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She receives the necklace for her birthday.
Amity lifts the deep purple pendant out of its soft casing with reverence. This gift is unlike any other. Not like clothes, which are practical and slightly boring, and not like books, which she can’t wait to read. Every birthday comes with clothes and books, and a little trinket or two (this year’s is a sheaf of extremely high quality papers, each one lightly embossed with the Emperor’s Coven insignia). This isn’t a trinket. Holding the necklace makes her feel grown up and adult even though today Amity is turning ten.
It feels heavy in her hands.
She looks up and asks, “Can I try it on?”
Mother beams at her. “Of course, dear!” Her smile is wide. She’s pleased that Amity likes her gift. “Let me help you put it on,” she says.
She stands behind Amity and closes the clasp around her neck. Amity feels the weight of the crystal pendant against her heart. It feels cold. It feels austere and grave. It feels important.
It feels adult.
“So you’ll always be thinking of me,” Mother says from behind her.
-/-
The first time she hears Mother’s voice through the necklace, she’s surrounded by people.
Amity is among her parents’ friends in her nice dress, and they’re all paying attention to her. She doesn’t know how it happened. She started telling a story about something that happened with one of Daddy’s experiments, and it took a little bit of set-up to explain, and as she spoke she was aware of how the silence had grown as everyone focused on her.
She continues to tell the story of losing track of the micro-abominations, how a batch of them hid in the spaces between the walls for almost a week, and she’s aware of how she is holding the attention of her parents’ friends. They’re not humoring her. They’re listening to her. Like she’s one of them.
Like she’s an adult.
Just after she’s described the image of her father pulling his head back out from beneath the upstairs floorboards, his face coated in abomination goo, and all her parents’ friends politely laugh, Mother’s voice cuts through her head like a blade.
“Amity!” she hisses. “We do not discuss things like that outside of the family!”
Amity looks for her with panic in her eyes while the laughter around her continues. She sees Mother, gripping the gem at her throat and wearing a smile as if she’s been faintly amused by Amity’s story.
There’s no smile in her eyes, though. Her eyes are cold and austere.
“Doesn’t my daughter tell the funniest stories?” Mother exclaims to the crowd, to general agreement.
Still holding the gem, the smile rigid on her face, Amity hears her mother’s voice with a message for her alone a second time.
“Don’t you say another word until everyone leaves. I cannot believe you!”
She stands by Mother’s side and looks down at her fancy shoes. She wants to give her a hug to apologize and show she’s sorry, but she doesn’t know how Mother will take that in front of company. She remains silent until the party ends, fingering the pendant that hangs around her neck.
It feels heavy.
-/-
She comes down the stairs and Mother is waiting for her.
“Forgetting something, Amity dear?” she asks as Amity heads for the door.
She doesn’t think she’s forgotten anything. Her calendar was blank for a week. All her homework was finished the night before, and now the scrolls are tucked away in a magic pocket. She hastily checks herself, in case somehow she’s managed to dress in something that isn’t her uniform.
When she looks back up at Mother, Amity sees the necklace waiting in her open hand.
Mother approaches Amity and stands behind her, closing the clasp around her neck. “There,” she says, “wouldn’t want you to be out of touch, now would we?”
Amity looks up into her smile and heavy eyes. Mother doesn’t say anything more but she speaks volumes.
“Sorry,” Amity mumbles. “I forgot.”
“That’s quite alright, dearest!”
When her mother smiles broad enough to make her eyes close, Amity can believe her.
As she opens the door, Mother warns, “Don’t let it happen again.”
Like her smile, her words are warm. Like her eyes, her tone is cold.
Amity touches the necklace as she walks to school. She wonders when she’ll hear her mother’s voice through it again.
Wearing it feels like an obligation. It feels heavy. It feels adult.
-/-
Mother speaks through the necklace frequently. Few of the things she says are memorable. They’re little reminders. Little thoughts. Little notes. Mother is thinking of you. Mother wants you to do what’s best for the family.
Mother has her eye on you.
Every interruption is unexpected. No message is important. Each time, it’s one of a thousand cuts.
There’s the time when Mother keeps contacting her with meaningless hollow affirmations throughout the day and Amity keeps forgetting what she was saying in the middle of her sentences. Boscha and Skara look at her like she’s going mad. Amity learns to keep her sentences short, to minimize the amount of time Mother has to disrupt her.
There’s the time when Amity has to speak over her mother’s voice in her head during a presentation for Abominations, and when she confronts Mother about it later with the accusation that she could have messed up her grade (she didn’t, but she could have), Mother bites back with a wounded tirade about how she was only checking up on her, and how she understands that Amity is too big and too mature at twelve to need her mother fawning over her constantly but to her she would always be her little Mittens, but she would understand if Amity didn’t want her to show concern and affection for her any more even though it would break her heart. Amity apologizes and Mother continues to speak at her through the necklace, and Amity learns to keep her opinions to herself.
There’s the time when the Banshees are in the finals against Glandus and Amity looks out into the crowded stands before kick-off for her parents. She’s in control of the ball when she hears her mother’s voice telling her she’s sorry, we couldn’t make it, something else came up at the last minute, but do well in your game, dear, and suddenly she’s not in control of the ball any more, it’s been stolen away by the Glandus center, who runs it down the length of the field and scores. “Get your head in the game!” Boscha growls at her as the crowd roars. Amity takes another look at the stands full of unimportant people, and she learns to keep her expectations low.
Each one leaves a lesson.
-/-
She’s shading the lock of hair that falls across Malingale’s face when the necklace hums.
Amity can’t make out the words but she can recognize Mother’s tone through the warped words. The wards she’s set up to protect her alcove hidden in the library work a little, but she doesn’t know enough about Oracle magic to make them completely effective, and she doesn’t dare ask. She doesn’t need to know what Mother’s saying, because she knows already. She’s spent too long at the library. She hasn’t come home yet. What is it that you do there that takes all that time? Surely reading to some children can’t take that long, most of them are probably only looking at the pictures anyway. Why can’t you read books at home, Mittens?
She looks at the unfinished picture. At the pencils spread out on the desk before her. Those weren’t a gift. She bought them herself, and brought them straight to the library. They’ve never been home with her.
Amity hears her mother’s voice in her head even though the room and the pendant are silent. What are you doing, Mittens? Are you drawing? Oh, that’s precious. Who is this? Is that a boyfriend? My goodness, I’m only teasing, dear. Everyone needs a little hobby. Just don’t let it interfere with your schoolwork, okay?
She wants to scream, or cry, or do both. She wants to never go home, and just stay in her alcove at the library forever. She wants to burn the necklace that weighs her down. She wants to shatter it into a million pieces. She wants to hurl it into the Boiling Sea.
Instead she sighs, and tucks her drawing into the book she’s borrowed from Luz, and leaves and goes home.