"Is she in shock?" my aunt asked Elandra, her voice muffled behind the ringing in my ears and the impending headache crawling from my neck and up into my skull. "She seems to be in shock."
"She'll live."
"That wasn't my question," she grit out. "This wasn't how I wanted this to unfold."
"Well." Elandra chuckled. "She handled it quite well, I must say. Most people faint." Yeah, I was glad I didn't faint, but I wasn't far from that possibility. I wasn't far from grabbing my suitcase that was still standing next to the entrance to the hallway and running away from here.
My mind ran through every story my mother had told me. Every time I laughed when she claimed mythological creatures weren't just things living in history books. She tried telling me in her own way, and every single time I laughed at her, shrugging off her attempts at educating me. Now I wished I had listened. Oh, how I wished I had believed earlier.
Actually, I wasn't sure I completely believed in those stories even now, but the proof was right in front of my nose. Both literally and figuratively.
I could hear those snakes hissing. I could hear Elandra talking to them as if they were creatures that had cognitive thinking, and I wondered how many things I had missed. How many signs did I ignore because my mind was wired to ignore everything that wasn't logical to it? There was no logic to all of this. There was no logic to fucking Medusa sitting in my aunt's living room, drinking her tea as if it were just another day, completely regular and not at all something that tilted my entire world on its axis.
"This isn't a dream, is it?" I suddenly asked, my voice raspy from keeping quiet for this long after screaming like a banshee in the hallway. My eyes stayed on the coffee table and the now cold cup of coffee my aunt had placed in front of me, thinking it would help.
Elandra slowly moved, her legs in my peripheral view, and leaned forward. I could see the dark shadows running from the tips of her fingers where her claws sat, up toward her knuckles, ending just before they reached her palms. I could see the runes, the tattoos on her wrists, on her forearm where the sleeves of her shirt had been rolled up.
"I'm afraid not, Kaira. And I am sorry for scaring you, but I'm not here to hurt you."
"I know," I blurted out, my tongue quicker than my mind, but even after those words tumbled out, deep down I knewshe wasn't here to hurt me. She wasn't here to harm me and she wasn't what my mother was running from. "You probably could've killed me by now."
"Well," she started, her voice deep, raspy, her accent not so American now that I could hear it better. "I don't think I could hurt you even if I wanted to."
This time I looked up, seeing snakes again instead of the dark locks. Seeing the white of her eyes where her irises were supposed to be, and I swallowed the whimper threatening to erupt from me. The same shade of black apparent on her fingers was dragging over her neck, over her chest, all the way up to her face, leaving thin vines of darkness as they spread over her cheeks, ending just underneath her eyes.
"I would glamour myself, but it wouldn't work on you either way," she said when she noticed me looking. Her voice lowered and something akin to shame flickered over her face. "I know I look monstrous to you."
"No." I shook my head, because in reality, she didn't. I wasn't afraid of her appearance. I wasn't afraid of the shadows running over her body or the snakes moving on top of her head. She looked different to me, yes, but not monstrous. "I apologize for staring at you, I know it's rude."
"It's fine."
"It really isn't." I chuckled. "I'm usually better than this, but you shocked me. You truly shocked me and I'm still trying to understand what's happening. I'm still waiting to wake up and laugh about this whole dream."
Elandra looked up at my aunt who remained standing in front of me with her hands on her hips and a worried look on her face directed at me. "I wish I could tell you this was just a dream, Kaira. I wish I could tell you, you could go back to your life and pretend this entire encounter had never happened, but I can't do that."
I nodded, hearing the sincerity in her words. Whatever it was that scared both my mother and my aunt enough to have my mom run from this place, had something to do with Elandra. Or, well, maybe not her directly but with what she was. And I had a feeling she wasn't the only one like this on this island.
"My mother." I looked at my aunt. "Did she know about all this?"
"Yes," she answered immediately. "Everyone on this island knows, Kaira. This is what I've been trying to tell you before Elandra interrupted us." Elandra rolled her eyes at that, and took a sip of her tea. "Nevermere isn't an ordinary island, darling. It is not a place people could stumble upon just like that. It isn't an island in the classical meaning of that word."
"What do you mean?"
"It's a prison," Elandra piped in, placing her cup of tea on top of the table. "What?" she said when Alyana rolled her eyes. "She already knows we exist. Might as well tell her as much as possible today."
"I don't want to overwhelm her."
"We're not overwhelming her." Elandra looked at me. "Are we overwhelming you, dear?"
I shrugged. "I guess not. I'm already in a state of shock, so might as well tell me everything now before I faint from all this information."
"See," Elandra exclaimed. "She's fine. She's better than fine and she finally knows the truth."
"Actually." I stood up, taking my cold cup of coffee with me. "I don't know anything yet, except that I'm sitting with a very real Medusa and that my mom somehow grew up in this world and that this island isn't an island at all but a prison. A prison I somehow found even though people can't find it that easily."
"Exactly." Elandra grinned, showing her sharp teeth. "She's catching up quickly."
"Ela," my aunt practically growled. "We're just scratching the surface. She needs to know the real truth."
