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She wipes the broken glass off my body, shaking my shoulders as she shouts at me.
Her voice is muffled, though, and I can barely hear a thing.
Someone please help me.
“Hazel!” she screams, just as my chest opens, and I gasp in a breath, greedy as I swallow all the air possible.
I roll onto my side, my fingers splaying across my chest as I can finally breathe. The ground is hard below me and I crush glass beneath my body when I move. Pressing down on my hands, I let out a cry as I push myself up, looking around in shock.
“Where did she go?” I cry out, seeing nothing but the dark living room.
“She left when you fell to the ground,” Vera says, her fingers wrapping around my arm as she helps me to stand.
The door booms open, wood splintering as the knob crashes against the wall. Piper and Blaire stumble into the house, both wincing and rubbing their shoulders.
I glance away from them, back to Vera, my heart still pounding like mad in my chest. “Where did she leave to?”
Vera looks around, shrugging. “I don’t know, Hazel. They did what they always do, they fucking disappear.”
She’s not gone, though, because I can still feel her here.
There are so many of them here.
I scramble back, away from the pile of glass and toward my backpack. “I don’t know why I came here. This was a mistake.”
I look at her with a blank stare.
My knees give out, and I plop down on the couch, letting out a sigh as another cry builds in my chest. I drop my face into my hands as a sob breaks free.
Vera sits down beside me. “What’s going on, Hazel? Like, what’s really going on?”
I look at the three of them, taking in the distressed looks on their faces. I’m so fucked up I barely remember asking them here.
“I learned some things,” I whisper, shaking my head clear, wiping my face of tears.
Blaire narrows her eyes. “What things?”
I take a deep breath, grabbing my backpack and pulling it closer to me. “I’m related to Sibley Alastair,” I whisper, feeling ashamed of my own blood. Alastair is a cursed name in this town, one that has only brought destruction.
“You’re what?!” Piper shouts.
I look up at her, a frown in my eyes. “Sibley Alastair is my great-grandmother.”
“Why isn’t your last name Alastair, then?”
I look over at her, having wondered the same thing. “I don’t know. I haven’t even told my mom or grandma that I know, so I haven’t had a chance to ask.”
“Could it not be true?” Piper asks. She’s skeptical, and I can’t say I blame her.
“Look, I don’t want it to be true,” I say with a sigh. I dig my hand into my backpack, pulling out the book that has paved the path to my history. I flip to the page that has embedded itself into my brain, pointing to the top of the tree. “Look, Sibley Alastair, Agnes, my grandma, Tabitha Ares, my mom, Willow Ares.” My finger slides down, to the scratched-in letters. “Hazel Ares.”
“Holy shit,” Blaire whispers.
“Your grandmother changed her last name. Why?” Vera asks.
I look up at her. “Would you want your last name to be Alastair in Castle Pointe?”
Vera winces. “No. I wouldn’t.”
