Spells for Forgetting

by Adrienne Young

There were tales that only the island knew. Ones that had never been told. I knew, because I was one of them.

I’d lived enough years now to know that there were some ghosts that haunted you forever.

I’d never loved it here the way everyone else seemed to. To me, the island had always been a stone tied around my ankles, and everything that could have been was no more than the puddle of light on the surface as I sank. The only hope I’d had here was in the thought of leaving and I’d gotten my wish, even if it had looked different than I thought it would.

No one on Saoirse locked their doors, even after Lily.

Well thats dumb

Here, I’d only been Emery—Albertine’s granddaughter. Not the girl who’d loved the boy who killed Lily Morgan or the girl who lied to protect him.

“She said our boy is home.” I stared at her, taking a breath before I answered. “He’s not our boy, Oma.”

our boy?!??!

He took his hat from his head, holding it before him. “August.” His voice rasped as he said my name, but his eyes still held that steady kindness they’d always had. It was one of the reasons I’d always wanted his approval and also the reason he and his brother Jake couldn’t be more different.

“Good. Then I know you’ll understand when I ask you to stay away from Em while you’re here.”

Ohh :(

My parents had been right. If I’d known where August had gone, I would have followed. But now the truth was finally sinking in—that he hadn’t just left the island. I may not have known how to find him, but he’d known where I was. He’d always known. August wasn’t lost. He wasn’t taken away or waiting for me somewhere. He never came back. He had never come back for me.

It took longer than I wanted to admit for me to realize that I couldn’t cut him from me. That some part of him had been fused to places I couldn’t even see. It followed me wherever I went. And each day when the sun went down, I dreaded that moment that the aching would find me again.

There were so many times when I thought that her existence just felt like an extension of mine. Like this part of me that lived outside of my skin. I’d watched in a kind of silent awe