…"Yo... Chiyo..."

She opened her eyes. She was once again in that long hallway. In front of her stood a misty figure. She had grown accustomed to this tall woman with long, curly hair, who had been appearing in her dreams for years. Chiyo knew she wasn't a threat. She only showed her things. A large black missile in space made of black blocks, a giant ghost on Halloween, a white eagle, and most notably...
A massive manor.
By now, she was used to walking around in this manor. Sometimes, it was dazzling, with joy and celebrations filling its decorated halls. But most of the time, everything had burned down, everything was dark, everything was dirty. Today was one of those times in the hallway. She recognized it as the one leading to the master bedroom. The Lady of the Mist looked at her before fleeing, leaving behind her faint clouds.

"Hey, wait for me!" the young girl shouted. She knew she would wake up before seeing what the Lady of the Mist wanted to show her, but every night, she remained curious. Despite the soot and dust, Chiyo could see the wall mouldings, the symbol of a unicorn appearing frequently. When she entered the bedroom, something surprising awaited her: a woman with short hair holding a match and a can of gasoline. The colour of her hair kept changing constantly, preventing Chiyo from clearly describing the figure.

"Wake up, Little Prophecy. It's time."

Chiyo smelled smoke. She spun around, panic rising in her. The woman in front of her smiled, and the Lady of the Mist had her head bowed, as if ashamed of the pyromaniac figure.

"Wake up, Chiyo, come," she heard. "Come on... Wake up..."

"Chiyo Kagari! If you don't get up this instant..."

Chiyo suddenly sat up in her bed. Her mother was shouting from the bottom of the stairs, and the smell of toast reached her nose. Chiyo looked at the time: 7:40 AM. She let out a shout, and tried to get up, but got tangled in the duvet and fell face-first onto the wooden floor. Sudden footsteps echoed in the hallway, and her door flew open.

"What happened?! Are you okay?!"

"Haha, why didn't you wake me up earlier?!" Her voice trembled. Her mother looked at her, putting her hand behind her head with a nervous laugh.

"Well, Chi-chan, I… just woke up myself?"

Atsuko "Akko" Kagari, 39 years old, was a primary school teacher. She had red eyes, shoulder-length brown hair tied in a half-ponytail, and a silly smile on her face. A determined woman who had raised Chiyo alone since her birth. She bore two large scars starting from the right corner of her forehead, stopping just above her eye, like two huge claw marks. "A bear attack," she had once told Chiyo. Chiyo never believed it, but her mother hid many things in her life, so she never pressed on.
Chiyo glared at her as Akko kept laughing. Her mother was as scatterbrained as she was determined. Chiyo pushed her out of her room, grumbling about how she didn't have time to play around. She grabbed her uniform hanging on the door, consisting of a white shirt, a red skirt, and a matching tie, and quickly got dressed. She put on her usual round glasses and looked at herself in the mirror, taking a deep breath. She was almost the spitting image of her mother, with a few exceptions: her hair was lighter, leaning toward dark chestnut rather than brown, and for some unknown reason, blonde streaks grew in her hair, which she hid with pins, and she had blue eyes.
Blue eyes that she honestly hated.
You see, Akko had raised Chiyo alone, and for a good reason; her second mother had abandoned Akko when she was pregnant and never tried to contact her. Akko had to give up all her dreams to take care of her daughter, something she never regretted or made Chiyo feel guilty about. Chiyo was more than grateful to her mother for everything and hated those eyes that were the same as... the other.
Chiyo knew nothing about the other. She didn't know her name or where she came from. For her, that person was dead, and Chiyo was just a Kagari, nothing more. Just Kagari.
What does it mean to be a Kagari, she wondered, smiling. Being a Kagari, she thought while grabbing her bag meant living in a small, remote village in Japan, not knowing the internet, and having only a basic phone. Being a Kagari meant taking martial arts classes with her Ojiisan since she was 7, seeing her Aunt Chariot from time to time, and constantly reading in her free time. That was what it meant to be a Kagari, that was what it meant to be Chiyo Kagari.
The breakfast table was set. For various reasons, her mother always had an English breakfast. Her excuse was that her few years of study in Britain had given her the habit. Chiyo had always found the argument a bit silly, but never complained. Akko had already devoured her bacon and was sipping tea from her usual blue mug before slamming the front door. Chiyo sat down, muttered a quick "itadakimasu," and devoured her plate, putting it in the sink before starting to run. A car horn startled her, and Akko slowed down next to her, yelling at her to get in. Even if she was late, Akko preferred to make sure her daughter arrived on time.

"Haha, I could've made it on time, you know?"

"No, and we both know that's... well, a lie."

