I felt hazy.

As I slowly drifted back into reality, everything around me felt fluffy. My arms felt unattached, my fingers and toes tingling as I descended back down to earth. Something was guiding me, pulling me back down as though I was a soul surfing another world. The moment I felt solidified, I squinted my eyes open to the bright contrast of the room.

I groaned as a sharp pain radiated across my skull, rolling onto my side as an ache burned in my gut. Just moments before vomiting onto Asra's marvellous floor, someone shoved the small office bin beneath me. Through the burning tears of vomiting pain, I emptied my stomach into the tiny bin, rolling onto the floor once I finished.

I heard Asra sigh, my name falling from his lips. "You cannot lay there."

Grimacing, my eyes remained shut. "Why the hell not?"

He chuckled and lifted me from the ground to sit upright on the sofa. I huffed, squinting to level mind against the past few moments of earth time. I rather liked it in dream world, earth world gave headaches.

"Why did I throw up?" I grumbled, my head rolling to glare at the witch.

She seemed bashful. "There was more strain on your mind. You were projecting."

"I was doing no such thing." I frowned defiantly.

"You may not be aware of it, but your conscience was desperate for me to see."

"The old house?" I wondered, briefly remembering parts of the dream. "I was swimming."

"You saw the dream?" Evangeline's eyes widened.

"Yeah, I don't know where I was, though."

"Your consciousness did." She eagerly leaned forward. "It was Alison's house."

"My mothers?"

"Did you see all the dream?" She wondered, cocking her head.

"Yeah, I think so..." I mumbled, my eyebrows furrowing. "Why is that..."

So suddenly, as though a page had been turned in my mind, in large black letters stood the grim reality.

Not my mother.

I sucked in a sharp breath, eyes finding Asra once more. "Alison... She... She's not..."

"We know." Asra sighed. "Evangeline saw and told me everything."

"What does this mean?" I whispered.

"We are here to discuss it." He reassured me, moving to sit beside me. "We will unpack everything."

Wow, he really trusts this woman.

"It seems your father worked with a witch." Evangeline mused. "I got through some of your mind and found out a few key parts."

"Did you find out who he was?"

"That, I could not get round. That part of their magic was too strong for me to break." She shook her head, smiling sadly. "However, he has the same hair as you. Your mind does not lie to you there."

So, the possibility of it being Flynn is still the same.

"What else?"

"I should probably start from the beginning of what I saw, yes?"

"Please." I begged softly.

Inhaling deeply with a soft smile, Evangeline went through my dream the exact way I did. She was thorough, her story matching up to mine at every angle. The facts were right, but it was when she went into the deeper meaning that I felt nervous.

"The lake. You went there often. Your mind told me it was called Beehive."

"Beehive?" I spluttered. "Beehive was in Evermore! Dad used to take us every year."

"Another trick." She shook her head. "Beehive is in the same town Alison lived."

"Do you know where that was?"

"Not the name, nor location. It was warm, so further south."

"I noticed the trees were different." I added softly.

"Yes. Also, you seemed to tell me it was human territory. So, I am thinking it was a district."

"You think she was born in a district?"

"No." Evangeline was fast to answer. "She and her father lived there when she was young. It is hard to see young children's memories as they fade so easily. They are in survival mode, but there were glimpses of a society."

"So, we moved to live with Alison when I was a toddler?"

"Yes."

"Arabella was already born?" I wondered.

"Yes."

Asra squeezed my side when my face dropped with another frown. The girl I held so dearly in my heart, as much as she defied me and annoyed me, was not even my birth sister. Why did I not realise that?

"Like I said, the witch who enchanted you was very thorough." Evangeline's lips were firm. "She did not want you seeing any plot holes."

"Why so much secrecy? I don't understand."

"Your father was planning something. He needed Alison and Arabella to help get him into Evermore." She explained. "There was a sharp sense of urgency that even your smaller self picked up on it."

"If it was so urgent, why did they not leave sooner? We lived with Alison for... a few years."

"I don't know. That part is unclear. There is no other part in your memories where more details come up. Your parents must've spoken when you were not around."

"He, my father, said that Arabella had accepted him as a father, and it was good. So whatever his plan was, needed close bonds. He needed to be undercover. He couldn't have people see they were not a genuine family." I explained.

"Perhaps this is why you felt so connected to Alison and Arabella." Asra suggested. "Top up childhood naivety with a little magic, and it cemented the idea in your mind."

"Possibly so," Evangeline nodded. "They wanted Evermore."

"To leave in the spring? All of this buildup for such a short time?" I shook my head. "Moving towns, districts, making up lies, just to run away?"

"Whatever information he needed must've been easy to get once they built bonds."

"But it never happened. My father was killed, and it left there me with... her." I groaned. "What happened? What went wrong?"

"I could not see." Evangeline sighed. "I would need to know the spell, or meet your father to see inside his mind. But even so, I believe he too will have some kind of block on his memories."

"You think so?" Asra asked.

She nodded. "He kept whatever he investigated secret. There are no records of a wolf in Evermore."

"You think he was a wolf?"

"Every being has a sense of magic in their blood. Most creatures, like wolves, can smell blood changes, but I, as a witch, can sense the magical part of it." She explained. "Each creature feels different, and he was as much a wolf as Asra here."

