My eyelids drooped, and my heart thumped slower, calmer. My breathing deepened, and I let myself experience everything. The faint hint of vanilla from the candles in my bedroom. The hum of the dishwasher. The rustle of the wind against the window. The scurry of the wildlife in the garden. It was stunning. It made me feel small, but connected to something intangible—a force that weaved around all living matter in the universe.
“Good, Cora,” Dayna said. “Now go further, beyond what we can see with our eyes and hear with our ears. Focus on what is behind it.”
I squinted, and the world shifted, like a glitch. Another plane of existence that was parallel to ours. I reached out, my hand skimming the light, which fragmented into a million pieces, like stardust. So pretty.
“Deeper,” Dayna coaxed.
I blinked, and the world went utterly dark. Panic clutched my chest as I faced the nothingness. This was where my nightmares existed. It was the evil that had stolen parts of my soul and held them hostage until I grew a pair of balls and came to claim them back.
“You got this,” Hudson uttered.
I got this. I took a step into the abyss and surrendered to the storm.
My screams vibrated around me—bloodcurdling, agony-induced screams. A door on my left materialized, and as I reached for it, I paused, feeling the horror awaiting within. I swallowed down my terror and flung it open.
A red-haired little girl, no more than five years old, sat in the middle of the floor with her head in her hands, crying as she rocked back and forth.
I circled her before kneeling down in front of her. “Hey, you okay?” I asked.
Her crying got louder. A familiar woman stepped out of the corner and pointed at the child. “You are an abomination. If you hadn’t been born, he never would have left me. All I did was love him, and you stole him from me.”
“Mama?” I whispered. I didn’t remember her ever being this angry or chaotic, but then again, my memories of her were pretty fragmented.
Her gaze flew to mine, and she tilted her head, her eyes narrowing. “You grew up.”
I squeezed my eyes closed and fought back the tears. “I still love you, Mama. I understand you weren’t well. You were in pain.”
“You caused my pain.”
“I was a child.”
“You were a monster, but I leashed her. I pushed her down until I had the perfect pretty daughter.”
She did what?
“This is where your soul first fractured,” Dayna said, coming to stand next to me. “It might not be something you remember, but this was the first and most significant break.”
“What do I need to do?”
Dayna shook her head. “You needed to see this, but when we go on a soul journey, it’s better to start with the most recent and work our way back.”
“Do I have to experience it all?”
I didn’t think I could. “No. This isn’t a simple fix, Cora. The goal is to be open to the healing. We jump start the process.”
“Will you stay with me?”
She shook her head. “Not me, but one of us will be here. Come on.” She tugged me out of the room and away from my younger self, still crying on the floor. I vowed to come back for my inner child.
As soon as I stepped back into the abyss, Dayna disappeared, and Liz took her place. We were inside that glass cage, the familiar nightmare of my torture taking place before us. Aunt Liz sucked in a breath.
“I will never forgive her,” she muttered as she grabbed my hand. “We will protect you, Cora, and hold you together until you are strong enough to do it yourself. But I vow to you, she will pay.”
I squeezed my eyes closed for a minute before forcing myself to watch. “She stole something from me in here.”
“Then claim it back.”
“She’s my grandmother. She should have protected me.”
