“Yeah,” I say, and fake a smile. “I’d like that.” I take another look at the spot where my mother was just standing. She was there. She talked to me. Touched me. Noticed the cuts and bruises on my face.
I didn’t dream her or imagine her.
She was too real.
So why couldn’t Hasan see her?
“Are you hungry?” he asks, picking up the remote from the coffee table. I take another glance into the library and sit on the couch next to him. I’m not anything other than stunned right now.
“Uh, yeah. A little.”
“Me too.” He smiles. He’s always hungry. “I’ll find something.”
My head moves up and down as if I’m on autopilot. “Thanks.”
His large form disappears into the kitchen and I stand, peering through the dark living room into the library.
“Mom?” I whisper, and close my eyes. When I open them, she’ll be here.One…two…three.
She’s not here.
I spin around, heart still racing. The tightness in my chest is gone, but I can’t shake the bad feeling that’s clinging to me like a dark storm cloud. I hold my breath as I wait, hoping she’ll appear again.
But she doesn’t, and I sink back down onto the couch, trying to commit everything about her to memory. She looked just like she did before she died, right down to the loose curls hanging around her shoulders. I close my eyes and can almost feel the silky fabric of my favorite nightgown. The printed picture of Aurora was fading away, and there was a tear along the hem. Mom fixed it twice but it kept tearing somehow.
Another memory hits me, making me dizzy. I open my eyes and grip the arm of the couch to keep from pitching forward. Someone moves through the hallway above me, and I look up and see Jacques looking down at me from over the balcony. Foregoing the stairs, he spreads his great wings and glides down, landing next to the couch with grace.
“Cookie’s Week,” I say, eyes once again filling with tears.
“Cookie’s week?” he repeats, cocking his head. “What does that mean?”
I turn my head down, letting my hair fall over my face to hide my tears. It’s dark, and a normal person probably wouldn’t notice. But Jac isn’t normal. Like the others, he’s able to see in the dark as clearly as he can in the day.
Wiping my eyes, I find the little composure I have left and look up. Jacques’s brows come together when he sees me crying, and he rushes over.
“It’s the book my mom read to me the night before she died.”
He stops short, large wings blocking out the light from the TV. I think he sometimes forgets I can’t see in the dark. “You remembered?”
I blink, eyes readjusting to the dark. “Yeah. Something…something jarred my memory.”
He sits on the couch next to me, taking my hand. Jacques is the only person I’ve told everything to…and the only one who believes me. Something took my memories from the night my parents were murdered.
And now I’m getting them back.
“What was it?”
I swallow a lump in my throat and look up at him, knowing I need to tell him everything, even if his response is what I fear the most and he tells me there’s no way I was talking to my dead mother.
I tuck my legs up under myself, cold for real this time. Goosebumps break out along my arms, and Jac pulls the blanket off the back of the couch, spreading it over my lap. He wraps an arm around me, kissing me gently on the top of my head.
“Take your time, Ace,” he whispers, knowing how hard this is for me. And it is hard, but mostly because I don’t know how to say this without sounding totally insane. I need to keep my emotion out of this and state the facts. I need him to help me figure this shit out, and I want him to be as unbiased as possible.
But I never get a chance, because the front door opens hard. Thomas rushes in, half running and half flying.
“Good, you’re up,” he pants when he sees me. “You have to come out and look at this. You too,” he says to Jacques. “Get Hasan while you’re at it.”
“What is it?” Jac asks, sounding annoyed with Thomas for being dramatic.
“Someone opened a rift.”
