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Seeing her mom for the first time after a millennium, Wren couldn't help but feel the substantial weight of nostalgia hit her fully. She'd been born in a middle-class family in Wilmington, North Carolina. It was a relatively small, close-knit city.
During those times, storm chasing was one of the better-paying jobs in Wilmington. Being so close to the sea and constantly hit by passing storms along the East Coast, it was a high-demand job, right below being an electrical engineer. But no woman had ever worked the position.
The mirror before her transformed to show her as a little girl. She'd run around the neighborhood with binoculars so she could watch distant storms up close. Wren remembered one Christmas when she received a telescope. Not once did she use that thing to watch the stars, but if there were a storm approaching, she'd always spot it. She was so fascinated by storms that her bedroom could have been mistaken for a boy's with the amount of storm-related décor and sheeting she had her parents put in.
Wren remembered experiencing her first tropical storm firsthand. With the power outages and floods, most were afraid, but not her. She found the experience exhilarating. Witnessing nature's might up close only deepened her strange infatuation. After all, her father was a well-known storm chaser of his time, so she refused to be afraid.
"How could a child like that turn into someone like you?" Naomi called out. She was trying to freeze the mirror unsuccessfully.
"Not all of us had happy childhoods like you. Oh, right, I suppose you didn't, did you...?" Wren replied snidely.
Naomi clenched her jaw as she glared silently at Wren.
"Dad was kind enough to share a little bit about what he found about your past before you all started to intervene."
Wren returned her attention to the mirror. She was in middle school now.
Unfortunately, Wren was raised during a time when women were only just starting to make a name for themselves – to venture beyond their roles as simple housewives.
Her biological father wasn't an advocate for the change. He would constantly try to shut down any ambitions of her own she'd express. He'd ridicule her and tell her that she wouldn't amount to much. Little did she know at the time that hearing those things at such a young age affected her deeply.
Seeing her father treat her past self that way and having the memories resurface, Wren's anger began to rise. The version of herself she saw reflected next was a fragile girl being stepped on and subdued by the colossal, imposing figure in her life: her father.
"Uh, sis?" Trevor called out, knocking on the glass. When Wren looked, she saw the wind in the mindscape had begun to pick up, and rain began to fall. Inside the mirrors, water was being collected at their feet.
Wren felt a twinge of guilt but returned her attention to the mirror. Being a child who just wanted a loving family, Wren subconsciously blotted out most of the harsher moments she had with her father.
Then, they suddenly stopped for a while. She allowed herself to believe that he had changed and accepted things over the years.
She was now a young adult finishing high school. She expressed, yet again, her desire to make a career out of storm chasing. As usual, her father didn't support the idea, but he wasn't violent or abusive about it. He hadn't been that way in years. He simply told her that a job like that was better suited for men.
Still, she pressed on with her dreams. She went through college, majoring in meteorology. She had been naïve and presumed that her days of being mocked were over. She was wrong.
Her subsequent reflection revealed a small and helpless being surrounded and mocked by the faceless male figures of others. Their words cut through her like blades, crushing her self-confidence. Often, she heard men laugh and tell her that storm chasing was a dangerous job better left to them – that she should find a job involving her looks. Even professors would subtly suggest career changes into something more acceptable, like culinary practices. That was her experience of college and anyone who discovered her major. Other women would give her sympathetic looks and remain silent as they pursued their careers as nurses.
The hurricane in the mindscape intensified, causing heavier rainfall as Wren watched her reflection. She was so tuned out she couldn't hear the screams of the others.
Still, she persevered. She studied hard, wanting to prove herself, and eventually graduated with a degree in hand. Now, she only needed to find ways to start her dream job.
Surprisingly, her father offered her the chance to be taught by the same man who had trained him to chase storms. So, she was sent overseas for a few months, but she was unknowingly taught false tactics and procedures. Her degree in meteorology gave her the know-how to identify storms, but she couldn't have possibly known the techniques to chase them were wrong.
When she returned home, her father was kind enough to let her tag along with his crew. When she tried to apply the knowledge she had been taught, she greatly embarrassed herself in front of the entire crew, having to be saved by her father, and was later looked down upon by them all. Even her father mocked her...
The winds in the mindscape howled, and the mirror shook, but Wren remained focused, watching everything. Her reflection was now of herself lying helpless as usual beneath her father's foot as he stood large and imposingly over her, with the rest of the crew grinning mockingly as they peered down at her.
Despite it all, she wasn't deterred. She was determined to prove herself. She later approached a different crew who was loading their ship before they left the harbor. Having already heard of her failure and sharing the same mindset as everyone else, as expected, she was laughed at and told 'no' before the men bragged about a true beauty storm passing by soon.
Fortunately, since they took her lightly, it was easy to sneak onto their ship when the men continued to leave the boat to load more of their equipment. Taking advantage of the opportunity and not thinking rationally, she stole the boat and raced out to sea. As she sped across the ocean surface, she remembered crying. She was tired of being told what she couldn't do. Even her father didn't believe in her. She'd show everyone how wrong they were.
Unfortunately, Wren soon came to realize just how right everyone had been. Whether it was from the sabotage, her lack of strength, or her racing thoughts, Wren encountered multiple dilemmas that forced her to admit she'd made a grave mistake.
First, after seeing the storm in the distance, she realized she couldn't figure out how to stop the ship or what any of the buttons and levers did.
Then, when she tried to close the sails, the winds proved too strong and only hastened her approach.
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