**Content warning: non-graphic descriptions of trauma, grief, self-harm, drugs, alcohol, abuse, sexual assault and imprisonment**
That evening, Jamie and I strolled hand-in hand towards the beach. We had watched the sunset from the packhouse deck before making our way down to meet Myfanwy.
"Are you nervous?" He asked, gently stroking my knuckles with his thumb. The warmth radiated from his hand and was a welcome relief from the cool spring air.
"No, I actually feel a really weird sense of calm, like some part of me just knows everything is going to be alright no matter what happens," I explained.
"That's probably the mate bond, everything will be alright even if you can't recover your memories because we will still have each other. As long as we're together, everything really will be alright, I can promise you that," he said, smiling gently at me. His eyes sparkled in the starlight as they met mine and stared straight into my soul, and I believed him.
He looped his arm around my shoulder and squeezed me tight as we reached the sand and Myfanwy stepped forward to meet us.
"Alpha Jamie, Luna Grace, it's a pleasure to meet you properly," she said, her lilting accent making her simple words seem more song-like.
"Please, Jamie and Gracie is just fine," Jamie insisted.
"As you wish," she said simply. "Gracie, are you ready to get started?"
"As ready as I'll ever be!"
She cracked a small smile as she reached out and took my hand in hers. Jamie gave me a quick kiss on the side of my head before she led me away across the beach to a small clearing in the sand dunes. She was unaffected walking on sand, floating across the surface with much ease as the shifting sands I'd seen the day before. I, on the other hand, was as graceful as a newborn puppy on kitchen tiles.
"We're going to start with some simple meditation tonight Gracie," Myfanwy explained as she gestured for me to sit in the sand. "It's important that we do this in the evening. As the Moon Goddess explained last night, you are born from a piece of her soul so you are part Goddess. Your powers and your memories will come to you much easier in the moonlight."
We talked a little about the memory that had come to me the day before and Myfanwy explained how the olfactory sense was the strongest so it made sense my first memory was triggered by a smell. She walked me through some deep breathing and meditative exercises until I felt a complete calm and stillness come over me before she helped me really lean into the small flashes I could remember.
Spinning. Blonde hair, messy blonde hair. The smell of doughnuts in the air. Spinning.
Focus on the smell, I told myself, hearing Myfanwy's earlier instructions in my head. Where's it coming from?
The right. The doughnut smell is to my right, no left, no right, no left. Right? I can't see past the masses of blonde hair all around me and the world is spinning so violently until it isn't, and the noise descends on me. Old traditional music, piano, fast and uplifting and cheerful. Shouting and screaming, but with no trace of malice. Mechanical roaring and groaning and the clicking of wheels on a track. Too much.
My hands flew to my ears and cradled my head briefly before Myfanwy gently and silently removed them. She didn't need to speak; her advice was already planted in my thoughts. Allow the next senses to come as they will and focus on them, so I sat with the overwhelming cacophony of noise until it became less overwhelming and I could focus on just one.
Laughter. Peals of joyful, childish laughter on either side of me. A teenager to my left, her arm wrapped around my shoulders tightly, with the weight and warmth that could only come from an older sister. Faith. It was Faith's blonde hair flying out of control, tickling at my face as I laughed. A younger girl to my right, her face buried into my side, only another mass of flyaway blonde hair visible. She curled into me the way I curled into Grace, the way a younger sister does. Hope.
I feel the weight of them both pressing on me, and the hard bench underneath me, the evening sun beating down on me, the lingering smoke from the ride catching in my throat as we spin relentlessly. I can taste its metallic qualities mixing with the salty sea air as I try to catch my breath and look around me.
"Waltzers," I said aloud, snapping myself out of the trance I was in and feeling a huge smile come across my face. "It was the summer holidays before I went to secondary school, we went down to Brighton Pier for the day and we went on the Waltzers and ate doughnuts!"
"That sounds like a really lovely day," Myfanwy said with a smile. "Do you want to continue?"
