Morana knows she's different from other people in more ways than one. Firstly, she's sixty-seven years old but stopped ageing in her twenties. Weird things have also happened around her right after she's wished for it. But most importantly, no matte...
"Just generally imaginary friends or something more specific?" Alejo asked and took a sip from his drink.
"Of course something more specific. Going to look at how children that's suffered from trauma can use imaginary friends to deal with it," Maya answered.
Her reply stirred something in me. It made memories I had forgotten come back.
"I used to have imaginary friends," I said absentmindedly while still trying to remember them.
"Don't like all children?" Rick shrugged.
"About 65 percent yeah, but most won't remember since they only have them for such a short time when they're young," Maya answered in all seriousness before turning back to me with curiosity. "Do you remember stuff about them?"
I frowned as I tried to keep remembering. It felt slightly awkward, they all focused on me while I thought. It was embarrassing to have such an intense attention on me. But that didn't stop me. It somehow felt important to remember, to know what my imaginary friends had been and why they had gone away.
I looked off to the side. The music played softly and there were some lights that moved around a bit. Dispersing shadows for a second before leaving them be.
"A little," I said and looked back at her. "I was thirteen when I stopped having them."
I had realized what had made me stop seeing my imaginary friends, and it definitely wasn't a nice experience. It made it very understandable why I had completely suppressed all memories of them, though.
It was while the boys in the foster home I lived at for two years had assaulted me. They had known about my imaginary friends and used them to taunt me. Had mockingly told me to ask them for help and then laughed at me because of course imaginary friends couldn't help.
"Thirteen is quite late to stop having imaginary friends," Maya said and pursed her lips slightly. "Do you remember what they looked like or so?"
"Not really," I shook my head. I tried to remember anything more about them, but I really couldn't. All I could remember was that they had been there and been someone to make me feel less lonely. "I really can't remember more than that I had them."
Maya looked away and seemed to be deep in thoughts. Rick seemed uninterested in the topic and instead sipped on his drink. Alejo, though, looked at me as if he tried to look inside of me.
"What?" I asked, feeling slightly uncomfortable with his gaze.
He shook his head. "I was just thinking it might not have been imaginary friends. At least not in the traditional sense of it."
"What do you mean?" Maya asked before I had time to.
"You've said you did magic at times without knowing it was magic, right?" Alejo directed his answer to me and I nodded. "Can't the imaginary friends then have been something you conjured up with magic?"
"Why would she have done that?" Rick asked.
"Because I was lonely," I answered without looking away from Alejo. What he said made perfect sense. It even seemed likely, except... Had I really been the one to conjure them? It didn't feel like I had been. "Since I moved from foster home to foster home, I never really had anyone to rely on," I continued to explain.
"So you would have conjured them to have some sort of stability? Like a substitute for a home and parents?" Maya concluded.
"Yeah," I nodded.
"That's exactly the type of thing I want to look at for my thesis," she exclaimed and continued to talk with a stream of words, but I only partly listened.
I remembered very well what those voices, the ones that belonged to the black thread, had said each time they had spoken to me. And one of the things was "remember us". Could they be my imaginary friends?
I couldn't remember a thing about what the imaginary friends had looked like, and those voices had never had a body, so that part made sense. But if they were my imaginary friends, then they weren't imaginary, and they weren't made by me. I didn't exactly understand what those voices were, but I felt certain they weren't a part of me. They were connected to my magic, but still separate from me. They were their own entity with their own mind and everything that came with that.
The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. I had told them to go away when I was thirteen. I had felt crushed and blamed them, just like I had earlier that day in the shower, and they had listened. They had then stayed away until I had started to learn about magic. That also made sense. As I had learned about magic, I had opened myself up to them again.
But what were they? What was that black thread? And why did I feel so empty at the thought that they now would maybe never come back? Like a part of me was lost.
"Earth to Morana. Earth to Morana. Are you listening at all?" Maya said and pulled me out of my thoughts.
"Sorry," I mumbled, having no idea what they had been talking about.
"What were you daydreaming about that got you so lost?" she laughed.
"Nothing," I answered. I looked at Alejo, and he looked back with concern.
"I was asking if you ever went to college," she said.
"Oh yeah, I studied literature. But that was a long time ago," I answered.
"Right! Witches not aging and all. How old are you?"
"67."
"So you're still the grandpa," Rick laughed at Alejo, who half-heartedly laughed back before his attention went to me again.
A bit later Maya and Rick were busy talking about something and Alejo took the opportunity to ask me in a whisper, "Are you okay?"
I nodded, though I definitely wasn't sure that was the case. Everything was just becoming more and more confusing. I got more and more questions and I started to feel desperate for answers.
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