She wrote letters. She wrote letters to someone who barely knew who she was anymore. She sent them. She never heard back. She didn't expect to. She imagined a nurse reading them out, pictured her mother's face, the flicker of recognition about a daughter she had once known and loved. Before she had disgraced herself. Hecate had stopped being angry with her mother for letting her be confined for so long. She knew that she was now locked up just as tight in her mind. Punishment for her callous behaviour? Perhaps. It wasn't a satisfying thought.
She'd barely recognised the first sickening swoop that thudded through her when Dimity talked about her mother. Watched her open her letters with joy. Heard the laughter as they chatted through maglet. Envy. Admittedly, Hecate had reason to feel envy over the years. To watch people grow up and leave. To pore over catalogues and wait until something new could be ordered for her instead of perusing in person. But nothing so fierce a feeling as when Dimity spoke of her vibrant, cheerful mother. Hecate had never been able to cultivate more than a stiff formal manner with her family. She wondered how that felt, wanting to look after someone out of love rather than out of duty. For someone to bake a cake for her because they wanted her to enjoy it. Her own mother was out of reach and there were days that she felt like she would burst and engulf the building with her misery. She imagined her insides blackened with unshed rotten tears. It was a relief to go for an entire year without thinking about her. It happened more often these days. She still struggled with the guilt. If she could, would she visit her? Would that make her a devoted daughter? Dimity was a devoted daughter.
'She's the centre of my world' said Dimity cheerfully. 'I'd go to the ends of the earth for her.'
The genuine sincerity stirred a most hideous feeling that almost burst the dam she'd constructed around her aura. She had to move fast before she invited suspicion. She vanished abruptly and spent ten awful minutes howling curled up on her bed. She would have loved a spell to stop tears but she thought that might result in pent up energy that would manifest itself in super strength intention and she had no wish to lose control of her magic. Intention behind magic was incredibly important. A cool calculated head must be kept for ultimate control. Panic and deadly anger, intentional or otherwise, would subvert the magic to either clumsy or petrifying proportions. Both would do damage. She took her time before repairing the ravages of grief and appeared for her next class composed and unruffled. She knew it would not go unnoticed.