Chapter 1
Skully
“SHE’S WAKING UP,” a deep, gravelly voice next to me whispers. A woman gasps.
I can hear them, their voices are slowly becoming louder; it’s as if I were swimming under water and now making my way to the surface.
I’m not ready to break through the silence.
It was peaceful, and instinct is telling me the minute I open my eyes, I won’t have that anymore. I won’t be able to ignore the people in the room. Because this is my room…isn’t it?
My eyes feel like sandpaper, dry and scratchy, and even blinking doesn’t help.
The room is too bright, too noisy. My head might explode.
The woman at the foot of my bed hovers, her cell phone clasped in her manicured red talons.
She’s sharply dressed in a black business suit and draped in diamonds.
I don’t recognize her. She’s older, and I guess she’s pretty, even though half her face and body look like it’s had work done.
“Go call him.” The woman nudges the boy next to her.
He looks at me with wide blue eyes, shifting from one foot to the other.
His brown hair flips around his ears from the baseball hat he is wearing, pushed down on top of his head.
He looks around my age, tall, with an athletic build, and looks young enough to suggest he’s probably in high school.
He glances at me and looks away again before shuffling out of the room.
A man in green scrubs and a white coat enters the room next, carrying a clipboard. “Skallan Morgan, you gave everyone a good scare there for a while.”
Skallan? Yeah, no, I hate that. That can’t be me he’s talking about.
My name is…my chest squeezes, and a little gasp comes from my mouth.
I can’t remember my name. My heart rate crawls up, and the monitor beeps.
For the first time, I really gauge my surroundings.
I’m in a hospital bed. My eyes glance down at my arms, where little wires, needles, and tape are stuck to me.
There is a bandage wrapped around my left arm as well.
Everything in my vision feels hazy while panic starts clawing at my insides.
“She’s panicking,” That cool voice speaks again, but I don’t look to see where it came from. I can’t breathe; I can’t remember how I got here. A nurse flitters in, holds my arm down, and soon the room begins to fade again. The man’s voice is far away.
“We need to put her under. It’s for her own good.”
“Skallan,” the doctor tries, but I shut him down in my head. That can’t be me.
“That’s not me,” I manage to mumble out, and all I hear is the woman gasping again, and a collective silence follows.
My eyes flutter open, and once again, the blinding light has them slamming back shut. It’s too late, though, the pain sears across my forehead and settles deep in the back of my brain, causing one hell of a headache. “Ugh,” I groan and shift on the bed.
“Call the doctor.” The same cool, detached voice from before speaks, and my head wants to turn to find the source, but the sharp pain in my neck holds me hostage.
There’s commotion at the door, and soon, the same doctor as before moves over to my bed and takes out a miniature flashlight. He shines it in my eyes without warning. It feels like fireworks shoot off behind my eyes. I blink against the pain until I can actually bring the man’s face into focus.
“How many fingers am I holding up, sweetheart?” He holds up three fingers.
I grimace at his endearment. “Three,” I answer, my voice louder, but I sound scratchy. Broken.
“What do you remember last, Skallan?” he asks.
At least I remember this now. Skallan Morgan. That’s me. I hate my full name though, and sometimes I wonder what my mom was thinking when she decided it was a great name for a kid.
“My name is Skully.”
The doctor startles but hums his approval all the same. “Right. Okay, Skully. Do you know why you’re here?”
“No.”
He eyes me with concern and moves his finger in front of my face, after instructing me to follow it with my eyes. “What do you last remember?”
My mind goes blank. I was just sleeping; it was dark and peaceful. There was a flash of color and pain. “Darkness.”
He frowns and glances down at his paperwork. “You were brought in after being found unconscious in the water. You had that wound on your arm. Do you remember how you got it?” I glance at the bandage again and shake my head no.
“Why was I in the water?”
He sighs before grabbing a pen and writing something on my chart.
“We were hoping you could tell us that. All we can gather is that you hit your head on some rocks when you went into the water. It’s not uncommon with brain injuries to have some amnesia.
We’ll continue to monitor you. Hopefully, now that you are awake, your condition will continue to improve. ”
The same woman from before moves into my line of sight, and once again, I’m struck with concern because I don’t know her.
