"Will you stop it already?"

"Huh?" I barely even turn back to see what mom's talking about as I chop up onions to chuck in the stir-fry. "Stop what? Don't you like the onions being cut? I'm almost done now..."

"What are you talking about?" Mom replies in a much clearer tone. "Stop what?"

"That's what you said to me, isn't it? Stop it already?"

"Oh no." I twist my neck to see all the color drain from her face in an instant. She looks horrified like my innocent comment has ghostly implications. "It's happening again, isn't it?"

I knot my eyebrows together and try to work out what I've missed. I feel like I've walked out of a movie for a split second, just to miss the massive plot twist that changes everything.

"What's happening again? What do you mean?"

"Oh no, no, no." Mom slumps into a chair at the dining table Her head falls into her hands and she gives it a desperate shake. "I thought this was all behind us."

"What?" I take the seat in front of her, forgetting all about the cooking for a moment. "What's behind us? Seriously, Mom, I don't know what's going on and it's freaking me out a bit."

"I've noticed it a lot recently. You've been a bit...different. Spacier, like you, don't really know what's going on." I wonder if that's because of the anti-anxiety meds that I've been taking, but I don't say that to her. She doesn't know about my current, slightly-screwy, mental state and it doesn't seem that now is the best time to tell her. "And now...well, now you're back to hearing voices. I had a feeling this was coming and now it has...I should've done something sooner, this is all my fault."

"Wait." I hold up my hands to stop Mom in her tracks. "First off, I haven't been hearing voices, I misheard one thing. That isn't the same. And two, again, what do you mean, again? I haven't heard voices before."

She grabs onto my hands and stares desperately into my eyes. I notice a deep, dark pain there that I haven't spotted before. I scan her face, searching for clues but she isn't giving anything away.

"Eight years ago, just before your thirteenth birthday, you kept telling me that you could hear all these voices in your head." I freeze, my back goes as stiff as a board while she speaks. "I assumed it was a joke at first, you never seemed too freaked out when you said it." She sighs, this memory seems to physically pain her. "So I didn't pay much attention to it. But then you blacked out, I don't know if you remember that part..."

"Ironically, that's the only bit of this I do remember."

Is she lying? I don't know why she would be, there isn't anything she could get out of being dishonest with me, but surely if this was all true I'd have some recollection of it?

"Oh right, well you became demonic..."

"Demonic? Mom, what the hell are you talking about?"

Now I feel certain she's lying, I simply need to figure out why.

"I don't know how to explain it other than that." Mom shrugs helplessly. "You made all these inhuman noises and scratched your arm until it bled really badly. No one could stop you from harming yourself, even your father was hopeless. You had this ridiculous strength. It was awful, I thought...well, I thought you might have been possessed or something, I don't know. I know it sounds crazy. But you've been okay ever since, so I've never brought it up. Until now."

"Are you telling me the truth? Because that doesn't sound true."

Yet as I say that, I wonder if it does. I wonder if I do remember all of that and I've simply attempted to block it out. There's certainly a sensation of familiarity in my chest.

All of a sudden, a lot of things make sense, such as why we didn't discuss 'the incident' afterward, and also why I'm so scared of thirteen. I had a freak-out on my birthday, a mental breakdown by the sounds of it. And it all started with voices, so all I have to do is be aware of them and ignore them. Simple.

Now I know the source of my fear, I can move past it with ease...can't I?