Love Lost raised herself up straight, then went to the kitchen cupboard, retrieving a bottle of headache pills. She doled out two into her hand. The stem of a wine glass was briefly visible as she washed them down.

The theme song had ended, and the television was high cartoon voices, now.

Love Lost buried her face in her hands and sighed.

“Mom?”

“Yes?”

“Mom.”

“What is it, Everlyn?” Love Lost’s voice could only be described as barely restrained, slightly muffled with her face still in her hands.

“Can I show you something?”

“How bad is the mess?”

“Oh, that. I’ll clean it up after. Can I show you something?”

“Can it wait? Please? I’m not up for it right now.”

“Okay.”

Love Lost remained where she was. The sounds in the background settled into a throbbing sync. The television show broke away to show ads, high cartoon voices replaced with adult announcers touting toys and kids screaming their glee in response.

She raised her head up, and a slice of color caught her eye. She looked—the princess doll, sitting on the edge of the counter. The weight of the doll held down a little booklet.

She set the doll aside, noting the paper shield stuck to the arm with two pieces of clear tape. The cover of the book had two women on it, both with red hair.

The woman in a dress with the shield was in the book, alongside a figure that wasn’t supposed to be a woman, but Everly. A child drawing herself as larger and more prominent, with a scarf drawn overlong, sprawling out over the page.

The red-haired wizard had once had a teacher but he was gone. There was only the knight who had ‘raised her up’, who had red hair like her. The knight ‘detected’ crimes and was always very tired and very grumpy.

Children on the television in the background shrieked. The sound became a growing echo of screams.

Love Lost’s vision blurred slightly, and she paged through. The lead-in to the book took a long time, and the confrontation at the end was brief, as the demon was slain.

Love Lost looked away, at a small collection of empty bottles on the counter, tucked beside the microwave and the wall, set out of reach.

She finished looking through the book’s ending. She closed it, hand pressing down the front cover so it would lie flat instead of sticking straight up. The teacher’s sticker was in the corner, a tiny superhero silhouette holding up a giant ‘A+’. The teacher had penned out a response, saying in length how much they loved it.

Love Lost’s thumbnail dragged against the construction paper, scratching the words the teacher had put down, the edge of the nail finding the grooves where the pen nib had dug into the softer paper.