I nodded and closed my eyes. Countless happy memories washed over me, doing homework with Faith, braiding Hope's hair, blowing out the candles on birthday cakes, riding a pony in the woods, my father taking me to piano practice, my mother tucking me in to bed and kissing me goodnight. Hundreds of them all rolling over at me once, bathing me in joy.
See you later guys, I said through the window to my sister's as my parents dropped me off at school. I was 11. They were dropping Hope off at school and then taking Faith to a dentists appointment. Dad beeped the horn lightly and I cringed, blowing my sister's a quick kiss before running away, embarrassed to be seen with my parents beeping the horn at me.
I felt myself chuckle softly as the memory continued.
In first period science, the teacher was showing us a cool experiment with bubbles when there was a knock at the door. The headteacher pulled me out of class, I felt confused but followed her to her office where two kind, sad police officers were waiting for me.
Car crash. No survivors.
I felt the ground slip from beneath me as my body racked with sobs I couldn't hear and memories went back into a speed-run, crushing me with the weight of the sadness as I grieved the loss of my family for the first time once more.
They took my to my grandparents. My mum's parents. My dad's were long dead. They were as broken as me. Hundreds of days swirling past, choked in anger, I made new friends, older friends, bad friends. I fought with my grandparents, I ran away so many times.
Handcuffs. I stole make up from the drugstore to prove myself to my friends. The kind, sad policewoman admonished me and took me home. There was nothing but anger. Social services took me away. I screamed at my grandparents as they said goodbye. I told them I hated them, that I hoped they'd drop dead. I was 13.
I went through countless foster homes. Some nice, some less than nice. Some tried to guide me, and gave up when I came home drunk or suspended from yet another school or lashed out at them too much. One hit me so much that the social service noticed and took me away again. I didn't lash out at any of them again.
The next ones barely noticed I was there. They didn't feed me well. I was always cold. I lost weight, started drinking more. I sat in the bathtub, the shower running so hot the steam burned my skin as much as the razor blades did. I was 14.
I felt myself clutching at my wrists frantically, the sobs racking my body violently.
The next one didn't forget I existed. I wished he did. He didn't hit me either,he hurt me in other ways. Unspeakable ways. Again and again. I started going to Karate lessons after school. Then boxing. Then Judo. Anything to keep me out of the house. I was 15.
My stomach churned as those few months came back to me, fighting to forget them again.
After him they took me to a new one. That man was a Muay Thai instructor who sensed the anger and helped me channel it better. He gained my trust slowly, and I started to feel better, clearer.
I was still the weird kid at school. Still shoved in the hallway, picked last for football, kicked under the table. One day five girls cornered me. I defended myself. Really hard. The police came. The woman was not kind anymore, of sad. She was angry. I was 16.
He gave up on me, and they sent me to a youth hostel. I was 16. I started smoking weed, got kicked out of three hostels before I met Jen. A few years older than me, well on her way to getting her life back on track. She almost had enough saved for a rent deposit on a flat. She was relentlessly kind, no matter how cruel I could be sometimes. She trained with me in the corridors every day, for hours. She got me sober, helped me stop hurting myself, helped me get a part time job at a local cafe. The people there were nice. I was 17.
Then a man appeared with a social worker. Cain. He was a foster parent before, and he was taking part in a new programme to help kids after leaving the care system. He wanted to take someone in, help them get on their feet.
Everyone else in the house was bad. They did drugs, ran away, skipped school. He took me and Jen home. It was okay for a while. Jen moved into her new flat six months later. She came to visit one night, frantic, telling me Cain was a bad man. She was throwing clothes into my suitcase frantically, telling me we had to get out of there.
Cain's friends came in and took her away, screaming. I jumped out of the window, climbing down the tree outside and ran, but they were impossibly fast and they caught me.
I fought, and fought and fought. Even when they dragged me into the basement and locked me in a cell. I fought with everything I had, because I had nothing to lose. Jen cried for days.
