Magic.

To tell you the truth, there wasn't much I knew about magic, only that it existed and that stuff that had magic in it (or "magicked", as we called it) were unbelievably expensive. I was a commoner, and a pretty poor commoner at that. We as commoners had not much to do with it, and not much contact with it in our lives, so usually I reserved 'magic' as something that the nobles, or rich people, used.

Which meant that I couldn't even start to fathom how in the world magic "may have been involved" (as Mom said) in my parents' accident, over ten years ago.

I tapped on the wooden table, head leaning on one hand. "Paul," I said, craning my head over to find Paul mulling over the new menu items. "Do you know anything about magic?"

He looked up. "Umm... a little bit?"

"Like what?"

He opened his mouth then closed it again, looking lost. "What, what about magic should I know?"

I blinked at him. He blinked at me.

"Good question," I said, straightening up. "I know that there are, like, different types of magic." I knew Auntie Dela's cousin worked for a baron so-and-so whose daughter excelled, apparently, in some kind of magic, but I didn't remember what it was. 

Paul put down the sheet of paper and turned towards me, his head tilted to one side. "There are a total of twelve different types of magic. Four major fields, and three types of magic per field. I, uh, don't know all twelve types, but the four fields are physical, vocal, spiritual, and elemental."

"Physical, vocal, spiritual, and elemental?" I frowned. "What?"

He shrugged. "Elemental was something like, earth, sky, ocean, and music magic is part of vocal. Spiritual was life, death, fire? And I know alchemy is considered a magic too, and I think it falls under physical... but I don't really remember anymore. Especially vocal." He shuddered. "I remember wondering why they named that field 'vocal.'"

I crossed my arms. "Hm. I see. Then do you know anything about magicked items?"

"Magicked items? You mean, magical artifacts?"

"Yeah, those." I hadn't known there was a name for them, haha.

"Those are tools that have magic imbued into them, right? I don't know much about them." He scratched his head, smiling sheepishly. "I've only seen one or two of those."

My eyebrows shot up my forehead, and I leaned forward. "Really?"

"My father had one to keep his knees from hurting." Reaching down, he mimed putting something around his knees. "It went around his knees like this, and when he said the magic word, it would support him."

Ooh, that did sound pretty cool, but it wasn't what I was interested in. "Cool! Do you know any magical artifacts that have to do with carriages?"

He furrowed his brows. "Carriage enhancers, maybe? There may have been something to make the seats more comfortable, and if you're going a long distance, I've heard of speed enhancers, too, but I've never seen one personally."

"Huh." I leaned back into my seat, making myself comfortable again as I exhaled slowly. "I see. Thank you."

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Paul pick up page again, glancing at me hesitantly. Sure enough, he soon lowered his paper again and asked, "Is, uh, is anything the matter?"

My eyes snapped back to his, and a friendly smile automatically sprung up on my lips. "Nope! I was just curious. I mean, we never do get to see a lot of magic around here, you know?"

Looking visibly relieved (for what, I had no idea), he gave me a nod. "That's true. Magic can only be used by the nobles, so there's not much of it around here."

With that bit of information, Paul happily returned to his menu, and I returned to thinking about Mom.

He was right-- magic could only be used by the nobles, and your average carriage wasn't magicked. Then what in the world had happened, ten-something years ago, when Mom and Dad had been hit? And why did it feel like they-- Mom and Mother Lily, at least-- were hiding it from me?

Rosa probably knew about all the specific types of magic, but I wasn't sure if that would be helpful to me. I mean, it was cool knowing that magical music existed, though. For a brief second, I wondered how that would look like.

Sighing, I ran a hand through my hair and stared up at the ceiling. In the end, would I have no choice but to talk to Mom about this? I really, really didn't want to, but... I might not have any other choice.

At that moment, the doors to the restaurant swung open, and my attention was drawn to the figure of Rosa walking in.

I started. "Rosa?" She'd said that she wouldn't be in this week! I opened my mouth to say as much, but then Mother Lily came in behind her, and I gave her a look of surprise, too. "Mother Lily?!"

"Yo Filly! I brought mother!"

"I noticed," I said dryly, then grinned at Mother Lily. "What brings you here this early?" It was still four in the afternoon, and she rarely came to this part of town around this time. In fact, I had in pretty good information that this was her favorite nap time.... but anyhow.

