The Enchanted Ruby

Trapped

The next day I wake up to the sound of horses. Back when our mom was alive we use to go horseback riding every Saturday. I sighed finding myself missing my horse, Storm. I quickly pushed the feeling away. It was likely that since we had stopped coming to the barn, the horse was someone else's now. I couldn't help frowning at the sound, though, as it got closer. I couldn't seem to shake the feeling that that was Storm. That he had come for me since I hadn't come for him.

I laughed shaking my head and started into the home we had found again. Only to be stopped by the smell of sizzling bacon and mom's homemade cheesecake. At that moment I  was four again in our kitchen trying to snatch a bit of the cooling cheesecake. I sighed remembering it so vividly I could almost taste it. She used to make the center layer so creamy that it nearly melted the minute you put it in your mouth. She would roast the top and give it a base of graham crackers before freezing it in the freezer. Then she would take it out once it was frozen and put little swirls of Vanilla Buttercream along the edge of the cake and placing gummy bears and raspberries before sprinkling the thick heavy vanilla buttercream with some rainbow sprinkles. In the center, she would carefully ice the words "Enjoy!" with Grandma's handmade raspberry filling, cut out a hole in the middle, eat when nobodies looking, and fill the hole with all our favourite candies.

When I came back to my senses everyone was staring at me as if I'd grown another head and with something velvety nuzzling the back of my neck. 

"What?" I asked. "Why are you all staring at me?" It was Zoe who answered. 

"Because Levi, you were grinning while baking and decorating a cheesecake while Storm was bringing you the ingredients," she still seemed a bit surprised by it. I felt it too since mom had never taught me her recipe. But when I turned around there was Storm and the cheesecake exactly the way she used to make it sitting on the table.

" But I was never taught my Mom's cheesecake recipe. How is this possible?"I said looking from face to face hoping for an answer.

 "Carter you know I could never have done this. You know that Mother didn't share her recipe with anyone!" I said knowing that he would think that I was lying, that I was just trying to keep her recipe to myself.

 "Well, apparently I don't know as much about my brother as I once thought," is all he says before stalking into the room we had slept in last night.

"Wait, Carter, I don't think he's lying," Kendra says looking into my face as if searching for something in my face.

"What makes you think that?" he asks suspicion and rage clouding his face.

"Well my grandma gave me a book that had been passed down in generations before yesterday and there was a chapter on possession by ancestors," she says.