Akko focused on the road. Chiyo could see the scars on her mother's face tighten as she frowned while overtaking a few cars. Chiyo knew that if she got caught, her mother would get in trouble with the authorities. But she also wondered, watching her mother weave through traffic, if she hadn't been a pilot in another life. Akko had this aura as if she had done so much more than she said. Her mother was magical. And Chiyo saw her as her hero. She caught her reflection in the visor mirror, and her jaw tightened. She shook her head and refocused on her mother, who had turned up the volume on a pop song from her teenage years. She was tapping the wheel to the beat, her near-perfect English accent rolling off her tongue. She was moving her shoulders, dancing in her seat. "One Direction," if Chiyo remembered correctly.

"I don't think you even realize, Baby, you'd be saving mine." She didn't even realize she was singing. Sometimes she had moments like this, where her old habits resurfaced, and Chiyo discovered a new part of her mother each time.

"We all need something," she continued, turning. Chiyo kept watching her, smiling. "This can't be over now if I could hold ya..." Chiyo closed her eyes and enjoyed one of those rare moments with Akko.

"Swear I'd never put you down. Ddddddddddddddd-"

She turned off the radio, leaving the "D-" hanging on her tongue as she turned her head slightly toward Chiyo, her eyes wide with panic. They stared at each other before Akko turned the radio back on, quickly changed the station, and put on the news.

"Are we going to talk about what just happened?" Chiyo was used to this, and as usual, her mother gave her the same response.

"What just happened? Nothing happened. The signal was weak."

"I saw you turn off the radio."

"My finger slipped."

"Your hands were on the wheel, Haha."

"A yokai possessed my hand because I was singing too well."

Chiyo rolled her eyes. Of course she would try to dodge the subject. She was used to it. The rest of the ride passed in awkward silence. Chiyo got out of the car, glancing one last time at her mother, who waved at her. She smiled back, started walking, turned around a corner and...

"Beeeeeeeeep."

She quickly turned back and caught her mother, smacking her forehead against the steering wheel. Chiyo raised an eyebrow (her mother hated it when she did that), and when Akko noticed, she quickly resumed her previous posture, still waving with an awkward smile before driving off.

When she changed her outdoor shoes, the sun was setting. She inhaled slowly and waved to her classmates, all children of farmers who grew up without social media and began walking toward home. The traditional architecture still fascinated her, the stone streets guiding her serenely. Her life was perfect...
At least, that's what Chiyo tried to convince herself.
She had dreams. She wanted to travel. She dreamed of discovering the world. Her small village was no longer enough; the photos her aunts showed her transported her far from the family home. Especially the photos of the Scottish landscape. The legends from there, the lochs... her aunts Hannah and Amanda once brought her a bagpipe, and her mother hated them the entire evening. The condition for playing the instrument was quickly established: only when Akko wasn't home.
Her mind wandered as she approached the main road. A convertible pulled up at the end of the street, and Chiyo's heart raced. Two heads looked at her, smiling.

"Aunt Croix! Aunt Chariot!"

The two women laughed as they opened the door. Chiyo jumped into the car and hugged them.

"What are you doing here? Oh, I'm so happy to see you!"

"Hey kid," Croix smiled at her from the rearview mirror. "We were just passing by to see you, and we thought we'd pick up our favourite little clingy one."

