“What do you mean? What’s the problem?”

“You’re from that place.” She shook her head. “No. We don’t employ people like you.”

“What are you talking about?”

I knew exactly what she was talking about. People from Waratah Estate. The halfway house for crazy people.

She placed the paper down on the counter and glared at me. “I think you need to leave.”

She didn’t have to tell me twice. Before I turned around, I swiped the paper off the counter and stuffed it in my pocket. If she was going to be a rude bitch, I didn’t want her to have my personal details.

“Hey, give that back!” she shrieked.

There was no way; I kept up a fast pace till I was a few shops away before slowing down. I was shocked that someone would be so hostile because of where I was staying. It wasn’t like I was dangerous or contagious.

I sighed and tried to push it out of my mind. I wasn’t going to let her ruin my day or crush my confidence.

After a while, I found myself standing out the front of Mystical Encounters, admiring the large candelabra in the front window. I headed inside. I couldn’t resist. There was just so much to see.

Ruby smiled in greeting as I entered. “Hello, Maddie. It’s nice to see you again.”

“Hi Ruby.”

We talked a while about the nice weather we were having and how I was settling in, but avoided the subject of me finding out I wasn’t entirely human.

As we were speaking, I was checking out a display of crystals with a huge clear crystal in the middle that was almost as big as my fist. I pointed at it. “Is that clear quartz?”

“Yes. I put it in the centre because I love the shape of it and the size.”

It was beautiful. “Is it true that a clear quartz is the strongest crystal for healing and for storing power?”

“Yes. It is widely used for healing by many different people, Normals included, and Descendants can use it to store magic so that it can be used at a later time for healing and other things. This makes healing someone even easier because you can do it without using up a large amount of your own magic at once. This is one of the things you will learn how to do in our lessons.”

The thought of using magic to heal someone or heal myself sounded like something out of a book or a movie. How could I convince my brain that it was real?

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Ruby picked up the quartz. “This one is the perfect size to store enough magic to heal broken bones.”

I stared at it in awe.

Then out of the blue, a vision of me nursing a broken arm popped into my head. A memory?

Only, I didn’t remember ever breaking my arm.

My friend, Fiona, had been teaching me how to ride when I was nine and I’d fallen off her horse. Her dad had called Mum to pick me up and she was so angry with me when she arrived, but I couldn’t work out why. She drove me to the hospital and they set it in plaster.

After the hospital, we didn’t go home. She’d called her friend, Samantha, and told her we were on our way. I’d never really liked to visit Samantha. The herbal tea she always gave me wasn’t very nice, and it was so boring there that I fell asleep every time and would wake up in the car at home, just as Mum was pulling into the driveway.

This time, Samantha had a bunch of crystals in a circle on the coffee table with lit candles all over the room. It was quite pretty.

As soon as we walked in the door, Samantha sat me down on a cushion in front of the coffee table and began to light incense and chant while holding a clear crystal over my arm.

“Mum, what is she—?”

“Shh! Be quiet! Let her finish.”

I was so stunned that she had practically yelled at me that I sat in silence until she was finished.

After a while, the dull ache in my arm disappeared. In fact, it felt as if it hadn’t been broken at all. I wanted to ask how it was possible that all that chanting could do what the doctors couldn’t, but I was afraid I’d get yelled at again.

As Samantha was finishing up, she said a few words I couldn’t understand and ran a finger from the top of the plaster to the bottom and it split and fell off my arm. I wanted to scream at her; the thought of going through getting plaster put on again was more than I could handle right then. I wanted to run from the room, but I was stuck in place.

“There,” she said. “All healed.”

“What?”

She looked at me. “Hush. You’re healed. No more broken bones. Now, sit still a while longer.”

I was too stunned to speak.

She took the tea Mum had given her and told me to drink up. I grimaced. I didn’t like her teas. They always tasted funny.

“Drink it!” she shouted.

I did as I was told. She watched me until I’d drank every last drop, then she said a few more words that didn’t sound like English.

Mum thanked her and paid her some money, then we left as I started to feel sleepy.

I woke up to the sounds of Mum packing the car with our belongings and telling me to get my things. We were moving again.

“Maddie, are you alright?”

I opened my eyes and it took me a few seconds to realise I was lying on the floor. “What happened?”

Ruby was kneeling next to me, holding my hand. “You fainted. I think. It’s hard to tell.”

Johnny was standing behind her with a worried look on his face.

How could I explain it? “I… it was like I was dreaming, but I think it was a memory. I had broken my arm, but I don’t remember ever breaking my arm.”

She gasped. “Do you mind if I put my hand on your forehead? I need to check something.”

“No. Go ahead.”

She placed a warm hand on my forehead and closed her eyes. My mind felt a little fuzzy for a while. What was she doing to me? Should I be worried?

After about a minute, she sighed and opened her eyes. “It’s just as I thought.”

“What?”

“Your memories have been tampered with. More than once.”