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I look at Valerian, my eyes widening.
Before I can say anything, the memory terminates.
This new memory runs much faster, but I’m still able to follow.
Valerian’s parents are standing next to another glass door that leads into a padded room. Only it’s my father inside this time, and he’s not thrashing around.
He’s hugging his knees, catatonic.
“I don’t know how Lidia escaped,” Davu says. “And it was pure bad luck that she saw Bailey on the way out.”
Valerian’s mother is frowning. “Any idea where she went?”
“No clue,” he says.
“Well, all we can do is pray she’s banished Phobetor for good,” she says. “Else the next time she goes to sleep, he’ll learn of our deception and have her kill Bailey for real.”
Again, the memory terminates too fast for me to say something.
A familiar scene begins, set in the fateful clearing on Soma. In the version I saw in Mom’s memory, Asha and I were about seven, and we were running and screaming in terror.
But my sister and I aren’t here.
It’s just my parents chasing nothingness with machetes, their eyes those of the Overtaken.
The crowd that was chasing after my parents in Mom’s memories is here too. In the front, I spot my grandmother, Davu with his wife, little Valerian, and Kojo and his parents.
“Stop!” Davu screams at my parents.
They don’t respond, just keep chasing what they must think are the twins.
I have to use my recollection of Mom’s memories to fill in the details.
Illusory Asha trips over a root.
The illusion of young me keeps running for a few moments, then looks back, panting. “Asha, no!” she gasps and rushes to her.
At least that’s what my parents must be seeing—and so must Phobetor through their eyes.
This is the moment illusory Asha started crying, and I tried to lift her.
Our parents close in.
Our father faces the crowd while Mom raises her machete.
This is when the illusory me screamed, “Mommy, no!” in Mom’s memory.
Mom slashes with the machete through empty air—though of course, she thinks she’s just beheaded Asha.
Numbly, I watch as Mom’s strange eyes gaze at another spot. One where the illusion of me must be sobbing uncontrollably.
Just like in her own memory, Mom’s body tenses, her face twisting with alternating expressions of blankness and horror. Her eyes flicker between magma-like fire and their normal brown hue, and her left hand grabs her right, as if trying to steal the machete from it. Finally, her eyes stay brown, and horror eclipses all else on her face.
Wow. This is what Davu had meant in that out-of-order memory that preceded this one.
Somehow, Mom has banished Phobetor from her mind, reversing her Overtaken status.
She looks at the bloody machete in her hands, then at where the headless Asha would be if she were real. With a raw, guttural moan, she spins around—just as my father smashes a fist into her temple.
Having knocked Mom out, my father sprints over to where the illusory version of me would be and slashes at the empty air with his machete.
The memory terminates.
In the next memory, Valerian’s parents are speaking too fast for me to comprehend their words, but I think they’re explaining the need to forget the incident at the clearing and the associated memories via a black window.
I’m only half listening anyway, as I’m desperately trying to make sense of what I’ve just learned.
Mom didn’t actually kill my sister, just like my father didn’t kill me.
They were made to think that they did this by the Soma illusionists.
But that means—
The world explodes around us, instantly jolting me awake.
Back in the real world, I open my eyes.
The room is too dark to see anything.
I sit up.
Someone turns on the light.
It’s Valerian. His skin isn’t purple anymore.
I look at my own hands and see they aren’t purple either.
My eyes fly up to his face. “My sister is alive?”
He comes toward me. “First, how are you feeling?”
“Peachy,” I snap, and it’s the truth. No sign of earlier weakness or stomach pains. “My heart is beating fast, but that’s normal given what I’ve just learned.”
Looking relieved, he reaches over and clasps my hand in his large palm. “Bailey—”
I glare up at him. “Answer me. My sister—”
Smiling warmly, he squeezes my hand. “She’s alive.”
“And you had no idea?”
“Not the slightest. They left not a single clue.”
“But wasn’t she in your memories of Soma? Your parents said we’d be raised there.”
“She wasn’t. I suspect that after your mom’s escape and before making everyone forget, my parents took Asha to the part of Soma that’s separate from the rest. That’s what I’d have done in their shoes.”
Holy puck. I stare at him, my heart skipping around as if the virus were back. My mind races furiously, flipping through all the memories I’ve seen.
My sister is alive.
Mom didn’t kill her.
I have a living sister, a twin.
And there’s apparently a prophecy about us… and Phobetor.
