The Forbidden Side

Lizzie

"Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom!"  Lizzie shouted, running into her mother's master bedroom.  "Erin's in Home!  She's right here on the island!  Adam too!"  Lizzie practically jumped out of her flannel pajama pants.

        "Honey, slow down," her mother said.  She sat up with bags under her eyes.  She rubbed them and checked the clock.  "Lizzie!"  She scolded.  "It's 2:00 in the morning.  What were you thinking?"

        "I'm thinking that I know how to get my triplets back," Lizzie fought back.  "Erin remembered she's Telepathic, so she sent me a brain message saying, Excuse   me.  Maybe you could come talk to me.  I'm in Home."  Lizzie blinked back tears.

        Her mother noticed.  "What's wrong?"

        "She doesn't remember me," Lizzie said.  "She doesn't remember any of us."  Just then, a small gust of wind blew a Hershey Kiss sitting on the table towards Lizzie and her mother.  Lizzie swatted it away and called, "Justin, I know you're in here!"

        Her seven-year-old brother walked out of the shadows with a sheepish look on his face.  "So," he said, "I heard you know where the twins are.  Well, what are you waiting for?  Let's go get them."

        "First of all, we're triplets," Lizzie told him, secretly hurt that she was excluded.  "And second, they don't remember us anyway."

        "So?"  Justin said in a voice that said seriously?  "That doesn't mean we're going to leave them stranded in Home.  We learned about that place in school.  They give their people barely any choice, and the pick a job that they have to do for the rest of their lives.  What a place," he mumbled.

        Julia stumbled in.  "I sensed something was amiss," she said.  Lizzie sucked her knuckle.  She loved her little sister, but sometimes she really freaked her out.  "What is it?"

        "We found the twins!"  Justin cried.  Lizzie glared at her brother.

        "Oh," Julia replied, her voice emotionless, (seriously, was her sister a robot?), "where?"

        "In Home!"  Justin yelped.  "Just on the island!"  His mother shushed him.  But it was too late.  Katie had heard, and she wandered into the room with her ducky slippers quaking away.

        "What?"

        "We found Erin and Adam!"  Justin yelled.

        "Yippee."  Katie rolled her eyes.  Lizzie knew she really didn't care.  Her ducky slippers quacked, and Lizzie, using her mind, threw them into the corner of the room. 

        Lizzie faked a yawn and said she was going back to bed.  On her walk through the hallways of her huge house, she thought about whether or not to tell them.  No, she decided.  I won't.  No one needed to know about her warning to Erin.  Her warning about King Z's enemy.

        Lizzie put her book down as sunlight shone through her window.  The sunshine sparked her bright blue eyes, as they were dull from looking down at her book all night.  She thought about the previous night.  How excited Justin had been, how emotionless Julia had been, and uncaring Katie had been.  She knew all of them were missing the big picture, the real reason why they had been separated and then reunited at this age.  Lizzie didn't say anything, though.  Her brother was excited enough to not be the only boy in the house anymore.  Her younger sister was excited to have her closest sibling back, though she didn't show it, and Katie just didn't care at all. 

        Lizzie walked over and sat at her desk.  She opened the only magical item she knew of, her Thought Log.  Being Telepathic, she could transmit thoughts into the journal to look back on later, so she wouldn't forget.  She opened to the first page.  It said Erin and Adam just disappeared.  Why?  Lizzie smiled.  When she was five, when her triplets first left, she was silly.  She couldn't believe at that age, she thought in the future, she might forget something like that.  Or maybe five-year-old her thought they would be back by now, and wanted to remind her of what is was like when they left.  Either way, Lizzie didn't like the thought.  It stirred up too many bad memories.  A house full of tears, they called it.

        Lizzie turned to the next page.  It said, Where ever they are, I hope they're safe.  The thought brought tears to her eyes.  How selfless she had been when her best friends disappeared.  She flipped the page.  What?  I'm a Telepath?  Lizzie smiled.  The day she found out she had powers.  Well, at least that took her mind off Erin and Adam.  The next page said something Lizzie was not expecting.  Something she thought she didn't know as a little kid.  Something that reminded Lizzie why they lived here in the first place.  King Z?  Who's that?  Am I related to him?  At the top of the page, Lizzie had scribbled her real name, not the stage name Lizzie Brimer.  Lizzie Z.  She hoped she was wrong, but she knew she was right.