Strange Nights ( Dr Strange #1)

Chapter 17 : Lost in Memory

W/N : Sincere apologies for the late update. I recently began with my medical school. The schedule is pretty hectic. Naturally, I'm not getting much time to write. I might not be able to update as much as I did in Dec or Jan, but I'll be trying my best. Hope you can understand and put up with this.
Enjoy reading!!

"I had told you to get her here safely." He stormed into the library. "Were you insane?"

The corners of his lips tipped to a smirk. "After all these years," his ashen fingers, tracing the spines of the book, moved swiftly like his body, "of intimacy, do you really want me to answer that?" He brushed the wayward lock of hair away from his face.

Stephen begrudgingly glared at him. "What did you get out of their minds?"

"If you aren't going to let us use some of our powers, might you wanna clean the dust or let us get out of this place?" The doors and windows rattled to life as the dust made its way out of the lair.

"Finally," Wanda breathed into the library, "some fresh air. By the way, congratulation, you messed up another spell."

"Oh no, I didn't. It was intentional," Stephen calmly replied as the three of them settled into armchairs.

"Got what you were after?"

"Not precisely." Stephen was annoyed and disappointed. The masters of the sanctums were laying waste to the insurmountable pains he took - to build all those sanctums - to minimize multiversal travels. "They thought it was a random power surge - some uncontrolled witch. Didn't feel serious enough to investigate. They have been briefly documenting such incidents. But I did find out that a similar surge had happened here in 2034 and 2035."

"Y/N was born in 2035," Wanda notes vehemently.

This was getting way more complicated than any of them had imagined. Either the travellers were dead or had returned. The more onus possibility being them still in this universe.

"They must have come for her then too. That makes sense why Mathew had that fake memory. Y/N's mother, Stephen, she knew what was happening. That's why she left this place with her all those years back."

"Then why didn't she go back to her coven?" Loki pondered. "As far I can remember Jean was a lame witch. And the child then wasn't a woman of power."

"The child we saw was Rachael. Not Y/N," Stephen corrected. "And that lame witch managed to hide her from The Council for all these years. What buried memories does Y/N possess?"

"Loki couldn't get much out of her," Wanda mused. Stephen raised an eyebrow at him. "Really? I thought you were the best." Huffs of laughter whispered over.

"There were numerous barriers. It took some time to get through some of them. Her memories weren't manipulated - except for one from a few weeks back - and she does have a memory of her and Jane leaving but nothing of what led to it."

"And Matt's original memory?"

"It was made up. No alteration or deletion."

"What about Y/N's?"

"It wasn't implanted properly. It kept changing." It was some buoyant optimism in their drowning river of problems. When tried harder to recall, there was a hope of getting the exact memory back.

Y/N blinked her eyes open. She had a murky recollection of last night's events. A part of her believed they were too fanciful to be real but a glance around the room said it wasn't. She shifted her feet off the bed and called out for Wanda. When there was no response, she called out again, louder this time. A prickly sensation of fear crept up her neck after she examined the ominous hallway. There seemed no sound of life save for the hooting of owls. And a burble of water?