Daddy told me to never think it was my fault.

“Don’t you ever, ever, even dare to think that you caused this. This was not your fault Luna,” he told me. He was shaking me violently, clutching me tightly by the arms with a wild look in his eye. When he finally let go of me he kept combing his fingers through his hair, as though uncertain what to do. I thought I could even feel the frustration and anger radiating off him, so strong were his emotions. And I knew that he wasn’t only convincing me, but he was also convincing himself. I remember the day perfectly, as if I am watching it all unfold before me, right this very second. It was a very dreary day, and it was early in the morning with all the little white daisies in our yard covered in dew. If you stepped outside, you could smell that fresh earthy scent you get only before a rain. I recall standing out there for hours some days, whenever it was like this.

I would look out into the forest, full of huge lofty trees covered in leafy green foliage, pointing downward as if sensing the rain, and trying with all their might to get as far away as possible from it. It doesn’t really make sense, I used to muse to myself. Why would leaves hide from the rain? Maybe, I decided, because they were afraid; afraid that the thing they loved the most would somehow hurt them, and why bother even taking a chance? Therefore, I had concluded, they pointed downward as far as they could reach.

I refused to give up this clever little theory of mine even when a rather rude little boy from down the road pointed out that the leaves were actually drooping downwards from a lack of rain, and if they had the energy, they would gladly perk up and reach towards the sky. I rejected this idea immediately, for I was so strong-willed, even at such a young age. Looking back, I think it was because it related so much to me, and the relationship I had eventually developed with my mother. Somehow, for me, our relationship would seem almost more, I not entirely sure, alright if the leaves did it too.

---

“Come here, Luna! I need your help!” Luna’s mother said with a bewitching twinkle in her eye.

“Yes Mother!” answered little Luna, excited at the prospect of a new experiment. Her mother led her down to the dusty old cellar, with Luna giggling and bouncing up and down all the way, speculating on what surprises and wonders were in store for her.

“Halt!” her mother commanded suddenly, in a sharp tone.

Luna immediately obeyed, looking around on the cellar stairs wild-eyed. Last time this had happened, they had spotted a Snargling Sillipod crawling about on the floor.


“Mother?” asked Luna tentatively, unsure of what the answer would be. But her mother stayed still, her eyes staring straight ahead of her as if locked into position, staring down into the dark pit that was their basement.

After a few moments passed and her mother’s position had not changed, Luna asked with a nervous giggle, “Mother…it’s not the Sillipods again, is it?”

“No,” answered her mother in deep, intense voice, “no, it’s the…” suddenly her voice changed back to its usual cheerful tone, and her mother whipped around and turned on her.

“It’s the tickle monster!” her mother screamed delightedly. Luna squealed and danced about, trying to avoid her mother’s wiggling fingers.

All of a sudden, a shrill voice was heard above.

“What in the name of Merlin are you two doing down there?” her father cried, and Luna quickly stifled her laughter, and her mother’s dancing fingers paused for a moment.

“Nothing!” they both shouted in innocent (or what they hoped sounded innocent) voices, each trying to avoid each other’s eye, knowing that the moment they looked at the other’s face they would both burst out laughing once again.

Luna couldn’t help it; she finally took one look again at the gleam of excitement in her mother’s eyes and whooped loudly. “Now who’s the tickle monster!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, and began tickling every part of her mother within her reach. They both cackled with laughter, until the door swung open.

“Honestly, sometimes I don’t know who’s the eight year old, you or Luna!” exclaimed her father, clearly fed up with their games. Luna hung her head, as did her mother. Her father spun around on his heel, and marched back upstairs.

“No experiments today, dear, I’m afraid,” her mother said in a trembling and defeated tone.

---

Many incidents like these were soon to follow. My mother would wander down to the basement, to continue her “lunatic inventions” while my father clicked his tongue in disappointment all the way. She was the brightest witch of the time, my mother was. But she was also the strangest. She was praised for her ingenious new spells in some newspapers, while in others she was made fun of for her wacky ideas, such as the existence of Knarles, or the fact that for some periods of time she would refuse to comb her hair, trying to protect the “ways of the Wingles”. It would go up and down and up again, like the scales she used to measure her ingredients for her latest potion. Some days genius, some days nutter.

