I glanced around. There was no way on earth (and I wasn’t even on earth), that Simon was here—suspended on a mountain high above an enchanted island, about as far from New York as one could get.
But the familiar voice rang out louder, and when I turned toward it, a shimmering figure appeared to my right.Simon.
His form slowly solidified until he looked completely, terrifyingly real.Washe real? “I told you I would take care of you, Allie. You didn’t believe me.”
“You’re not real,” I whispered. “You can’t be real. You shouldn’t be here.”
By now, Simon had completely stopped shimmering around the edges. I reached out to touch him, but my hand went right through him. It was with crushing relief that I realized he was nothing more than a figment of my imagination.
“I’m not physically here,” Simon said. “But I’ve been summoned because you need help. I told you I’d protect you.”
“I don’t need help. Not from you.”
“Are you sure?” Simon gestured around us. “You’re kind of stuck in the middle of nowhere, aren’t you?”
Simon’s words technically made sense, but also they didn’t make sense at all. When I’d returned to New York, he’d thought I was crazy for running away from the wedding. He’d tried to get me committed to the psych ward. I hadn’t evenmentionedthe magic.
“I’m not lost,” I said. “I belong here.”
“You don’t belong here,” Simon scoffed, and a hint of his usual disdain returned.
My skin crawled. He looked so real, my brain was having trouble keeping in mind he was a hallucination. “I’m not talking to you anymore. I know you’re not real.”
I kept walking, but when Simon reached out and tugged at my arm, he felt solid. The hand around my wrist was real. When he pulled harder, it was a yank that stung my shoulder. I wasn’t imagining that.
“Simon!” I gasped, inhaling sharply as I wrestled out of his grasp. I stumbled back, putting distance between myself and thishallucination—which had somehow turned solid. A ghost that was no longer a ghost. “Leave me alone. I’m in the middle of something.”
“I told you that I’m just here to help you. I’m here to protect you. Your parents miss you. I miss you. Your friends miss you. What about being a doctor? You were supposed to help people. You’re wasting your life on this island, frolicking and pretending to be a queen, wearing a crown that doesn’t belong to you. You’re not royalty, Allie.”
The name jolted me back to the years I’d spent with him.Allie. That was what everyone had called me. It had been my name for so long, but I no longer associated myself with it. When I’d moved to the island and people had started calling me Alessia, the transition had felt natural. I hadn’t thought twice about it. I’d slipped into this new identity like it was an old, familiar sweater.
“I’m not Allie anymore,” I said. “My name is Alessia. That’s what people call me here.”
Simon gave a partial eye roll. Even his hallucination couldn’t win me over with politeness. The man didn’t have an ounce of kindness in his body, even his imaginary one.
“You need to let this go,” Simon said. “The sooner you come back, the sooner we can get all set up. We don’t have to send you to the nuthouse like your dad wanted. I never wanted that for you, Allie. I just wanted you back.”
“It wasn’t just my dad,” I snapped. “You were in on it. My mom was in on it. None of you believed me. None of you listened. None of you cared what I was going through.”
“I love you, Allie. I’ve loved you since I met you.”
“You don’t know the meaning of the word love,” I said, unable to stop myself from arguing with this mirage. “I understand it now, and what we had was never love.”
Simon felt so real. The touch against my arm had brought everything back. He even smelled like Simon—that expensivehair gel, the soap he wouldn’t let me use because it cost more than gold per ounce. I’d thought it was classy at first, but now it made my stomach roil.
I was used to Silas now. The way he smelled like earth and power and mystery. That edge of darkness combined with the plain, minty soap Millie crafted from garden herbs. I longed for his arms around me.
“That’s enough of you, Simon,” I said. “I am done with you forever. I’m moving on. I am helpful on this island, or at least I’m trying to be, and I’m not going to stop. My duty is here. Not with you.”
Simon called after me, but I turned away. It was hard to take the first step and harder to take the second, but after that my confidence grew. Simon’s voice faded as I climbed higher. It seemed his spirit—or the mirage, or whatever he was—was stuck at a certain elevation. The farther I climbed, the faster I left him behind. When I glanced back, all I saw were indented steps in the grass and fluffy clouds pooling beneath me. Simon was but a distant memory, right where he belonged.
I felt victorious as I continued climbing upward. But the buoyant sensation didn’t last long, only until I heard more whispers from up ahead. More familiar whispers. More of my past catching up to me in the place I wanted to encounter it the least.
It made me uncomfortable, these reminders of my past life. I’d shed that life so completely, it was like a snake’s second skin left out to dry and grow brittle, eventually fading away completely. And yet somehow, that life kept coming back, haunting me, no matter how I tried to sever myself from it.
“Alessia,” a new voice said. “Simon didn’t mean all that. You know how he can get when he’s stressed.”
My mother’s voice. It was her voice, but it wasn’t her words. The tone now was kind and gentle, a voice I’d longed to hear foryears. The voice I’d chased by getting straight A’s, wearing my hair the way she wanted it, choosing the friends she approved of. The voice she’d withheld from me so often when she spoke to me instead with disapproval and frustration.
