“Skylenna Winter Ambrose,” she says.
My gasp is loud and throaty. I cough. My hand presses to my lips.
“What—are you doing sitting in the dark?” I choke.
Skylenna Winter Ambrose.
As a little girl!
She clears her throat, sniffling. “My father got mad.”
I pinch my brows together.
“Why are you in my basement?” she asks.
I look around at the stale nothingness. I’m recalling a piece of my mother’s childhood that she only briefly glazed over. It was something about waiting in the cellar for my dad. He would save her when her father would undergo another Mind Phantoms treatment.
“I was chased in the woods by a pack of wolves. I let myself in through the cellar door to hide out until they’re gone.” My lie might be convincing to a…five-year-old? “How old are you, Skylenna?”
“Six. And those wolves were lucky my puppy DaiSzek wasn’t there to eat them!”
“Awww.” I can’t even imagine DaiSzek as a cute little pup.
“Hey, I have a question,” Skylenna says.
“Okay.”
“Are you my imaginary friend?” she asks.
My heart melts. She is so adorable.
“That’s right. Your best friend.”
Little girl Skylenna makes a funny noise in the back of her throat. “No, no, no! Just my imaginary friend. I have a best friend.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” She adjusts on the floor across the basement. “Kane will always be my number one bestest friend.”
My body sears with the misery of leaving Niklaus behind and of hearing my mother as a small child talk about my father.
“I’m glad you have him,” I say with a lump in my throat.
“You have a best friend too?”
I haven’t thought about it. But Niklaus has become my best friend between each era of time we pass through. After every torturous event we endure. He is the one person I am dying to tell I met my mother as a little girl about. He is my best friend.
“Yes.”
“Hmm…my best friend is better.”
I chuckle. “Oh?”
“Does your best friend have alters in his brain? Mine does!”
“That is very special,” I agree.
Little Skylenna hums and then sniffles again, like she’s been crying recently. She was being locked in a basement by Jack since she was six years old? God, what the hell were they doing to him?
