I was rubbing my soon to be bruised knee when Alex appeared beside me.

“Alright, what happened?” he asked immediately. “And why are you rubbing you knee.”

“Because I bumped it on the table.” My voice came out sharp.

“Okay, jeez. Sorry for asking.” He paused. “So what happened?”

I stared at him, wondering if what I was thinking could be true.

He gave me a strange look. “Did something happen…I mean, with Nicholas? Did he...um try something.”

“Huh?” It took me a second to get what he meant. “What! Yuck. No. Why would you even ask that?”

“Because that’s the way he is,” he said. “It’s the faerie inside him.”

“Well, nothing happened.” I sat down on the edge of the coffee table. “Not really, anyway.”

“Not really anyway.” He gaped at me. “What does that mean?”

“It means he was acting creepy.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Acting creepy how?"

“He was just…” I shook my head. I was getting off track here. “That’s not important right now. Okay, I’m going to ask you something, and I want you to tell me the truth, okay?”

He gave me a doubtful look. But before he could protest, I stood up, trying to appear confident.

“No, you’re not going to wiggle your way out of this one,” I told him. “I want the truth, and you’re going to give it to me. None of that I can’t tell you crap. No more lying, just the truth.” Yeah, I have no idea where that boost of confidence came from, but it felt kind of good.

He held my gaze with sheer intensity, and I had a flash back of the two of us sitting in the astronomy classroom, staring each other down. “What’s your question?”

I took a deep breath and prepared myself for the worst. “Has my memory ever been erased?”

Chapter 30

I didn’t even have to hear his answer. His expression said it all.

“Why!?” I cried. “Why would you do that?!”

It took him a second to respond. “Why would you think your memory has been erased?”

“For two reasons,” I said, my voice shaking uncontrollably with anger. “First, because I’m almost certain the little girl in the vision was me.”

His bright green eyes widened. “What! It was you?”

I let out a derisive laugh. “Oh, like you didn’t know that already.”

“I didn’t,” he said. “I swear. But why do you think it was you?”

“Because of her eyes…they were violet. And if the little girl is me, then I’m pretty sure the woman that was forced to go to The Underworld is my mother.”

He swallowed hard. “Gemma, I don’t even know what to say? I am a little confused as to why this would make you think your memory was erased.”

“Because of my second reason.” I couldn’t believe I was going to tell him this. I mean, I wanted to have some secrets of my own. But in order to explain everything clearly, I needed to tell him. “Do you remember when I was looking through the telescope back at the field trip, and I suddenly ran off?”

“And I found you crying on the bus,” he said, nodding.

“Well, the reason I ran off is because, while I was looking through the telescope, I went into something similar to a vision. Although I had no idea at the time what the heck was going on. But anyway, I ended up out in this field. There was a little girl and a woman there, and both of their faces were blurred out.”

He stared at me impassively, but I caught his Adams apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed hard. “So what happened?”

“Nothing really. They just stared up at the stars for awhile, talking.”

“And you don’t know who they are.”

“Well, the mom had called the girl Gemma, which puzzled me because, if she was me, then why couldn’t I remember the scene from own memories. I mean, I know I’d have been only like four at the time, but still…you’d think I’d be able to remember something. And I also thought the same thing when Laylen told me I was four when I left my mother. How could I have been four yet not be able to remember a single thing about her?” I paused, taking in a deep breath. “And then on my way back from correcting the vision, something suddenly clicked, and I knew that the mother and daughter in the field, and the mother and the daughter by the lake, were me and my mother. It was like my mind had suddenly been able to retrieve some of my lost memories or something.”

He looked like he was truly struggling to stay calm. “I still don’t understand why this would make you think your memory has been erased. Sometimes people just forget things.”

I shook my head. “No. This is different. I can feel it. I know there’s got to be more to it than that. I mean, I can barely remember anything about my life at all.”

“Gemma, I really think that—”

I threw my hands in the air exasperatedly. “Just tell me. Has my memory ever been erased?”

He shook his head. “No. Your memory has never been erased.”

“You’re lying!” I yelled. “I know you are. There’s no way I could forget her.” And now I was crying. But honestly, I really didn’t care. There was too much agonizing pain inside me to care.

“Gemma, please just sit down for a minute and hear me out,” Alex said in the shakiest voice I’d ever heard come out of his mouth.

“No!” I cried. “I’m not doing anything else that you tell me to do. I’ll never listen to you again!”

He rubbed his forehead, looking tense. “If you’ll sit down and listen to me, then I’ll try to explain everything the best that I can.”

“Yeah right.” I sniffled. “You’re like the mastermind of lying.”

He pressed his lips together, trying really hard not to laugh at my remark. “I know I’ve lied to you a lot, but this time I won’t. I promise.”

I stared at him through tear-drenched eyes, searching his face for signs that he was lying. He looked so sincere it was almost startling.

“You promise.” I sniffed. “You’ll tell me the truth?”

He gave a slow, reluctant nod. “But I have to warn you that what I’m going to say is way worse then what you’re imagining.”

I wiped the tears from my face with the sleeve of my shirt and sank down on the couch.  “It doesn’t matter. I still want to hear it.”

He sank down on the couch beside me, slipped off his baseball hat, and dragged his fingers tautly through his hair. “I don’t even know where to begin. No matter where I start, it’s going to sound really bad.”

I liked that he was nervous. He was usually so calm, cool, and collected—he was usually lying. So nervous was a good sign he was telling the truth…I hoped, anyway. “Start anywhere, then. If it’s all bad, then what does it matter?”

He contemplated this for a moment. “Okay, so you remember the prophecy I told you about, right?”

I sighed. “How could I forget it?”

“Well, I left out a few parts of that story. See, while Stephan was trying to figure out a way to keep the prophecy from happening, your mother had just disa—or if what you say is correct, was thrown into The Underworld.” He paused, gazing off, lost in thought. “You were extremely emotional. Crying all the time.”

“I’d just lost my mother,” I pointed out, annoyed. “Of course I was emotional.”

“Yeah, I know. And I’m not saying that it wasn’t understandable, I’m just trying to explain why Stephan did what he did.” He shifted uneasily in the chair. “A lot of Keepers are born with gifts. There are a lot of different kinds, some more useful than others. The one Sophia has is called unus quisnam aufero animus. Or one who removes the soul.”

“One who removes the soul,” I repeated, my eyes widening. “You took my soul! Are you freaking kidding me?!” I leapt up from the couch, my adrenaline pulsating into overdrive. He was so right. It was way worse. At least the stars energy could be construed as adding to a persons’ life. But taking away a soul—it was like ripping away the very essence of being human.

My legs wobbled and the room swayed. I grasped onto the edge of the coffee table, gasping for air. Was this what a panic attack felt like?