iir wasn't sure why he was wandering up to the Witch's tower. Most likely she'd snap and snarl and chase him out with her broom. But Nor was ignoring him, treating him like he wasn't there because she was mad at him. He wasn't even that sure why. But he knew that he was stupid enough, and this was Nor.

Liir sighed like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. He hated stairs, he hated trudging up all of them. Especially these, winding and spiralling. He was somewhat afraid of the shadows cast on the walls although it was day and outside the sun was shining. The Witch would think that stupid, so he simply wouldn't tell her. He wouldn't even want to confide in her, either, with her all hunched over and unfriendly looking. He wished for a father to love him. The Witch, maybe his mother and maybe not, hadn't shown him anything good. Yes, Liir decided, fathers were of a better sort. Fiyero was spoken of worshipfully in this household, by Sarima and her children and sisters. He knew that the Witch had known Fiyero, although Liir did wonder a bit why he'd liked her if he was as good as they had said.

He walked up the rest of the tower steps and into the Witch's work room. She was hunched over a tiny glass orb, a little toylike thing. He tried to silently observe her but Liir, who was told that he was clumsy daily, accidentally tripped and cursed under his breath.

The Witch spun up, the makings of a glare on her face. "Who-?" she said,and then glared at him. "Liir. What are you doing here?"

He shrugged. "I was bored and Nor didn't want to play with me."

"I wouldn't either," she mumbled under her breath. The Witch picked up the glass orb from where it had fallen, miraculously not cracked into pieces on the floor.

"What were you doing with that thing?" he asked her tentatively.

"Searching the future," she said absentmindedly, as if her mind was somewhere else, perhaps in whatever she'd seen in the glass orb. "Or the past, or even the present. It doesn't matter now. Go away."

He left miserably. Sure, he hadn't expected anything different- had he? Maybe some sort of affection, or a confession that she was his mother and the rumors floating around the castle were correct, or simply something. But he got nothing as usual.

Liir went back down to see if Nor had forgiven him yet.

I'm scared
Not like I was before, of discovery
That's a different kind of fear
That's a fear for yourself
For your secret.

This kind of fear isn't for me
It's for you
What you are doing to yourself
How you are hiding yourself
How you do this to yourself

How can you
S l o w l y
Destroy
Your mind
Your body
Your being

Obituary

She opened the newspaper as she did every morning, her cup on tea at her side.  The front page headline was normal; depressing politics she'd read about on blogs the night before.  Dead people on the headline under that.  Their obituaries would probably be in that section.

Out of boredom, she checked.

In a small paragraph, she saw her name.

Susannah Flick, 24

That was her age, too.

Ms. Flick was found dead on her bathroom floor with slit wrists.  Her time of death is estimated to be around ten o'clock in the morning. 

Susannah gasped; that was in forty minutes.  She reached out to find her bottle of pills, maybe she was hallucinating,

Before her death, she had taken a lethal overdose of sleeping pills, although this was not the direct cause.

She checked the label.  They were the sleeping pills provided by her doctor three days ago.  The bottle was mostly full.

According to her physician, she had severe depression and insomnia.

She had been feeling worse lately.  But this was so clearly a joke by a friend in some misguided way to amuse her.

Ms. Flick was a graduate of Hamilton College.  She was employed as a bookseller at Pages Bookstore.   She was found by a roomate, Olivia Calfurray, approximately five hours after her death, which has been ruled a suicide.  She is survived by her parents, Jody and Ryan Flick of Syracuse, New York, her sister Hope Flick and her brother Jonathan Flick and his daughter. 

The details were all right there.  Her parents, her siblings, Olivia being her roomate.  Susannah felt sick.  She swallowed a large number of the sleeping pills and checked the date on the paper.  It was the next day.

She heaved and rushed into the bathroom, throwing up in the toilet.  Sticky brown locks from her ponytail hit the side of her face.  She gulped in air.  Thirty five  more minutes until ten.  She glanced down at her wrists, her arms, noting the scars from her suicide attempt when she was eighteen.

...dead on her bathroom floor with slit wrists...lethal overdose...ruled a suicide...found by a roomate

She had been intending to do this since she was eighteen.  On the newspaper with an eyeliner pencil lying on the rug she circled the date, circled her obituary, and scrawled the words I'm sorry that I bled all over the floor, Olivia.  Tell everyone I love that I'm sorry.  Please don't cry for me, I knew it was coming. 

She picked up a razor.  The first cut stung, as she knew that it would.  As it had.  The blood trickled down her arm and dripped on to the floor.  She counted the drips.  One, two, three, four.  Again, and then again.  The metal was slippery in her grasp now, and her vision was hazy.

At least now I'm in control

As she blacked out, the last thing that Susannah Flick saw was the newspaper.