Twenty-Three
Every startling revelation over the past several days has given me emotional whiplash—and this one is both the worst and best. I had just begun to accept the fact that Mom wasn’t my real mother, and suddenly that truth has been flipped on its head entirely. It sends my brain spinning once more. It leaves me wanting to sob with relief.
But I don’t have a moment for that, because soon after we arrive on the grass outside White Cedars Healing Institute, several faeries come rushing out to help us. Mom is barely conscious, so they carry her quickly inside. Someone cleans the blood on my neck and tells me the cut will be totally healed within the hour, and then they disappear, along with Mom, into a room I’m not allowed to be in.
The rest of us end up in a waiting room that remi
