Illana wiped tears from her cheeks, but she didn’t argue with me. It was the truth. No one in the castle was going to listen to me. If we went in there, it would be to rescue Lea and Aerden. And there would be bloodshed in the King’s City just to get them free.
For now, they were safest where they were. I didn’t want to jeopardize that.
“What else can we do, then?” Illana asked.
“I have a plan,” I said. “And I’m going to need your help, if you’re willing.”
“Anything.”
“I’ve told the others to meet us in the dining hall so we can talk it over, but before we go, can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“Before we even knew you had been taken by the emerald priestess, Harper had been dreaming of an old shack in the woods,” I said. “When we rescued you, you told me you’d somehow been able to reach inside Harper’s mind to show her those visions, hoping she would figure it out and come to rescue you.”
“Yes,” she said. “My powers were so weak inside the iron cage, but I was able to send some visions out to you both.”
“Do you think you could do it again?” I asked. “Just to send her a message and let her know we’re thinking of her. That we miss her and we haven’t forgotten her.”
My heart tightened at the word forgotten. Did she even remember me at all?
“I’ve tried,” she said. “When she first disappeared, I tried to reach out to her, but I didn’t mention it to you, because I didn’t want you to feel discouraged. You were already so sad, Jackson. I didn’t want to make it worse.”
I closed my eyes and lowered my head into my hands. “I don’t understand,” I said. “If you connected with her once, why wouldn’t you be able to do it now?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I can only tell you that she felt very far away, as if she’d been taken to another dimension. Another world.”
I raised my head. “Another dimension? You mean she was removed from the human world?”
Illana shook her head. “I’m not sure,” she said. “I wish I could tell you more, but it doesn’t make any sense to me. She’s alive, though, Jackson. I can feel her.”
I paused, looking out at the people of her kingdom. She belonged here with us. It wasn’t enough just to know that she was alive.
I stood and started back up the castle steps.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“To the dining hall,” I said. “We need to talk. All of us.”
“Jackson, wait,” she said.
I paused on the top step and waited for her. My sister placed her hand in mine.
“I really did miss you when you left,” she said. “Just because I wasn't brave enough to come after you doesn’t mean I wasn’t thinking of you every day. I love you, brother.”
I squeezed her hand. “I missed you, too.”
“We’ll find her,” she said.
“I know we will.” But as I walked through the throne room and down the hall to meet the others, I wondered if, when we found her, my Harper would be the same woman I fell in love with.
Like Coming Home
Days at the Evers Institute passed slowly, each one running into the next as if time were on an endless loop. Everything here was ruled by routine: Breakfast in the morning at seven sharp. Group therapy at eight. Art class from nine until eleven. Lunch and time in our rooms to properly digest, whatever that meant. If the weather was nice, we were allowed to go outdoors after lunch for an hour or two. If it was raining or too windy, we were allowed to either stay in our rooms or have social time in the recreation area indoors.
In the late afternoons, we worked. At the beginning of each quarter, every one of us was assigned a new job. For my first few weeks here, I’d been given the glamorous job of cleaning the bathrooms. From what I’d heard, it was a common assignment for new girls. Just my luck.
My only saving grace was that I enjoyed the company of the four girls I worked with. They were all younger than me, but we got along well and that helped to pass the time. We never talked about why we were here, but since I could hardly remember anything from before anyway, that was fine by me.
After our chores were done, we all cleaned up for dinner. And after dinner, we were sent to our rooms, where the nurses would come by and deliver our medicine, check our rooms, and finally turn off the lights and lock the doors.
They always locked us in, and as much as I hated having to clean toilets all afternoon, I hated the nights the most. Our room was small and cramped with four beds, and the second that lock clicked closed, I felt as if I couldn’t breathe.
I’d met with Dr. Evers once a week since coming here, and she tried to assure me that locking the doors was for our own safety. But that was bullshit, wasn’t it? What if a fire broke out? We would all be locked away in our rooms with no way to get outside.
When I told her that, she’d narrowed her eyes at me and asked if I’d remembered more about what happened before I came to the institute. She said my fear of fire was a rational response to having been through one and lost so many of the people I cared about most. Still, she didn’t agree to stop locking the doors at night, telling me that there was little chance of a fire breaking out here.
Locking us away wasn’t about our safety, though, and I knew it. It was about keeping us in line. Keeping us from seeing things the staff didn’t want us to see. Or going places the staff didn’t want us to go.
That’s also the reason they gave us all little white pills to help us sleep.
The first night I’d spent in my new room, I’d taken their pills like the good girl they so wanted me to be. I’d felt groggy and tired about ten minutes later, and a minute after that, I was sound asleep.
But sleep was not a safe place for me these days.
The moment my eyes closed, the nightmares took over. Fire was the most common one: green flames the size of skyscrapers engulfing an old white house that looked like it had stood for over a hundred years.
