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“That’s right. Open me. Be quick about it.”
“Ahh!” I flung the thing away and tore across the alley before it hit the ground. No! No more. No more tricks, lies, or smooth words from slick doctors determined to make me believe I’m delusional. Whatever asshole is going around putting speakers in packages can go fuck themselves! “Leave me alone! I’m not crazy. My mom was taken and I’m going to prove it. I’ll find her no matter what it takes. That night was real. It was real!”
“Of course it was, my dear.” The voice slithered in my ear, burrowing deep into my head.
I was ten feet from the package then, but it sounded like the person was right next to me. Not a speaker.
“Everything about that horrible night happened exactly how you remembered it, but tragedy of tragedies, Mommy never did get to tell you who you really are or where you comefrom. She’s been waiting for you all this time... but you don’t know where to go.”
I slowed my retreat, shoes glued to the pavement. “If you want your precious mommy back, you know where to find us,” I rasped, repeating the words that burned into my memory exactly two years before.
But I didn’t know where to go. Every time I was allowed inside the computer room, I searched for everything the internet had on three-headed dogs, snake women, and where they took their victims. All the internet had for me was Hogwarts and hades.
“Would you like to know where your mother is, sweet Aella?”
I came closer, rapid pants bouncing my chest.
“Would you like to save her? Bring her home? Show the world you’re not crazy or a killer, and get your perfect life back to how it was? When you were a happy young girl, living in the back of a flower shop with two best friends and a mother who loved you more than air.”
“Yes,” I whispered, unable to stop myself.
“Of course you would, dear child, and you can.”
“H-how?” I was shaking so hard, I dropped the box twice trying to pick it up.
“Oh, the answer to that is very simple. You must open me up, put me on, do everything I say. If you do, I’ll lead you to your mother.”
I hesitated, fingers halting on the tape. Could this be real? Was I so desperate to get Mom back I was standing in a dirty alley hallucinating? Wasn’t it possible I wasn’t as sane as I wanted to be? Normal people didn’t have three-headed dogs or half-snake women break into their homes and kidnap their mothers—as fourteen psychiatrists, six nurses, twograndparents, two former best friends, and the entire world all told me.
Maybe that’s what Mom was trying to tell me that horrible night. Maybe that’s what she’d been trying to tell me for a long time. My dad was different. He saw monsters that weren’t there too. That’s why he stabbed bicycles in the park.
I put the package back down.
“Irida Vanda is still alive.”
I froze.
“She’s in Olympia, where she’s waited for two years, never losing hope. Every day, she says it will all be all right... because her little warrior is coming for her.”
Snatching it up, I ripped the box open.
Chapter Three
“Idon’t understand.”
I circled the tree for a fourth time. “It’s just a tree. What am I supposed to do? Climb it?”
“Be patient, girl,” my bracelet snapped. “As I have told you, your passage into Olympia will arrive at any moment. You are to intercept him and not let him get away, whatever you do. Only he can get you where you need to go.”
“He?” That was the first she mentioned ahe.
I studied the band around my wrist. It was quite plain, to be honest. A simple gold band that met where two snake heads kissed. No one would look at the tarnished thing and imagine it had a secret.
Because the thing was all secrets. I’d been asking questions of the voice since it told me the first step was to go to Central Park. Who are you? How did you get trapped in a bracelet? What’s Olympia? Where’s my mother? How do you know where she is? Are you working with the monsters who kidnapped her?
Her response to every question was to silence my impertinent mouth. She would tell me what I needed to know when I needed to know it.
Half an hour with her on my wrist, I understand why someone would trap her in a gaudy old bracelet and stick her in a box—if that is indeed what happened.
