“Sure it is,” Rob said. “We’re all here with you, she can’t do anything. You can’t let her destroy everything you worked so hard to build, especially not when they meant so much to you.”

I knelt down on the ground and picked up one of the poor dilapidated seedling trees. It made me want to cry.

Why were the things I loved always getting taken away from me or destroyed? Maybe Naomi was right; maybe I couldn’t have nice things at all.

We spent the morning working in the garden together and by mid-afternoon we had it almost back to looking as good as it had been at first. Then we went with Adam to the halfway house and we repainted the outside walls until it was dinnertime. The kids inside came out to help and we ended up ordering pizza and having a nice, enjoyable, and normal time.

At night, the guys and I went to the stargazing observatory. That one was the hardest to fix. The telescopes were smashed, the glass dome was destroyed, there wasn’t much to do except to clean everything up and start over once all the new equipment that Michael had ordered arrived next week. We sat in the chairs and looked up at the stars in the sky with our own naked eyes. I sat in the same chair as Michael and he held me around my waist as I leaned my head against the side of his and we counted the stars in the sky.

“I want to go back to the mountainside,” I whispered to him.

“I know,” he said. “So do I.”

That night, Rob came back into the bed with the rest of us.

The new Headmaster of Goldshire was coming to Lineage the following day. Apparently, word had gotten around about the positive changes that I had been making on campus and he was coming to see the halfway house to find out how we were making it work and if it was something that he might want to do on Goldshire’s campus as well. I felt like despite my aunt’s warnings, the guys and I had managed to fix the things she had ruined (or were at least in the process of doing so), and the four of use seemed to have rebuilt our small circle of trust and were all back together, and even the other college was finding inspiration in our actions. Maybe Michael was right, and we should just ignore her. Maybe she would just go away if we did.

We were meeting the Headmaster out at the halfway house so that he could see it for himself and talk to some of the kids about how they liked it there. When we arrived, one of the teens from the house was outside playing basketball and waved to us as we walked near.

“Hey Adam,” he said. “Those people you were expecting are already inside.”

“There’s more than one?” Adam asked.

“Yeah, I think he brought his wife with him.”

When we got inside, the Headmaster was already talking to some of the kids who were showing him the murals on the wall. He looked impressed and like he was enjoying himself when we walked over to say good morning.

“I must say,” he said with a pleased nod of his head. “You’ve really done something quite great with this place.”

“Thank you,” I replied. “It means a lot to hear that. It was always one of my mother’s ambitions to—”

“Oh yes,” he interrupted. “My wife is inside right now looking at the mural of your mother right now. Beautiful artwork. Uncanny resemblance.”

“Uncanny?” I asked.

I looked up as soon as the word left my mouth and saw Aunt Naomi walking toward us.

“There you are dear,” the Headmaster said to her. “Beautiful job they’ve done here, don’t you agree?”

“Splendid,” Naomi said.

“Headmaster,” I said before my aunt could pervert the situation to her liking. “This is your wife?”

“Yes, yes, sorry. I’m terrible at introductions; my wife Naomi,” he reached for Aunt Naomi’s hand and held her forward to “meet” us.

“You’re aware that Naomi is my aunt?” I asked.

He blinked. “Why no, I don’t think I was. I suppose that explains the resemblance then doesn’t it?”

“Darling, remember?” Naomi said. “I told you this before, you must have forgotten. Maybe it was on a day you forgot to take your medicine.”

“Quite possibly,” he said. “Please forgive me everyone. What would I do without my lovely wife?” He laughed and moved on to look at something else.

Naomi stood in front of us with a wide grin, and I resisted the urge to claw it off her fucking face.

“How long have you been married to the Headmaster of Goldshire?” I asked her.

“Oh, not long at all actually. A week or two, I think. Nice guy.”

“Why are you doing this?” I whispered vehemently to her. “Why are you trying to ruin my life?”

She furrowed her brow. “Ruin? Oh, you have it all wrong sweet niece. You’ve already ruined your life. I’m just trying to help you salvage what little of it you still have left.”

I glared at her. “I don’t need your help and I don’t want you here. I want you to leave us alone. Go back to wherever you came from.”

Naomi made an awful face, one that looked like she was going to simultaneously be sick and laugh at the same time.

“No, I don’t think I want to do that,” she said once her face tempered down to look merely distraught instead of looking like she was going to explode. “I’m not leaving until I make you into the girl your mother would want you to be.”

“You are not my mother,” I snarled.

“Well now you just sound like a little brat,” Naomi said flatly.

“If you won’t leave on your own,” Rob said with his hand hovering over the gun tucked inside his jeans, “then it will be my pleasure to make you leave.”

Naomi let out a loud cackling laugh, so loud that it startled the Headmaster and made him jump.

“Sorry darling,” Naomi called over to him. “My little Lisette just made me laugh.”

The Headmaster went on with his tour of the halfway house. He didn’t seem to really know what was going on around him or where he even was. I guessed that from the sound of it, my aunt had him medicated enough to be a walking, talking puppet for her.

“You can try,” she said to Rob. “But that didn’t work out for the other one of you, did it?”

“Do you mean David?” I asked. “Did you kill David?”

She smiled as if it were a triumphant victory for her. “Of course! And I even said sorry, although I should have said ‘you’re welcome’ instead because he was a real loser, don’t you think? One day you’ll thank me for all that I have done for you, though. I know you will. And until then, I will simply have to be satisfied in knowing that I am helping you to become the woman you were always meant to be.”

I was so stunned and so shocked and so angry that I couldn’t move. That I couldn’t speak. Honestly, it felt like I had stopped breathing altogether as my aunt turned to her husband.

The fucking Headmaster of our neighboring school.

“Ready to go dear?” she called out.

The Headmaster nodded as he walked up to Naomi and took her hand. “Thank you again for letting us come see your accomplishments. I’m sure we will be calling on you for your guidance as we work to copy your successes.”

I watched them both walk out the door hand in hand, and I finally drew in a deep breath as my lungs cried out for mercy.

“That guy was kind of weird,” one of the teens at the house said as she stood with us and watched them walk away. “His wife was even weirder, too. Like what’s up with all that stuff she left in the storage room?”