I treasure all those memories now, when we would have an incredible time doing the strangest things, and yet it would be possibly the most fun ever imaginable to the two of us. But that was back when she was happy.

---

Mother slumbered in her bed with a frown etched across her face, and deep lines spread across her forehead, giving her the look of someone in pain. She was as pallid as the pure white sheets that covered her. Luna’s father stood over her, his back facing the door, so his expression was unreadable to little Luna. Also in the room was another man, one she had not seen before. He was tall and lean, with a very severe look on his face as if he was perpetually preparing himself to give some very bad news. The door was ajar, and Luna made no noise as she quietly tiptoed over to it and poked her head in slightly, her wide eyes growing still wider, wondering in astonishment could be happening.

“She has all the symptoms I’m afraid. I’ll just leave you with this potion, two times a day, one at noon, and one after dinner. It should last you about a week. Just contact me back at the Healer’s ward if she’s not feeling better after she’s taken the entire potion,” said the strange man in an even tone, practiced in delivering certainly upsetting information.

She watched silently until the man turned to leave and her father followed suit. She whirled around, pale blue sundress twirling about her legs, and ran noiselessly back inside her own bedroom. She listened behind her door for her father’s soft retreating foot steps.

Luna peered out from behind her door, glancing back and forth to make sure the coast was clear, and tiptoed once again to her mother’s bedroom. She opened it quietly and timidly whispered, “Mother?” Her mother stirred, and Luna tiptoed closer to the bed and slipped her own small warm hand into her mother’s larger, cold one.

“Mother?” she whispered again. Her mother’s large eyes opened slowly, and Luna gazed into her now dull blue eyes that had replaced the usual bright and twinkling ones. With a great sadness, Luna searched her eyes for remnants of the old glimmer that used to be there, but found nothing.

“Luna,” her mother said flatly.

“Mother, what’s wrong?” asked Luna gently.

“Nothing sweetheart. Mummy’s just not feeling well.”

Little Luna looked down despondently at the duvet covering the bed, tracing her tiny finger around the pattern embroidered in to the fabric. Starting at a minuscule point, curving upward, and stop, curve down, stop, and curve upward again…

“So,” Luna whispered, using her other hand to pluck at her sleeve nervously, “does this mean we can’t have experiments anymore?

“No more experiments dear, not any more.”


Luna’s eyes widened as this. No more experiments? “Why?” she asked.


“They’re silly,” Luna’s mother said harshly. “Waste of time.”

Luna gasped openly at this. Her wide eyes were staring fixedly on the harsh expression on her mother’s face, her hand still robotically traced the tiny patterns on the bedspread.

“Why?” she whined loudly. “Why Mum?” She pounded her little fists on the bed and began to weep, abandoning her tracing. Where was her mother?

“Stop it Luna! This is not acceptable behavior for a child already nine!” her mother shouted.

Suddenly, her father burst into the room. “Leave your mother alone!” he bellowed at Luna. Luna kept shouting, tears streaming down her face, looking down upon the bedspread once again, and suddenly recognizing the familiar shape embellished on the duvet. Her crying suddenly died down to faint whispering. The next thing Luna remembered was her father scooping her up in his wide arms, and her burying her face in to the folds of his warm sweater, dreaming of leaves stitched into fabric, scattered over cotton, covering her mother.

---

Depression.

Picture this: You love your mother deeply. Your only dream is to somehow, some way, be like her. Your only hope is that one day your daughter will love you as much as you love your own mother right now, at this very moment. But my mother was not my mother any more. My mother was a bright cheerful, loving person. She was full of light, and hope, bright, and caring. She was for living in the moment, enjoying what you have, never saying never.

Now with one simple, ten letter word, she had become hollow, a shell of her old self. She was cold and harsh, disinterested and unimaginative. She had become all the things that she had hated the most. Someone completely unlike who she truly wanted to be. And most of all, someone who had disappointed her daughter.

