Netta's nightmares of the place did not do justice to what it felt like to be once more lowered into the box, to have the lid hammered over her.  She was, indeed, awake as she heard the thuds as the box was lowered into the hole, then felt the reverberations in her coffin as dirt was being thrown on top of the enclosed box. She knew who was throwing the dirt, for she could hear the crying duet of both Winnie and Ophelia with each fresh pummel of dirt on the wood above her. She knew that long before they had finished, she would no longer be able to hear them, or the sound of the soil hitting the lid of the coffin.

The dirt's not going to cave in here, Netta found that she had to keep reminding herself. Just like the old days.

And yet, here she was. Alone, as she had always been.

Netta closed her eyes and wished that she could sleep. It came, finally, that all she could hear surrounding her was a dull sound of utterly enclosed space. Netta tightened her arms around herself.

The asphyxiation was what hurt the most, once her breath would cycle out the last of the oxygen, leaving only the carbon dioxide that plants loved. This was something that Netta could remember in that moment, like the sudden and unbidden memory of a relative that she had last seen as a child.

Asphyxiation, poisoning, strangulation, burning - everything was so much kinder to Humans, who were so like the tender petals of a rare flower, wilting at the slightest caress of death. To kill a Witch was an act of patience on the part of the murderer. It was, nevertheless, the same agony to the Witch as it would have been to a Human victim.

An unintended gift from - who did give our kind this strength and this horrible weakness?

Netta began to weep, tears itching and cold as they fell down the sides of her face. In the small space it was utterly without light, and Netta tried to imagine how she was supposed to keep her sanity.  Along with the intense, fearful claustrophobia, she had the intense feeling that she was forgetting something - and it drove her mad. 

Who had given our kind this curse, to remain in agony, even as we would wish for death, as well as the power that would only make us hunger for more of it until it consumes us whole? Drives us to eating our own young?

Around and around and around her brain went, trying to make sense of what Hera had said - trying to make sense of how her mother had come to be. And what could be so important, about the thing she could not remember.

At some point, exhausted, she simply closed her eyes.

The weight of the miasma that poured out of her lungs - which Netta had no choice but to attempt to re-breathe - felt as though it filled her head with a terrible stench. It was as though she were already smelling her own rotting innards, creeping out of her mouth and nose. She was in a daze, could no longer sleep, although Netta had a feeling that she was near slipping into unconsciousness, and great Goddess above, she did not know how fast it would hasten to her side.  Netta did not know if she would rather embrace it as it would wrap cold arms around her, or curse it for how it cheated the innocent and the helpless while aiding the cruel.

It was a voice in the darkness, somewhere above - behind her head - that broke her out of her daze with a start.

"Here we are again, no?"

Netta blinked as a sick feeling began in her stomach. "Who's there?" She thought, for a moment, that she was hallucinating the voice. After all, she had been envisioning herself, back when she was a girl, holding the hand of a boy, then felt, like some sickness-induced daydream, the weight of a man's overlarge hands on her waist as he spun her in a dance. Only her impression had been that both were, somehow, one and the same.  And they had not been a boy or a man to begin with.

Before It laughed, Netta came to the hazy conclusion that it hardly mattered if she believed the speaker was real to begin with. And there was something so familiar about that laugh, but Netta couldn't place it.

"Why don't you come back here and we can talk?," It asked warmly.

Netta wriggled a little bit, then gave a moan. She had almost forgotten that she had a physical form. "I can't move..." It was no longer just the weight of the coffin all around her that felt restrictive. Her body, born, yes, of a Witch, was nevertheless too Human, and was punishing her for her inability to feed it the oxygen it so desperately needed.

The voice - it was masculine, she realized - sighed. "Well, not with that attitude..."

Netta craned her head upwards, expecting to see the wall of the top of the coffin. She didn't see the wall that had been at the top of her head for as long as she had been trapped. Instead, she saw what looked like a tunnel and, beyond that, somewhere in the distance, there was a light.

Netta gasped, then began to wiggle until she had pulled herself free of the box. Where she had regained her strength from, she did not know, although Netta was grateful to the very much physical form that she had just been cursing.

When she had managed to push herself into the tunnel, Netta gave a shout. She had found herself laying on the ground in what was a long, narrow chamber. Getting to her feet, Netta looked back and was astonished to find that the chamber she had been in - and the coffin - was gone.

Rubbing her head, Netta called out, "What is this?"

"All those questions - and more - answered ahead," the voice from before echoed down the tunnel in front of her.

Netta wondered if this was the correct choice to take before she decided that anything was better than the dark that she had been left in. The air here was over-rich and pungent, soil enclosing her in the tunnel overmuch like the coffin had enclosed her only moment prior. Still, it was air, and with each lungful of it, Netta felt that the heavy weight that had been threatening to, slowly, crush her, was alleviating.

