratic but I didn't know my father had a taste of it. I had right and reason to assume that her denial and erratic behavior was a driving factor towards a reason as to why he left. I thought of how he wanted to take us with him when he left her. I can only imagine his feelings as he thought of leaving her, his wife, a woman he loved for all those years, or how she disregarded his suggestions for getting help. I felt myself shaking as I ached, wishing she had realized something was wrong and took his suggestions.

No, she didn't, leaving us, her daughters, victims of her own madness, however, we were not the only victims. She went to her grave, at peace with the fact that she wronged her daughters and she had no one but herself to blame. She died a victim of her own madness, just as she lived a victim of her madness. She had an illness and it's a shame that she didn't resolve to fix it for the sake of her, her marriage, and her children. I wanted to resent her for that, for causing us to live with a mother that we feared more than we loved, but, as it seems, I found I could not.

Even in death, she wasn't finished, as she was a driving force for me to enter her office in a long time. She was showing me these things to solve the mysteries there was. She was in this room and I could feel that emotion grow its strongest. The pain of feeling it was so great that I was shaking. She wouldn't be finished until she had gave me her secrets.

With a shaking hand and as careful as I could, I turned the page.

September 5th

He died, four days ago. He officially left me September 1st. He stormed out of the door, got in his car, took a drive, and got into a fatal accident. He died quickly and he didn't look like he was very bloody or anything, well, besides his neck being broken in the crash. I had him privately cremated and I put his ashes in a box. Now, he'll never leave me. My daughters don't know and I think that's for the best. It's best that they nor Rei don't know he's gone.

He also found about her, that one. I take it he wanted to call her "Marigold" and he threatened to go to the authorities with this, what he found out. That child was supposed to be stay a secret but I guess not, now she will stay a secret, no little mishaps. He's had a document made for her. I checked, it's valid, and it lists both of us as the parents. He lists as her "Marigold" with quotation marks, along with stating that her birthday was today and our last name. I barely recall when she was born, just the fact that she came out of me, and how Rei took a photo of her.

I did stash away that document.

That is all I have to say.

-Ragyou

I found myself, of what could assume to be my own free will, closing the book. That guilt and sorrow didn't leave me but I had stopped shaking. Like the entry prior, it left me with a lot to take in. Slowly, bit by bit, some things started to fall together, fitting in place, however, haphazardly. At least, his death was quick and not what I would have thought. He went to his grave trying to free her, trying to free us, free us from the woman he once loved. They were once loving and very much in love and its a shame that mental illness, bitterness, and secrets got in the way of that. If her diary entry was anything to go by, then she's admitted to scapegoating Ryuuko, her child, a baby whose only crime was being born at a rather "unfortunate" time, for her marital problems and her demons.

I was taken back to Ryuuko's recollections. She remembered that our mother was abusive but she remembered our father as being loving towards her. My heart shattered for how cruelly fate tore him away from us but her especially, as he wasn't very far from getting her rescued. Death isn't something she has much comprehension of, however, she does feel the pain of loss. She felt his absence and had missed him just was we did. At least, knowing what happened to him gave some bit of comfort, however, Ryuuko will never understand why he isn't coming back.

It turned out there was some record of Ryuuko, after all, however, I suppose, when we get the chance, that we'd demote the name "Marigold" to a middle name and make her first name, on her certificate, Ryuuko, and then it'd be official. I can think of how she would benefit from all of that. At least, we could lay rest to some of the issue we've had.

However, feeling winded, I had left the room still with the diary in my hand. I could still feel her guilt and remorse, it permeated throughout the house. I wasn't feeling just her guilt, as I had also felt Rei's and, while she had lingered, it wasn't as strong. It felt as though both were there and, to some extent, they were, lingering in the home like silent ghosts, whose voices could not heard but their presence felt.

I took my chair by the window and sat looking out of it. I was thinking and lost in a daydream, listening to the birds chirp away. It was late afternoon and Ryuuko was asleep and Nui was doing her homework. I had sat there for a good long while before Nui came into the room and glanced on the table next to me, saying, "I have a thought." I asked as to what her thought about the diary was, to which she started to probe through it. She probed through it for about a few minutes before saying, "You didn't turn the page."

She was right, as I didn't think that the Mistress had hid anything within the diary. It turns out she had, as she had hidden Ryuuko's delayed birth certificate in the back of it. She then went to put it in a frame before putting in a shelf, for safekeeping I suppose. She then turned to me and said, "Why don't we get rid of this one and Rei's?" I ask her how we were supposed to do that, along with asking why, to which she said that it will set them free and then they won't haunt us anymore.

Later, as the sun was going down, with a glass jar in hand, she lit a small fire. By this point, Ryuuko was awake and sitting at the backdoor, watching intently. Once the fire was lit, Nui took both Rei and the Mistress' diaries and tossed them into the fire, watching as they were burned to ash. Once they were burned to ash, she scooped the ashes and put them in the jar before placing the ashes with makeshift urn on the shelf. I was puzzled by this, to which she said, "When we find Dad's ashes, we'll scatter them all to the wind, setting them free."

Not too long after, we did come across our father's ashes. Nui divided some of his ashes into a smaller jar, saying what was in the smaller jar, we'd keep, while what was in the box, we'd scatter. I didn't know why we'd keep some of his ashes but, then again, she probably had her reasons.

As the sun was setting, Aikurou took us to a clear area, a field of wildflowers near a creek. According to one of the photos of our parents, this was where our parents had one of their happier moments, dancing in this field. It was fitting, this way, to scatter the ashes of him and the Mistress' diary over a place where they were genuinely happy. Likewise, in the case of Rei's diary, I had quietly remembered the kind of flowers she used to tend to and the fact that she used to watch the sunset.

After counting to three, with Ryuuko saying, "Bye-bye!", we simultaneously released the ashes, scattering them to the wind. As we did so, we felt a warm but faint embrace. It was for but a moment, however, I knew they were saying goodbye. That guilt and sadness I had initially felt had gone, blowing away like the ashes to the wind. Something within wanted to go and chase after them, to try to catch them once again. In wanting to do so, I felt tears rolling down my face.

Seeing those ashes scatter was bittersweet.

Notes:

Initially, the name Souchiro wanted to give her was originally intended to be "Margarette", however, I though, "Naw, something else." so I went though about a few other names, one of which being "Magnolia", however, I figured "Marigold" made more sense, since the flower, marigold, symbolize sad things.

Thus, "Marigold" it was.