“Huh? What pictures?”
“Uh…The pictures in your house?” Isis added with a roll of her neck. “When we broke in with Souxie’s dad, trying to find things that could help get Hillary out of the ground at your mother’s house.”
“Wait, what?”
“The pictures!” Asha clapped before me. “Who are they and why were we not invited?!”
“You all are so damn nosey,” Quan said as he sat down beside me like he was still in his cat form.
“You and Namir…your time away from the school…”
“Oh…those are his friends. Not mine,” I said, realizing what they were talking about. “Most of it was Greek stuff but…I think he was trying to cheer me up and get me out of the house because there would be days I wouldn’t leave, or I would just sit outside my parents’ house from time to time. So that was his way of trying to get me involved…Clementine too, naturally.”
“That bitch,” Asha groaned. “She’s been texting nonstop asking have you woken up yet and where we are…Can you believe she thinks y'all are friends like that?”
“Nooo,” I gasped, acting shocked as Souxie laughed. “Wait, go back to Hillary being in the ground at my mom’s house and…what were you doing at my mom’s house?”
“We went to go get your family,” Souxie said as she pulled something out of her bra like it was a storage unit. She handed me what looked like a photograph of my childhood self, standing next to another little girl against the curb with a pinwheel in my hand. “I found this in your photo album…”
“Yeah, I remember this,” I nodded before quickly adding. “I mean not this exact moment, but I know the picture. I made friends with some neighborhood kids before we moved.”
“That doesn’t look like anyone in particular to you?”
I stared at the little girl who was fighting the reflection of the sun in her face before looking up at Ayira.
“It is not me,” she said with a wave of her hand. “My hair does not curl like that.”
“And the fact that you’ve never been here,” Asha added dryly. I stared back at the picture. She looked exactly like a younger version of Ayira which could only mean…
“You think this is her twin sister?”
“Possibly,” Souxie shrugged. “It’s weird, right?”
“Yea….” I said slowly before shaking my head. I was just about to speak when Asha suddenly gasped.
“Oh! I spoke to you!” She blurted out. I was still trying to wrap my mind around Hillary, my mother’s backyard and the girls in my house with Namir. “Maggie, we spoke! You somehow reached out to me and told me to tell Namir you were coming back! You were on your way back! I told everyone I saw you.”
My mouth fell open before closing. I started to open it again before scrunching my face with a tilt of my head. Asha’s excitement slowly faded. “You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?”
“Honestly, it really just felt like we were gone a day, some hours even…Maybe two days? I dunno… I didn’t see or connect with anyone if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I swear, you were right there in the water talking to me, clear as day. It was your voice, and you were mentioning Namir.”
“I’ve always said you’ve had witchy tendencies, Asha,” Souxie added. “You should look into it.”
“No! I’m telling you; it was Maggie.”
“It wasn’t me. I didn’t…I was literally trying not to die in the desert either from a dragon or fighting Ayira to the death.”
“I would never,” Ayira said with a dignified tone, but her smirk was there. I shook my head with a wave of my hand, trying to reset and start over.
“Wait, back to going to my mom’s house?”
Souxie nodded.
“All of us did. It wasn’t planned that way but somehow that night…we all showed up at the same time. Namir included.”
“Namir too?”