She walked in silence, the sound of her breathing and her feet striking tightly packed, dry dirt the only sound in the claustrophobic tunnel.

Finally, she heard the voice call out. "You felt like you had left me for an eternity," he said. "I thought that I'd never see you again."

Netta paused, then called back, "I know... your voice - from somewhere." When he didn't answer back, Netta hurried along, eager to reach the light. When she did finally reach the end of the dark tunnel, she found at the end of it a round chamber. It reminded her, ludicrously, of the home of Bugs Bunny.

Instead of a bed and a collection of carrots, there was a man sitting at a table in the dead center of the round chamber. She recognized first the table and the chairs surrounding it. Netta realized, with a start, that it was the table set-up from her childhood recollections of the brunch table that once sat underneath the window in the kitchen.

She gazed at the man sitting, patiently, at the table. When she took another step into the kitchen, Netta watched as the room that had once surrounded the table came into existence. In a split second, it assumed the look of the heavily trafficked kitchen back in its heyday. The gleaming copper kitchenware seemed to have been brought alight by the blazing heat of the morning sun.

Netta put a hand to her chest as she was oversensitized by memories brought to life. She stared at the man and found that the difficulty that she had with placing him was disappearing. Wearing warm plaid and suspenders and trousers, the man was indicative of the time period that her memories hailed him from.

His hair - a vivid, red burst - was closely cropped, parted with a deviance towards his left, which left a fringe of his hair to hang over his face like the soft, blade-like edges of a bird's wing.

His nose, a large thing, stuck out from his face in a way that should have been ugly, but oddly, when paired with his overlarge, thick eyebrows and natural propensity for a smile that bordered on wicked, he looked endearing, roguish.

"D-dad." For a moment, all Netta could do was stare. And then she leaped with a start, the sudden, shrieking whistle of the old kettle breaking the moment.

Netta walked over to the kettle and raised her hand. She rested it on the handle of it, felt the steam that billowed out of the opened mouth of it.

"Mind, terribly, pouring me a cup?"

Turning around, Netta saw her father pointing to the cupboard where the cups were kept. At first, all Netta could do was stare at her father, until it occurred to her that it was rude. Hurrying, she made her father a cup, her hands shaking so much that she nearly dropped the thing on the ground.

Setting it in front of him, Netta found that she was at a loss for what to do. All she could do was stand and stare at him.

Her father looked up at her, a smile straining his lips. "Care for a cup yourself?"

Netta stuttered something out then made herself a cup before sitting across from her father. Outside, a bird sang out sweetly.

"You're - you were never my father, were you? You can't be real, or, or - you're a Mons-" Netta couldn't finish saying that, her mind refusing to believe it.

Looking at her, her father's smile seemed to be returning in its sincerity. "No. I knew true that you were my sire. But I'm not -" He chuckled good-naturedly, ducking his head. "you see, what you call "Monster" -."

Netta clenched her hands into tight, strained fists and interrupted him. "That can't be true. You're - you were - a Human man."

The little man chuckled, thrust one of his road-dusted feet out. "I recall someone who's eyes remind me of yours."

Netta frowned, touching her shaking hand to her face. "What do you mean?"

Her father sighed, resting his chin on his hand. "You really don't know? Hmph. Count on your mother to think of everything and yet forget the most crucial aspect of the whole thing at the same time."

"Dad, I thought that you died."

He winced, reaching over to take a sip of his tea. "That's negligible. Anyway, you're here because -"

"I missed you." Tears began to flow then, an undefeatable shaking taking over her lips. "I've never gone a day without thinking of you."

Her father coughed. "Well, here I am, obviously all right. Your mother put a great big damper on the way that things were supposed to go, but the good news is that, as I suspected, this sort of thing has a way of working out. We can right what's happened." He smiled broadly, as though what he had told her was something truly spectacular.

A wretched feeling crept up Netta's spine as she felt the sadness and the happiness that fought in her mind stop in one moment. "What are you talking about?" She asked in a hoarse whisper. "How are you - what are you?" Something struck her, and Netta blurted out, "You're a figment of my imagination, aren't you? How can a man - how can someone survive and be - we're in my mind, aren't we?" When he did not speak, clearly surprised as he blinked slowly, Netta said, "We are, aren't we?"

The man sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. "Dear child, I thought this was all abundantly clear to you by now. All of the pieces are in front of you, if you would bother to put them together. I," he dropped a hand to his chest. "am not only a sentient being of magic, but also of notable importance, as the one whose duty it has been to survive to bring the glory of the rightful King back into his world. By any means necessary. Now, if you're here finally, then it means that you've met Ashwood - if that's what he calls himself these days - and your mother's fumbling machinations have only managed to stop the plan, momentarily."

In spite of her confusion, something seemed to flicker in Netta's memory, but then it faded.

