There were days when Aurèlle feared she was forgetting her mother's face.
Not the shape of it — that remained clear enough. Soft mouth. Gentle brow. Eyes the color of twilight just before the first star pierced the sky. But the smaller things… the sound of her laughter, the warmth of her embrace, the exact cadence of her voice — those felt fragile now. Like mist at sunrise, dissipating under the harsh light of reality.
Aurèlle was five when her mother died. Five was old enough to remember. But not old enough to hold on tightly.
She kept her memories carefully, like pressed flowers between the pages of a book. Taken out only when she was certain no one would see. Hidden away, private, sacred. Tonight was such a night.
The moon spilled silver across her quilt, and the manor was quiet. Selene had retired to her chambers, Dahlia dreaming of marigolds bending toward her hands. Aurèlle lay awake beneath the sloping ceiling of her small bedroom, a thin strand of moonlight falling across her face.
She reached beneath her pillow. Her fingers brushed against something cold and familiar. A small ring. Gold, delicately engraved, a single sparkling diamond nestled at its center. She lifted it carefully, tracing the tiny etchings with her fingertips. The ring had belonged to her mother, hidden beneath pillow and mattress for safekeeping. Around her neck, she fingered the familiar chain of her key pendant, tucked always beneath her clothes, warm against her chest. The key was her mother's; the ring gift from her father which had originally been the ring her mother wore when they first wed, a piece of the past she could hold onto. Both were pieces of a story she had barely begun to understand.
She closed her eyes and let the memory come.
⸻
Her mother had not been like the other Sylvanians.
She had worn the same flowing fabrics, the same earth-toned silks, the same embroidered tunics and skirts as the women around her. And yet… there was something in her. Something subtle. A sway to her steps that felt unhurried, a softness to her gaze that lingered on the smallest things. When she spoke, even in whispers, the air seemed to carry her words farther than it should. She blended in, yet she always stood apart. Aurèlle had felt it instinctively, a quiet pull toward her mother's presence even when others were around.
"Little Star," her mother would call her.
Not seedling. Not sprout.
Star.
Her father, in contrast, had called her "my little seedling," brushing the curl from her brow with a gentle hand, teaching her to reach and grow as plants do, toward the sun. The memory of his touch — the strength and gentleness — lingered like sunlight pressed against the skin.
Aurèlle remembered sitting in the garden at dusk, small fingers tangled in her mother's skirts. Fireflies flickered between the hedges, tiny lanterns in the darkening air. Her mother would tilt her face toward the sky as though greeting a distant friend.
"You must never rush what is meant for you," she had said once, brushing Aurèlle's curls from her forehead. "The earth blooms in its own season. And the sky… it waits for the right night."
Aurèlle had not understood then. She barely understood now.
Her mother had taught her gentleness. How to cup a fallen bird without fear. How to whisper apologies to uprooted weeds. How to close her eyes and breathe until the world softened around its sharpest edges. How to notice the small, quiet miracles in the garden: the tiny sprouts forcing their way through the soil, the way sunlight lingered on dew, the subtle dance of wind across petals.
And yet — there had been secrets.
Aurèlle remembered waking once in the middle of the night and finding her mother standing at the bedroom window, curtains drawn back, moonlight bathing her in silver. Her palm had been pressed to the glass. The stars beyond had seemed brighter. Closer. Aurèlle had called softly.
Her mother had turned — not startled, not ashamed — only thoughtful, as though caught between two places. "Go back to sleep, Little Star," she had whispered.
But when Aurèlle returned to bed, she could have sworn the air hummed faintly. As if the night itself were answering. Her heart had swelled with wonder, a fragile, fleeting certainty that there was more to the world than the visible. That there were hidden currents flowing beneath the mundane, and her mother was attuned to them.
⸻
The illness came quickly. Too quickly.
Aurèlle remembered the smell of herbs steeping in water, the hushed conversations, her father's strained voice as he knelt beside the bed. Selene had not yet entered their lives. In those final days, her mother's touch had grown lighter, cooler, but her eyes had remained bright.
"You must be brave," she had whispered, fingers trembling as they cupped Aurèlle's cheek. "And you must forgive what you do not yet understand."
Aurèlle had cried, small hands clutching the bedsheets.
"Don't go."
Her mother had smiled then — not sadly, not knowingly — and pressed a kiss to her forehead.
The next morning, the room had been too quiet. Too still.
⸻
Aurèlle opened her eyes. The ring lay warm in her palm. The key pressed against her chest beneath her nightdress. Two small tokens. Two reminders. One of love. One of trust.
She did not know the truth of her bloodline. She did not know that the reason the earth had not answered her was because it was never meant to. She did not know that Blooming was not her awakening. She was waiting for something else entirely.
The stars burned steadily above the manor. Patient. Watchful. Waiting.
Aurèlle fingered the ring again, feeling the diamond catch the moonlight, sending tiny glimmers across the quilt. She traced the etchings slowly, imagining the hands that had carved them, imagining the mother she barely knew whispering encouragement into her ear. The key around her neck pressed warmly against her chest. It was heavier than it seemed — a subtle weight of secrets and inheritance, a promise she would one day understand.
She breathed in deeply, letting the memories fill the room, remembering her mother's gentle guidance, the soft words, the quiet reassurance. And though she could not summon her mother back, though the loss still ached in the hollow places of her chest, Aurèlle felt, for a moment, that she could almost reach her. Almost feel the same comfort she had felt in the days before the illness took her away.
The manor remained silent. Outside, the wind brushed across the treetops. The garden beyond the walls slept under moonlight. Inside, Aurèlle curled the ring in her palm one more time, drawing strength from the memory. One day, she would understand everything. One day, the world that her mother had hinted at — the currents beneath the soil, the sky, and the stars — would reveal itself.
But not yet.
Tonight, there was only memory, and in memory, there was love