Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
✦
chapter one; bathtubs & haunting lullabies
The moment Amaya was back in Potter Manor, the boys on her track, Ninny began fussing over her with teary eyes. She gently took her to her room, like Amaya was a broken doll, and Amaya let her, her mind vaguely present. Once she got to her room, Ninny led her to the bathroom, where she'd drawn a warm bath for Amaya full of bubbles.
"Miss Maya needs to relax. Ninny puts a calming potion in the bath. Ninny will take care of Miss Maya."
Amaya couldn't smile like she usually did. She only nodded. "Thank you, Ninny."
Ninny left to give her privacy and Amaya was too embarrassed to ask her to stay—the last thing she wanted was to be alone—so she didn't protest. Getting undressed, Amaya lowered herself into the bathtub, letting the warm water take her away to better memories, letting the simmering feeling of the magic enveloping her take away the nightmares of the day.
And it worked. But she must've fallen asleep because the next time she opened her eyes she wasn't in the bathtub but rather she was standing in a dark tight space.
She looked around her, feeling the jackets in her surroundings, and figured she was standing in a closet, only she seemed shorter than she was. Amaya looked down at her hands and found herself looking at children's hands. Her hands. When she was younger. Swallowing a lump in her throat, Amaya peered through the cracks on the door, and her shoulders tensed at the image beyond her.
Her father lay on the ground. His eyes looked up blankly, trails of blood falling from his eyes, nose, ears, and mouth. And she felt herself choke on a scream as she saw his hands. Detached from his body in a clean magical cut, still fuming from the spell an odd color of lavender that clashed with the rosy, bloody color of his flesh. They'd been slashed off—the punishment for thieves.
The doors of the closet burst open and Amaya felt herself falling. Only she didn't fall to the floor, and instead someone yanked her up by her hair, causing her to scream.
The person who grabbed her forced her to look up at them, and her mother smiled cruelly at her, trails of tears on her cheeks, her eyes bloodshot. Just like they were the day her father died.
"My sweet little killer," she sang, tightening her hold on Amaya's hair and causing her to whimper. "Do you know the punishment for a killer?"
"Mami, lo siento, perdóname—"
"Tu corazón, mi hija," she hissed, "That's the punishment for a murderer—"
Amaya screamed as her mother shoved a hand through her chest, tearing through skin and bones, the noise sickening, the smell of blood nauseating. And then Amaya could feel her mother holding her heart, squeezing it painfully.
