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  Chapter Two

  Flashes of the worst day of my life rushed through my thoughts. Without fail, when I wanted to feel my mother’s embrace or my father’s words of wisdom, my mind would take me back to the last time I saw them.

  My parents fostered a strong belief that you must face the demons of your past in order to move on. Often, once they took in a child, broke them from their shell, and helped them find what made them special, they would set up a meeting with their birth parents, allow them to talk through the shattered memories and mend their broken hearts.

  These meetings were always a surprise, and that surprise had a dual purpose for each of the Falcon children. One was to teach us that our past could surface at any given moment, and when it did we had to face it with open arms. The second was to teach us that literally anything could happen at any moment and that learning to react calmly to those unexpected moments would teach us never to fumble through life.

  I’d seen the act enough times to know that when they planned a day at sea on one of my father’s boats, more than likely one of my sisters would meet someone from their past. I just didn’t think it was me.

  No evidence of either my birth mother or father was ever discovered, but my mother was relentless and wanted to give me some kind of closure, some kind of peace. The morning we were to set sail, we were all at breakfast at a little restaurant near the docks. Cadence was terrified of going out on the boat and was begging not to go aboard. I was teasing her, telling her that we were all born to die, not to fear it…then I heard someone behind me say, “I’ve heard that line before.” I turned to see a young woman with long blonde hair and an innocent smile.

  Turned out that a private investigator my parents had hired found her. Years before, she had filed a missing persons report on a friend of hers; she only knew her first name and offered a brief description that matched my mother.

  All of my foster siblings were given the chance to see their parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, but no such people could be found for me. This woman, who knew my mother for all of nine months, was the only connection I had to a sealed, and presumably lost, past.

  I stared at that woman, completely speechless. I can still feel my mother’s arm go around me. “This is your day, baby,” she whispered to me.

  My grandmother stayed on shore to watch over this meeting. Nerves had gotten the best of Cadence; after she got sick, Mom and Dad decided to let her stay on shore with us, too.

  Side by side with my grandmother standing behind us, we waved as our perfectly flawed family boarded the boat.

  I remembered thinking that I should stop them, that I should go with them, ask this lady who had come to see me to go along, too. I told myself this was the beginning of my night terrors; I was happy and safe one minute, and the next I was all alone, running from an evil that promised to destroy me.

  My mother thought the night terrors meant that I was afraid a dark past would come for me one day; that was why she was so urgently insistent on finding anyone from my past, anyone who could help ease my fears and allow me to feel at home, truly at home. My father had tried to help me overcome them by telling me to stop, turn, and face my demons. He told me they may not even be as terrifying as I thought, that in my dream I could simply be running from my own fear.

  I knew if I chased after them, they would both tell me to stay with that lady, that this was my only cure for the terrors that had tormented me for months before that moment.

  We never saw them again. Hours later, the Coast Guard was called out to a craft in distress alarm. They found a burning boat that was halfway under water…and no survivors. I lost five sisters and two angels that I called Mom and Dad that day.

  My parents were right about one thing: the terrors did stop that day—they stopped because they became my life. I was alone and running from the evil that Rasure was.

  I didn’t learn much from that lady they arranged for me to meet. Her name was Megan—I think. My birth mother had leased out a studio apartment attached to her home. She’d paid in cash, leaving no paper trail. Megan said my mother never had any guests or talked about anyone. That she was quiet, beautiful, loved to read, loved music, and more than anything photography. Megan only filed the report out of curiosity. My birth mother vanished, leaving the next three months worth of rent on the nightstand next to her camera. Megan just wanted to make sure she was okay, but she never found her answer.

  To this day, I will swear that Mrs. Rasure had something to do with that boating accident. She was too shocked at how Cadence and I had survived. She demanded that we have immediate counseling and fought my grandmother at every turn on how to raise us. The paperwork to add Cadence to my parent’s will was never complete, so I was the sole heir to the majority of their assets.

  My inheritance was supposed to be given to me at eighteen, but my grandmother had a stroke three months before my birthday. Mrs. Rasure convinced a judge that my grandmother was not of sound mind and had him grant power of attorney over me to my Uncle Jamison. One day before my eighteenth birthday, she filed against me, stating I was too young and unbalanced to be given my inheritance. The judge enforced a clause in the will that pushed the time back until I reached the age of twenty-one, which was now weeks away.

  For the past year, Mrs. Rasure had pulled every stunt in the book. She even hired a private investigator to follow me; her argument was that I was still mentally unbalanced, captivated by my grief, and that it was affecting my sleep, my judgment. She claimed I was rebellious and would not only lose my inheritance but also destroy my family name. Her goal was to freeze my trust until I was thirty or married. I was sure that the age of thirty was another clause in the will, but the marriage was all her idea. She knew that I was the last person on Earth that would be able to stomach the confinement of committing to anyone, but by proposing that compromise she managed to paint herself in the light of a concerned relative.

  Cadence let out a deep breath. “Okay…I’m not going to argue that Skylynn is or is not real; just tell me about the night terror.”

  I had told her more than once how my last one came true in its own way. I didn’t want to tell her that I would lose them all this time. I had to make sure this dream didn’t come true.

