Chapter Twenty-One
Without my pendant, I didn’t have the power to summon my mother. I tried for hours to contact her, but she was either too far out of my reach, or for some reason she wouldn’t come to me. I wondered if it had something to do with Andrew more than with me being weak, and I was curious why she would be hiding from Andrew.
Maybe she thinks he’ll try and force her soul back into another person’s body so he can have is old girlfriend back.
That thought was so creepy it actually disturbed me. That was hard to do. A lot of things freaked me out, like talking to dead people, contacting lost spirits, and learning about the rest of the supernatural community, but this was different. The idea of my mother coming back to me in any form was just plain grotesque. Even if I was stupid enough to try and bring her back, would she hate me for it? I’d hate someone that brought me back from the dead.
But to see my dead mother one more time…
It was tempting. So unbelievably tempting. If she could just hold me one more time, and tell me that everything would be ok, I could finally let go of her. I could move on with my life, and I could stop dreaming about her face, about her last hug, and the last words she ever said to me.
I love you, Veronica. Have a nice day at school. I’ll pick you up at three thirty sharp.
But she hadn’t been there waiting. On her way to the school, she’d been hit by a drunk driver, and my mother had been taken unfairly from me. There were a few unbearably long days that just seemed to stretch on forever and ever, offering no help or glimpse of a future for me. I couldn’t begin to imagine a life without her in it, and it hurt that nobody was there to offer me an assurances.
Until the dreams started.
Every night after the funeral until the one year anniversary of her death, I’d had dreams of my mother. She would lie next to me on the bed, stroking my hair and singing to me. Every time I had that dream, I would sleep through the night without nightmares, but I would always wake up crying in the morning, because I would finally realize that she hadn’t actually been there, singing to me.
When the dreams stopped after the anniversary of her death, I was relieved and depressed. I missed hearing her soothing voice late at night, but I was glad to not wake up so miserable all the time. When the dreams were gone, I felt like I could finally begin moving on with my life, and my mood started to get better.
Why hasn’t she crossed over yet? It’s not like there’s anything that’s keeping her here. She hasn’t spoken to me, even though she had to know that I could see her. Why did she stick around? Just to warn me away from Andrew if he ever showed his face? It’s not like she could actually know if Andrew would ever meet me, so that can’t be it.
Was she just waiting for me to finally embrace what I am? Maybe she thought appearing to me before then would freak me out too much? I hadn’t realized that what I saw was normal and it didn’t make me crazy. Is that what she was waiting for?
I had a lot of thinking to do, and since Andrew still hadn’t come back for me, I figured I had plenty of time to think everything through. I settled in as comfortably as I could on a thin, stained mattress, and I thought about everything that had already happened, or probably would happen in the next few days.
Dark Secrets (Dark Heritage #1) Page 30