Page 26

The Power of Memories

Ella

T he moment my state of mind became conscious again was also the same time Anástasi also woke. However, I instantly recognized that something was wrong when she started to panic.

“Hey, it’s okay, Lerna saved us,” I told her, but instead of answering me she was up out of the bed of furs, thrashing against them in her erratic movements. But then, I realized that I recognized where we were, having been in this tent with Jared before, but she didn’t.

“Anástasi, you need to calm down, it will all be okay,” I tried again, but once more there was no reply from her. In fact, there was no acknowledging me at all. Which meant that soon, she wasn’t the only one panicking. It had me questioning what had they used to cause this reaction within her?

A worry that only increased the moment I felt our powers building up inside of us, as if she were drawing from it, at the ready to unleash it at the sign of trouble.

And speaking of trouble, the second Jared stepped inside the tent, my breath would have caught in my throat had I the ability to gasp.

Gods, just the sight of him had me wishing, more than anything, that I could just go running into his arms.

He stopped short at the sight of us because, clearly, he hadn’t expected us to be awake so soon. His eyes displayed an array of emotions, first being relief, and secondary to this was worry, which soon morphed into apprehension.

He raised his hands as if we held a gun on him, although with the green mist now swirling around us, I would say he had a better chance at surviving a gun.

“Anástasi! Listen to me, it’s Jared, it’s your HellBeast! He won’t hurt us!” I pleaded, trying to shout loud enough to break through, but it was almost as if I was back to the very first day of being trapped like this. The time where I felt the most helpless.

It was only with time that I was able to build up the strength to push through in the first place. But not anymore. That spell, whatever it had been, had triggered something and all my hard work had been for nothing. Because they hadn’t rescued us like they thought.

No, they had just welcomed the enemy into their camp.

“Easy now, sweetheart, we are not going to hurt you,” he said, backing up as Anástasi started to walk toward him.

“You kidnapped me!” she snarled angrily, acting just as she did that day when finding Jared in her bedroom. Just like when they had fought on the battlefield. I could feel that same hatred pouring off her, as if a switch had been flipped.

“No! Anástasi, don’t do this! Fight against it! Listen to me!” But again, my pleading went by unheard and I started to panic. But no more so than when she started to follow him out of the tent as he retreated.

“I am not the enemy here, Anástasi,” Jared told her, keeping his tone calm and his stance as unthreatening as possible. His arms were held out slightly to his sides, with his palms facing us.

“You took me from him!” she shouted, her voice back to being the one I barely recognized.

As for the scene that we were creating, it was soon drawing in a crowd as if they knew this was coming.

And it was now through her eyes of hatred that I could see figures approaching.

But her gaze remained rooted to Jared, not allowing me to get a good look at them all.

She lunged for him and caught him before he was quick enough to evade us. Which meant his throat was soon in our grasp, and she let her power coil down our arm, wrapping around his throat like a noose. But this was when I went crazy, screaming this time,

“NO, LET HIM GO!” My furious bellow was enough to get her to drop him before she could choke the life from him. My protest strong enough that she staggered back, holding her head in her hands. This was when Lerna shouted for her,

“Anástasi!” Then suddenly she was throwing her arms around us, holding us tight, pleading, “Don’t fight him, he is not the enemy, my sister.”

But this was when she broke free of Lerna’s arms, turning furious eyes to her and pushing her back a step.

“You did this to me! You took me from him again!”

Lerna started crying, pleading with her, “No, please, Anástasi, you have to break free of his control, Garmr is making you think these things, but they aren’t true!”

Anástasi once again let the power build within her and, this time, I could feel it about to become explosive. Which was when she started to take in the people around her.

My aunt Keira, my uncle Dom, my cousin Amelia, her husband Lucius, Pip, Adam, Marcus, Orson, Asher, Tyr, and others I didn’t recognize had all gathered to watch this play out.

My family looked pained to see me this way.

But no more so than Lerna, who was sobbing as Koro took her in his arms from behind.

It was utterly heartbreaking but what was worse, was that I was left screaming from seeing them all.

