He opened his eyes slowly as he felt that the intensity of the light was gradually falling down.

He struggled with flash blindness for a minute, unable to figure out what had just happened.

"Julie?" he asked squinting his eyes as his vision started returning slowly.

Nothing had changed, or at least that's what he felt. Julie was sitting right in front of him, with the flower between them. But wait, there was also some little girl in the room! She was sitting at the desk. He noticed that the lighting of the room looked different too.

"What happened just now? And who is she?" he turned to Julie.

Max knew that Julie and her grandma were the only ones who lived in this house. So, who was this little girl?

He walked up to the girl.

Just like Julie, she had the same blonde hair, sharp nose, and hazel eyes.

He stooped down in front of the little girl trying, and awkwardly said, "Hi!"

She didn't even look at him. He noticed that she was drawing something.

Mistakenly, her left elbow hit the box beside her and all the colour pencils in it scattered on the floor.

"Uh-oh," she said in a sweet, childish voice and sat on the floor to pick them up.

He looked at Julie who stood there blankly. And then turning back to the little girl, he sat on his knees in front of her.

"I'll help you..." he started but what followed completely froze him! As he tried picking them up, the pencils passed through his fingers! It was as if they were just a 3-D projection, or maybe he was!

He looked at Julie in shock, and this time he was not ready to accept silence as an answer!

"What is happening?" he said with a gulp.

"We are in my head, a memory to be specific. My memory of the night dad died...." she said. His voice turned low.

"So you mean we travelled back in time? How is that even possible?"

Suddenly, they heard a loud thud! The little girl heard it too. She clutched her doll and stood at the threshold of her door.

"I'll explain everything after we go back," Julie said, "it's about to begin."

Max was about to bombard her with more questions, but that noise and the little girl's horrified look bothered him.

Julie walked out of the door, passing right through the girl as if she wasn't even there!

Max waited for a moment and then, did the same. He really didn't even feel a thing, and neither did the girl!

"No one can see or hear us," she said as she stopped by the hall window.

Max was standing beside her. His glance went out of the window. It was quite dark, and raining terribly. He then saw that a man had just entered the house. He was drenched.

A woman came trailing out of a room. She had a look of concern on her face, which soon turned into horror. They were Julie's parents. Max recognized them from the picture Julie showed him.

They both started arguing about something. Max walked a bit closer to them, and Julie also followed behind.

"How can you even think such a thing?" the woman yelled, tears welling in her eyes.

The man's head was hung down and was unable to stand straight. He seemed to be drunk.

"She has to die... we... we don't have another option," he said.

'What? Is he talking about Julie?' Max thought as the fear in the atmosphere started gripping him.

"No! Just shut up!! You don't even know what you're saying."

"I very well know what I am saying, honey. Just stay out of my way, and let it be simple," he said as he took a step towards the child standing by her room, but the woman blocked his path.

"What's gotten into you, Robin? She's our child..." she said, as she broke into tears.

He gave her a cold-eyed glare.

"Whom are you even trying to protect? She is... she is a Tyrfing! Once the battle begins, death is more certain for her than life itself. So why shouldn't I think about us, our future?"

"Robin! I have told you a million times, stop calling her that!"

"She has divine protection, not us! You haven't seen his wrath... his darkness, I have seen it. He could kill us right away..."

The woman walked up to him and hugged him. "No, Robin, no... he himself cannot kill our daughter so he's trying to deceive you.... so that you kill her!"

He pushed her away, and said, "I cannot bear him inside my head anymore... he'll only leave me once I kill her."

The push threw her off him. Her head hit on the side table which stood near them. Blood started dripping from her forehead.

An evil smirk came on his face as he took out a revolver from his bag, and marched towards the girl. She froze where she was, unable to think what to do. Her eyes bouncing back and forth between her bleeding mother and his father who was walking towards her.

"Julie, get inside!" the woman yelled as she stood up and jumped on the man, throwing him on the floor. The revolver slipped from his hand.

"I asked you to get inside! And don't open the door until I say!" she yelled again.

The little girl looked terrified. With tears dwelling in her eyes, she moved back and shut the door.

