by Jo Sparkes
Her gnarled hand clutched a heavy tome with ragged binding: Repeating the Past.
“I’m more a Clive Cussler type,” Melanie pushed the book away.
“You’re more a Scottish laird ravishing silly blondes,” the crone chuckled, thumping the book against Melanie’s chest. “But this is the one you’re living.”
She automatically clasped the book, and her spine prickled with ice.
A caftan woman rose from the bench, her voice loud and sharp. “How many women do you see?”
The crone cackled.
Caftan woman approached, firm tread belying age. Grasping Melanie’s skull, she yanked it down to study her eyes. “How many women do you see?”
“Three!” Melanie cried, breaking free.
Clucking like a hen, the woman turned, scanning the surrounding tables. And snatched up something dark.
It was a black velvety cord, from which dangled a crystal pendant. A tiny, clear shaft of crystal wrapped in a silver vine, delicately wrought with three leaves. The top leaf was hollow with the cord strung through.
“Rubies are my thing,” Melanie told her, feeling her pulse race. “My birthstone…July...” Releasing a deep breath, she added, “So much better than rough crystals.”
“Avoid rubies. They are bad for you.” The woman looped the cord over Melanie’s head and pressed the crystal against her heart. It was all Melanie could do not to leap backwards in her best Jill imitation.
“This vibrates with pure energy,” the caftan woman said. “This protects. Worn long enough, this purifies. Raises your own vibration.”
Intending to fling it from her, Melanie snatched at the thing - and went still. Heat radiated from it, near to burning her hand.
“Your vibration needs raising, my dear. Now, how many women do you see?”
Startled, Melanie gaped. The smirking crone had vanished.
“Do not take that off,” the elder told her.
Jill followed Nita through a sort of front parlor - a waiting room devoid of any waiting people. Brochures lay on polished burl wood, and magazines and books scattered about haphazardly on fading velvet upholstery.
Nita glided through it all, turning down a narrow hallway. A long hallway with many doors on either side, like something in a haunted house film. She continued on to the very end before disappearing through the last door.
Hesitating, Jill glanced over her shoulder, tempted to bolt. But eventually Jon would hear the tale, from Nita if he couldn’t pry it out of her. And he’d get that pitying look on his face, that sympathetic, ‘sorry you didn’t have the guts’ regard that always made her squirm.
He might even usher her back that night, while everyone else dined in Saint John’s. And then they’d all be curious, ask questions. And Jon would answer cryptically.
And she’d die of shame.
So taking a deep breath, Jill marched past the many doors to the threshold were Nita waited.
Painted in vivid green, the tiny room invoked a Caribbean vibe at odds with her own mood. Plants in colorful pots crammed the corners, the bookcase, the windowsill. Bizarre pottery, ancient books. And an old lava lamp.
Nita struck a match, lighting a mound of incense inside a pottery frog. Then she turned, and Jill beheld the modern masseur’s table, blanketed in a crisp white sheet. Oddly hospital-like.
“A massage?” Jill asked warily.
“I won’t invade your personal space,” Nita smiled. “A regression requires no hands on. It will be of great benefit to you.”
“A past life regression?” Jon had done those, she knew. He’d exclaimed over the experience, the results. But, come to think of it, he’d never been specific with the details. “I don’t care if I was Cleopatra in a previous life.”
“You weren’t.”
“I don’t believe in reincarnation at all.”
“Then this will be nothing more than an amusing exercise.” Nita stooped to toy with a small electronic device, producing soft, odd music. Muzak from a heavenly elevator. “You’ve nothing to fear.”
Jon and his stupid airy-fairy nonsense. If she had any backbone she’d walk straight back to the boat.
But the fresh sheet on the table, the sandalwood aroma, even the gentle music reached out to intrigue. Tempting her.
Jill climbed on the table.
“Close your eyes,” Nita soothed.
Surrendering remaining doubt, she did.
The music grew louder. A window shade lowered to dim the sunshine. “Just relax,” Nita murmured.
Difficult, when all the worst scenes from horror movies danced in your head.
“You’re standing in a meadow filled with sunshine,” Nita commanded.
Hypnosis, Jill sighed. Jon often spoke of being hypnotized. Well, she didn’t believe in that either.
The voice droned on, soothing, demanding. Pleading for Jill to feel the warmth on her face, soft grass at her feet. To follow a butterfly knowing she was perfectly safe.
It wasn’t until she treaded spiraling steps down into the ground that her shoulders quivered in sudden chill.
For the stairs circled up - not down. Stone steps in a castle turret. Which should have been romantic, echoing epic adventure and heroes. Instead there was dirt and cold and spider webs. Spider webs with occupants silently awaiting their prey.
And although she’d never been in a castle in her life, this all felt hauntingly familiar. She didn’t want to do this.
Panicking, Jill tried to back down, back out of this silly dream, but she was in much deeper in than she’d realized. Ensnared.
