

She searches all day but can't find her mother.

She could have fallen somewhere, or her heart could have given out. She thinks of how her mother is older, and how she was a late in life baby, a scandal, who always caused her mother distress in some way. Enola's mother doesn't return that night and she's still missing the next day, so Enola goes to look for her in all her favorite places, but she is nowhere to be found. She liked all of them, except the ciphers. A drawing kit, a book about the messages of flowers, fans, handkerchiefs, wax seals and stamps, and a handmade booklet of ciphers. Lane, the cook, gives Enola her birthday gifts from her mother. Her mother likes to go out exploring, taking her notebooks and watercolors, so surely she'll be home eventually. Her name is Alone spelled backward after all. On Enola's 14th birthday, her mother leaves before she wakes, but her mother is always leaving her alone.