Sometimes though, scattered between the seemingly impossible bouts of sadness, anger, and downright misery, there would be what I called “happy times.” The times when she seemed normal. Father and I would be sitting quietly at the kitchen table in the morning, him sitting stiff as a statue sipping his coffee and scanning the Daily Prophet, me playing with my toast and gulping down the usual orange juice. Then, suddenly, the door would bang open, and there, framed in the doorway, would be my mother. She would stand there a few moments and beam at us, utter euphoria pasted across her face. She would swoop down, kiss us both on the cheek and exclaim, “Morning dears!” while we sat completely gob smacked.

This highly unpredictable behaviour happened sometimes once every couple months, or sometimes three times a week. They sometimes even lasted a couple days. But then there was the day she finally gave up.

---

“What do you think you’re doing!” came a deafening roar that almost shook the house. Luna quietly closed her book and ventured out of the library into the kitchen, and peered down into the dark abyss of their basement. She cautiously tip-toed down the stairs, and poked her head around the wall to see what the fuss was about.

There stood the source of the noise, Luna’s father, so livid he was shaking. His face was a deep red, and he was screaming at her mother’s back. Luna poked her head in a bit more to see her mother’s reaction. Luna caught a glimpse of her, stirring a few ingredients into a cauldron that was a deep jade and methodically spewed out giant bubbles. Her mother waved her wand over it, and muttered a few indistinguishable incantations, not acknowledging Luna’s father. Luna could’ve sworn she went through the roof with happiness then, so excited that her mother was creating her experiments again. She eagerly stepped into the room. But when her father yelled at her mother again, her heart immediately sank. It was never good when her father yelled, she remembered sorrowfully.

But suddenly, her father’s voice turned from rage to panic. “W-What’s that! No don’t!” he gasped and attempted to pry the now hissing potion out of her mother’s hands. He wasn’t quick enough; she dodged him easily and gulped down the concoction. She turned to Luna, a look almost apologetic on her face, and collapsed on the hard, cold stone floor. Her father gasped even louder than before and fell to his knees next to his wife, mouth agape in shock, shaking her mother’s cold, lifeless body. Luna stood, frozen like a rock, and began to scream.

**--**

Wind whipped around Luna’s small frame and blew her long dress around her scrawny legs. She shoved her long blonde hair behind her ears with her dirty fingernails (from constantly drawing in the dirt, no matter how many times she was scolded about it) and stared from her place atop the hill at the sombre figures bellow. They stood still and sorrowful, heads down, all lined up, paying their respects. Meanwhile, Luna almost found it almost amusing at how the wind thrashed their black coats around as they danced around in the wind, while they stood still as statues. She fingered the thin black lace fringe on her dress, rubbing in gently between her smooth fingers. She traced her hand slowly across the collar, back and forth like the waves she had once whooped joyfully about with her mother when they visited the beach. Softly and gently, with great care, she traced the same pattern over and over again, one that was all too familiar. Starting at a minuscule point, curving upward, and stop, curve down, stop, and curve upward again…

Finally, Luna turned, and ran toward the sparse grouping of trees at the very edge of the cemetery. The padding of her bare feet was a steady rhythm as she sprinted, soft and unnoticed by the figures. This suited Luna fine, she wasn’t interested in the “We’re so sorry for your loss,” the “How tragic” comments accompanied by sombre faces, and her personal favourite, “She was such a wonderful person, what a shame” remarks that she was sure to receive.

Luna collapsed on the ground, hugging her knees to her chest. She rocked back and forth, slowly. She did not cry; no, she didn’t shed one single tear. There was no reason to; she had prepared herself for this. Besides, she had already shed too many tears already, there were none left to come. After a few minutes, she gradually pushed herself off the ground. Luna stood up, chin tilted upward at the clear grey sky, her lucid blue eyes clearly visible against her smooth pale face. She raised her arms up gradually, spread them out, and looked towards the sky at the large emerald leaves littering the trees. She slowly began to spin.

Around and around, her eyes focused on nothing but the leaves. Hearing nothing else, seeing nothing else, getting faster and faster, till the world became a distance blur of blue sky, twirling foliage, and tall tree trunks. She kept going, spinning and spinning, for how long she had no idea. Finally, she collapsed on the ground from exhaustion. Breathing heavily, she slowly dragged her finger through the dirt, creating swirls and patterns, criss-crossing lines, mixed up scribbles, a new pattern. All somehow, in Luna’s eyes, resembling a leaf. A leaf bearing her mother’s picture.

