More rain continued to fall on the lands of the Bonelake. Was.h.i.+ng the silt and dirt that had come up to be pushed to the lower surface. After they were done pus.h.i.+ng the mud back in place while keeping the grave back in its position, Damien held her hand to go back to the mansion in a blink of an eye. 

Penny stared blankly at the wall, "Master Damien," she finally looked up to meet his eyes. It seemed that he knew something that she wasn't aware of. 

Damien let out a loud sigh. The sigh coming out to be a bit frustrated. He ran his hand over his hair which had fallen flat on his forehead to only push it back, "Bathsheba was right," he replied to her questioning eyes that had turned greener than the rest of the time over her pale skin. Water droplets still covered her face that stood still, "I don't think you have two mothers. The mother who you have known all these years, whom you saw being buried is not dead." 

Penny smiled at him. Her smile wavering in doubt, "How can a person be alive after being dead. The human lives don't work that day," she stated. What he was saying didn't make sense but with the proof of an empty coffin, there was the truth that she saw that she was trying hard to accept. 

"I would have told it was the villagers but no one ever leaves an empty coffin. It is in the law of s.p.a.ce that has been placed by the council to utilize and not make a mockery of the dead. If one were to even move the person from one coffin to another, you cannot leave an empty one there. It is the magistrate's responsibility to remove it and I doubt that the current magistrate who was looking forward to s.e.x.u.a.l favors from you would have touched the body at all. The person would instead continue to keep the body so that he has a way to get back in contact with you. To be able to see you again and bring back the same intentions which he has harbored by the thought of you." 

Penny shook her head. She saw her mother suffer. If she wasn't by her side looking after her mother, maybe... maybe she would have considered it but this felt unreal. She had touched her mother's body which had left its soul. With no movement where she laid in the coffin.

Damien then continued to say, "A humans mindset is such that if they hate something, they will make sure to eradicate it but with the law hanging in place, no one would take the trouble to dig up the grave and remove the body," he walked towards the fireplace, pus.h.i.+ng the logs to start the fire, "The coffin which was there, it has been unused. The body starts decaying soon once it is dead. Bringing not only a foul smell but also leaving its moss that comes from the body on the surface of the coffin. There are two conclusions that can be drawn here. One, that someone stole the body the same day the body was dug up and put in the grave. Two, the person who was supposed to be in the coffin is not dead but alive which was what Bathsheba said." 

Damien was right with the second option being the more plausible one. How else would Bathsheba tell that her mother was alive? Why and how came the questions in Penny's mind. 

Penny was in loss of words. 

How did her mother come back to life? 

She looked at the fireplace which crackled with fire, sparks of the woods flying softly in its own cage, "It was good," it always had been. After all, there was no one else Penny had been close to. When others around her had shunned her, refused to talk or look at her, her mother had given her all the time she could even during the heavy working days. "It was a peaceful atmosphere when she was around. She was my friend, father and everything a person a little girl would want from her mother." 

"Explain a little more on this illness that she caught. What were the symptoms that you noticed in her?" Damien didn't often go looking up for the symptoms when someone told them they were sick but with the body missing and her mother who could be out and alive, there was no telling what was going on here. 

Recollecting it, Penny said, "There was discoloration on her skin. As in my mother had a very pale complexion but her lips turned dry and dark, dark circles around her eyes which showed she was exhausted. She fell sick as if she had caught a cold. Though it wasn't the time of Winter, her body couldn't hold on to the weather and as the end of the days approached she coughed blood."

"Hmm," Damien hummed taking in what she said, "How did you make the doctor agree to come to visit your mother?" 

"He was an acquaintance of my mother. I did go to find him earlier before he arrived but he wasn't there. He was out on errands every time I went to go see him. At least that is what the sign on his board said," she replied back with a frown. 

"Do you think he still lives there?"

"Why would you ask that?" 

"Because it is highly likely that if your mother has disappeared from the coffin, the man should not be there too. For your mother to recommend and for the man to arrive only at her ending time, don't you think something is off there? You wouldn't have suspected it before but with what has occurred we can find out by going there the first thing in the morning tomorrow." 

Penny didn't understand why her mother had not reached out to her if she was alive. Wasn't it the first thing one did if they were to come alive? To meet their loved ones but right now her mother had not let her know. She had stayed with her uncle and aunt for months yet she had not let a single doubt of her existence reach her.

The question was why?