“GET BACK! RUN!”

Anástasi screamed as my desperation rang out in her mind, and she gripped the sides of her head, roaring,

“GET OUT OF MY HEAD!”

Then we transformed, just like we had that day when Lerna opened a portal into the temple. My emerald-green battle gear molded to my body like second skin, leaving no one in doubt of my being the Summoner Queen I had been proclaimed to be.

And like that day, I was at the ready to kill, only this time, it wasn’t me they faced, it was the girl who didn’t recognize them. Didn’t recognize her old life. In her mind, she was simply surrounded by the enemy that had torn her from the man she didn’t know she had been forced to love.

By the time she rose back up, after being slumped over when fighting against me in her mind, she was ready for the fight ahead. But Jared didn’t look as concerned as he should do. No, instead, he bravely started walking toward us, and my uncle did the same.

“Don’t come any closer! I will kill you all, don’t think I won’t!

” Anástasi threatened, but then something strange happened as my uncle pulled something from behind his back.

She must have thought it a weapon, as the green serpents of power shot out toward him.

But the second he held up the object, they paused before they could touch him, evaporating instantly.

“Ella, my dear niece, do you remember when I gave this to you?” my uncle Dom asked softly, and I felt our eyes narrow, focusing on what was in his hands.

“Snow globe,” I uttered, and amazingly, she did the same.

“Snow globe.” Her voice sounded pained now, as if she wished it had been her own memory.

“Yes, I gave it to you, do you remember what I told you?” he asked, his voice so tender and comforting, it made me cry, tears that were actually breaking free and falling down our cheeks.

“You told me it would help protect me from the nightmares,” I spoke and again, Anástasi did the same.

“Nightmares, she used to have nightmares…” Then she glanced up from the globe into my uncle’s eyes, telling him, “You told her it would protect her from them.”

My uncle granted her a small grin, before nodding his head. Then my aunt stepped closer and told us,

“You loved wolves, collected them. They were all over your bedroom. You used to pretend to be one when you were little. Then you would make people chase you on all fours, your wild red curls bouncing everywhere,” Keira said, tears streaming down her face.

“I… remember,” I stammered, the emotions making it hard to communicate. But Anástasi didn’t speak this time, she simply nodded.

And then it was my cousin’s turn… she stepped up next to her mom, took her hand, and told us,

“I remember the sleepovers, the trips to the mall, we would talk about boys and eat ice cream at the park. We both have funny laughs, and once we would start, we just couldn’t stop.

You would laugh at the sound of mine and I would laugh at the sound of yours.

I remember, one time, we smushed our ice creams to our lips and gave ourselves ice cream mustaches…

and we kept them there, you know, just to see who would say something first, your mom or mine.

But yours kept making you itch, so you would wrinkle your nose, you looked like a red rabbit. God, we laughed so much that day.”

Her words made me scoff my own tearful laugh.

“Yeah, we did, and then we stayed up late watching scary movies and you laughed at me when I hid under the blankets, even though I am older than you. Of course, now I know why.” I laughed through my tears once more, tears Anástasi was allowing through.

And even though Fae couldn’t hear me, I felt her comfort like seeing a lighthouse in the storm.

“This… this isn’t my life,” Anástasi said, backing away instead of reaching for the snow globe like they had no doubt hoped for.

Because I knew what this was. Their plan to bring us back. A branch from our mother’s tree hadn’t been enough to do it, so they were all hoping for that snow globe to work, but Anástasi wouldn’t take it and, once again, I felt my hope slipping away.

Our fearful gaze went to Jared, and I couldn’t help but wish he could hear me, hear me when I told him,

“I love you, Jared, and I’m so sorry this isn’t working… you tried… all of you but it just isn’t enough.”

“He is the enemy,” Anástasi told me, as if answering me, but before I could argue, Jared simply nodded to someone behind me. Which was exactly the same moment she was lifting up our hands as if ready to unleash Hell on everyone I loved.

But before she could, suddenly someone wrapped their arms around me from behind, and the second I heard his voice in my ear, everything changed.

Everything.

“My Wild Child.”