Annie would still live on, but I was still wondering if this curse was generic. I had to find that out as well. Joel was still going to be a skilled hunter for a long while, I reckoned. Rowan should have, with his older brother’s guidance, become a skilled hunter.

The chance to witness that event was up to my imagination. I think hunting would be a good way to have spent time with Rowan now that I thought of it.

Bella, I was unsure of her, for she was a dutiful woman. Quiet, she kept to herself and had a determined disposition. I had to get in contact with her and see what could have been planned.

It was funny.

I had woken up trying to avoid Joel and his hunting spiel and criticisms, to be shocked by my own reflection. It scared the life out of my sister, to find out I was basically a walking ghost, to being terrified and now here I laid, excited?

Life was crazy, huh? I still missed it, though. I shook my head. That dark place I had to stop going there. There was a chance I could have lived. I had to take it.

But if I had not…

No, that pain had to have been suppressed then.

Positive thoughts. I had to channel those into existence. I had to imagine them. There were some things I could have been positive about.

My hair was rather amusing. White hair, I was not going to lie. It looked weird, but rather interesting. I wished it had not made me stand out. 

I had to carry the burden of this white hair and purple eyes. Something told me the residents of the village were not going to be excited to see the new hairstyle. 

A curse may have affected me, but I wondered if there was more to me than this? Had I any other incredible things about myself?

I groaned. Maybe in another life I could have been given something cooler. The diary was nice and gave me some solace. It gave me a purpose that I now was planning to carry out. The magic mountain was pretty cool, too.

I reassured myself. “The answers were there.” My stomach growled.

I would have eaten a whole moose right now. Heck, I was even thinking of going to hunt it myself at this point. Joel would have been proud if I had just bust open this door right now and decided to hunt down a moose and cook it.

I imagined myself doing it and I chuckled at the comedy of it. Maybe this was what drove Joel after all. I got it. The man must have been a pretty hungry man.

I was not getting up to do that. My mind said yes, but I was trying my best to just sleep right now.

As I lay there, the image of the mountain and flower grew bigger. What made the mountain purple was a mystery, but it must have been pretty to look at.

Nial described flushing water in his diary. I wondered if those were purple too. I closed my eyes and tried to draw a picture in my mind of what I would have seen when I got there. I imagined a fairy greeting me at the entrance saying, “Welcome Nils. You have found us. We were expecting you. Follow me.” And then I followed as the fairy flew to this massive purple blossom.

“You are just in time,” the fairy would say. When I looked around, I noticed even more fairies joining us as we all gathered and watched the flowers blossoming.

And like it was being awoken, you saw one layer starting to peel off the other layer. Slowly, but surely, one of the petals nudged the other sleeping layer.

They opened up. Time had stopped just for this moment. I found comfort in this imagery as I rolled over on my side and fell asleep once more. This time, I slept more soundly.