Above her, a hand reached out from shadowed void. A female hand, with a wedding band of silver twined with gold.
Her grandmother’s ring.
The fear vanished, and Jill hurried up the last few steps to see her grandmother again.
She stood in what looked like a sixteenth century bedroom. The windows were narrow slits, and the stone floor icy against bare feet. Her grandmother wasn’t there, but somehow she wasn’t quite alone.
Against the far wall was a bed, more square than its modern cousin. She knew the mattress was straw. Ugh - how uncomfortable.
Oh no, a voice in her mind told her, it’s very comfortable. And suddenly Jill remembered sinking down into it, the warmth rising up to envelope the body. Much better than what she slept on today.
This voice was herself - and not herself. It was an old, old her. A skinny girl living in this castle, this room. Jill felt her with a wave of delight.
Where’s my bookcase, Jill asked the girl. I always have a bookcase in my bedroom, she thought, and marveled at the implication.
The startled girl asked: you mean books? To read? Only one person in the entire castle can read. And the girl trembled.
Instantly the girl’s memories flooded Jill - a tidal wave of horrible images. Of an awful man with greasy red hair, long and tangled with tiny bugs living in it. He locked her in this room, where he’d kept her for more than a year.
She hadn’t seen another living person in all that time.
He came often, to hurl her on the bed, do as he would. Afterward he’d sometimes stroke her shoulder. More often not. And though she tried to run from the knowledge, she knew that man was her sire, her father.
Jill found herself quaking with a mind-numbing fear. Tell your mother, she begged the girl. Tell your mother.
Do you mean she who bore me? And Jill had a vision of a bitter woman working the kitchens. A woman who felt only jealousy for this brat who’d attracted the lord of the castle. The man who’d burdened her with child in the first place, but had never kept her away from toil.
Jill and the girl gazed out the narrow window, seeing the fluffy tops of trees below. Wondering for the thousandth time if she could survive a leap into them, letting the branches break the fall. The Jill of modern time knew such a fall would kill.
Jill also knew she’d jump anyway.
Boots tread the stairs beyond the door and a scream welled in her thro
at.
“Move on,” a female voice decreed.
And Jill suddenly rested cheek to grass, by a still pool in a wooded clearing. Her horse Lady Fair grazed nearby.
This was her sanctuary. The place she ran to when her governess wished to practice French. Here she was coddled, beloved by a titled father, indulged beyond reason as the servants said.
So why did she need a sanctuary?
Hazy recollections rose, of a handsome man with curly black hair, a noble’s second son and her suitor. More prominent men had asked for her hand, but her father chose the gentlest for her husband. One with wealth to care for her, and a tender heart to appreciate her. This man truly loved her.
And in her heart she knew all these words for truth. She should be honored that her father found him for her, instead of seeking a more advantageous connection. She should be thrilled.
Dread was her true state. A wordless panic at the approaching nuptials, the night to follow. That which a man did to a woman, in truth an event this particular girl knew nothing about. There were no words to explain this terror, and no one to understand.
This girl, too, died young. Falling off Lady Fair just days before the wedding.
Tears streamed down her cheeks.
“Jill.” The voice was far off. She didn’t want to answer.
“Wake now, Jill. You’re perfectly safe.”
She flew from wherever, yanked back with an audible pop in her ears. Her cheeks were sodden, and she had to pry her eyelids open.
Black hair framed the face peering down.
Clawing her way to consciousness, Jill recognized Nita, recognized the calming room in the old white house. Recognized the present.
“You were crying,” Nita frowned. “The second life should have been healing, happy. Yet you cried.”
“She was so scared,” Jill whispered. But her mind roiled from the revelations of the castle…the sudden understanding.
When she was six-years-old she wore shorts under her dresses, even after her mother yelled at her for it. She’d never liked hugging men - not even her father. She’d never liked being touched at all. All stemming from a faint, nameless fear.
Leaping to her feet, she stared around the room, stared at Nita. Emotions flooded her brain - but her mouth failed to find words.
“There was a life farther back - but you’re not ready to see that yet. The life you first saw was the one you needed to see.
“But the life after that…the second life. It should have been happy.”
Jill controlled her panting, forcing herself to calm down.
“What did you see?” Nita asked.
“My grandmother,” Jill whispered, “Beckoned me.”
The beauty nodded. “She thought you ought to know.”
It was a full hour before the brunette returned.
Melanie paced most of that time, wanting to flee, strangely hesitant to venture down the shadowed path alone. So her emotions ran high by the time Jill emerged from the red door.
“You took your time.”
Jill nodded, distracted. Oblivious.
Nita followed her, snatching something off one of the tables. “Take this to Jon,” she grinned, offering a red book.
Melanie squinted against the sun to read: Revisits: Theory of Soul Returns to the Earth Plane. Jesus, these people were criminally gullible.
