"Miss Gemma, Miss Gemma!" the shouts of one of my students echoed down the halls. I turned with perfect posture that would have made Mrs. Nightwing proud to look at the flustered girl running down towards me.

I smiled. "Yes Emily? How may I be of assistance to you?"

Emily stopped running and rested her hands on her knees, her thick long hair falling down to cover her face. After she caught her breath, she straightened back up will posture that would have made her the queen of Spence Academy. "Miss Gemma, I finished my art assignment 'My Fantasy world.'" Her smile was electrified as she looked at me with pride in her grey eyes, grey eyes exactly like -

"That's amazing Emily, I cannot wait to see it. Is it in the art room, because that's where I was headed right now?" I shook off the forbidding thought and focused on Emily's words instead.

Her eyes widened. "Yeah, it is!"

I laughed and tucked a single fly away hair from my neat bun and turned in the direction on the art room of the University. "Come along then Miss Emily, I am very keen to see what you have created."

Emily walked beside me down the hall, though we did not talk over the roar of students passing by. She was the spitting image of Felicity; long, unruly blonde hair, grey eyes, perfect white face, and an aura that makes her the leader of everyone else. They only difference between them was that Felicity used her aura to control the people around her, yet Emily hides in corners.

I knew that Emily Worthington was Felicity's granddaughter, though I have no idea how many before her was her actual daughter nor why she still carries Felicity's madden name, but I decided not to dwell on such things long ago, but Emily and her best friend Brianne – who as well was the spitting image of innocent Ann – bring back the memories I have so wished to forget.

My name is Gemma Doyle and I have now lived for 133 years, stuck at the age of seventeen, the year my lover Kartik died.

I still dream of Kartik, and after 113 years without him, I still cry myself to sleep each and every night. I remember those last precious moments I had with him, where he sacrificed his own life to save mine, when he became part of the tree and he and I were broken away from each other. I remember the feel of his lips on mine, his arms on mine, and the way his voice sounds. I remember his brown eyes, the dark color of his skin and the many; many times he took me into his strong arms and held me tight.

Most of all, I remember how much he loved me.

I cannot say why I am now immortal; maybe it's the Universe's sick way of getting back at me for letting Kartik sacrifice himself for my insignificant life. Maybe it is that I still haven't done what needs to be done for the realms. There are so many more theories that I have on the subject of my immortality, but long ago I decided that I will not dwell on these, for it is just waiting the time I have now.

Instead I focus on what I came to New England – now called America – for. I am now a professor at New York University teaching history and art. Very ironic if I do say so myself. I have many friends, but none as good as Felicity and Ann, who left this world many, many, many years ago and are now on the other side of the lake in the realms, the one part I have not and will never go to. I learned from their deaths how much it hurts to get too close to someone when they age and I do not.

Brianne also ran up to walk beside Emily and through me a worried glance. Brianne was not so good at art, and had only taken it to stay close to Emily. In a way she also reminded me of Pippa, and would if Pippa had not been so evil. That as well was my own fault.

"Stop it Gemma." I told myself and kept walking to keep up with the two girls who were now linked arms and nearly skipping down the hall. Sighing I followed them into the huge art room and –

"Emily Worthington!"

The painting that she had done needed five easels to hold up, all three feet away from each other. The painting itself was probably about 10 feet across and fifteen feet high. I had no idea how she had painted it in a week, and that itself was astonishing, but it was the scene in the painting that made my heart stop.

The painting was an air shot of what the realms were exactly. Every single part I had ever visited in my life with the realms was on there, all the way to – yes. All the way to the Winterlands. And smack dab in the middle of that once forbidding place stood my Kartic, not as the tree but as himself, staring back at me.

I could have sworn he smiled.

"Emily, where did you get the idea for this?" My voice was timid and astonished.

Emily looked a little scared. "I don't know. I had a dream one night and I woke up with it in my head. Well half of it anyways. Brianne had the same dream and helped me with the rest."

I did not answer as I walked over and reached out to where my lover stood, and just as I was about to touch the painting, it shimmered and began to form a path of light where I could stick my hand through. Instinctively I snapped it back and turned to face the girls.

"Come with me," I barked. "Now.