Chapter 310: Ghost of my Dreams II
The woman smiled serenely but she did not say a word. Slowly, she closed the book she held in her hand and placed it back on the shelf. I watched with incredulity as she moved slightly away from the shelves, every inch the same woman as I recalled.
She looked older― much older than I remembered. Fine wrinkles had appeared on her face, visible even from the distance between us, thanks to my temporarily enhanced senses. There were streaks of white in her hair, and since I was no longer the young child I was when I last saw her, she was a lot shorter than I remembered her to be.
However, there was one thing that was also different but unexpected― the fire in her eyes. Despite the age from the years passed, her eyes glowed with a tenacity that I did not recognize. That never existed when she was still alive.
Or to be precise, when she was still together with my father.
"There you are, Harper," she said.
Her voice was just as I remembered, tickling at my eardrums as though a ghost was blowing into them. For so long, she had been nothing more than a piece of my memory. Now, she was standing right there in the flesh, but I couldn’t help but think I was hallucinating it all.
"Mom? No― that’s impossible," I shook my head, quickly turning back to leave. "Gus, if this is your idea of a joke, it’s a particularly unfunny one. I have to give you props for finding a woman who looks a lot like my deceased mother to take her place."
"It is truly a compliment that you think I have such capabilities," Gus said with a slight chuckle. "But believe me, Harper, I do not have the time nor patience to do such things."
"You’re a vampire," I seethed, finally ripping my eyes away from my ’mother’ to look at the man whom I once thought was a friend. "You have all the time in the world."
"Touché," he said. "But why would I waste my immortality on you?"
"I don’t know, you tell me," I snapped. "You did just kidnap me to a whole different country, after spending months stalking me. I doubt our first encounter in Fangborne was a coincidence."
"Of course it wasn’t," Gus quickly admitted. "But if it weren’t for the orders of Madame Veronica, I wouldn’t have bothered with it."
"It’s not that hard to believe, Harper," the woman said.
I turned back to look at her, my heart shredding quickly in my chest. She took a step closer, her fingers intertwined tightly together with anxiousness as she smiled gently. I could never miss the worry that colored her eyes. She looked afraid.
"I was never dead," she revealed. "It’s me, your mother."
"I watched my mother die," I said slowly. "I grew up without her, and instead, was raised by a poor excuse of a father, if he could even qualify as such."
"Your father?" she echoed, practically laughing after. "He was more of a sperm donor than anything. Could he really qualify as a true father? Or even a husband?" Her gaze darkened and I took a step back, sucking in a cold breath of air through my teeth at the sudden change of demeanor. "Would a good husband plot the death of his wife?"
"Perhaps I should leave you two alone," Gus said, bowing his head slightly.
My mother turned and looked at Gus, nodding once, giving her silent permission. Gus then turned to look at me, his crooked smile handsome but all I could see at that point was cunning.
"Until later, then," Gus said, and like that, he was gone, the silver doors closing shut behind him, leaving me alone with a woman whom I still wasn’t too sure was the one who birthed me or not.
"Harper..." she started to say but I quickly cut her off.
"How do I know you’re not lying?" I asked, taking a step back whenever she took one forward.
"Because I was the one who told Gus to bring you the necklace," she replied calmly. "Argentum Luna―"
"Silver moon," I finished.
"Yes," she said. "The very necklace you’re wearing right now, are you not?"
My fingers moved up to wrap around the red pendant, holding it tightly. It was under the fabric of my shirt, not at all obvious to the human eye from such a distance. Yet, if she knew to have Gus bring it to me, she would’ve known I wouldn’t have taken it off.
It was the only thing that connected me to my mother. Or at least, it was. Now, she was standing right there in front of me as though nothing had ever happened and we were never apart.
All at once, the floodgates were ripped right open. I was torn between believing whether or not she was the real person or a fake that Gus managed to find. However, call it instinct, a part of me just knew she wasn’t lying.
How could a child not recognize the woman who birthed and raised her?
Tears began to well in my eyes, and I could feel the back of my nose turning sour. My throat felt clogged up, and within seconds, I was sobbing and struggling to properly breathe as tears streamed down my face.
"It has been years. Years! If you were alive this whole time, why did you never come for me? You must’ve known how I was treated in Stormclaw. I was nothing more than a human servant," I said, my voice cracking. "It was a miracle I even lived to this age!"
"I know," she softly replied. "I know it’s been hard―"
"Hard?" I echoed.
A cold laughter burst from my lips as I shook my head. I began to pace around the room as the world around me seemed to crumble. Everything I had ever known was starting to feel like a lie.
"You can’t even begin to imagine what it was like under the hands of that cruel family!" I all but yelled. "It was hell on earth. I wasn’t a wolf, yet I was forced to live with them and ridiculed for my humanity. If you are really my mother, if you’re really the person I remember, then tell me― why did you leave me behind?!"
