Page 39 of Visions & Shadows

“Yes.” I still feel out of it as I glance between them. “What happened?”

Janak takes my hand and squeezes it softly. “You’ll feel better soon. The effects of the spell are still wearing off.”

Spell?

Aster gives me a serious look. “Don’t fight the memories. Let them in.”

Already feeling tired again, I close my eyes, and then one memory after the other trickles into my mind.

I remember being brought to Aster on my sixteenth birthday. She gave me something to drink.

I gasp as my mind is suddenly flooded with muddled flashes of my past.

My family! Mom. Dad.

I remember my older sisters. Brenna and Thana. And my brother, Roark.

An overwhelming emotion makes tears sting my eyes.

I miss them so much.

I remember a younger and happier me. Because my brother and sisters are so much older, I used to be adored by everyone.

I was loved.

The day of my sixteenth birthday fills my mind, and remembering how I was brought to Janak and Aster makes me feel sad.

They cast a spell over me, and before I lost consciousness, I saw a man.

He held me as if I was the most precious thing to him.

When I woke up, I was alone at Fish Creek Falls.

They left me all alone in a foreign place.

For five years!

Oh my God.

My breathing speeds up, and my heart beats faster and faster as an intense feeling of abandonment forms a crack right down the middle of my soul.

Then Ryan came and pretended to be my friend, and I was once again ripped away from everything I held dear.

“Ryan,” I whimper. It hurts to think of him and how he played me fora fool.

“Ryan’s name is Raighne,” Janak informs me. “He’s your guardian.”

I open my eyes and look at the two elders who played a part in deceiving me.

“Well, you’re home now,” Aster says. “Do you remember anything from before we sent you to Earth?”

“Not much,” I whisper as anger and heartache bubble in my chest. “Why was I sent to Earth?”

Before they can answer me, my chest fills with every emotion I felt on Earth.

The fear of being a vulnerable child, alone with no memory.

The intense loneliness of not belonging anywhere.

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