I sucked in a sharp breath, my mind whirling with questions. My father was a wolf. It was confirmed. So that just meant...

"Who was my mother?"

Evangeline cocked her head, her eyes scrutinising me. "I believe a human."

"Dead?"

"I am unsure." She sighed. "If so, she died when you were young enough not to feel the loss in your soul. You have not been yearning for her."

"Is that not just because I thought Alison was my mother?" I wondered.

"No, your birth mother is empty from your mind. You have always resented Alison, and she resented you back from the start."

"Did she perhaps know her father would burden her with Ailia?" Asra asked.

"I think she was just unhappy to have another child in her way. From what I saw and heard, she did not want me there and it was only because she owed my father something." I sighed.

"Yes, I picked up on that, too."

"What would a human owe a wolf?" I asked.

"Alison is not a human."

"What?" I frowned, confused.

"She is a mixed-breed."

I blinked, dumbfounded. "Mixed with what?"

"Wolf," she stated, and I gasped. "She has wolf blood in her, but she does not hold the genuine traits. Perhaps a grandparent was a wolf, or a parent was a half-breed too."

Spluttering, I shook my head. "I thought in half-breeds, one breed came out stronger?"

"It does." Her lips curled into a smile. "She is human, but her blood holds wolf history."

"So, you think that somehow, she owes my father something? That she was involved in the wolves more than we realised?" I frowned.

"Perhaps so." She nodded.

"This doesn't explain the depression she went through." Asra inputted, and I hummed with realisation.

Evangeline's eyes narrowed. "Depression?"

"She locked herself away for a few years. Never left the house or her room, and when she used the facilities, it was to hurl abuse toward me. I had to raise Arabella myself." I explained. "She was horrible."

"That is unusual." She murmured. "It was a false relationship, from what we saw, so there is no reason for her to be upset over his death. Perhaps something else happened?"

"For her to be sad for years?"

"Maybe that's just how she worked. She seems an unstable person before this. She would often be harsh to you."

"That's because I was not her daughter." I scoffed, the room falling silent before I continued. "All my life, I thought she resented me for my father's death. I thought that because I was like him, she hated me. Turns out, it was because I was some kind of burden that he made her promise to look after me."

Asra grumbled, pulling me into his side when he felt my emotions dip. Evangeline watched curiously, keeping unusually quiet.

"Don't think of yourself like that," Asra mumbled. "You are not a burden."

"I was to her."

"You gave her a roof over her head when you didn't have to. You looked after Arabella like a mother would do."

"But I wasn't her daughter. She didn't want me there."

"Think what would've happened if you weren't. What would've happened to Arabella? If the town found out that you were there in a disguise..."

"You say she locked herself in her room for days... Did she ever allow you to enter?"

I shook my head. "If she shut the door-it was shut. Sometimes she'd leave it open, and if I was home, I could see her watching us."

"So... she was sitting there alone in silence?"

"There was a television. She hardly let us hear it."

Asra had tensed beside me as the room fell quiet. Evangeline seemed to give him a strange look, her lips pursed and eyebrows furrowed. He grumbled, fingers flexing on my hip.

"What is it?" I wondered.

"Did your house have a cellar?"

"I... don't think so?"

Silence again, and I felt my confusion grow into agitation.

"Stop it. Tell me what it is!"

"I have a theory."

"Yes?" I probed.

Her eyes flickered to Asra before landing on me when I growled like a beast. Her lips curled into a broad grin, a flaming glimmer of excitement in her pupil.

"I think your mother was not in the home."

"What? Where was she?"

"I think she had an escape and went somewhere. Since you were not allowed in her room, you did not know where she was."

"That's a wild conclusion." I shook my head.

"Think about it." Evangeline leaned over, placing her hand on the pillow beside me. "She would be quiet for days, Ailia, and come back angry. What if she was planning an escape, and it always backfired?"

Asra's voice floated over my head, a soft mumble to distract me. "It would make sense why one day she suddenly perked up and left the house."

"The day of my sale." I scoffed. "I don't see how the two interlink."

"It would get rid of you and give her the money to get out of there." Asra pointed out. "No offence."

I smiled awkwardly, unoffended. "It's fine... I just..."

"If she left the house happy the day you were to leave her life, the day she was told she would receive money... Whoever she was speaking to, wherever she went, must've not given her the out she wanted and she came back in a foul mood." He explained. "Or perhaps they gave her the ideas she needed."

"But my father..."

"Was dead to her. I believe that to be true. I don't think she would abuse you so harshly if he were alive."

"You don't know her as well as I." I murmured. "She loathed me so deeply."

"An emotion so deep does not come without cause." Evangeline piped up. "Whoever Alison was, did not want to be there. Her plan just took years to work out."

"Until I was an adult." I muttered, before adding a 'barely' as an afterthought. "So, what now?"

The three of us shared looks, but the intense ones between the two of them made my skin crawl. There were so many theories that my mind physically ached. Asra answered, his chest rising so slowly before he exhaled so loudly.

"Well... I think we are going to have to visit Evermore once more."

**********

Quuuuuestion of the day:

Anything you are looking forward to in the following few weeks? Album or book release, personal event, birthday, promotions....?