I wave Cooper over and ask him for the rock to return Zavy’s memories. There’s an awkward tension with Cooper. He still hasn’t forgiven me for last night, but he nods and returns a moment later with the rock and piece of fabric.
“Just put it back in my bag when you’re done,” Cooper says.
I turn to Zavy and place the rock in front of her. She gives me a questioning look, confused about how a rock can control her memories. “All you have to do is place one hand on the rock and recite this, and your memories will be restored,” I say, explaining the process and handing her the piece of cloth.
“How,” Zavy starts to say.
“Magic,” I say simply and cut her off. She squints her eyes, giving me the look that says she doesn’t believe in magic even though she has a gift controlled by magic. I know it’s not really magic because scientists say it can be linked to the asteroids, but can they prove that? No, and magic is an easier explanation in my head.
Zavy places her hand on the stone and recites the words off the paper like Alexander and I had done.
Help me see the truth in me
Erase the false and bring forth the real
Take me back so I can see
All the past and set me free
Zavy takes in a sharp breath when she finishes. After a moment of silence, she looks at me, her eyes wide. “I remember. I remember Cooper.”
“Did any of your other memories change? There’s no telling what my mother altered,” I ask cautiously.
“No, I don’t think so. It’s just Cooper instead of Alexander,” she says simply. “This is so weird Adaline,” she says, fully understanding what this means. “Who is Alexander?”
“If I knew I’d tell you,” I say, running my hand in circles on the dirt. I take a deep breath in and say, “Just think of it as a fresh start to get to know him. There’s nothing else we can do.” It’s the same phrase of words I’ve been repeating in my head since the memories got fixed.
“Cool magic rock,” Zavy jokes, handing it back to me. She’s trying to lighten the mood now that we’ve started talking about Alexander. I return the rock to Cooper’s bag and then return to Zavy who stares distantly into the fire. She’s probably trying to reanalyze her entire past now that she knows the truth. The moon has risen far in the sky and I know I should rest before Mio has us up and running again. I reach into my backpack and pull out my blanket and pillow and when I do my mother’s journal falls out too.
“Have you read any more of it?” Zavy asks, scooping it up in her hands.
I zip my backpack back up, unroll my blanket, and sit on it. I take the journal from Zavy and hold it tightly. “No, not really.” We’re quiet for a second until I add, “I kind of don’t want to read it anymore.”
“What do you mean?” Zavy asks shocked.
“I know it must sound crazy. This is the last thing I have of my mother, but I don’t want it. I don’t want to know what different things she’s seen in the future. I don’t want to read it and know whether or not Alexander is dead or whether or not we ever make it to Libertas. I don’t want the constant reminder of life in the prison or the life where my father left me, and I lived not knowing who my older brother was.
I feel like I have this fresh start now. Like I don’t have to have been that girl who had to take care of her family, and I’m not that girl who grew up in a prison, and I wasn’t some little girl who lost her father. Now I just feel like I’m Adaline, and I’m going to find my freedom. I’m brave and strong. I feel like I became this new person and I have my entire life ahead of me.”
I pause for a second trying to figure a better way to explain it to Zavy. “It’s like this book,” I say and hold up my mother’s journal. “This is my old life that was set in stone and already written out. But I want to be in this new life where my future isn’t written down in some dusty haunted book.” I stare at my mother’s journal for a little bit longer and then toss it into the fire. “I don’t want to be that Adaline anymore. I’m not her and that’s not my life.”
I watch the fire slowly eat at the brown book. I’m glad I threw it in the fire, I’m glad to be rid of it. It’s a constant reminder that I need to live my life in a certain way. It’s just like Mio had said, he didn’t want to go and save Zavy because it wasn’t in the future my father had seen. But if I hadn’t gone against that vision then her and Toby would still be trapped with Paylon. Worse even, by now he probably would have killed them knowing we weren’t coming to save her. I can’t have this book in my bag, spelling out the future because I will always be second-guessing if what I’m doing will mess everything up.
Slowly the dark brown book corners turn a dark ashy black. I imagine my mother as a little girl learning about her gift. She would have been given that book on her tenth birthday to write down all her visions. I never got to meet my grandparents, but I wonder if they had the
