Do you remember when you were little, sitting on your father’s knee while he told you stories. Or going shopping with your mother and trying to convince her to buy everything. Well for the last 10 years I have had no memory of these events. At least not those early ones.
I have something called retrograde amnesia. Apparently it’s a very rare, severe form of it. Basically what that means is that my parents have spent thousands of dollars sending me to shrinks only to be told that I would never be cured. And I believed them. That is until recently.
My earliest memory is of being found by the people I now know as my parents. Wandering the back streets.
I was 9 years old
They took me in. Fed me, Clothed me and eventually when my real parents couldn’t be found, they adopted me.
That’s where I have been these last 10 years, living with Maria and Louis Aquilla. As their daughter Marie-Louise. They are the only family I have ever known. They were there for my first boyfriend, My first sleepover, My first kiss, My first dance. They- and their 4 children – were the best family I could have hoped for. Yet there always seemed to be a hole in my life. Something that no matter how hard they tried they could not fill.
It all started my second year at college. I was playing tennis on the school courts with my boyfriend Jakob, when he hit me in the head with the ball. I was knocked unconscious for about 15 minutes. But when I woke up everything just seemed sort of different. Like maybe something had been knocked out of place. Or in my case into place.
That night I had a really strange dream. I was in a park with my brother Antony and my sister Anabelle. We were playing some sort of game. Then our nanny came over because Anabelle had fallen over and started crying. The next thing I knew some strange man came over picked me up and carried me away. I didn’t even have time to cry out.
Over the next five months I had more and more dreams. I never told anybody though. I mean for starters I may have 4 brothers and sisters but none of them are named Antony or Anabelle. My dreams ranged from sliding down the hall in my socks with Antony only to crash into the wall, a maid or a really expensive vase to having screaming matches with my mother because I didn’t want to do what she told me.
Finally I had the one dream that told me I was definitely going insane. I saw my mothers face (The one from the dreams) and she was someone I knew. Someone I had admired and looked up to for as long as I could remember. She was Rita Clark Walker. The star in every single one of my favourite movies. I put it all down to an adopted child thinking what if I could have been one of her children. What would my life have been like???
Then one day I was in the school library looking at some newspapers from ten years ago. It was for some sort of assignment, I can’t remember what but then that’s not the important part. I happened to be flicking through the pages when I came across an article about Rita and Thomas Walker. Being the celebrity hound that I am (Not really but it sounds better than says that I was obsessed with the Walkers) I naturally read the article. I thought it was going to just be some random piece about them saving a town in Rwanda or something like that.
Instead it was about something I had never read before. That year their eldest daughter had been kidnapped from the park. Even though they had payed the ransom Anastazia was never seen again. It went on to say that Anastazia had been taken to the park by her nanny along with her twin brother Antony and little sister Anabelle. That was intriguing. I mean I knew that Rita had had Antony and Anabelle as well as several other children but I had never heard of Anastazia before.
And to top it all off the day in the park was exactly the same as that first dream I had had. What the hell was going on?? Was I going insane or was I possibly Rita and Thomas Walker’s daughter.
Of course it wasn’t possible. I mean surely if that were true it would have been easier for my parents to find well my parents. Just to be safe I took a copy of the article as proof. I had to go see Jakob. He would probably be able to tell better than me. He was probably just going to look at the article and say that I was just being silly and there was no possible way I could be related to the Walker’s.
Instead when I found him in our dorm room. He said that it really was a good possibility.
“I mean think about it logically Marie” He said “ You look so much like Rita Walker that it really is a possibility. Your parents found you not five days after the ransom was paid. And finally you’re approximately the same age as Anastazia.”
“But if what your saying is true Jake, then my parents, the ones I’ve lived with for the past 10 years, are quite possibly involved in my kidnapping. I’m not sure if I can believe that.”
“I don’t think you have any choice is the matter Mar. But I don’t think we should jump to any definite conclusions. Your first option might be to try and contact the Walker’s see if they have anything to say.”
So that’s what I did.