Episode Forty-Three: Seeled

In which certain delicate truths become public knowledge.

Episode description: Things lost. Things found. Things buried. A stitch can either open or close.

Episode Overview
A return to the graveyard.

Trigger Warnings

 * SEVERE AND GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF CHILD ABUSE, death, unreality, distortion, abusive parental figures, blood, descriptions of pregnancy, panic attacks, crying.

Episode Summary
We open with Anna, Lolo, and Janet discussing Mabel. Anna says that she can't find Mabel, and Janet screams that Mabel's been dead the whole time, even though Lolo interrupts her to tell her to stop. Janet explains that Mabel died; they thought Lily killed her because Lily left the Martin house covered in so much of Mabel's blood that the police thought there was genuinely no way she could still be alive. Lolo says they'll take Anna to Mabel's grave to prove it to her. Janet (sincerely) asks Anna if Mabel was a friend of hers, and Anna starts screaming that they have no idea what Mabel is to her.

Cutting back to Anna and Mabel, they discuss Sally's journal and read more of it. Mabel says that the ritual must not have fully worked; if it did, she'd be dead and Lily would be alive. Anna reminds her they can stop reading it whenever she wants, and Mabel tells her to keep going. Anna mentions the journal being full of weird scribbles, and then the girls have a kind moment discussing going on a roadtrip. Mabel says that she never thought she'd be able to pity Sally or Lily; they discuss that, though both women were pathetic, they still did horrible things to an innocent child.

Back with Lolo, Janet, and Anna;, they discuss Mabel's expunged juvenile record. Anna says that she used to be able to feel Mabel everywhere, and now she can't feel her at all. Lolo explains that her job is to find people like Anna and help them-- she got the files due to her job. Janet proudly says she thinks Lolo hacked the files. Anna asks if Lolo finds many people like her, and Lolo replies that she finds more than Anna'd think. Janet asks if that was what happened at El Segundo, and Anna asks what exactly she means. Janet replies that the school burnt down. After Janet and Lolo explain why they're involved in this (Janet has always liked ghosts and got dragged in by Lolo, and Lolo got a strange email, respectively), Anna asks Janet what kind of candy she's eating, and Janet shows her that they're candied haws, which Mabel had earlier mentioned wanting to eat on a road trip.

Back with Anna and Mabel, they read more of Sally's journal. It's before Lily was born, and Sally refers to the baby as Phillip. Sally says that Luna keeps trying to get into the House, and that when she preformed the ritual, she ate a piece of Luna. Anna whispers "I'm going into the ground for you" and Mabel begins to panic, asking where she is. We cut to Mabel, alone, who is talking to Luna about how badly she has hurt her when she "threshed [herself] into [Mabel's] head."

We go back to the roadtrip trio, who have arrived at Mabel's grave. Anna kicks it. She asks if Lily went to jail, and Lolo says that she drove into an overpass and died. She also says it's not known if her death was purposeful.Lolo says that Mabel was not supposed to be in the house the day she died, nor was Lily supposed to be home. Lily was in a behavioral center and was sent home early. Mabel had been placed with a foster family due to the abuse she suffered. No one knows why she was in the Martin house that day. Lolo gives Anna the files of Mabel's hospital stays, nothing several abusive pieces of her childhood (including a broken wrist, broken ribs, and malnutrition). Anna reads out loud the report on her death. It says that a police officer found Sally force-feeding an eleven year old Mabel a "combination of oatmeal, dirt, and broken glass." Sally went to jail and Mabel went to the hospital. Anna echos a line from King in the Labyrinth, where Mabel said "and then she put glass in my food and killed me!"

Anna begins to panic, saying that everything Mabel told her actually happened, and that "she's been here". The episode ends.

Continuity
''' Please note that this section contains spoilers for later episodes of Mabel. Continue at your own risk. '''


 * "And then she put glass in my food and killed me!" is one of the first lines Mabel has during her debut in King in the Labyrinth.
 * It can be presumed that the graveyard the trio visit is similar to the one in both Pilgrimage and La Peregrinación.

Trivia
'''Please note that this section contains spoilers for later episodes of Mabel. Continue at your own risk.'''


 * Hidden in the transcript is the link to What Happened At ESA, an extra content site.
 * The candy Janet eats in the car is the candied haws Mabel had mentioned earlier in the episode.