“Just let me show you,” she said, closing the gap between us and raising her hands to my temples.
“No, what’re…” I pushed her hands away from me and backed away.
“Violet, please. You’ll understand once you see. Please, let me show you.”
I studied her face a moment and searched her eyes for any sign she might be lying. My whole world had been turned upside down and I didn’t know what or whom I could believe anymore.
“How could you?” The word barely escaped my lips.
“I was just trying to protect you,” she lamented.
“How were you able to erase what really happened?” I asked, trying to control my anger.
“With Magic.” She exhaled and put her hands in her lap, composing herself. “Everyone in the Magical world has the ability to learn and strengthen the Magic within them. Changing someone’s memory isn’t easy, but with discipline any Magical person can do it.”
“Of course, more Magic.” I huffed under my breath.
“Magic is a part of who you are now. It won’t go away just because you wish it to.” Her voice quivered with anger.
“So what happened to the real memory? You just ripped it out of my head and threw it away?” I fumed. How could she tell me my whole life wasn’t a lie when I couldn’t even be sure of what was and wasn’t a real memory anymore?
“You can never really erase a memory. The brain is far too complex. All you can do is learn how to disguise it as something else.”
“And you can do this to anybody?”
“It’s not like that. You have to learn someone’s mind first, all the little pathways and dark corners, so to speak. It takes a considerable amount of time to alter a memory. It was easier with you because you were so young but still, it took a lot of power and concentration.”
“And how do you learn someone’s mind?”
“There’s a spell you can cast that allows you to navigate through their mind while the person is unconscious.”
“Does it hurt?”
“No of course not!” she said, taken aback. “The person has no idea you’ve been inside their head.”
“Did you change any more of my memories?” I asked.
“No.” She pursed her lips and took a deep breath. “But your mother did.”
“She did?” I felt like someone had sucker punched me. Never in a million years would I have thought that my parents were Magical people, but to find out my own mother had used Magic on me hurt more than I would have ever thought possible. “Why… why would she do that?”
“Your parents wanted you to have a normal life, but their Magic would slip every once in a while. It goes against our instincts to abstain from using Magic. It’s nearly impossible to turn that part of ourselves off.”
I sat, quiet, not knowing what to say. Their memory was the only thing I had left of my parents and now she was telling me those memories might not even be real? My whole life, everything I ever believed to be true, was completely and utterly false. The anxiety festering inside me finally broke free. The sheer force of it sent a shiver through my entire body.
“How many times did she alter my memory?” I asked as a tear fell from my eye.
“Only a couple times that I know of. I can release those memories if you’d like,” Aunt Beth suggested, though she blinked with hesitation.
“Can you?” I sniffled.
“It’s hard to alter the mind but once you’ve changed it you are always connected.”
“Okay,” I said, overwhelmed with emotions. I wanted the truth. I was so sick of all the secrecy and lies.
“Come here,” she said, once more motioning for me to follow her back to the swing. I sat down and she knelt in front of me. She reached up and placed her hands on the side of my head and closed her eyes.
“Mm, this is a good one to start with,” she said releasing me. I felt a little strange, like a fog had been lifted, but I couldn’t quite see what was on the other side yet.
“I don’t…”
“Give it a minute,” she interrupted.
As the fog slowly cleared I saw my mom standing at the kitchen sink, washing dishes in the house we lived in when I was a child. The six year old version of me sat at the table coloring. Without warning a baseball came through the window in front of my mother. I looked up, scared by the noise and in an instant everything froze. The broken glass and the baseball hung suspended in the air, frozen in front of my mother. She plucked the baseball hovering in front of her and tossed it back out the broken window. Then she raised her hands to the shards of glass and the window reformed itself as if nothing had happened. The young version of me watched her in amazement. I remembered feeling like my mom was a real-life superhero. She walked over to me and asked if I was okay. I shook my head, yes, and then she placed her hands on the sides of my head just like my aunt had done a moment before.
“It’s so real,” I gasped. “But how am I supposed to know which memory is real?”
“Didn’t you ever feel like something was off when you were younger? Like something was missing but you couldn’t put your finger on it?” Aunt Beth asked.
“Yeah.” I shrugged.
“You were missing your memories, your real memories.”
“What else is there?” I asked. My anger faded the second I saw my mother just the way I remembered her.
My aunt placed her hands on the sides of my face again. She let go after a few seconds and looked up at me.
Again I felt the fog lift. I closed my eyes and let the memory take me. This was different though. It wasn’t a memory I knew. My mom cradled me in her arms. I was just a baby. Both of my parents looked down at me, smiling. My dad pulled my mother closer to him with one arm and caressed my head with the other.
“She’s perfect,” my mother said, looking up at my father.
“Just like you,” he said and smiled. “I love you. And I love you, Violet.” My father gently placed his fingers on the side of my head.
“What was that?” I asked my aunt as the memory faded.
“Just like we can alter a memory, we can also mark a memory so that we can recall it at any time. That’s a memory from the day you were born. They both loved you very much, Violet.”
“I miss them so much.” Tears fell down my face, leaving salty streaks in their wake.
Aunt Beth pulled herself up and sat down next to me, pulling me close to her. “I miss them too,” she said.
I let the tears fall freely from my eyes as I felt the pain of losing them. Fear and frustration bubbled inside me like a pot of hot water about to spill over.
“Will you show me what happened to them?” I asked, sniffling.
“Are you sure? We can always do it another time.”
“No, I want to know. I’m sick of being kept in the dark. I want to know the truth.”
“Okay, but this isn't going to be pretty,” she said and placed her hands against my temples again.
I thought for a moment about the car crash that had killed my parents, and then as the fog lifted it all changed. It was like a scene from a horror movie. There was so much blood, and my parents, my poor parents, lay still on the floor. I could barely stomach the image but as I glanced at my parents prone bodies, I saw the faint outline of a symbol carved into their skin. I wanted to inspect further, something about it was familiar, but the memory went dark as I closed my eyes and fell to my knees next to them.
“Who would do something like that?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
“His name is Aiden Patridge. The same man who keeps sending people to kill you,” Aunt Beth answered. Her voice held a cold, dark edge to it I’d never heard before.