She smiled her motherly smile at me. "I came for you, of course. Do you have some time? If you don't have any pla--"

"Say not the cursed word in front of mine eyes!" Rosa suddenly wailed, throwing herself onto the ground and, inevitably, startling Paul. He jumped back, the paper clutched in his hands, and I gave him a sympathetic look. Don't worry, I told him telepathically, you'll get used to her soon.

Besides, we had Mother Lily with us, which made a world of a difference. I turned to her, expectation shining in my eyes, and her motherly smile (which had not even flinched during Rosa's dramatics, heh) widened slightly into a grin before she faced Rosa, now sprawled on the ground.

Mother Lily didn't even say anything-- she just Looked at Rosa.

And after a beat, Rosa meekly raised herself up and hung her head.

"Heh."

"Hey! No laughing at me when I brought mother here!" Rosa shot back, but she didn't make any moves. Ha! She wouldn't be able to. Not with Mother Lily next to her, no!

"Anyways," Mother Lily continued while my snickers died down, her motherly smile still perfectly in place, "if you don't have any plans before your work shift, shall we perhaps take a walk outside?"

---

"Did you have something you wanted to tell me?" I asked, once we had been outside for a good couple of minutes without any conversation.

"Actually," Mother Lily began slowly, "yes. But I also heard from Rosa last night that you had something you wanted to ask me."

So we had both come with (probably) the same goal in mind. Huh, I hadn't thought Rosa would actually go and tell Mother Lily. I briefly wondered whether she might've tried to ask Mother Lily herself, but shook that off quickly. Now wasn't the time to wonder about that.

"I did." I paused here, trying to word myself carefully. "I was hoping I could maybe ask you, about Mom's accident."

Mother Lily hummed a single note thoughtfully, and I continued.

"We've never really talked about it, but I only knew of it as a carriage accident until now." The unspoken question hung in the air: so why did Mom say magic was involved?

Mother Lily chuckled softly. "It seems we were thinking the same things. I came to talk about that with you, too."

"Oh?"

"Yes. About your parents' accident, twelve years ago. It's about time you knew."

I watched as she took a long, slow breath, her eyes trained on the street in front of us. "I'll warn you now, though, that I also don't know much about it. But I do know it wasn't just a simple carriage accident." She locked eyes with me then, her usually soft face grave, her lips set in a grim line. "From what I have gathered, it might not have been a carriage accident at all."

My mouth drew in a quick inhale. "...what?"

"We saw her first, you know. Both of them, your father and your mother. They were both knocked unconscious by the side of the road, and we know your father didn't make it in the end." She put her hand over her heart in a silent gesture of respectful mourning. "But when your mother woke up, she..."

At this point in the story, Mother Lily seemed to struggle for words. I waited with bated breath, a long, narrow string of dread winding itself down my stomach. "Mother Lily?" I prompted, softly.

When she finally continued, her voice was quiet, like she wanted her words to be as gentle as possible. "She was terrified. Absolutely. At first, we thought it would be because she couldn't see, and because your father wasn't waking up, but she said-- things-- that made us start to doubt that." She raised her head, but her narrowed eyes appeared conflicted still. "I don't remember much of what she said anymore. It has been twelve years, after all. But I do remember that whenever we tried to ask her what happened, she would beg us not to ask, and then later, much later, she began to say that it was just a carriage accident."

"So it might not have been one at all," I whispered.

Mother Lily shook her head. "No. And that's why I wanted to talk to you, my dear." She turned to me again, a small, sad smile lifting up the corners of her lips. Her eyes remained conflicted. "I'd like to ask you not to question Ava about the incident."

As silence descended between us, I took a deep, shuddering breath, then unclenched the fists I hadn't known I'd been making. And then I nodded, my eyes fixed on the ground before me.

What could I say to that? And how could I say no? It was obvious that asking would probably only hurt Mom, and neither of us wanted that. I'd thought the secret to the incident must've been a case of, oh, it was too gruesome for us to tell you back when you were little, so we just said it was a carriage accident. It was actually-- or something like that. Not, not something so suspicious and terrifying as this. What had Mom and Dad gone through? What had actually happened?

Now that Mother Lily had shared what she knew with me, I wasn't sure if I wanted to know anymore.

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A/N: I'm late!! I'll try to make up for last week's single chapter with three chapters either this week or next week. Most likely next week. Thank you for waiting!!