Awake (11 page)

She smiled, proving she believed me, made me feel worse. “Good. You know you can come to me if you ever need confirmation on anything.”

“I do. Thank you.”

“Would you like to go over some literature tonight?”

No. “That sounds good.”

“Noah,” Dad called from inside.

“Yes?”

“Can you come into my office for a minute, please?”

“Sure. I’ll be there in a second.”

Mum smiled. “Alright, you are officially let off gardening duty.”

“Thanks.”

His door was open and he was sitting back on his chair behind the desk. “Come in,” he said.

I closed the door behind me and sat on the armchair in the corner. “What’s up?”

“How is Scarlett doing?”

She was starting to remember. That was huge and I should tell him but something stopped me every time I opened my mouth.

“She’s okay. Now she’s home she’s back to normal.”

Dad smiled. “Good. That’s good. I was very concerned for a while there.”

Me, too, but I think for completely different reasons.

“If she’d have died what would have happened?” I asked.

“Nothing. Nothing can happen without her. We need to keep her safe and well.”

I nodded, crossing my legs at the ankle. Evelyn was already gone; we needed to protect Scarlett’s life until we got her to Ireland. “I know that.”

“How are you doing? The pressure isn’t getting to you, is it?”

“No. Hanging out with her isn’t stressful. She’s a great girl.”

“She is,” Dad agreed. “Jonathan and Marissa have done a good job raising her. I’ll give them that. I had visions of a teenage brat but she’s polite and kind.” And beautiful, funny, trusting, considerate, and loving.

“You care for her?” Dad asked.

“We all do. You have just listed some of the reasons why.”

He laughed. “Yes, you are right about that.”

After talking to my parents, I felt like I was on trial. They trusted me. Trust was a huge part of Eternal Light. We didn’t betray. There had been just one case: Jonathan and Marissa. I wouldn’t let them down. They were what made me
me
. I didn’t exist without them. I just had to get Scarlett out of my head, remind myself that I was doing the right thing for everyone here.

I am doing the right thing.

Scarlett

JEREMY WAS OUT
with friends so it was the perfect time to finally speak to my parents about what was going on. Only I was terrified to. They didn’t like going over the past and discussing the fire. I understood why, it must’ve been awful, but I had questions that just got louder and louder until I wanted to scream.

They were sitting on the sofa watching Grand Designs when I walked in the living room.
Here goes.
“Mum, Dad, can I talk to you about something?”

Looking up, they both smiled. “Of course, sweetheart,” Mum said. They looked happy. Like I was about to tell them something great. I felt worse.

Sitting down, I avoided eye contact. “When I was waking up from the accident I had dreams, as you know. They seemed so real that it made me wonder about before.”

“About before?” Dad said, prompting me to elaborate. He knew what I meant, though, but he didn’t want to be the first one to say it.

“Before the fire.”

I was met with silence and finally had to look up. They watched me carefully.

“I’m sorry, I know you don’t like talking about it but there are things that I think I remember.”

“Like what?” Mum asked.

“Like a girl named Evelyn. Who is she?”

“Darling, that was your doll.”

Yeah, Jeremy had said that, too, but the ‘doll’ I remembered was running around.

“I remember a girl, this wasn’t a doll.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Scarlett. Evelyn was your doll. This was a dream not a memory.”

“It felt like a memory. Everything was so familiar that I…”

Dad sat forward, straightening his back and asked, “That you what?”

“I went to see a hypnotist.”

“What? Why didn’t you tell us? Why is this the first we’re hearing about it?” Mum asked, sitting up far too straight.

“Because I know how you feel when we talk about the accident.”

“Hey,” Dad said softly. “It’s hard, I won’t deny that, but I don’t ever want you to feel like you can’t come to us. Nothing is off limits, Scarlett, no matter how difficult the conversation may be.”

“Okay,” I replied, dipping my head. “Then will you tell me about it again?”

Dad took Mum’s hand. “The hypnotist couldn’t help?” he asked. I shook my head. “Right. Well, it was just after two in the morning when we were woken by the smoke alarm. We ran out of our room and grabbed you and Jeremy. You were hysterical, screaming and crying on your bed, you were so scared. Your mum picked you up and covered you with a blanket to try to limit how much smoke you inhaled. I got Jer and we made our way downstairs.”

They obviously had a hard time reliving what’d happened. Mum’s knuckles had turned white around Dad’s hand and her eyes glossed over.

“The smoke was so thick and when I think back I can still feel how suffocating it was. The whole of the ground floor was in flames; we made it out of the back door. Your grandparents made it out the back window from where they were sleeping on a sofa bed in the dining room. I think if we’d have been just minutes later we’d have been trapped there. Your mum collapsed to the ground when we got out. Neighbours had come to help. You screamed the entire time, Scarlett. By the time we got you on the lawn to check you over, you were out and didn’t come to until a few hours later in the hospital. When you woke, you remembered nothing.”

“Why was I the only one in the hospital?”

“We all went, sweetheart,” Mum said. “We all had inhaled smoke and needed to see a doctor but because you were in such a state you inhaled a lot more and you were very young.”

“Okay. Then what happened?”

