Phoenix and Ashes

She held the note in hands that shook, and felt like a little girl on what she dreamed was Christmas morning who awakens to find that it is not the glorious holiday, but just another day. She had always thought, always assumed, that if she ever, ever found something for her from her long-lost mother, it would be full of messages of love and devotion. This—this was more like the old Roman matron's cry to her son departing for the wars: "Return with your shield, or on it." Where was the love in that?

Maybe she didn't care about me after all. Maybe all she thought of me was that I was someone to follow in her footsteps.

She felt bereft, as if something had been taken from her. And as she sat there, the copybook still unopened, two huge tears gathered in her stinging eyes, overflowed, and burned their way down her cheeks.

"Ah, here you are]" Sarah exclaimed from the parlor door. "What on earth are you doing in here?"

She turned, and Sarah started a little. "And why on earth are you crying?" the witch exclaimed, looking astonished. "What's happened?" Eleanor sniffed back more tears, and held out the note and the unopened book. "I—went up to the attic," she said, around the enormous and painful lump in her throat that threatened to choke her. "And I found these."

Sarah made quick work of the note, her eyes widening and her face taking on an expression of astonished pleasure. "Good heavens, girl, don't you realize what this is? It's what I can't teach you] This is wonderful! Why are you weeping like that?"

"She didn't—she didn't—" Eleanor began to sob; she couldn't help it. The tears just started and wouldn't stop. "She never says she loved me—"

"Oh, my dear—" Suddenly Sarah softened all over, in a way that Eleanor had never seen her do before. She sat down on the chair next to Eleanor, and took Eleanor into her arms. Unresisting, Eleanor sagged against her. "You silly little goose," she said fondly, holding Eleanor against her shoulder, and wiping away Eleanor's tears with the corner of her apron. "Of course she didn't. Why should she? She never expected you to read that note! She always thought she would be there, teaching you herself! Can't you read how self-conscious her words are? How stiff?"

"Yes, but—" Eleanor began.

"Well, there you are, she was just being what I would have called silly-cautious, and she knew I would have made fun of her if I'd known she was writing that." Sarah stroked her hair, her voice full of such unshakeable conviction that Eleanor could not disbelieve. "She told you every single day, several times a day, how much she loved you, first thing on waking and last thing at night. I heard her. She showed you hundreds of times more in a day. Why should she tell you in a note, when she thought she would always be here to keep telling and showing you?"

Eleanor managed to control her sobbing, and Sarah's words penetrated her grief somewhat. "But—why didn't she think—"

"Now, silly child, look at that note, why don't you?" Sarah said, half fondly, half scolding, giving Eleanor's shoulders a little shake. "In her best copper-plate handwriting, and phrased as formally and stiff as an invitation to Lady Devlin to tea! Your mother was a simple village girl, child! She loved to read, but writing things? For her, when you wrote something, it was formal, stiff, and important! Well, except when you were writing down recipes. I don't think she ever wrote a letter in her life, not even to me, her best friend! Your father might have written her a love-letter or two, but she certainly didn't write any back! Do you understand what I'm saying? She could no more have written anything sentimental than—than commanded an Undine!"

The words penetrated the fog of her distress—and more than that, they made sense, perfect sense. Slowly the grief faded. "So she—"

"Yes, you green-goose, she loved you more than her own life," Sarah scolded. "She loved you enough to spend hours writing down everything she knew about Fire Mastery! And this from a woman who, I know for a certain fact, would rather have scrubbed out the wash-house on hands and knees than pick up a pen." Put like that—

Eleanor freed herself from Sarah's motherly embrace, smiled wanly at her, and wiped her eyes with her own apron-corner. "I suppose I am being silly."

Sarah shook her head, fondly. "No, you were being perfectly natural. If you go on weeping, though, you will be acting in a very silly and selfish manner. Have you looked at the book yet?" Eleanor shook her head.