Once the sound of my footsteps faded up the stairs, the air in the kitchen snapped with tension. My mom quickly checked the hallway before leaning close to my dad, her voice dropping to an urgent whisper.
"Mark, this is too close. The eyes. The pin. The dream... it's happening again." Her hands trembled slightly as she gripped the counter.
My dad ran a hand over his face, looking suddenly much older. "We swore it wouldn't. We took every precaution. We moved, we kept quiet, we burned everything..." He pulled the old photograph out again, his jaw tight.
"That damn pin. TheObserver. I thought that family line was broken."
"Rose always said it wasn't about blood," My mom hissed, her eyes darting nervously toward the ceiling. "It's about destiny. She's fourteen, Mark. Just like Rose was when he first showed himself to her."
"We will protect her," My dad vowed, his voice low and fierce. He crushed the fragile photograph in his fist. "We are here . We are together. She is safe and secure with us. We won't let the past touch her. Whatever happened back then will not be repeated."
My mom nodded, trying to draw strength from his certainty, but a deep fear remained etched on her face.
They were convinced their unity and their vigilance would be enough. They believed their love could wall off the secrets of a generation.
But high above their quiet suburban home, concealed behind the heavy gray clouds that had gathered overhead, the green eye of the storm, the deep, resonant green man in the photograph and the phantom in the dream, seemed to momentarily open.
My parents didn't know that on the underside of my window sill, a faint, almost imperceptible design had begun to shimmer into view -- a small wreath of twisted metal, identical to the pin.It wasn't the past that was coming back to Luna; it was her future, a destiny that her grandmother had desperately tried to hide, and it had just found its way home.