“Then we had to start again. We tried everything we could to get you to remember. We were told that familiar things might jog your memory but we lost everything to the fire. I’m sorry, sweetheart, we tried therapy and we spent every night for a long time telling you stories of your past but nothing helped.”

I remembered them telling me stories. But not being in the hospital. The earliest thing I could recall was being curled up on a sofa with them while Jeremy told me about a hamster we’d had. There was one thing that bugged me, if Evelyn was a doll I’d had, why was now the first time I was hearing of it? Surely they would have mentioned her if they went through everything in my past to try to help me remember.

Something was definitely off, and I couldn’t help thinking that my parents were lying to me.

“What did the doll look like?” I asked.

“Um,” Mum said, “she wore a dress and had brown hair, I think.”

So did the girl I saw when I was waking up. Either my fuzzy mind made her a human or I was remembering a girl I’d known before and they weren’t telling the truth. At this point, I had no idea.

“Why didn’t you tell me about it before?

Dad frowned. “We did but it was clear that talking about your toys wasn’t helping you to remember so I guess we just concentrated on the more important things like family and things we’d done together.”

“Did you take me back to the house?”

“No, by the time you had calmed down enough to talk and interact with us again the house was gone. There was too much damage so the landlord had it torn down and he built three houses on the land.”

Completely possible, but I wasn’t sure I believed it.

“Why do you think your dreams a of something that’s happened?” Mum asked.

“I don’t know, it feels different,” I replied.

“So, you don’t just think because Noah has said a few things about how strange it is to have no recollection of four years of your life that you’re slotting perfectly normal things into something that makes sense, or no sense, of that time you lost?” Dad said.

I only just understood what he meant and it was possible. It’d been a long time since I gave up letting it bug me but since Noah, I was trying to remember again.

“Honey, I know it is strange and frustrating but it doesn’t make you different to anyone else,” Mum said.

“This isn’t about fitting in. Noah hasn’t said anything horrible about it or me.”

“Good,” Dad said, raising his eyebrows and sitting back in the seat. “So, the hypnotherapy didn’t work, is there anything else you’d like to try?”

Sighing, I ran my hands through my unruly hair. “I don’t know. I don’t want to obsess about it anymore, it’s tiring, but it does bother me that I don’t know.”

“Would you like to work on seeing if you can remember or learning how to let it go, again?” Dad asked.

I’d let it go before. When I was eleven and determined to remember. It was useless and Mum and Dad spent a lot of time helping me come to terms with the knowledge that I probably wouldn’t ever get those memories back. It was a difficult time where I argued with my parents a lot, even though it wasn’t their fault. I had no desire to thrust us back to that.

“Let it go,” I said with a defeated sigh. “I want to let it go again.”

Mum smiled. “I think that’s a wise choice. And you never know, you may remember one day. You’re most likely to when you’re not stressing over it.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

I didn’t feel like I would remember, though. I wished I could let it go as I had before. This time was different; I had
something
to hold onto. My memories as I woke created real hope.

“What do you need from us?” Mum asked.

I need you to tell the truth.

“Nothing,” I said. “Can we just forget this happened and I’ll stop letting some stupid dreams eat away at me.”

Mum smiled, swallowing hard. “Of course, we can.”

“Good,” I replied, standing up. “I’m going to get ready to go over Noah’s.”

I didn’t look back but I knew they were watching me as I left the living room. I hadn’t let it go but they needed to believe I had. They weren’t going to tell me anything if there was even anything else to tell.

Whatever happened before my fourth birthday, it was up to me to unlock. No one else was going to tell me the bloody truth.

Scarlett

I WALKED ALONG
the back streets of town towards the industrial areas after not going to Noah’s. It was stupid and irrational, but the disappointment of my failed conversations with Mum and Dad left me desperate and determined.

So here I was, trawling the nearest industrial estate, looking for anything familiar to what I’d seen in my dreams. I wasn’t even in the same town that I knew for sure, but I hoped that something would look similar. How different were warehouses anyway?

I wrapped my arms around myself as I walked. The cold wind nipped at my skin, and I wished I brought a bigger coat. It was supposed to be warming up in May, but the weather had turned again. Going back wasn’t an option. As crazy as I was right now at least I was doing something.

Images of what I’d seen when I was coming around plagued me 24/7. They were more than dreams and my family weren’t talking. I
had
to know what was going on – or what had gone on. I still didn’t understand how the information could just get lost. It didn’t make any sense.

My mobile phone rang in my jeans pocket. I answered the call to Noah and took shelter in a doorway to a UPS warehouse. “Hey,” I said.

“Hey. Where are you?”

“At home,” I replied, wincing as I lied to him. I’d hoped he wouldn’t have called until after I’d got back. Noah was the only person I could actually talk to about it. Imogen thought I was just being a drama queen and told me there were things that she didn’t remember, but it didn’t stress her out. It was different; mine was four years and not just a few occasions.

“Right,” he said, obviously upset by his tone. “Shall we try that again, Scarlett?”

“What?”

“You’re lying, you’re not at home.”

Blood rushed to my face. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re lucky I called before I came over. Your parents told me you were on your way to my house but when you didn’t show…. What’s going on?”

“I’ll come home now,” I said.