Secrets of the Past

Chapter 4

She tried and tried and tried again, she even tried the next day, and the day after that, but no matter what she did to that mirror, Vertina kept her mouth clamped shut.

At least she knew there was something more about Jolie than her mother was telling her, but what could it be? I mean why would she want to try to keep a secret from her about her dead step sister? She and her mother were close! They usually told each other everything!

Well...maybe not everything...to be specific, her falling into the arms of the cutest boy in Foxfire. She sighed. It was Monday, time to go back to Foxfire. She slipped her bright red Level 5 uniform on and joined her parents downstairs for breakfast.

When she got down, she found her father standing right next to her mother hugging her tightly. Her mom looked like she hadn't had much sleep because her eyes had huge dark circles under them and her father didn't look like he had had much either.

"What's wrong?" Carissa asked, sitting down at the kitchen table. Her mother jerked her head up and her father turned around.

"Nothing Riss. Your mom and I just didn't get a lot of sleep...that's all..." 

He started walking towards the table with a weary smile spread across his face. Carissa knew something else was up, her mother would not have a tear stained face just because she didn't get much sleep.

"Sooo...does this have anything to do with Jolie?" Carissa questioned. 

Her eyes narrowed, biting into her piece of butter blast. Her mom winced at the name, which pretty much confirmed it was about her.

"It's just Jolie is kind of a touchy subject for your mom." Her dad looked back down, picking at his plate of butter blast. He seemed to want to end the topic there, but Carissa wasn't going to let them off the hook yet.

Once Carissa had gotten to the auditorium she explained what she had found in the attic the other afternoon to Lily.

"That's weird, spectral mirrors weren't that popular when your mom was young...it must've been special to her or something."

"Yeah..." Carissa muttered. "But actually the mirror didn't used to belong to my mom, it belonged to my mom's step sister before she died... at least that's what the mirror told me."

"What?" Lily shouted a little too loudly, drawing lots of student's attention. Carissa ducked behind her hair.

"I didn't know your mother had a step sister!" Lily said a little quieter this time.

"Neither did I... I'm trying to think of reasons why they would keep me from knowing of her..." Carissa pondered.

"Hmmm..." Lily put a finger to her chin. "I have no idea...unless...they just don't mention her because she's dead now..."

"No, it's definitely more than that...my mom always acts weird whenever I mention her name."

"I don't know, maybe they had a close relationship or something and she really misses her." Lily offered.

"Yeah, but she said that she died before she was adopted..."

"Hmm, that is weird." Lily sighed. 

Then the screen showing their principal popped into view announcing new events, but Carissa wasn't listening. She was too focused on what her mother was hiding from her. Carissa didn't realize that the principal stopped talking, she only knew because Lily tugged on her sleeve.

"It's time to go to class and this time maybe don't have any exploding accidents in Alchemy." Lily smiled then raced to class. 

Carissa sighed, she slowly started walking, she wanted to figure out the mystery of Jolie!

While she was in the midst of her thoughts, she noticed a light olive toned boy, who was wearing a level 5 uniform and had curly, disheveled, sunset red hair. His eyes were silver blue and they sparkled when he smiled at her. Her stomach started fluttering and her cheeks were burning. She had never seen him before...

"Hi! Do you have any idea where Lady Gale's session is?" The boy asked. 

Carissa was speechless for a moment and didn't even hear the question. She was too distracted by the olive skinned boy.

"What did you say?" Carissa asked dumbfounded.

"Oh, I was just wondering if you knew where Lady Gale's room is, I just got transferred there." He repeated again.

"Oh, sorry, I don't know..." Carissa wished she did, she would really like to help him...

"That's ok, I'll find my way around." He said with a smirk, that almost made Carissa swoon. 

"I didn't catch your name?" He said turning back around.

"Oh! Carissa!" She told him flustered.

"Nice to meet you, Carissa." He said playfully bowing to her. "My name's Jett. Maybe I'll see you around." He said with a wink.

Carissa stood there stunned. He waved then started down the hall.

"What just happened?" She whispered to herself. I mean it's not everyday that you get approached in the hall by a cute boy! She forced her legs to start moving down the hall to her session.

Carissa made her way down the hall to the Leapmaster. Yet, another eventful day at school. She hadn't told Lily what happened earlier that morning with Jett because she knew she would be bombarded with questions.

As she was walking she recognized the physician, Elwin, was walking towards her, a smile spread across his face. "How's your hand Carissa?"

"Oh! It's great, no accidents today!" She said, returning his smile and holding up her hand.

He laughed, "Y'know you really remind me of someone, who used to come to this school, she wasn't a great alchemist either." He chuckled again.

"Really?" Carissa asked intrigued.

"Yes, she had the most interesting time here. She always was going off on these crazy and dangerous adventures with her friends. I remember one of the times when she and another one of her friends were badly injured with shadow flux, they had to stay here for a couple weeks because they couldn't leap home!"

"Woah! That sounds terrible!" Carissa said, her voice concerned. Even though she didn't know what shadow flux was, she could tell that if they had to stay here for a couple weeks, it must've been serious.

"Oh! If you think that's terrible, you haven't heard of all the times she almost faded away! One of the times was cutting it close." He said with a tinge of sadness, as if he was picturing the memory in his mind.

"Who was she?" Carissa wondered with amazement to how this girl survived all this!

"Oh!" The physician concentrated again. "Her name was Sophie Foster."

Carissa froze and her mouth went paper dry. All of the color drained from her face. It took her a moment to accept that that was her mother.

She went through all of that! She looked at the doctor, to see if he was joking or was going to say, "Ha! Sorry, I thought of the wrong person, this is her real name..."

But he was dead serious.

Carissa's head was spinning, as she said, "That's my mother." Licking her lips to make them not as dry.

"Your..." Elwin started. "You are her daughter!!" He smiled from ear to ear, but Carissa did not return it.

"You look pale, are you alright?" Elwin asked, concerned and narrowing his eyes.

"Oh! I'm perfectly fine..." Carissa answered, her tone filled with anger towards her mom. But honestly she was fine. 

Now her mother HAD to tell her everything that she was keeping from her. 

"I just need to get home, it's been a long day." Carissa told him, with a not-so-convincing smile.

"Ok..." He looked at her not convinced, but let it go, as Carissa ran to the Leapmaster. She would get all those secrets. And she was getting them tonight.