Chiyo's cheeks puffed up as Chariot laughed. Beside her, Solaris, their two-year-old son, was giggling and reaching out toward Chiyo.
No. Everything was perfect. Why would she ever want to leave?
Chiyo was always torn between two worlds. Stay or leave? Leave her mother and explore the world, or stay in Japan near her family, assured of a comfortable life? Chiyo closed her eyes, telling herself that in the end, she was too young to worry about such things...
The rest of the evening went smoothly. Her mother had ordered pizzas, and the three women chatted about the challenges of being parents, while the young girl kept Solaris entertained by playing with him. The red-haired toddler was adorable, constantly wandering around with a little teddy bear and babbling things Chiyo didn't understand. She didn't speak French, or Italian, or whatever language Solaris was speaking. She preferred it when he laughed and managed to speak in English. Chiyo herself wasn't bilingual, but her mother had always pushed her to work on that language, even before Chiyo went to school. It allowed her to talk to her aunts, so she never complained.
Fatigue began to catch up with her. Solaris had fallen asleep on the living room rug, and the parents were chatting in the kitchen. Chiyo stood up, stretched, and gave a brief wave goodnight before heading upstairs. She looked at the stairwell wall and smiled at the photos of her mother and her, taken over the years. Just the two of them in every picture. No one else. No need for anyone else.
And yet, a nagging curiosity always gnawed at her heart. Who was the other one? It was a question she had often asked her mother, a question Akko had dodged in the early years of her life. At first, she had told her the other was dead, but why would she hide her name? Why were there no photos of their wedding? Chiyo had managed to pry that bit of information from her mother one evening, and Akko had quickly added that they had divorced shortly after and that the other wasn't dead but just a coward who didn't want to face the consequences of her actions. Sometimes, when her mother had had a bit of sake with her grandparents and they were walking home, Chiyo would try to extract more information. Maybe if Akko couldn't walk straight, her stories wouldn't hold up either, and she'd crack?
Akko often ended up crying, saying that if the other had left, it was because Akko wasn't good enough. Chiyo would hold her, her hatred for her other mother growing even more. But that didn't make her any less curious. Making sure her mother was busy with Croix and Chariot, Chiyo quietly entered Akko's bedroom. She closed the door and took a deep breath as she turned on the light. Akko's room was covered in photos, many with Chiyo, many with friends and family. Her teaching diploma was framed in one corner, a stack of children's books piled beneath it, forming a precarious tower that must have been held up by magic.
She opened the closet and pulled out a black plastic box. Akko thought she was clever, hiding it there, but Chiyo had been cleverer in finding it. Sometimes she wondered if her mother thought she was stupid.
She placed the lid on the floor. The first thing she noticed was the smell. Fifteen years later, the sweater still carried the scent of perfume. Chiyo wondered if her mother refreshed it somehow or if the scent had just become part of the fabric. Either way, the smell was still there, strong and pleasant. She unfolded the sweater, looked at it, and buried her face in it. It was purple, with a symbol of golden rings on the chest, and the number "30" printed on the back, with two broomsticks crossed behind it. No name, just the number. She closed her eyes, wondering what sport the other might have played. She had no way of looking up the team, and when she had once asked Akko about it, she had been yelled at for snooping.
Akko had never yelled. Chiyo remembered the frightened, hurt look her mother had that night. Later that evening, Akko had said it was a British cricket team, a dull and boring sport that the other had dragged her to watch. Chiyo nodded and never asked again.
She closed her eyes. The sweater was soft, and she could almost feel herself being embraced. A sound startled her. She listened for a moment before hearing Akko's laughter. Everything was fine...
The next thing she pulled out was a golden diploma. It was written entirely in Latin, but the logo from the sweater was also on it. Her mother's name was written there. "That must be the school Haha always talks about," she thought. Next, she found torn or burned photos (why keep them, then?), long bronze keys, a horseshoe (Haha, why?), and a card. Chiyo had always wondered what the card was supposed to be. She had always thought the woman on it resembled her Aunt Chariot, but that was ridiculous. She had never mentioned it.
She knew the next place to search was under her mother's bed. She lifted the mattress, feeling the knot in her throat tighten. She grabbed the binder hidden there and leaned against the wall as she opened it.

"My dear Akko," she began reading. The letter was in good condition, the handwriting neat and legible, despite having been written with a fountain pen. Chiyo recognized the ink.

"I'm sorry if this first draft isn't as perfect as I'd like. I've been sitting at my desk for 40 minutes now, desperately trying to find the right words. I wish I could be with you to visit your parents and spend the winter holidays together. Here, we're getting ready for the Yule festivities. I hope everything is going well on your end.

I feel my phone vibrating on the desk. You're trying to call me, but I wanted to finish this letter first. In the end, I haven't been very productive, and only a few lines have been written. I'll make sure the letter reaches you as soon as possible, even if I have to enchant it to get it to you faster.

I'll end this letter by wishing you a happy holidays. I hope to see you before the new term starts. I miss you so much.

Forever and always yours.

-D."

The rest of the binder contained other letters Chiyo had read and reread hundreds of times. At the end of the binder was an article about a burned-down residence, with the words and address crossed out. There was no picture, just words. Chiyo had tried to figure out what was written, but... impossible.
She sighed. She knew there wouldn't be anything new, yet every time she opened her mother's hidden belongings, she hoped to find a new clue. A name. A hint. She felt like Remy in the movie *Ratatouille, flipping through the recipe book in the sewers. Her comparison confused her for a moment before she heard footsteps on the stairs. Oh no, if Akko caught her, she was dead...!
Her breath caught in her throat as the door opened. Chariot's head appeared, and they stared at each other in silence.

"Sorry, I was looking for the bathroom."

Chiyo's fearful gaze stayed locked on Chariot. The older woman bit her lip, then closed the door and sat down next to her.

"Your mother is too drunk to notice I'm gone."

Silence fell between them. Chariot took the binder in her hands and noticed the sweater Chiyo was holding. She smiled gently and placed a hand on Chiyo's head.

"I knew her, you know. I can't tell you much about her, though…" She bit her lower lip and sighed. "Oh, Chiyo... Your mother was incredible, and I know Akko is angry, but one day, you'll learn the truth."

Chariot stood up and left the room, leaving Chiyo with more questions than answers. She looked at the sweater, feeling her eyes sting.
No.
She wouldn't cry for her.
She would never cry for her.