Book Three, Preface
In the weeks it took for the children to readjust to the home life within the summer holiday, the more Amarra grew adjusted to the constant sleep patterns that her brother began to exhibit. For years, they had known that they possessed the Seer gene from their mother, now they completely understood. Their dreams meant something. The future was a dangerous place for both of them, and they knew what would lie ahead. They always had.
On a cool night in July, Amarra opened her eyes to find herself in a strange location. She stood in a fortified, stone-bricked corridor. The walls were torched by dim lights, and the atmosphere was so frigid, she was afraid that if she didn't move, her body would collapse. Ahead of her, the blue and silver aura of Rowena moved in-between the walls, and she felt her feet move at such a quick pace, she thought she would trip at any moment.
She turned the corner too quickly and nearly ran into a guard—black cloaked and faceless— and stepped out of his way so he could float on by. "Dementors," she heard Rowena say. "Nasty, soulless creatures."
For a moment, Amarra could feel how deathly unhappy the prison felt, and one look upon the dementor and she knew how depressive the air had become. She turned back to Rowena, who led her down a long hallway and small crevices of goblin-wrought doors mere feet apart from one another. She barely recognized the runes that had been engraved upon the wooden panels, and she wished her brother was here to translate, but her legs stopped in front of one particular door.
A series of lightly carved letters between runic symbols told her who she would witness inside. She peered through the rusted bars, and her deep blue eyes stared at the messy, curly-haired woman she vaguely remembered seeing pictures of once. Her skin was as pale as the moon, and she muttered at the markings upon her left forearm with such interest, she couldn't care about anyone else who would speak to her.
When she looked towards the door, black, smudged, gaunt eyes stared at the bars, but the woman turned away to the highly placed window when she heard someone speak to her. "Shut it!" She hissed; her voice was highly pitched and crazed, but a cackle erupted from her lips, and Amarra felt scared of who this woman was.
Who she meant to the twins.
Rowena motioned Amarra to continue, and the next door over, Amarra looked through the bars to see a man. His hair was as black as the woman's next door, and nearly as curly and unkempt. His face was haughty but sunken, and Amarra noted a sense of elegance about his disheveled demeanor. She vaguely remembered him from her childhood— her mother's cousin—yet he was rarely around even before his sentence.
In his hands, he held the cover of the Daily Prophet. Amarra was unsure as to how he got it, but her eyes focused on his face as a smile formed from his yellow teeth. "I'm going to get out, Bella. I told you I would," he whispered to himself. "I will break free from this hellhole!"
Amarra shuddered at the screams that echoed around the walls, and the look of defiance fell from the man's face once he heard the hollow footsteps of the dementors grow closer. She turned away to see the cloaked guards float through the hall toward her, and when she turned back, a black and shaggy dog stood before her.
Her eyes scanned over the newspaper clippings once more, and read the bolded date: 24 July 1993.
A dementor opened the man's door, and while they entered to place the tray upon the stray-ridden floor, the black, malnourished dog slipped out and ran through the halls. Amarra ran after it, and could feel Rowena follow closely behind. When she turned the corner, neither the dog nor the rest of the corridor could be seen. She blinked and a spray of cold oceanic water splashed across her face. Through the muster of dark clouds in the night, she saw the black dog paddle through the rough waves. Behind her, the prism-like prison echoed with both haunted screams and a wailed siren. Dementors flew from the open windows and doors, and in their anguish, she could feel their rage. Then, something grabbed ahold of her and Amarra felt her stomach lurch at the sudden force that pulled her from the rocky shore. The last thing she saw was the sun's orange-pink hues break through the vast darkness of clouds, and then it all disappeared...