They stopped feeding me after two weeks. Every time they brought food I attacked them. Even when they put cuffs on me and chained me to the wall I went wild any time they came near me.
Then Cain came and put me to sleep and everything went dark.
"What the Hell did you do to her?" Derek's voice roared, shocking me back to the present day, pierced with anger I'd never heard, followed by the unpleasant cracking and grinding of bones as he shifted. He let out a bone-chilling growl.
"Stand down," Jamie ordered sharply, anger piercing his own voice too. He was answered with snarls.
"Submit, Guard," he snarled, his voice barely human, and then I was in his arms.
"No," I mumbled, pushing him away and he stood, scooping me into his arms.
"What did you do to her?" He asked viciously.
"Nothing, Alpha, she remembered," Myfanwy said darkly.
I punched at Jamie's chest relentlessly, my sobs rapidly turning to screams.
"Don't touch me! Let me go! Let me go!" I sobbed loudly, my voice cracking.
Jamie was knocked sideways and I hit the floor hard. My eyes finally flew open and I saw a vicious black wolf stood over Jamie, who lay perfectly still, his eyes seething with barely controlled rage.
"D-Derek?" I asked, my tears shocked to a stop.
He growled furiously, not daring to turn away from my mate. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Conner shift, an equally huge silvery wolf, and stalk towards them. I mustered every last ounce of strength in me and poured all the authority I could into my voice.
"Derek, stand down," I said calmly and firmly, the authority rolling off my tongue like a wave. He whimpered and slowly stepped backwards, not taking his eyes off Jamie. Conner stepped between them, growling a warning as Derek backed up into me. I put my hand on his flank, trying to get his attention away from them. "Turn, Derek, now."
He shrunk beneath me and fell to his knees.
"I'm sorry, oh Goddess, I'm so sorry Alpha, I'm sorry," he started mumbled.
Myfanwy pulled a blanket from her bag and draped it over his shoulders to cover him up as Jamie stood and made his way over. My breath caught in my throat as he looked over him, terrified of what he might do.
"Don't apologise," he said, placing a firm hand on his shoulder. "You were commanded to protect your Luna at all costs, that is your job. You do it well."
Jamie turned to me and I backed away slowly as Derek and Conner pulled spare jeans out of their backpacks and struggled to get them on, the tension still palpable between them.
"Gracie," Jamie whispered, reaching his hand towards me. I squeaked, feeling my eyes widen and my heart start to race. "Gracie, please, what's wrong? What did you remember?"
"Everything," I said flatly.
"So, uh, well, who are you?" He asked, obviously unsure how to phrase his question.
"I'm nobody," I answered, letting the tears flow freely again. "I have nobody."
"Of course you do, you have all of us, I promise nothing you say could ever change that," he said gently, stepping forward to close the gap between us but I stumbled backwards, tripping over a rock and landing in the sand.
"No, before you, there was nobody," I tried to explain.
"Your parents?" He asked, a sudden sadness washing over him, and I spilled my whole story out on the beach in front of the two guards, the very confused witch and Alpha Osian and Beta Owain, who had come to see what the commotion was all about. I tripped over my words, not letting anybody else say anything, standing to kick rocks at parts that made me mad and sinking back into the sand at parts that scared me until I'd gotten it all out. Every dark, ugly, twisted truth laid bare.
"I am nobody," I breathed once more and there was nothing but silence for a long time. They all stood frozen, processing the darkness that had just been unloaded on them, until Jamie closed the gap between us and took my chin between his thumb and forefinger, lifting my face up to make eye contact with me.
"You are Gracie. You are the Luna of the Keswick pack, the daughter of the Moon Goddess. You have been to horrifically dark places, but you are safe now. You are not nobody, you are my mate and I Iove you," he said calmly, and scooped me back into his arms.
I melted into him, crying into his shoulder as he carried me back to the pack house, the others in tow, still in shocked silence.