Page 17 of The Midwinter Mirror
“We don’t have time for this,” I snap. “We have to get out and look for them. They must have gone further afield, and the snow covered any evidence. There’s a logical explanation. We just have to find it.”
He shakes his head. “No. You just have to accept the truth, Holly. Magic is real.”
They’re all staring at me, as if willing me to say something like,yeah, I’m now a believer. That is not going to happen. Never. But I can feel the pressure building behind my eyes. I look around at them all. Milo and Josh are watching with wide eyes. Mum and Dad look…worried. That gargoyle-thing is now on the table, and I swear it’s smirking.
Suddenly, I feel so…lost. “Why are you all doing this? Can’t you see that it makes no sense? You’re never going to make me believe that magic is real.”
Mum and Dad glance at each other, worried expressions on their faces. There’s an unspoken conversation going on there; I just have no clue what they’re saying.
My dad clears his throat. “Perhaps you should try to keep an open mind, Holly.”
I don’t believe this. I really freaking don’t. What’s going on? Why can’t they see that they’re talking nonsense? “Never,” I snap. “You’ll never make me believe it.”
Zayne says, “I think she might have some sort of compulsion spell on her. Do you know anything about that?” I realize he’s asking Mum and Dad, but what the hell does he mean? Dad’s hand tightens on Mum’s. Cups rattle. No one breathes.
I turn my head slowly to look at Zayne. “What are you talking about?” But he’s not looking at me; he’s still looking at Mum and Dad. They turn to each other.
“We have to tell her, Paul,” my mum says.
“Tell me what?” I swallow. I have a feeling it’s not something I want to hear and probably not something I’m going to believe anyway, the way this morning is going.
“We can’t,” Dad says. “We promised. What if—”
“It’s been so long,” my mum interrupts. “We don’t even know if Laura is alive. And now the children are missing, and you know it has to have something to do with what happened to Laura. It has to.”
Laura? Who the hell is Laura? “Mum, Dad, what’s going on?”
My mum clasps her hands together on the table and leans a little closer toward me. I have to resist the urge to put my hands over my ears. My heart is pounding.
“You’re not our biological daughter,” she says.
My brain blanks. The words hang there, heavy and impossible, and the air just…drops out of the room.
I can hear my own pulse in my ears.
“That’s not funny,” I whisper, but it comes out cracked, like the words have been frozen solid inside me.
And the look on Mum’s face—God,herface—makes my stomach twist. She’s serious. Heat floods up my neck, then drains away just as fast, leaving me hollow and cold.
“Twenty years ago,” my dad begins, “on the night of the solstice, we brought our baby daughter home from the hospital. We were going to name her Laura. She was only a day old. That night we fell asleep, feeling everything was wonderful. We’d always wanted a daughter. We woke in the early hours of the morning, and she was gone.”
“We got up and searched,” Mum continues. “And we found a trail of holly through the snow. It led to the old shepherd’s hut between here and Silvergate.”
My brain stops at that. That’s where I was with Zayne yesterday. I know I said I hadn’t been there before, but I hada feeling. My mind just won’t work, my thoughts tangled, and I blink a couple of times trying to clear my head.
“There was a woman sitting on the wall outside, holding a baby,” Mum says. “But it wasn’t Laura. It was you. You were clearly a newborn, but you were beautiful with silver eyes and silver hair, and you had a piece of holly clutched in your hand.”
She goes quiet, lost in the memory. Dad puts a hand on her arm, and she almost jumps, then gives herself a little shake. “The woman looked so like you. She was crying. She said she was sorry. She had no choice. She’d taken Laura and would bring her up as her own and love her. And could we please try and do the same for you? She said that she’d had no choice. That if she kept you, then evil people would harm you. She begged us to look after you. She said if we did as she asked, Laura would be safe. If we told anyone… Then she handed you to me and disappeared inside the hut.”
“I followed her,” Dad continues, “but she was gone. Just vanished. We were devastated. We’d lost our baby, but at the same time, there you were…”
I’m not their child.
The thought slices through me, sharp as the winter air. A clean wound, no blood yet. Just the shock of it. It lands, cold and sharp: they’re telling the truth. My whole life has been a lie.
My fingers are tingling, and there’s a ringing in my ears.
“You must have hated me.” My voice is small, whispered.
