I open my mouth to acknowledge my poor behavior, but I don’t get the chance. Wylder is already stomping past the tree line and into the woods behind my house.
“Well, hell.”
I’m annoyed at myself as Rowan, Orion, and I follow the familiar path through the forest and back toward my house. Branches catch at my jacket, and I twist to gain freedom, annoyed even more at how overgrown the landscaping has become over the past five years of neglect.
Everything looks the same, and yet it’s all different.
I find the crooked oak where Lily broke her wrist trying to build a treehouse. The flat boulder where Mom sat and read while we practiced taking cuttings of moss and roots is still there, but covered in fallen leaves. And I already know Aunt Aggie is here somewhere, even though I didn’t recognize her when she was foraging a couple of weeks ago.
My gaze is drawn to a gap between tree branches where I can glimpse the kitchen windows of the house beyond. It’s all still here.
But itfeelswrong…
The energy crackling in the air makes my skin crawl. It feels heavy, thick and viscous, like spilled molasses.
If Mom were here, she would know what to do. In my mind’s eye, I see her standing at those windows, backlit and beautiful, watching over us playing in the backyard. Logically, I know she didn’t have all the answers, but as a kid, it always felt like she did.
The ache in my chest threatens to crack me open.
“Poppy?” Orion’s hand finds my elbow. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” I swallow hard and keep moving. “Just lots of memories hitting at once.”
The house comes into full view, and my heart does a complicated flip. Home. My actual, honest-to-goddess, home.The wraparound porch still has Mom’s hanging baskets, though the flowers have gone wild without her careful tending. The blue shutters need paint.
But it’s home and it’s mine.
No, ours.
I lead them across the back patio to where the glass French doors open onto the kitchen. Before I can reach for the handle, it swings wide on its own. The house knows I’m here.
“Hola, casita.” I step inside, smiling as I picture Lily dancing around the kitchen when Encanto was first released. That was right before everything fell apart.
She had just turned eleven then. She’s sixteen now. The loss of time with my sisters hurts my heart. There’s nothing to be done about that now, not until I find them and bring them home.
The kitchen smells like hazelnut coffee, and relief floods through me. He’s okay. He’shere.
“Hey, where’s my bestie welcome wagon?”
Thundering footsteps answer, followed by the scrabble of tiny claws on hardwood. Asher rounds the corner at a near-run, Nobuddy and Somebuddy yapping and waggling their entire back ends in pure joy.
He sock-slides into the room like Tom Cruise in Risky Business, but instead of only wearing boxers like Joel Goodsen, he’s also wearing a t-shirt that says, ‘Love is a four-legged word,’ and Violet’s puffy purple tutu from when she went out for Halloween as Ace Ventura.
“Poppy!” He catches me in a hug that lifts me off my feet, spinning once before setting me down. The chihuahuas dance around our ankles, demanding attention. “You’re back! How’d training go? Did you learn to shoot fireballs out of your eyes? Please tell me you learned to shoot fireballs.”
I laugh, pressing my face into his shoulder to breathe him in. “Man, I’ve missed you.”
He pulls back far enough to study my face, his hands still on my shoulders. His eyes narrow. “Are you okay? You look different.”
“Different good or different bad?”
“Different... less sad.” He tilts his head. “What happened?”
Where do I even start? “The biggest news is that about an hour ago, I got my memories back.”
“All of them?”
“Yeah. My mom visited me in this spectral vision thing, and she showed me everything. I remember, Ash. I remember Orion and my sisters and Christmas mornings and broken wrists and Dad teaching me how to ride a bike and everything.”
