The kitchen was its usual chaos as Mom fixed dinner, and I know I was adding to it as I raced around the island to get away from Eric. I had sneaked into his room to admire the Lego city he'd spent the last four years building and touched something I wasn't supposed to. Now, a small section of the city lay in ruins. I ducked away from his long reach, but slammed into my mother's back, who was attempting to pull something hot from the oven.

There was a crash and a scream, but it didn't stop my legs from pumping faster as I zipped around to the other side of the kitchen. I raced back into the living room, but found I wasn't being chased anymore. Eric had stopped to help Mom.

"Michael!" my mother shouted.

Uh oh. I knew from the tone of her voice that I was in deep trouble. My despair was only punctuated by my baby sister's wailing. She had done a lot of that since we'd brought her home from the hospital nine months ago. I wondered if all the crying meant she was broken, and I asked several times if we needed to take her back to get her fixed. My parents weren't amused by my joke.

I stood there for a moment trying to decide the best course of action. I now had two members of my family angry at me. I could certainly make a run for it, but I had learned a long time ago that would only put off the inevitable for so long. So with a heavy heart and dragging my feet the whole way, I went back into the kitchen.

I was surprised when I entered the room to find my family sitting at the dinning table like nothing had happened. Dad had somehow materialized from thin air because he was most definitely not in the kitchen a few moments ago. Emmaline had also grown, because she was more toddler than baby. And Mom and Eric both grinned at me as I came around the corner.

"You're just in time," my mother said as she set a delicious looking roast in the center of the table bursting with good smelling food.

I shuffled over to the chair I always sat at. It was on Dad's right and next to Eric. I sat eagerly, realizing then how hungry I was. It had seemed a long time since lunch at school. Dad reached out a hand to take my plate to dish up the roast for me. I handed it to him.

"Did you get all your homework done?" he asked.

"Almost."

"Good. I don't want to hear anymore 'the dog ate it' excuses from the teacher." He shook his head. "I'm not sure how you thought that would work. We don't even have a dog."

I dipped my head so I wouldn't have to see the disappointment I was sure was in my dad's face. Mrs. Harper didn't know that I thought to myself, but I hadn't expected her to confer with my parents. She had never had before.

"I don't like algebra," I protested.

"You still have to do it, and if you are finding it difficult, we can hire a tutor."

Which meant more school. No, thank you! Besides, I understood it just fine. I just didn't like it. Dad gave me back my plate, and I put a single spoonful of broccoli on it and was about to put the serving utensil back. I then caught Mom looking at me from the corner of my eye. I dutifully got two more spoons before she nodded her head in satisfaction.

Eric put a nice big blob of mashed potatoes on my plate without me even having to ask for it, but then he knew I didn't like mashed potatoes. He gave me a side grin before serving himself. I glanced at Emmaline to see that she was very much enjoying her mashed potatoes. Mom had served her up after sitting down, and already Em's mouth and chin were covered in white goop. Some of it was even in her wild, curly red hair.

I shook my head at the messy eater and dug into my own. I had barely had time to get a second bite when something in the corner of my eye caught my attention. It was a golden zigzagging crack in the dining room wall. I perked up at that as the fog of the dreaming fell away from my mind. I had really been deep in it this time.

I stood up and went to the crack. I touched it. The familiar feeling of being twisted into knots came over me as I was whisked away into the vortex. But when I came out the other side, I was surprised not to be in the familiar white and black dreamscape. I was on a hillside covered in trees, and off in the distance was a sight I'd only recently become familiar with.

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A great singular spiral of reflective gray material rose from a sprawling collection of gray stone architecture, which sat with three sides surrounded by water. The great lake acted as a barrier between the palace and the expanding city beyond. A river, which I knew as the Everdell because Markus had told me in his stories, cascaded down the middle of the hilly orchard I stood in. From my vantage point, I witnessed how the river was artfully diverted so it broke into many streams and waterfalls moving around the outside of strategically placed palace structures. A grand bridge in scope and design stretched out to connect the chasm between the city and River Palace.