But I also dreamed of other things. Things I didn’t dare tell Dr. Evers or any of the nurses. I hadn’t even told my roommates.
Sometimes I dreamed I was lying naked on a stone table, my body shivering from fever. A woman with dark-red hair spoke words of magic as she cut into the skin on my arms and legs with shards of emerald-colored glass. When I screamed in pain, the red-headed woman always smiled.
Other nights she tortured me by nearly drowning me in a black pool of water. It was too dark for me to see where we were. Inside somewhere. Maybe a basement. The pool was deep, though, and dark as night. She tied my hands and legs together and forced me under the water, holding me down until my breath was gone and my lungs begged for air.
At night, I was subjected to all kinds of torture in my dreams. Unimaginable things that felt more real to me than the times when I was awake. Things that couldn’t possibly have been real, but that my mind had made up in order to deal with the pain of what I had lost.
So I stopped taking the little white pills.
Instead, I kept my eyes open for as long as I could, listening to the soft sounds of my roommates’ breathing. Sometimes I heard the echo of high heels against the floor and wondered who around here wore high heels. None of the nurses who I had seen. They all wore soft-soled white shoes that squeaked against the tiles.
It could have been the doctor, checking on us to make sure we were asleep, but I never dared keep my eyes open to look through the small window on our door. If I heard those shoes, I closed my eyes and turned away from the window, hoping whoever it was would simply pass us by.
Most nights, I spent the hours trying to remember.
Who was I? What was my life like before they brought me here?
I touched the raised scars that covered my arms and stomach and legs, begging my mind to break free of whatever was holding the memories inside. It was my only way out of this place. Maybe if I could remember what happened, Dr. Evers could help me figure out a way to deal
with it. I could get better. Even if there was no one out there waiting to take me home, I could start a new life for myself somewhere.
But even after weeks of trying, my memories stubbornly remained trapped in my mind, refusing to come to the surface.
Other than the flames, there was only one thing that came back to me over and over. I closed my eyes and begged it to come, wanting to replay it in my head like a movie.
I was standing at a window, looking down on a garden that had seen better days. It was overgrown with flowers and weeds. A stone fountain in the center was covered in moss, but I knew it had the potential to be beautiful. There was a smaller house behind the garden, and to the right, a large shed.
I watched, waiting for the door of the shed to open, my heart always racing. When he walked out, my skin buzzed and a smile played across my lips. He walked toward the smaller house and paused, stopping to look up at me through the glass that separated us. He raised a hand to shield his eyes from the sun.
It was my favorite moment. Seeing him was like coming home.
I waved and his green eyes lit up, a touch of a smile lifting one corner of his mouth.
If I had the choice, I would spend my days trapped in that one moment with him. But no matter how hard I tried to hold onto it, the memory always faded and the nightmares always returned.
Who was he? What did we once mean to each other?
And, most importantly, was he still out there somewhere waiting for me?
A Memory From My Past
“Come on, Harper, it’s time to go outside for recreation time,” Nora said, nudging my arm.
I sighed and got up from my bed, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.
I must have drifted off during our rest time after lunch.
“Hurry,” Judith whispered. “She’s coming.”
I moved faster for her sake. Judith was always worried about getting in trouble. Always quiet and always following the rules to the letter.
I stood at the end of my bed and waited, hearing soft padded footsteps squeak against the tile floor. Nurse Melody walked into view, her ever-present clipboard pressed against her chest and her lips pursed into a straight, thin line.
None of the nurses here were pleasant, but Melody was the only one who was sometimes nice to me. Genuinely nice, not that fake crap most of them tried to pull until they got frustrated or I stepped out of line.
“Ladies,” she said, quickly checking our names off her sheet. “Follow me.”
We fell into line like little ducklings waddling down the hallway after her as she stopped at each room and marked each girl off her list. When we had all been properly collected, she led us through the institute’s dated rec room with its faded couches, chess games missing a handful of pieces, and a single bookshelf full only of classic literature like A Tale of Two Cities. There was no TV, no magazines, no video games. It was as if this place had completely forgotten the modern world existed.
I followed the line out the French doors and into the chilly air of the afternoon.
The courtyard was bare and cold, everything made of cement except a stretch of brown grass past the concrete walkway. Cement benches. A cement bird-bath full of brown water and molding leaves. Many of the girls clustered in groups, sitting together to talk or play games, but I went to my favorite spot near the fence at the back of the property.
It was really more of a wall than a fence, made of sturdy red bricks stacked so high it was impossible for me to see out. Or for anyone else to see in, which was probably more the point. I had no idea where we were or what neighborhood the institute was in, but I could hear the sound of cars passing on a nearby street. I imagined wherever we were, the local residents wouldn’t like to see the crazies hanging around outside.
I turned and pressed my back against the cold brick, pulling my sweater tighter as I slid down to sit on the grass. The brick tugged at the fabric as I moved, and I liked the feel of resistance. In some weird way, it spoke to my soul.
