A big bed with a cream-colored tufted headboard took up much of the room, along with a simple wooden desk. A large poster of a surfer girl on a beach at sunset hung above the bed—it could have been a beach in Soleil. Scarlett’s eyes welled up at the sight of it. Maybe it was just a poster, but imagine if her mother had, on some level, dreamed of Scarlett’s life while she’d been growing up in Clair de Lune… Was her life her mother’s dreams made manifest? She wished she could ask her about the poster.
There were two bookshelves crammed with books and decorative boxes. Scarlett ran her fingers over the titles, finding a few she’d read. A love of reading was one of the things her parents had liked about each other. Her dad had told her that much.
There were a few dresses pushed to the far left of the closet, but most of the space was filled with boxes. Scarlett opened the closest one and found a stack of notebooks. She picked one up and opened it, finding it stuffed with concert tickets and photographs.
“Have you read any of these journals?” she called to Manon.
Manon appeared in the doorway. “No. She wouldn’t have wanted me to. You, though—you should. She’d want you to know her.”
Scarlett put the diary down. Reading them could reveal weirdness she wouldn’t like, but she ached to know more about her mother. She opened another box, filled with scarves. She pulled out a red tartan scarf and put it on.
Manon dragged a garment bag out of a closet. “Here’s her wedding dress.” She set the bag down on the bed, unzipped it, and lifted out the dress. It was a simple yet elegant white dress: long sleeves, mid-thigh length, with a square neckline lined with pearls. Time had left it untouched all these years.
Scarlett gasped. “I’ve never seen this before. Not even inpictures.”
“She was so beautiful.” Manon’s breath hitched. “They got married here, you know. At the courthouse.”
Scarlett was touched by the happiness that shone on Manon’s face. She missed Sabina, but it seemed like the good memories were still good.
The kettle whistled in the kitchen. Manon, whose eyes were suspiciously shiny, hobbled to the door.
“Back in a moment.”
Alone once more, Scarlett touched the wedding dress reverently. She’d kill for a wedding photo of her parents. Turning back to the journal, she flicked through the pages until she found what she was hoping for: a photo of Sabina.
The picture was of her and several friends. Scarlett didn’t recognize any of them other than her mother. They all beamed at the camera. Sabina looked a little younger than Scarlett was now, but not by a lot, and Scarlett was struck by how much she really did look like her mum. Her dad had always told her that, but she’d never felt it more than she did now, standing in her room, looking at a picture of this very real girl who once had a happy life before she died and was erased from Scarlett’s life.
Manon reappeared with two cups of tea. “Scarlett, there’s something I need to talk to you about.” She sat on an empty part of the bed and patted the space next to her.
Scarlett sat. “What is it?”
“It’s about my valor.”
“Go on.”
“So Brayden showed you his valor and told you he’s a phoenix.”
“Yes. I saw the fire.”Please don’t ask more.She didn’t want to tell Manon the embarrassing story of how she’d ended up in the woods.
“When valors manifest, they appear on your physical body asa tattoo. Your soul light can help you make the tattoo invisible, which is why you’ve never seen mine, but one will appear on you during the ceremony. Mine’s on the back of my neck.” Her grandmother’s hair was already up in a neat bun, so all she had to do was turn her head for Scarlett to see.
Scarlett gasped. A tattoo of an eye stared at her—it was open wide and had long black lashes.
“I’m an oculus. This is my valor tattoo. Together, the valor tattoo and the soul light give me the oculus power to see glimmers of the future. My unusually good intuition comes from being an oculus.”
Scarlett reeled as she lifted a finger to touch the tattoo. “This tattoo gave you magic?” She stared at the eye, transfixed.
Manon faced Scarlett. “Yes. The powers manifest through the valor ceremony.”
“What does it mean to be an oculus?” When Scarlett was a kid, Manon had always swooped in—seemingly out of nowhere—to stop her from doing something she wasn’t supposed to, like sneaking off to the beach alone.
“Wait… Is this how you always caught me when I tried to sneak out?”
Manon chuckled. “Notreally.That was my sixth sense as a grandmother. My intuition was strong even before my valor manifested. The oculus power just enhances what’s already there. Sometimes, being an oculus means you get exceptional psychic abilities. Other times, it means you’re simply intuitive. I’m somewhere in the middle. I wouldn’t call myself a psychic, but I have excellent instincts.”
Scarlett’s mouth fell open. Those mentions of her grandmother and Lachlan… A new understanding dawned. “You use your abilities to help Lachlan, don’t you?”My grandmother is a spy.“That’s why you talked in the mirror so often.”
Manon’s smile was apologetic. “My specialty is assessingstrategic decisions, which is helpful for the military and the government.”