Suddenly there was a transition of the surrounding. In a blink of an eye, Julie and Max were standing back in her room.

The little girl sat by the locked door. Her eyes were bloodshot red.

All Max wanted to do was to go hold the child in a tight hug and say that everything would be fine. But he knew that wasn't possible. Neither he could touch her, nor things would ever be fine for her after this. He could exactly feel what she was going through at the moment.

He turned around to Julie. She had the same look the little child had on her face.

Bang!

Max felt as if his heart skipped a beat. On hearing the gunshot, Julie clutched his left arm. The hold was so tight that it should have hurt him, but Max was too stunned to think any of that now.

The girl started breathing heavily. It was so loud that Max could clearly count every breath she took. She slowly stood up and opened the door.

Max didn't want to see what awaited outside the door.

"DAD!!" she screamed, and then everything went black. There was nothing except darkness and silence for a moment. Max closed his eyes, and let himself succumb to it.

~

When he opened his eyes, he was in the same room. But this time there was no little girl in it. Julie was sitting right beside him, clutching his arm.

"Seeing my mom holding a gun, and my dad lying down there in a pool of blood, was too much for me to handle. I- I collapsed," her voice turned all shaky.

It explained why there was that blackout in the end. But Max still didn't how all this happened in the first place.

"This is what really happened that night. The police found mother's fingerprints on the revolver.... the neighbours also said that they both had been fighting a lot lately. My dad was too good for anyone to believe that he tried to kill me," she said. Her head hung down.

He now knew the missing piece of the story. They sat there quietly for a minute.

"I couldn't even do anything... I just got scared and locked myself in this room.." she said.

"Julie, just relax for a second. There was nothing you could have done at that moment, and think about how young you were! You don't expect a 6 or 7-year-old to be going through all this," he said as he held her hands in his own.

"Exactly... why did me and my family go through this in the first place, and what were they talking about? We were so happy together," she said as a drop of tear escaped her eye, which she quickly wiped away.

Max too had no idea what was going on with Mr. Miller. He then asked what was bothering him the most.

"How did you do this?" he asked.

She looked straight at him.

"It's a sort of family heritage...."

"Family heritage?"

"Yeah... There was a time when angels came down to Earth for some reason... One of my ancestors found an angel who was terribly hurt. He brought the angel in this house and treated her in the room where I took you before. When she was healed completely, she gifted him with a lot of plants, and some of them were magical. I know this must be really difficult for you to believe but..."

"After what happened just now, I could believe anything!"

"Also, the magic could only work in front of someone with a true heart," she said with a gentle smile on her face. Though Max could feel that she was still not well, he smiled back at her.

"So you knew I had one?" he said with a smirk.

"Well, I took a chance!" she gave out a tiny giggle, so tiny that it finished almost as soon as it started.

"Feeling better?" he asked.

"Yeah, kinda," she said, "thanks for being here. Talking about it to someone did help actually."

Max smiled.

"Also," she started, "you're not supposed to say that I cried in front of you to anyone! I have quite a reputation to maintain. And trust me, if you did that, I'm gonna throw you in a pool of sharks!"

"Was that supposed to sound scary?" Max giggled.

"Won't be as funny with the sharks swimming around you!" She also laughed, and this time it was for real.

There was a knock on the door.

"Max, someone has come to pick you up," said grandma from the other side of the door.

"Must be Kevin. I gotta go," he said realizing that two hours passed!

Julie came down to see him off.

"Hey!" Kevin exclaimed on seeing her.

"Hi!"

"You're okay?" he asked with a look of concern on his face.

"Yup! Now I'm," she said as she smiled.

"Glad to hear that. By the way, are you free the day after tomorrow?" he asked.

"I think so," she said, still not sure what this was about, and neither was Max.

"Great then! You could join us for Max's birthday," he said as he turned to Max with a smirk on his face.

Max had no idea what he had planned to do.

"You mean at home?" Max asked.

"Yep!" he said as he turned to Julie waiting for an answer.

Max didn't want to make things worse for her.

"It would be completely fine if you don't want to," he said.

Julie thought for a moment and then said, "No it's fine. I'll be there."