I hated this place, with its rules and our bland gray dresses and bare feet. I hated the way everyone else seemed to just accept this as reality without questioning why we’d all been locked away.
Or maybe it was fear that kept them quiet.
I closed my eyes, my body shivering against the cold winter air.
I wasn’t sure what month it was, but if I had to guess, I’d say spring was just around the corner. The past few times we’d been outside, I’d heard birds chirping. The weather had gotten a few degrees warmer.
I’d been here at least three weeks and yet there had been no snow. When I looked up, I could see some trees on the other side of the brick fence, all of their leaves gone and no buds in sight. So it was winter, but not somewhere cold enough for snow.
Was I still in Georgia? Close to home?
The nurses didn’t know I’d remembered where I was from, and I wasn’t about to tell them, but some of my memories had been coming back to me. Some of them in dreams and others when I least expected it, like small gifts dropping into my brain from some invisible benefactor.
I tried to remember my family. My life before Evers Institute. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t remember my mother and father. I couldn’t remember a single thing about either of them, and it left a hollowness in my heart. Surely my mother and father were the people I’d spent most of my life with, so why couldn’t I think of them? Why couldn’t I picture them at all?
Instead, it was the green eyes of my mysterious man that kept coming back to me, over and over.
His dark hair was just long enough on top that it sometimes fell into his eyes. His deep-green eyes looked straight into my soul, and whenever I pictured him, I knew that he was mine. We belonged to each other.
I breathed in, willing the image of him to come to me now. I wanted to hear him speak and know that he had not given up on me. Wherever he was, I needed to know that he still loved me. That I wasn’t all alone in this world.
But today he would not come.
I opened my eyes, tears pushing at the corners. I couldn’t even remember his name or how we had met. I didn’t even know if he was still alive.
I glanced around at the other girls, watching them talk and smile and laugh. But it was all fake. The laughter was joyless. Even with smiles on their faces, their eyes were empty.
Closer to the building, there was a row of girls sitting on cold cement benches, staring forward without moving. Some of them were in wheelchairs. Their mouths were turned down at the corners in permanent frowns. Their shoulders hunched slightly, and their hair was dirty and oily, as if they hadn’t been bathed in weeks.
What had happened to them?
I shivered against the brick and turned away, my eyes drawn toward a girl standing in a group near the bird-bath. Her eyes were locked on mine.
I’d seen her before in the dining hall and for a moment, I’d thought I recognized her.
She was staring at me now, her gaze so intense I couldn’t force myself to look away. Her hair was brown and fell just below her shoulders. Her face was beautiful and so familiar. Had we known each other before this place? If she remembered me, why didn’t she just come talk to me?
I raised my hand in a wave and softly smiled at her, but her eyes darkened and she looked away quickly, as if I’d offended her.
From the cement walkway, the sound of a bell rang out into the wind. “Let’s go, ladies,” Nurse Melody said. “It’s time to get your chores done before dinner.”
Awesome. Toilet-cleaning time.
Everyone moved quickly, heading toward the building, but I stayed, watching the girl with brown hair. Even her movements seemed strangely familiar, and I struggled to remember where I knew her from.
A headache ripped through me, as if everything in my body rebelled against the idea of a memory from my past. I brought a hand to my forehead, not wanting to take my eyes off the girl. Praying for something to push through, just once.
As she turned to walk toward the build
ing, a faint shadow moved across the red brick wall behind her. My mouth turned dry, and I forced my eyes open against the sudden pain of the headache.
How was that possible?
The shadow seemed to follow the girl until she stepped onto the concrete walkway and followed the others into the building.
I knew what I had seen, but it didn’t make any sense. There was nothing here that could have possibly created such a shadow, and the fence was too high for it to have come from beyond it.
“Harper, don’t make me tell you again,” Nurse Melody said, her voice stern.
I forced myself to stand and walk toward the house, following the rules so that I didn’t end up a drooling mess, sitting on a cement bench for the rest of my life.
But I dared one last glance at the brick wall, trying to make sense of what I had seen.
“What are you staring at?” the nurse asked. “What’s back there?”
“Nothing,” I said, almost convinced that I had imagined it.
Instead of a normal shadow—a human shadow—I could have sworn it had taken the shape of a horse.
Follow The Shadows
The image of that shadow stayed with me for the rest of the day.
It had to mean something, but what?
It probably meant that I was losing my mind, and that I belonged here in this place
I laughed and shook my head.
“What are you smiling about?” Nora asked, taking a tray from the line.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Oh, there was something going on in your head just now,” she said. “I can tell.”
She led us toward our normal table near the middle of the dining hall, her pigtails bouncing as she walked.
“Have you ever seen anything strange around here?” I asked, keeping my voice down and glancing around to make sure no one was paying me any attention. Judith was still in line, and I knew if I was going to talk about this, it needed to be before Little Miss Rules got here.
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