The man continued. "Thankfully, you're long-lived and so eventually this is what would happen. Still - one hundred years. Whoosh."

"Father, you can't be a Monster." Netta said it aloud, even though she was increasingly aware that she could not continue to deny it. "And what's more, you can't be my father."

Tristan looked at her, a quirk in his eyebrow. "Oh, I most certainly am not Human, but I am your father."

Netta shook. "No. It's - that's not possible."

Even as she said it, she recalled Tristan, speaking of how there was no other way that he could live, but at the beck and call of Hera. That statement - it could have been taken as the lamentation of a henpecked husband, and that's how Netta had taken it.

But -

Tristan laughed. "We can speak of this sort of thing, once we've gotten you on the right track -"

"And what's the "right track" anyway, huh?" A sense of anger had been filling her, hateful at the creature in front of her - for what else could he be? - angry at a sense of loss that she could not explain. "I missed you my entire life, I've been empty since the day you left me. Where were you? Do you love me?"

"Now, Neith, you're getting upset -" he had raised his hands out defensively, and it only angered her more.

"Of course I'm upset!" Unknown to Netta, but recognized immediately by the man sitting across from her, the walls and the floor had begun to shake.

"Okay. Wow." Tristan pushed his tea away.

Outside, Netta thought that the sun looked oddly unreal, lacking any warmth as it shone on her skin. The taste of the tea that she had drunk earlier seemed to cling in a foul way to her tongue.

They were silent for a long while, and Netta did not know if she would have preferred that they stay that way for an eternity. For however long they had planned to keep her here.

Finally, Tristan sighed, then spoke, his voice strained, tired. "If it makes you feel better, I've been here all along, she's just - it's as though you were wearing a blindfold when it came to me while you were in this house. Stronger wills surrounding you make me impossible to interact with, or for me to interact with you."

"What?" A tear had slipped out, and Netta could feel it, creeping down the shallow furrow along the slight bulb of her nose.

Netta looked back at the man who claimed to be her father. He had grasped his arm with one hand, looked as uncomfortable as he always had around her Mother. The sight of that body language angered Netta, made her fists clench.

Uneasy, Tristan said, "Look, there really is a better time for this sort of thing -"

"How can a Monster be my father? It's not possible." She recalled her mother's words, but confronted with it, like this, seemed like nothing but nonsense. Everything her Mother had said - it sounded like so much madness. Like the logic of a nightmare.

Tristan sighed, pushing away from the table, leaning back in his chair. He massaged his forehead. With an annoyed sigh, Tristan spoke. "Okay, new facts of life are thus - Daddy wanted to bring his liege, the King of Magic, back into existence following a curse that put him in a chain that only a contradictory creature of darkness could pull him out of. I'll be succinct on this point by just saying that it's a creature born of Witch and Magic. Mommy, a legendary bitch if there ever was one, on par, really, with Ashwood's queen for one week, was easily tricked because she thinks that all our kind are simpletons."

Tristan took his hand away from his forehead and began to tap a small rhythm against his tea cup. The sound reminded Netta, oddly, of the sound of Calliope's cat clock as it ticked, then of the sound of the clocks in the Gardenia house.

Tristan continued, saying, "Daddy tells Mommy that if she does what he tells her, then she will give birth to a Witch of legendary power, yadda yadda yadda. Cut to the chase - you were born to be the one who breaks the chains free for not just the Monsters that you've already met - no small feat, to not be killed by him the moment that you came of age, I must say - but all of our kind." He breathed in, then smiled. "How was that?"

Netta stood up and walked outside, not caring to listen to her father's begging her to sit back down. As soon as she opened the door, the world disintegrated around her, leaving only endless shadow.

Netta tightly hugged herself and looked up, seeing nothing but the horrible darkness all around her. Gone were the sweet sounds of the birds that had once sung around the bare-armed trees that grew around the house. Gone the sun that had shone in on treasured mornings when Netta and Tristan would have rare moments alone in the morning.

Morning, she now realized, it had always been morning, because it was near noon when Hera would have always risen from her bed, after a night spent somewhere. She spent evenings, alone, wherever parties were to be had, places where Humans could smell something special about her, treat her like a queen or a goddess, then would return smelling of the hands that had touched her, the lips that she had taken promises and desperate pleas from. The physical traces of which she would leisurely wash away in her large, hot bath, but would linger on in how the woman spoke to her wards and daughters.

Tristan's voice was in her mind, spoke clearly. I've seen everything that's ever happened to you, while you lived as a Human. My King - he's still got a foothold in your memories, where your Mother doesn't think that you can reach him. ...Not on your own, at least. Luckily, she doesn't know that I had one go at kick-starting the whole process. He paused, as though considering what next to say. Lucky for you and for all of us, I suppose.