Suddenly, Luna stood up, and padded softly back to the cemetery.


**--**

The only thing I can say about my mother’s death was that it was expected. I considered myself one of the lucky ones. I had a chance to say goodbye to my mother. I had prepared myself completely for this, so tell me, how does it still hurt? Why did it still hurt when I stood at the edge of the playground all alone, watching all the smiling mothers, positively glowing. Smiling, laughing, hugging, and playing. Teaching their children how to swing. Holding their hand as they went gliding gleefully down the slide. Watching with a careful eye to make sure they didn’t trip as they ran and skipped about merrily.

For some bizarre reason, watching them reminded me of the whispered conversations I’d overheard after the funeral. All gathered around in my kitchen, faces covered in black veils, shoulders draped in lace shawls the same color, all the horrible, gossiping women of my mother’s family.

**--**

“He caused it, I know it. I never liked him, he simply wasn’t right for her!” hissed my grandmother, in a tone so low it supposedly wouldn’t be heard by my father in the study across the hall. I knew they wanted him to hear their conversation. They wanted him to know it was his entire fault, as if he wasn’t hurt enough already.

“I agree! He was so serious, and she was such a light, free spirit. He stifled her really, that’s what caused it. And when she couldn’t bear it anymore…well, obviously you know,” whispered some third or fourth cousin, two or three times removed, who I doubt had ever even seen my mother. How quickly they were to all agree, to point the blame at someone else.

They were so terrified that it had been their fault, whether it was for not visiting enough, or not sending enough Christmas cards, they couldn’t bear the guilt that weighed heavily upon their minds.

**--**

That’s all I remember of their conversation, the rest of the memory is filled with the look on my father’s face, imprinted in my mind forever. Sad and morbid, longing for the love I suppose he had once shared with his wife, my mother. Missing her so deeply, he looked to be in actual physical pain. I’ll never forget that look, not ever.

It was soon after that I came to be the way I was in school. You see, loosing my mother at the tender age of nine, I hadn’t really developed a sense of who I was. I loved my mother so much, I existed only with her. Without my mother, I was no one. So I became her. I adapted all her ways, all in insane beliefs, her crazy ideas. There were days when she would answer questions only in a strong German accent. There were her frequent attempts to prove the existence of Heliopaths, or when she wore her favorite earrings (radishes). I did all this too, just like her.

But the strangest part of all was that my father did this too. No more was the serious, hard-working father I was accustomed too. No, soon after, he moved us far away to a small village about fifty kilometres north of us. He rented us a tiny cottage at the edge of town, purchased a printing press, and began to write furiously, day in and day out. I recall sitting on my bed, hugging my knees to my chest, and listening to the ruffling of pages, the dipping of a quill into ink. He had started The Quibbler. His gift to my mother, the gift he knew he should have given her long ago. He dedicated himself solely to the kinds of stories my mother would have loved, and soon The Quibbler became his life, and mine too.

As an old woman now, I’ve grown out of my, shall we say, uniqueness. Of course I always adored my mother, but as I entered adulthood, I realized that no matter how hard I tried, I simply wasn’t her, and couldn’t ever be her. I became, for the first time in my life, Luna. But that doesn’t mean I don’t still have some of my rather questionable habits.

---

An old woman in an ancient white nightgown, long white hair cascading down her back and swinging to and fro in the soft wind, hobbles into a quiet meadow using the aid of a rough, handmade cane. The tall grass is blowing gently back in forth, swaying in the light breeze. Tiny russet colored birds flit about, chirping cheerfully in the early morning light. Her breathe comes slowly in rattles, and her steps are slow and paced, her face wrinkled and worn. She takes a deep breath, and shuffles into the centre of the clearing. She bends down, still using the cane to support her, and lies on her back across the soft grass. She looks up at the sky, cloudy and dark. She smells that fresh earthy scent you get only before a rain. She looks upward at the drooping leaves above her, and stares fixedly at them.

Sometime later, the old woman slowly crawls to her feet, sheds her cane, and stands upright as tall as she can. She tilts her head upward toward the dreary sky, and spreads out her arms wide as she can.

Slowly and deliberately, and with great effort, Luna begins to spin.