Izzie

TSoNM 01/1, 2 After a particularly vicious attack by dark magic wizards, Izzie, a teen-ager with extremely strong magical abilities, is brought to the School of Necessary Magic for protection from the dark wizards. Her parents request that, to enable her to stay "invisible", her memory be wiped, as well as theirs. Izzie's memories would include being brought up in an orphanage, with a scholarship to the School. Her parents would not remember her st all. Mara Berens, the Headmistress, did so, with the spell Erasus Preceding, Replacus the Meaning..

TSoNM 01/4 During room assignments, Izzie was assigned to share a room with Kathleen, Emma, Alison, and Aya. Izzie chose a bed closer to the door. A Light Elf. When alison looked at her, Alison noticed two empty spaces in Izzie’s soul. She had never seen something like that before.

Izzie's Magic: Izzie had only small magic. She pulled the energy from beneath her feet and a light trickle of magic moved up to her finger. A white beam shot out and swirled around Alison’s leg and down to her untied shoelace. The lace twisted and turned and finally made a perfect bow. “I don’t know a lot of magic yet. It wasn’t a big deal in my family.”

TSoNM 01/8 In dressing for dinner, even though it was in the school, uniform, each girl had her own style, except for Izzie. She didn’t have anything extra, but that was the way it had always been for her, it seemed

TSONM 02/8 “I just miss my mom. She was funny, smart, and beautiful, and she was both my friend and my mother,” Alison had said. This made Izzie sad, both for Alison and for herself. She didn’t have that kind of memory of her mother. In fact, she didn’t have any memories of her mother. All she had were blurred images of an orphanage mixed with her nightly dreams. Hearing Alison talk about her mom that way almost made her jealous that she couldn’t say the same thing about her own. She had no idea why she had been put into the orphanage, if her parents were dead, or even what they looked like. There was a hole in her memory and a hole in the way she felt about it. Sure, she had questions—questions about where she’d come from, who she was, and about her magic—but if she got three minutes with her parents, those wouldn’t be the things she focused on. She would want to look at their faces, hear them talk, and hear them laugh. She would want to have those memories so she could talk the same way about them Alison talked about her mom.

Alison asked her what memories she did have, and Izzie told her about thethree she had:

“When I was little, maybe five or six, I remember visiting this house. Not sure why, but the man and woman were so nice, and they had a sprinkler and a pool out back. I played for hours out there in my little polka dot bathing suit. I remember how blue the sky was that day, and how everything was so happy, no stress. They fed me cake, like it was someone’s birthday, and the memory ends with me curled up exhausted on their couch.” “That’s a nice memory, but you don’t know who the people were?” “No. I am assuming maybe possible adoptive parents? I have two other memories with them. The second is a holiday, maybe Christmas dinner, and we sat at a big table. It was just the three of us. There was so much food, and we ate and laughed, and the guy made funny faces with his food, and his wife—she looked at him with this intense love, like nothing could ever come between them. It’s the only feeling I have that I can compare to how I feel about the people, you and the other girls. Like I had a family, a bond that couldn’t be broken. I don’t know.” “And what’s the third memory?” “It’s not very clear, but it’s that woman’s face, and I’m older. Much older. She is hugging me, holding my face and telling me how much she loves me. She is sad, though. At first, I thought it was a memory from when I was a baby, but then I realized it had to be more recent. I understood everything she was saying, and I could see my arm in the memory. I was older, and the ring on my finger—I was wearing that.”

Maybe you should ask Ms. Berens? She knows where you came from and your history, so maybe she can point you in the right direction.” “She said the orphanage won’t give me information anymore because I’m her ward now.” Izzie shrugged. “Maybe over time all of it will come back. It’s come in pieces, but they are getting clearer with time. The rest is about cleaning the orphanage, being scared in my bed, and watching friends leave—the normal crap that happens to kids in homes like that. We get lost and eventually we lose who we are, but I think I got out in time. This is my new stage in life.”