  Maybe I could ask Skylynn to watch out for all of them, not just me. Skylynn—my phantom friend. I pulled back the scarf that was folded into a wide bracelet on my arm to see the scar that was no more than a centimeter long.

  Grief was my demon when I met Skylynn. I was a lost kid who didn’t think she had the right to live, that she could possibly be the last child of the Falcons.

  One dark night, I walked out in the snow, tired of fighting with my thoughts, with my odd curse…the one that caused my breath to turn to fog, that would freeze anything or anyone if I let it. I thought I was a mutant that should have died at birth, that if I did, my family would still be alive.

  Just as I took the knife to my wrist, Skylynn appeared. Literally, out of thin air. I can still remember how beautiful the snow looked as it fell on her long, lavender hair, how pure her blue eyes were, her innocent, pale skin. With a glance from her, the knife in my hand flew across the woods, stabbing a distant tree. I thought I’d officially had the psychotic break that Mrs. Rasure had predicted I would have at any moment. Either that or I had touched something, unlocked some vivid memory, a ghost from the past.

  Skylynn dropped to her knees in front of me, staring eye-to-eye with a wide gaze. “I know you were not about to take your life—right?” she said coolly.

  “I was born here. In the snow. In death. I just want to go home,” I said with a quiver.

  “Tell me why,” she said with a sternness that demanded my fourteen-year-old mind’s attention.

  It took me a moment to formulate the words that I’d never spoken aloud, words that only my parents and grandmother knew to be true; they never asked me to keep it a secret, but they never forced me to face this particular demon. “I’m a freak. When I let my
emotions surface, I freeze everything. Literally. I can’t hide this anymore; they think I’m insane. They want my home, and they can have it because it’s too empty for me.”

  Skylynn glanced back at the manor, then to me again. “This is your home?”

  I nodded once.

  “Tell me when you were born—what day?” she demanded.

  “Today.”

  “On the winter solstice?” she questioned.

  I looked at her like she was insane. “On the twenty-first of December.”

  What was odd was that my birthday, where I lived, seemed to be more of a shock to her than what I just confessed.

  She took my hands and stared into my eyes. “Feel.”

  I shook my head no with a panic. “I’ll hurt you.”

  “No, you won’t. Feel.”

  I had no choice. It was as if my soul had been waiting on that command. I let it all out. All the grief I’d held in, all the emotions that I knew would give away my freakishness. I let the breathless tears flow, and it did nothing to her—no ice, and no evidence whatsoever of my curse.

  That went on for hours. It was as if the weight of the world were lifted from me.

  “What is your name?” she finally asked me.

  “They call me Indie.”

  That made her smile for some odd reason.

  “What else can you do, Indie?” she whispered.

  I almost told her, but I held back.

  “Tell me,” she urged.

  “I…sometimes if I touch something old, sometimes I see things…like memories…they look like ghosts.”

  “Some might be,” she said so softly that I wasn’t sure I heard her right. “Do you want to know why?” she asked gently.

  My pleading gaze begged for an answer.

  “You see your memories, you see your past. That is a gift, Indie, nothing to be ashamed of. If you can see that lingering energy, those memories, then you very well may be able to see some ghosts—but do not fear it. Anyone in the glow of what you see is at peace. They are only reaching for one last goodbye.”

  “You sound like my mother,” I mumbled, thinking maybe this girl was an angel sent by her. My mother used to hand me random things and ask me to tell her a story; it was her way of telling me that I should enjoy my odd trait of dreaming while awake, of seeing memories that could not all have been mine so vividly that I could never forget them.

  I didn’t agree with my mother, though. Because of the way I was, I had a phobia about losing anything that belonged to me, anything that belonged in this house. I thought if I lost those items that I would forevermore lose the memories.

  “If you are who I think you are, you never knew you mother. You were born in the veil. You are very special.”

  “What do you know about my mother?” I said through gritted teeth, feeling the abandonment that had haunted me for as long as I could remember.

  “Nothing…but I’ve heard of you.”

  “You’ve heard of a freak that can freeze people?” I said with a sneer.

  “That’s a side effect.”

  “Of what?” I asked, brushing away the tears that were freezing to my skin.

  Skylynn gazed into the distance, then slowly let her eyes meet mine. “Evil is cold, and those that stand in its presence tremble; they cannot think to fight, they cannot see their victory. You can withstand the cold, you can stand in the presence of evil and fight with a clear mind; your soul is forevermore protected by the death you were born in. You are connected to your past, and your visions will unlock a life plan for you. One way or another, your mind will unlock those memories for you…for now, it’s with a touch.”

  I swallowed nervously. “Listen, you are the result of a psychotic break. You’re not real. I’m a freak. I can’t do this anymore.”

  “I’m just as real as you are,” she assured me, sounding somewhat offended.

  “And you just appeared here for no reason. Flung my knife with a thought. Can withstand my touch without trembling. I may be insane, but at least I’m very aware of that fact.”

  She smirked. “Sane people are rather boring, if you ask me.” She hesitated then let out a sigh. She reached in her pocket and pulled out a small black scarf and placed it in my hand.

