The Master of Nature

Childhood Home

For the past week, Hope had been plagued by nightmares every night. Every one of them was either a memory with her birth parents or a dream where she would try to talk to her birth parents but they would disappear.

If Hope's friends wondered why she was always so tired and irritable, they didn't question it. Jay did once suggest that Hope take a nap between training and dinner. Hope refused, terrified of another nightmare.

That day, Jay was trying to teach Lloyd how to control lightning, but the latter kept blowing up lightbulb after lightbulb.

"Aargh! Stupid light bulb! You're putting too much pressure on me. Let me have one more try."

"Ugh, sorry, Lloyd. That was the last light bulb," said Kai.

Cole gave Lloyd a broom to sweep up the broken lightbulbs, but Lloyd instead hit a punching bag with it.

"What am I doing wrong, Sensei Wu? I can't seem to teach him to control his power," said Jay.

The broom ended up hitting Lloyd in the head, angering him more.

As Wu explained to Jay about Lloyd needing to face himself, Nya came in the dojo. She had an envelope in her hand. After inviting Jay to the autobody shop, she said that the letter was for Lloyd.

To the ninja's surprise, they found out that Lloyd's old school had turned good, inspired by Lloyd's change. They were all invited to a ceremony.

"I love ceremonies. That means there's going to be cake," said Cole.

Just then, Alyssa also came in. She was wearing her school uniform. "Hope! I found your childhood home."

Hope almost fainted with shock. "What? How did you find it?"

"Well, when you left, I went to the police station and asked for your social worker's name. It took some convincing, but the commissioner eventually gave it. Well, it was a bit difficult to talk to him because he was focused on painting a model ship. Anyway, I did a bit of research, and now I know where your childhood home is. Maybe your birth parents are still living there."

"That sounds... Too good to be true," said Hope. "But what about..."

"Hope, I say you go and find your parents," said Kai. "We will explain that you can't make it."

Hope nodded. "Okay. I will go then."

A few hours later, Hope and Alyssa were standing outside the house. It didn't look like anything Hope had remembered. When she was a child, the yellow house looked bright and cheerful. The garden would be full of flowers and it was a tradition to give flowers on birthdays. There was a colourful porch swing made by Hope's father which she would spend her time at in the evenings.

Now the house looked faded, the garden was dead, and the porch swing looked rusted. Hope sat down on it to see if she could still swing on it. But it creaked loudly, causing her to stand up again immediately.

"I don't think anyone's living here anymore," said Alyssa.

"We should still check," said Hope. She rang the doorbell, but no one answered. She found that the door was unlocked and slowly opened it.

"Mom? Dad? It's me, Hope."

Hope looked at the hallway. All the furniture was still there, but the patterns were all faded.

Alyssa saw some framed photographs on the wall. Some of them had Hope as a little kid in them. Then she spotted a photo of a man with blue eyes and honey blond hair with a woman with reddish brown hair and forest green eyes. "Hope, are those your parents?"

Hope looked at the picture. "Yes," she said. "The doctors... They said that my mother was infertile. My parents wanted children, so they adopted a little boy called Jeremy. But one day, they woke up to find out that he was kidnapped. They never found him again.

"My mother got sick. Dad thought that he was going to lose her. But then she miraculously recovered after a year. Then she discovered that she was pregnant. They had me, their little miracle."

Tears were running down Hope's face. Alyssa hugged her. "I'm sorry," she said.

Hope went upstairs and went into a bedroom. It had a purple bed and unicorn-themed furniture. "This is my childhood bedroom," said Hope to Alyssa. "This was also Jeremy's bedroom when he lived here. He was taken through the window, so when I was born, my parents made it a habit to lock the windows all the time unless they had to open them."

"Sounds like you had a nice childhood... Until you started living with me," said Alyssa.

"I know. But in a way, I'm glad I ended up with you. I would have never met you if my parents haven't given me up. It just came with an awful price."

"I don't get it," said Alyssa. "Everything seems to be in place. I don't think your parents moved out."

"You don't think... That something happened to them?"

"I don't know," said Alyssa.

Hope picked up a stuffed pink unicorn from the ground. "Hi Cotton Candy. It's me, Hope. I missed you."

"That's yours?" asked Alyssa.

"Yes," said Hope. "Cotton Candy was given to me for my sixth birthday."