Chapter 14
I read the message twice.
Then a third time.
“What blue room?” Victor asked.
“I don’t know.”
“And the stars?”
“I drew them when I was little.”
“What kind?”
I looked at the symbol carved into the locket.
The star above the three branches.
“That kind.”
Victor sat back.
“How old were you when you stopped?”
“I don’t remember.”
But even as I said it, an image flashed through my mind.
A wall painted pale blue.
A woman humming near a window.
Not my mother.
Another woman.
Dark curls.
A white shirt.
A voice telling me to stay very quiet because we were playing a hiding game.
My chest tightened.
“I remember a room,” I whispered.
Victor leaned toward me.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“What else?”
“A woman was there.”
“Elena?”
I shook my head.
The memory came in fragments, blurred at the edges like a dream.
The woman kneeling in front of me.
Her hand warm against my cheek.
A silver locket at her throat.
Identical to mine.
“She called me Annie,” I said.
Victor’s face emptied of color.
“What?”
“She called me Annie.”
He stood so quickly that the chair scraped across the floor.
Marco reached for his jacket, startled by the sound.
Victor ignored him.
“Are you certain?”
“No. I was a child. It might have been a dream.”
“Did she say anything else?”
May you like
I closed my eyes.
For years, I had remembered the scene only as a nightmare: the blue walls, the shadow beneath the door, the woman holding me close while footsteps approached.