She isn’t familiar to me; yet, she’s looking at me with concern in her eyes.
I watch as she sighs and gives the doctor a huge smile.
“Thank you, Dr. Carson. When can we take Skallan home?”
“Who are you?” The words slip out of my mouth before I can stop them. Everyone in the room goes silent again.
“You don’t know who this is?” the doctor asks, and I shake my head. The woman looks at me, and her red-painted lips purse. She glances at the doctor, then back at me, before bursting into tears.
Dr. Carson walks back over to my bed and sits on the edge. “What is the last complete memory you have?” he asks, and I blink.
I can’t think. My mind touches on various colors and sounds, but nothing feels right or like a memory, more like something I’m supposed to know. “It was Tuesday, and I had school.”
Dr. Carson frowns, “And what school do you go to?”
I blink, my brain pounds against my temples, but somehow I manage to pluck the name from various flashes of memory. “North Shore High School.”
The woman gasps, and her hand slides up to her mouth.
“What grade are you in?” Dr. Carson asks, his aged eyes watching me intently.
“I just started my senior year of high school…” My voice trails off when the sobbing grows louder from the woman. Dr. Carson frowns as well.
“Oh, honey!” the woman cries, and my head slowly turns toward her. From her expensive pair of red-soled heels and her blonde hair in a trendy updo, my gaze skates over her, but I don’t recognize her. There is nothing that feels even remotely familiar about this woman.
“What do we do, Dr. Carson?”
“I will run some more tests. It’s not uncommon, but these things can happen.” His voice breaks off when an imposing man in a dress shirt, suit pants, and a loose tie walks into the room. His tan face is hard, and a pair of bright, green eyes glance over me.
“Is it common to lose her memory that far back?” His deep baritone voice fills the room.
With the scowl on his lips, I can’t tell if he’s mad at the doctor, mad at the woman for crying, or mad at me for being in this room in the first place.
A memory tickles at the edges of my conscience.
He does look familiar. His short black hair is peppered with gray, but I remember a photograph of him when he was younger, holding a toddler above his head, and she was laughing at him.
“Dad?”
His head turns to me, and the woman stops crying, her tear-stained face glances from him to me and back again. “You know him?”
“There’s a picture of him in a frame in my room,” I manage to mumble out.
Something flashes in his eyes when he looks at me.
I want to say it’s an apology, even though that makes no sense.
I’ve never met him; I’ve only been told stories about him from my aunt Loreli.
He and my mom had a Romeo-and-Juliet-type love, star-crossed, tragic, and over before it really even started.
When my mom was alive, she would tell me how handsome and kind my dad was, and how strong and controlling he could be when he had to.
He was destined to be in politics, and my mom’s family was poor; she was born in the Apeleridge Forest, which was considered the wrong side of town.
They never married because his family and hers wouldn’t allow it.
My mom was beautiful and too kind. She let people walk all over her because she refused to ever say or think a mean thought.
She was pure and gentle. She passed away from a broken heart when I was three, after the last time my dad had come to see us.
I went to live with Aunt Loreli, my mom’s younger sister, and he let me go.
He never tried to get custody of me. All I know of him is the birthday card I get each year and the money that gets deposited into a bank account I was never supposed to tell anyone about.
“Where is Aunt Loreli?” My hands slide under my body, and I try to sit up.
Loreli will tell me what’s going on. She never lies to me. Probably because she’s only fifteen years older than me, but she always gave me facts and let me make my own decisions from them. I need her. I don’t understand why I’m here or why everyone is looking at me like I’m crazy.
“I called her, but she is living in California now. It will take a while for her to get here,” my dad says, his green eyes studying me intently.
I frown automatically. How can she live in California?
We have a house in North Shore. It’s an adorable bungalow, and while many might think it’s not much, it’s home.
We spent hours redoing the inside, and our neighbors helped fix the outside.
Aunt Loreli was proud of that home; it doesn’t make sense that she would sell it, let alone when would she without my knowing about it?
“How long was I sleeping for?”
“Three days,” Dr. Carson answers and glances at my father, who is still watching me. “Skallan, where do you think you live?”