I knew that she was still talking, but I couldn't hear anything she was saying. It was as if my mind had shut down. Stuck on the last word she said.

Adopted.

My life flashed in front of me; all the times I wondered why I was so different. My father's harsh words were a constant reminder. Memories of Mother crying as he tried to lash the wickedness from me; my flesh scarred and bleeding. Harsh discipline for when my visions and abilities started.

I always questioned why I had been born with so much wickedness and my sisters were perfect.

I hadn't done anything in my mind to deserve this plague. To have my parents feel such shame. Now I knew. I knew why my father looked at me with such anger and disgust, why my Mother had become so distant.

They weren't really my Mother and Father at all.

"Nova, Did you hear what I said?"

I snapped out of my daze, staring at the woman that I had called Mother for the last 27 years.

"I'm sorry, Mo.." I choked on my words, heat searing my cheeks.

She looked away with a sigh. Regret, sadness, pain? Her eyes filled with an emotion I couldn't decipher.

I took a ragged breath, biting the inside of my cheeks until I tasted copper. If I had to say anything to her right now I knew I would lose what little composure I was trying to hold onto.

"Have you heard anything I was saying? About Silver Falls? About you moving away?" She questioned, her voice soft, reminding me of too many moments when that voice had been my comfort.

I shook my head violently, taking in another breath. Trying to stave away the torrent of emotions that were brewing; begging to be released.

I stood up. The chair scraped the wooden floor. Turning, unable to bear anymore, a treterous sob escaped as I ran from the room. I threw open the front door, almost plowing into Ashlyn, as I sped down the front walkway.

"Hey, Nova!" She exclaimed. "Watch it!"

This wasn't the first time she had seen me running from the house crying. So she wouldn't come after me.

I wondered if she knew. Had they told her? Had she known all this time?

Hot tears clouded my vision, spilling down my cheeks. I ran past the few houses that lined our row, slowing once I came to the market.

Keeping my head down I quickly made my way through the crowded square. No doubt one of Mother's friends would report to her, seeing me in the market without an escort and my cloak.

A fresh bout of tears spilled down my cheeks.

She wasn't really my mother though was she?

Why had they waited so long to divulge this? Why Now?

The park was just ahead and I longed to sit quietly in the secret alcove I discovered as a child. I needed to be alone. To calm my emotions before returning to the house.

I was considered a "lady" at my age. I knew that Mother and Father were unhappy that I hadn't already wed. The social circle was already whispering about me, my age, and still living at home.

A half sob half-laugh escaped me.

Their reputation in society would be irreparably tarnished if things remained going the way they had been. Top that off with my visions and my episodes that Father deemed wicked. I knew that in their eyes I was completely unsuitable.

In society, as a wife, and as a daughter.

The only thing that I could do now, the only choice I had, was to leave.

It's what they wanted.

The only thing I wondered now.

Where in the world was I going to go?