From the moment Dana opened the door, I didn’t trust her. She was supposed to be my mother’s twin, but apart from having identical features, they were nothing alike. Dana’s eyes glittered with cruel light. Her face was set in a stern expression, and she never laughed or smiled.
Unless she was inflicting pain. Then her laughter was genuine.
For the first day, she was civil to us. Then, slowly, she started to bully me into cleaning the house and doing her other chores. I just wanted to care for Mom and keep going to school, but Dana told me I had to pay her back for every second of time she let me stay with her.
The abuse worsened slowly over time. Dana used her own witchcraft for personal gain and was disgusted by my lack of power.
“Stunted little weed,” she’d spit at me. “What fathered you—a fucking carrot?”
She taunted my mother when she couldn’t get out of bed, verbally abusing her for being too weak to use her powers. The only reason she’d agreed to let us stay was because she wanted to use us—but neither of us had any power she could take.
When she started restraining me and locking me in the basement and I missed school, I thought someone would notice. I didn’t know that Dana was well-respected in town, known for charity and kindness, and caring for her ailing twin sister and bastard brat niece only made her look more saintly. She made excuses for my days off, and no one challenged her.
This. This is the part I’ve always hidden from myself. When the abuse became horrifyingly real instead of subtle.
I struggle in the darkness again, feeling as if someone is trying to break through it to rescue me, but the nightmare drags me back down into its hellish depths.
I wanted to run away so many times, but I couldn’t leave Mom. She eventually became bedridden, and Dana left her there, not tending to her, refusing to let me care for her. Whenever Dana let me out, I would run to Mom, staying by her side as long as I could until Dana came for me again, beating me and throwing me back into the basement.
My mother begged me to run, but I couldn’t. Soon, she lost the ability to speak. Dana left me in the basement longer than usual. I almost went mad in the dark, until one gray afternoon she came for me and dragged me to my mother’s side.
She was only moments away from death, and I completely lost my mind with grief, screaming and begging her not to leave me. Dana slapped me and threw me against the wall.
“On the point of death, a witch may transfer her powers,” she snapped. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this! All I want is to get out of this stupid little town—I have a mansion waiting for me in Europe and a coven that will do my bidding, but I want this power before I go. It’s the only reason I’ve tolerated both of you. Your mother has always been more powerful than me, and I want her magic. Extract it for me!”
“I don’t know how,” I wail. “Please help her, please, Aunt Dana. Don’t let her die.”
“It is beyond my power, even if I would,” Dana replies. “Hold her hand, take her magic, then give it to me.”
As I took my mother’s hand, I knew that if she passed her magic to me, Dana would kill me to take it. I felt the faint flickering fire of my mother’s soul growing distant and disappearing down a long, dark tunnel.
“No!” my voice rings out, echoing through the past. “Don’t leave me!”
I hear Aunt Dana swearing, and her hands clamp hard onto my head, her thumbs digging into my temples. I can feel her forcefully extracting my memories, locking up all her horrible deeds inside a vault I can’t breach. She leaves once the act is done, and I am alone, sobbing with despair as I hold my mother through her last breath.
After that… fragments. Foster families. Apologies. People telling me what a saint my aunt was. How unfortunate it was that she had to leave so suddenly. I agree. And I know nothing of the truth, except for those moments of clarity in my nightmares…
“Trina, wake up!” Owen’s voice roars through the thick darkness, forcing my eyes open.
I come to with a scream that makes my ears ring. I hurl myself into his arms, clinging to him as the memories race through me, leaving me sick and shaking with shock.
“Trina,” he says, rocking me. “Thank God you’re awake.”
I tense up in his arms, needing his comfort, but suddenly understanding why his actions triggered me so much.
Anyone would react badly to getting kidnapped, but I’ve been bound before. Trapped, used, tortured… my body thought it was all going to happen again.
“Shh,” Owen whispers, stroking my hair. “I’ve got you.” He’s quiet for a moment. “Can you tell me what that was about? It’s not the first nightmare you’ve had. I had to wake you up once before.”
“Uh-huh,” I mumble, slipping out of his arms to get back into bed and wrap the cover around me. “I’ve had them for a long time, but I didn’t really understand them until now.”
“You can tell me,” he says, kneeling next to the bed. “You can tell me anything.”
I look into his eyes, wondering how much I should tell him. The wound inside me is so raw, so freshly opened, I can’t stand the idea of throwing salt into it.
I just want to hold these memories gently and try to accept them, try to understand. I don’t want to analyze myself.
Turning my face away, I look into my lap, knowing that I really don’t want to draw any comparisons between what my aunt did and Owen’s actions.
