I wake up to the sound of... wait? No gnomes laughing? No fairies fluttering? No Blair shrieking at me? No mother screaming as she sweeps gnomes out the door?

I sit up and look next to me, and see that Atlas is indeed gone. Just like he said.

I pout, wishing that he was still here, but know better when my door is pummeled by something.

"Gosh, AVALON! Why is your door locked?" Mother.

I groan and push the covers off of me and stumble over to my window and lock it, grateful that Atlas remembered to close it in his recent departure.

I glance in my mirror and roll my eyes when I see my hair is tangled beyond hair-brush material.

I get to my door and barely have time to move out of the way when I unlock it because it is flung open as mother barrels past me.

She starts snooping around my room, looking under the bed, yanking back the duvet, pulling open drawers.

"What are you looking for?" I ask nervously.

She ignores me, continuing her search for who knows what.

I start to fidget, bringing the waist of my nightgown between my fingers, tugging at it, "If you're looking for something of Blairs, it's not in here."

"I'm not. I'm looking for evidence."

I gulp, "Evidence of what?" Evidence that Atlas was here last night? Evidence for our thievery of the palace scroll? Oh no, please don't let her know these secrets.

"Evidence that the gnomes weren't in here yesterday," she mutters, knocking over a pile of my books.

I breathe a sigh of relief, "Oh, well, they can't climb up that wall," unless they use those vines, I think, "and they weren't in the palace yesterday."

She straightens the books, "You're right." She stands up, I'm going to search Blair's room."

"But you just agreed that they weren't in the palace yesterday." I remind her.

She stops walking "Right, of course. Sorry, I'm very tired."

Now concerned, I ask, "Do you get any sleep last night?"

"Less than usual, but I'll be fine. You should come down and eat breakfast. Well, now almost lunch."

"Okay," I start getting out of bed, hoping she doesn't suspect anything about last night or the palace scroll. 

She walks briskly from my room and turns right to the spiral staircase as I hurry to my dresses and yank off my nightgown and replace it with a simple sky blue gown. I scoot my fancier dresses all the way to the right, separating them from my simple day-dresses.

I throw my nightgown into the hamper by my door and snatch a ponytailholder from one of my dresser drawers and try to tie my hair into a simple braid down my back when the band snaps and I scream in annoyance, grabbing another one from the same drawer, and correctly securing my hair in the braid. 

I slip on tan wedges and close my door behind me and hurry down the spiral staircase.

I enter the dining room to see my mother alone in her usual chair. There are no palace guards and no fairies.

"Where's everyone else?" I ask, walking to the table and pulling my chair back from the table so I can sit down.

"Not here, obviously." she adjusts her crown as it begins to slip off her head.

I scan the table in front of me, "I thought you said there'd be lunch."

"I never said that. It is being prepped right now."

I cross my legs under the table, "Oh. What will we be eating?"

"I don't know. I'm not the cook."

"We don't even have a cook."

She raises an eyebrow, "Who do you think makes our meals every day?"

"Fairies? Or it just appears by magic like that... that wizard school."

"What wizard school?"

"Nevermind. It's not important."

Just then, the kitchen door bangs open and our food is served by... Atlas?

I rip my eyes away from his smug face and look at my mother who has a knowing smile that is stretching way too far across her face. She raises her eyebrows and goes, "Mhmhehehehmhm."

I glare at her and watch Atlas arrange the food in front of us.

"Will you be staying to eat?" my mother asks him, and I blanche, mouthing "NO!" at her, behind my hand.

"Yes," he replies, and I put up the middle finger at my mother underneath the table so she can't see it.

"Wonderful!" she exclaims as I mope and try not to let my arm brush against Atlases arm when he sits next to me, because I don't want mother to know what happened last night, if she hasn't already figured out that secret.

"Avalon, please go get Blair," mother says, still smiling that horrific smile.

I push away from the table, stomp over to the doorway, and cast a furious face at her over my shoulder, hoping Atlas doesn't see it.

Muttering to myself, I trudge up the spiral staircase, kicking a stray piece of stone on the floor I didn't see when I made my way down these stairs earlier, and trip on my dress halfway up to the bedrooms.

"I hate this dress," I seethe, and continue marching up the stairs, to Blair's room.

BANG BANG BANG! My fist pounds on the wood of her door and I get no response.

BANG- and her door is flung wide open, my first connects with her face as it flies forward to knock on the now nonexistent wood.

It takes her a moment to even register what happened as her face smacks to the side.

Her hand cups the right side of her face and she stares at me in shock. My face reflects the same expression in her eyes.

Then, a smirk slowly starts spreading across her face, and before I can even open my mouth to apologize, her eyes gleam with mischief when she screams, "MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTHERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!" 

I try to slap my hand over her mouth but she's already finished screaming and is portraying a very convincing act of crying and slapping herself in the face to make the faded mark redder than before.

"Stop!" I whisper scream, "Stop! Please stop!"

I try to grab her arm and push her back inside her room, but she keeps screaming I start to hear mothers heels coming up the stairs so I sigh in defeat, letting my arm drop to the side.

"What! What's the matter?" mother cries when she rounds the stairs.

Blair pretends to sob and just before she starts raging to mother about a simple accident that she blew up, she shoots me the meanest face I've ever seen, and I start to actually cry when she fakesobs, "I was just trying to read, when I hear HER-" she stabs a finger at me, and I flinch, "banging violently on my door! So I get up to answer and see what she wants, but when I open the door, she- she- she-" and she gives me one more sneer behind her hair, "she HIT ME!"

My mouth drops open as tears run down my cheeks in utter horror at what she just said. She's gone way too far this time, and none of it's even true. I look behind Blair to her room and don't even see a book in sight!

I start to explain, "No! It's not true! Mother, I swear it, you have to believe me, please!"

"Look at the mark on my face!" Blair wails, pushing her own doing of a red mark up to mother face so she can examine it.

There's silence other than Blair's fake sniffles, and then mother says in a low voice, "You hit her?"

I shake my head no, as Blair steps to the side and mother is in full view, her hands shaking as her eyes pierce through mine.

"I didn't! I swear! Please, just let me explain my side of this! Then you'll understand!"

Mother shakes her head, "I don't need you to explain your side of anything. You've done enough."

I sniff, snot clogging my nose, fear running down my spine, "What? I've done enough? What do you mean?"

"You've been acting so odd this past week! Blaming your sister for things that are your fault, running around with strange boys, disobeying me! What has gotten into you?"

Blaming Blair? Strange boys? What is she talking about? "Strange boys? He isn't a strange boy, you know him! He was just in the same room as us five minutes ago!"

"Yes, but didn't you think to tell me that he was here last night? In your room? Sleeping in your bed? And you sleeping in the same bed as him? You were hiding it! How long did you think you would be able to keep that a secret until I found out?"

-

Ohmygod. Shit. Shit, shit. shit. Shit! SHIT! NO!

I don't even try to keep my patience anymore, I just damn near explode, "FUCK!" I scream, "Why do you always have to know my business?! I HATE YOU!"

A strong silence surrounds us, and as I begin to realize what I said, I also realize how I didn't even need to have a buildup to telling her I hate her, it just came out. And it isn't true. I don't hate her. I am just very, VERY angry with her.

I gasp, "I... I..."

And without thinking, I run from the hall, down the stairs, burst through the garden door, climb over the fence, and run into the woods.

Reading and plotting all but forgotten.