  The moment it touched my skin, I felt warmth for the first time; I felt my heart pound in my chest. Two fast beats. Two beats that caused me to feel alive for the first time ever. That thrill ignited the most rapid heartbeat I’ve ever felt in my life. To this day, it is unmatched. I felt the sensation of a first kiss and thousands of other emotions that my youth could not or should not have been able to comprehend. It was a breathless surge of energy. A deep whisper echoed in my mind, ‘I’ve got you, Love. I’m never going to let you go.’

  I saw flashes of my home, but the land around it was different. I heard my laugh; I felt strong arms around me as I fell in the snow. I felt bliss, I felt claimed. It was the strongest vision I’d ever seen, one I wanted to hold forever deep inside of me, never let go.

  “What do you see?” she asked with a tremble. It was clear to me that she was hoping she was wrong about me, but my instant reaction had proved her theories to be on point.

  “This is my home,” I whispered, unable to explain that what I felt was so much more powerful.

  She nodded once. “What do you feel?”

  A blushing smile came to the corners of my lips. “Warmth.”

  Skylynn took in a sharp breath. “Okay,” she said as she carefully tied the scarf around my wrist. She whispered words, and a gleaming blue light surrounded it, then vanished. “This is not mine, and I will need it back one day, but for now it will keep you safe. It will keep the cold at bay, allow you to hide that side effect.”

  “Who does it belong to?” I asked with a quake in my voice. I doubted I could stand in their presence. The energy was so powerful that it elevated me to a level that was out of my control. It was breaking me free from the cage I’d put my soul in, and I wasn’t sure I was brave enough to step out of that cage at the ripe old age of fourteen.

  “That doesn’t matter right now…never take this off…water will bead off it. No flame will burn it. I trust this with you. I do not trust many.”

  “It will hide the ice?” I asked, not caring that I was feeding into the illusion of the moment.

  Her blue eyes sparkled. “Nothing is strong enough to suppress any soul’s emotions, but it will help you control them. I’ll help you with the rest. No one will ever hurt you. This is your home. You belong here.”

  Over the years, Skylynn never aged a day, but I grew into the young woman I am now. She was always there, popping in and out right when I needed her.

  When I was forced to face a psychologist or judge, she was at my side, feeding words into me. Thanks to her, Mrs. Rasure was never able to lock me away, take me from my home.

  My only problem was that my best friend, who happened to be my foster sister Cadence, could not see her; no one could. I stopped trying to prove she was real when I was sixteen.

  That was when I met Mason, my brown-eyed daredevil of a friend. The thought of him in that dream made me shiver. I could not lose him, any of them.

  Cadence was waiting patiently for me to answer her question. When I didn’t, she repeated it. “What else is back besides the night terrors, besides Skylynn?”

  I stood up quickly and began to pace. “I told you, she’s not back; she has always been here.”

  “Is she here now?” Cadence gasped. That was her way of saying she was going to let me have my little imaginary friend for now.

  “No,” I said under my breath, wishing she were.

  “Night terrors are brought on by stress and anxiety. We both know Rasure has caused both. Tell me about the dream. I already know the ice is back.”

  I felt my skin blush with fevered embarrassment. Cadence was one of four people beyond Skylynn that knew about that curse—that had seen it in action.

  “It just showed itself because I was freak
ed out. I couldn’t have suppressed those emotions if I had all the will in the world.”

  “No joke. One second you say, ‘Let’s go to bed early tonight and catch up on sleep,’ and an hour later you’re climbing the walls, gasping for air. Dreams are symbolic. Talk to me about it.”

  Cadence was three years deep into a psychology degree and took every chance she got to exercise her relatively recently acquired wealth of knowledge. She had no dreams of unraveling troubled minds. Her minor was in theater; she wanted to be an actress, Broadway, and she was good enough to reach that dream. I envied that. I loved the theater, but I was gracefully clumsy, meaning I may stumble, but I keep walking. Instead of finding my way on stage, I would find a way to direct, and when I couldn’t do that I would capture the moment in still shots, on film.

  “I don’t know. I was mad, jealous or something. Wilder was driving; you, Mason, Gavin and Sophia were behind us. A train came—we had to dodge out of the way. The next thing I knew, we were in the lake, I was pulling all of you out…”

  As I spoke the dream to life, I realized how it didn’t make any sense, how unlikely it was for the lake behind our home to be frozen over in the first place.

  “All right,” Cadence said to herself. “So you had a dream that you and all of your almost’s drowned.”

  “Almost lovers? Seriously? You and Sophia were there.”

  “Right. And Gavin and me are on the outs. I don’t ever think we were on the ins. Sophia told you she had a thing for Mason, and Wilder is back in town. The dream makes sense.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” I muttered. I hated how she never let me forget that at one time I tried to be more than friends with two of my best friends. It never took us long to figure out that I could only be friends with them, that I could not or would not commit, and we went back to being best friends. At times, I thought that infuriated Cadence. She thought I should send them away, clean break. That having them around was fueling Rasure’s accusations that I was wild. She didn’t get it, though. I loved those boys. In my mind, they were a handpicked family that I didn’t think I could live without.