***
“It happened then. I saw my brother,” I whispered. “Impossible.”
Yet from what I had seen, nothing was impossible…improbable maybe, but not impossible. I supposed it was still possible that Mike had been a dream. The gem could have come from—the guards? I snorted at the likelihood of that particular scenario. The guards would sell their own mother for a dollar, or whatever the equivalent was for them. The point was that I had been unconscious for a long time. The meadow could have been a real place that I had passed through with the guards. Either way, I told myself, I would solve nothing by sitting in the bedroom all day. I swapped the beige dress for the blue and chocolate gown that had been Faith’s gift to me.
I hurried down the stairs, but paused by the front door.
“Uncle Bob?”
“Yes, Annabelle?”
“Did you put a large green gem in my bag?”
“No.” He looked up and frowned.
“Oh.”
“That’s why the thing was so heavy?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure it’s not yours?”
“It must be. My memory, you know.”
“Nothing a little fresh air won’t fix, right?”
I gave him the thumbs-up sign. “Right.”