"Our mother?"
The words escaped my lips before I could stop them.
Phoebe nodded.
"She brought us here when we were little. I don't know why she chose this place, but I remember her crying that day."
I stared at her.
"Then why did she leave us?"
"I don't know, Taya."
"Why does nobody ever know anything?"
My voice broke.
I was tired of half-answers, suspicious looks, and people who acted as if my life was a secret they had the right to keep.
Phoebe reached for my hand, but I stepped away.
"Don't."
She withdrew immediately.
"I understand."
"No, you don't. You claim to be my sister, and now you're telling me our mother brought us here. How am I supposed to believe you?"
Phoebe reached into her pocket and produced a small, faded photograph.
"This is the only picture I have of her."
I took it.
The woman in the photograph had gentle eyes and a familiar smile. She held two little girls in her arms.
One was Phoebe.
The other was me.
I stared at the picture, waiting for something inside me to recognise her.
Nothing came.
Then I noticed the background.
A cream-coloured wall. A wooden chair. A small table with a glass of water.
Suddenly, my head began to ache.
The photograph slipped from my fingers.
I grabbed the edge of the bed to steady myself.
"Taya?" Aria called.
I couldn't answer.
Something was happening inside my head.
A door.
Then another voice.
A man's voice.
Look at me, Taya.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
You are safe. You don't need to remember anything.
My breathing quickened.
"No…"
Phoebe caught my arm.
"Taya, what's wrong?"
I shook my head, but the voice continued.
When you wake up, you will forget what happened here.
A sharp pain passed through my head.
I stumbled backwards.
Aria caught me before I fell.
"Taya! Look at me!"
I opened my eyes, gasping.
For several seconds, I couldn't recognise the room around me.
Then everything returned—the beds, the photograph, Aria's frightened face.
But the voice remained.
I had heard it before.
I was certain of it.
And suddenly, I understood something terrifying.
My missing memories hadn't disappeared on their own.
Someone had deliberately taken them from me.
"Phoebe," I whispered.
She crouched beside me.
"I'm here."
"Did somebody ever tell you that I had problems with my memory when I was younger?"
Her expression changed.
"Yes."
My heart began to pound.
"Who told you?"
"Esther."
I stared at her.
"What did she say?"
Phoebe hesitated before answering.
"She said you used to remember things that frightened the adults here. Then, one day, you stopped talking about them. You became calmer, but you also seemed to forget things you had once known."
A cold feeling settled in my stomach.
"Did she know why?"
"Not at first. But before she disappeared, she told me she had discovered something in an old medical file."
"What was in it?"
Phoebe shook her head.
"I never saw the file. Esther only told me that someone had arranged for you to undergo hypnosis."
The room fell silent.
Hypnosis.
The word sounded strange, yet something about it felt painfully familiar.
I remembered sitting in a chair.
A voice asking me to close my eyes.
A hand resting on my shoulder.
And the terrible feeling that I was being told to surrender something I couldn't name.
"Who hypnotized me?" I whispered.
"I don't know."
I looked at the photograph again.
Our mother was smiling at the camera, unaware—or perhaps painfully aware—of what our future would become.
Then I noticed something written on the back.
A date.
And beneath it, four words in faded blue ink.