Page 131 of Scars Like Wings

“Definitely cheaper than a security system.” Simone half-heartedly shrugged.

We rounded the house and were met with an adorable wooden picket fence surrounding a huge backyard oasis complete with an outdoor kitchen, pool, and quite a few standing gardening areas. Even from where I stood at the fence, I could see the gardening stands held everything from vegetables to herbs to some fruit that were lush and better than anything I had seen in a grocery store. Before a stand with butternut squashes, pumpkins, and zucchini, a woman leaned down helping what appeared to be a little girl beside her. Their backs faced the fence, where we couldn’t see their faces. Another teenage girl sat nearby reading on a swinging chair. As the little girl giggled at something the woman said, the teen smiled. It was an adorable little family moment that I hated to interrupt.

I opened the door of the fence for us. The teenager was the first one to glance at us as we approached. I smiled, and she returned it politely.

“Momma, there’s some girls here for you,” She called to the woman.

The woman and the little girl turned around to lock eyes with me. I immediately stopped in my tracks.

My stomach plummeted along with my jaw.

I knew her. Well, I didn’t know her, but I recognized her. It… It was the same woman from my dream where Pops died, the one who saved me and Uncle Everett with her orange magic.

She was older now. Her once long half-dyed blond and ginger-brown hair was shoulder-length now and a soft, brown color with half of it tied back in a ponytail. She had traded her gothic aesthetic for a more alternative country one. The rolled-up sleeves of her oversized plaid revealed scores of tattoos, and her mom jeans folded up to the ankle revealed even more. She was still gorgeous, and her daughters were spitting images of her only with darker brunette hair. Three sets of blue eyes stared at me full of curiosity.

No, wait… As I stood there realizing that things were getting kind of awkward as I gawked at this woman, I noticed that her daughters were looking at me with interest in who I could be. Their mom’s eyes, however, glazed over and seemed to look straight past me.

Just like Everett.

“Are you okay?” Simone asked, noticing that I stopped.

“Maisie—” I started.

“I see it. She’s magicked.” Maisie paused. “It’s the same spell as Everett and your scars… But… She’s actually under herownspell.”

“Woah!” The little girl said with wide eyes on Maisie. “Leah, look! She’s a witch-fae, too! Just like Momma and us! How cool!”

Leah, the teenager, ignored her younger sister to stare at me. “You look like the girl from the pictures.”

“What pictures?” I asked, trying to process what Maisie had just said.

Leah put her book down and jumped down from the swinging chair. It swayed after her. “I found this album a week or two ago in the attic. It had a girl who looked just like you in some of the pictures. When I asked Momma about it, she got that same look in her eyes that she has now.” She looked fromher Mom to Maisie. Worry glinted in her eyes. “If it’s her spell on herself, then you can’t break it, can you?”

Maisie shook her head. “No, I can’t. If a fitch casts a spell on herself, only she can break it.”

“Is Mommy going to be okay?” The little girl asked. She couldn’t be a day over seven if I had to guess with her two front teeth noticeably absent and her hair already falling from their ponytails despite it being morning still.

“She’ll be fine, Betty. She went back to normal as if nothing had ever happened once I put the album away.”

Betty pouted, clinging to her mom and clearly not assuaged by her older sister’s words. I said, “You said I look like a girl from an album?”

Leah nodded. “Your hair was black in most of them, but I recognize that shade of pink from the other few. Ithasto be you.”

“How is that possible?” I asked. “I have never seen or met your mom before… well, not that I remember in my waking life, anyway.”

“What do you mean?” Leah pressed.

“I had this dream—not a dream exactly, a memory that I had because of my family’s grimoire. Anyway, your mom was in it, but I didn’t recognize her. She looked familiar to me, but I couldn’t place where I could know her from?—”

“Well, why don’t you introduce yourself? Maybe you’ll remember! We always have to say our names on the first day of school, and this one time, I couldn’t remember a girl until she said her name and I realized I had played with her once during recess last year!” Betty said all in one breath. Then she continued. “So, I’ll go first!”

“Betty, that’s not—” Leah tried to interrupt, but it was Betty’s turn to ignore her.

“My name is Betty! That’s my sister, Leah,” Betty introduced her sister, whose eyes rolled so far into her head I was pretty sure she could see her brain. I swallowed a chuckle. “And this is Mommy!”

“Tallis.Momma’s name is Tallis?—”

Tallis.The name racked around my brain. It felt so freaking familiar. Iknewit. I knewher. I felt like the answer was just on my tongue. Until?—

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