Only a few steps away, sitting in the grass was a boy. He had his knees to his chest and his arms tightly wound around them as he stared gloomily at the palace. I stood there for a long moment, not knowing what to do, but then found my feet walking toward the boy as if of their own accord.

I stood over him and studied the boy. He couldn't be more than four or five. He had long curly blond hair that brushed the tops of his shoulders and the brightest blue eyes I'd ever seen. A tingling of recognition came over me. I knew this boy. Dur-ele had shown me an archived image of when I'd first come to live at the White Palace shortly after my fifth birth year.

I blinked at the boy, wondering what I was doing here and not in the dreamscape. But after a moment of hesitation, I sat down next to the boy as we both took in the magnificent sight before us.

"It's beautiful," I finally said.

"It's home. I miss it.," the little boy said.

I heard the sadness in his voice and it matched my own as the memory of my latest dream was still fresh in my mind, because even though it was good to see my family even if in a dream, it was also a reminder of how much I missed them. "Yeah, I know what you mean."

We both sat there for a long time just watching as a few ships had come and gone from a distance dome that looked similar to the one I had arrived at when I first came to the White Palace. Finally, I attempted to break the silence once more.

"So why am I here?" I asked the boy.

The boy turned his head to peer at me with his bright blue eyes. "You know why."

I felt a familiar pull as I looked deep into his eyes. The sensation washed over me like stepping into warm water, that strange recognition that made my chest tight and my breathing shallow. I leaned closer to the small boy, studying the curve of his nose, the way his eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

"I don't understand," I said.

The boy's eyes seemed to contain an entire universe, familiar yet distant. I felt a strange doubling sensation, as if I were both myself and someone else simultaneously.

"You've been blocking me, blocking the memories. They are trying to release, but you've been keeping them away."

I sat back stunned at what my younger self had said. "Why would I do such a thing? I want to remember."

"Do you?" he asked with a knowing look in his eyes. It felt strange having it to come from someone so young.

I sat there for a long moment pondering what he said. Was I really blocking my childhood memories?

The thought sent an uncomfortable chill through me, like ice water trickling down my spine. I shifted on the grass; the blades poking through my clothes and scratching my skin. Could I really be sabotaging myself?

"But why would I not want to remember?"

"Because it hurts." The boy turned back to the palace. "I did not want to leave, and when I did, everything went wrong. They told me I would be alright. They told me life would be better at my father's palace, but it was not. And then the bad thing happened. I don't remember that part, and I don't want to." The little boy shook his head.

"But the darkness of it is there. It frightens me. It frightens us both. You can't remember, but the fear is still there. Can't you feel it?"

I searched my feelings and found that he was right. There was something dark lurking beneath the surface of my consciousness, something that made my stomach clench whenever I tried to push too hard into the blank spaces of my memory. It felt like standing at the edge of a cliff that would send me plummeting into an abyss.

I pressed my palms against the grass, grounding myself in the sensation of earth beneath my hands. The blades were cool and slightly damp, real in a way that made the fear seem more manageable. I looked at my younger self, this small version of myself, with a mixture of pity and understanding that felt too mature for his years.

As I continued to look into his eyes, I also felt an understanding come over me. I remembered after my adaptable lock that held my quat-lo training had released, and having the same recurring dream. Only it wasn't a dream, but a memory from my released lock. It was when my dad told me that the Nadors would be the key to releasing the other adaptable lock he'd placed in my mind to block my Ethian childhood memories. After that, my dreams had shifted to those of me on Earth with my family, in my old home, living my old life.

My breath caught as I understood. I had been running from my own memories, pushing them away every time they tried to surface. The dreams of Earth weren't just nostalgia––they were my mind's way of escaping from something too painful to face. In that moment, I decided I was done running away. I needed to remember; I wanted to remember––the good and the bad.

"I'm ready," I told younger self with sudden resolve.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

The boy reached out a hand to me. "Then you should see our last day at River Palace. Our last day at the first place we called home."

I swallowed a lump in my throat, but nodded. "Yes, I would very much like to see that."

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