discovering indigo. (finding sky by joss stirling)

chapter five

there is a shout of laughter, "tag!" a slap on my back accompanies the word and immediately i am transformed into the 'catcher.' i spin around on my heel, dust and soil creating a haze around me, before running as fast as i can.

the heat of the summer afternoon sun was still hesitating in the air, bidding time before the world became a shadowy, shrinking outline.

i push myself to run faster, laughter escaping my lips, gaining on her rapidly, my fingers manage to tap her shoulder. she stops abruptly as soon as she feels my finger tips. i skip past her, with a woop of triumph.

"i suck at this game" one hand shielding the sun from her eyes, a burst of it, bright like a burning star just above her shoulder. ten years old, tanned with brown curly hair falling out of its band. standing in a cornfield with grass that touched our skinny kneecaps.

the memory was strange, fleeting. a figment of my entirely twisted mind, the girl with the curly hair and an old pink t-shirt. my oldest friend. was the condensation on a window pane, the writing scrawled on a ripped piece of paper. she was long lost, long gone.

i glance up and the face morphs and emerges into crystal's. staring at me, hands loose by her sides. her face wrung of all colour.

i didn't realise i was holding my breath until a wordless sound climbs in my throat and fights to escape. my chest tightens to a gasp.

"you two know each other, like, properly?" xav's index finger points at crystal, then points at me before hanging in the middle between us.

"indie?" she shuffles closer to me. "indigo-" her voice catches. "oh my god." she breathes and switches to italian. our mother tongue. "i'm so sorry."

the words were strange, i believed her, honest, i did. her voice wasn't empty of compassion, she was trying to understand, her expression thick with emotion.

i dig my fingernails into the palm of my hands, "you were there?" my voice appears extraordinarily high pitched, as though i am a stringed instrument tightened beyond reason. "my father, he told me all of this.." i struggle for words. "stuff about you, and...and...about." i can't bear to even look at the family who captured me. "them."

"what are they saying?" will mumbles to his father, telepathically. referring to us.

his father turns to crystal and speaks telepathically. "speak in english, sweetheart." he sounds desperate.

"indie-"

"don't call me that." i snap. indie. a nickname that meant jagged baby teeth. the last of which was swallowed in sleep. sandals which imprinted flower patterns on to the dust. hair braided with quick sure fingers and picnics in fields. and later, eyes pleading from behind bars and last words mouthed with cracked lips. tears that stung and a rapid escape.

i had to be resolute. indie no longer existed. "you killed my grandmother." i physically have to force each syllable out of my mouth.

a silence which screams hums in the air.

"she wasn't dead when we left her, indi-" crystal stops herself and starts again with a deep breath. "you should've seen what she did to us." crystal's voice is gasping, and i see tears drowning in her eyes. "she wiped sky's memory" sky looks momentarily confused. "phee's too. diamond's was completely gone, and karla's."

realisation dawns slowly on the families face. only mister and mrs benedict remain stoic.

crystal's words are merging into a calamitous mess as she begins to speak faster with more desperation. something about the blank minds of the slaves and how she was giving them their life back.

xav silently slips his around around her waist, trying to calm her down, but his eyes are as wide as saucers.

phenoix is leaning on yves. "your father is mister italy?" she asks. "and your grandmother was the contessa who wiped our memories?"

i look at the family and shrug.

{the next chapter is gonna be seriously will based!!}

[also i realise, you have to have kind of read the other two books in the series for this to make any logical sense. so, oops spoilers for anyone who hasn't. but basically, if you can't remember in 'stealing phoenix' there are all those men who represent different counties, well one of them (mister italy) is indigo's father and in 'seeking crystal' the woman in the big mansion that crystal defeats, who wipes all the memories of all the girls' is indigo's grandmother]