Jill wrapped her fingers around the red cloth cover, accepting the thing without so much as a blink. And then simply stood.
“Let’s go,” Melanie tugged on her arm. For once, Jill didn’t leap away from the touch.
“That pendant costs ten dollars.” Nita held out her palm.
Happy to fling the thing at her, Melanie grabbed the crystal - and hesitated. Her eye wandered from the two women in caftans to the empty spot where the crone had stood.
“How many women do you see?” she asked Jill.
The brunette shook herself, finally shaking off whatever fugue she was in. “Three.”
Melanie rummaged through her purse to find the cash.
It wasn’t until they walked back through the village that she realized Jill had included Nita in her count.
Forward
Clutching the book Nita had given her, Jill trudged silently down the hill. The blonde trudged beside her, for once holding her tongue.
Her father and uncle had always laughed at Jon’s spiritual beliefs. He was crazy, they’d said, letting his fear of dying invent proof that he wouldn’t. Reincarnation was a stupid idea. Her father couldn’t be wrong. Uncle Paul was never wrong.
Except Jill knew to the core of her being that those other lives were real.
It was after five by the time they reached the Sadicor. The men back and supplies stowed, plans for the evening were set and underway. She could have used a little time alone, sorting through the experience of the afternoon.
Well, trying to sort through.
Melanie had slipped below deck when Jill handed Jon his book. He grinned appreciatively, stroking the worn cover as if it were an old friend.
“So you did go.” He didn’t press for more, and she doubted she could have spoken if he had.
“Early dinner?” he suggested. “There’s an outdoor pub on the edge of Saint John’s.”
Metallic banging thumped the deck below her feet. Mike must be working on Matilda. “If we can pull him away.”
“He’s eating later.” Jon hopped onto the dock, reaching a hand to assist her up. “Someone has to remain on board.”
Wall emerged, hair damp from a shower, tucking a clean shirt into pressed slacks. Jill felt worn and rumpled beside him.
“Let me at least change,” she said.
“No time.” Jon’s palm inched closer, insistently. Good thing she still had her purse.
He led her along the wharf, toward a driver waving from a battered cab. Glancing behind, Jill saw Wall easing Melanie out onto deck - her shoulders bare in the red sarong, her blond hair swept up in a sophisticated twist.
A proper, romantic date, Jill realized. Just as Mike probably planned with Nita, once she and Jon returned to watch the boat. Hence Jon’s hurry.
The pang she felt - and firmly suppressed - was envy.
Harbor lights glittered on the water, competing with the crescent moon and companion stars in the sky. A distant ship’s horn cried softly.
Couldn’t have planned this better if I tried, Wall smiled to himself. They were seated at a cozy table for two by the glass wall, a perfect view for a perfect meal.
Melanie gazed at the former, her profile tilted toward him as she sipped her champagne. Her second glass, which was a good thing. They’d ordered a bottle, though he preferred a complex Cabernet. She’d had a rough day, after all, and deserved a little pampering.
“You’ve been married before?” she asked.
He nodded. “Fresh out of college. We’d been together for almost three years. It was…expected.”
Her eyes never shifted from the harbor; her lips never formed the next question. He supplied it all the same. “After a ten months we realized we’d made a mistake. We just - were two completely different people. Different goals, different plans for the future. It was a very amiable split, actually. My father said indecently so.”
“I’ve never been married,” Melanie murmured. “Picked out a wedding dress twice. But never actually made it.”
‘Made it.’ Rather an odd phrasing. “What happened?”
Her green eyes turned to him - but seemed to see something else. “Just… things.” She tossed down her drink in a single gesture.
She must have been broken-hearted, he thought. Left at the altar, maybe caught a fiancé in bed with a close friend. Her fingers drummed the table - he clasped them reassuringly.
“Ready for that dance I promised?”
That brought her smile.
Wall left her at the bar while he found the elusive waiter to pay their bill. He returned to find her clasping a martini, perched on a barstool between two v
ery attentive males.
The taxi delivered them to the Barnacle’s bright yellow stoop - the sight of which made Jon smile. He loved Antiqua, particularly St. John’s and Mama Lena’s.
It was still early. Few people had made their way to the festively painted tables adorned with plastic orchids and hot pink toucans. Watching his cousin’s nose wrinkle, he grinned.
“Mama Lena’s taste in decor runs to the whimsical.”
Jill threw him a look.
“But her Fungi is unsurpassed. It’s a sort of cornmeal-okra dumpling.” She didn’t look impressed.
She did, however, clear her plate. Licking the last drips from her tinny fork, she frowned. “Maybe I was just hungry.”
He shoved his remaining callaloo towards her - a bright green, leafy soup dish. She eyed it without enthusiasm. “I’m not hungry anymore.”
Their outdoor table stood by a brick half-wall, separating them from a street lined with bright blue doors on pink houses. Jon loved the color of Antigua, the bold hues slathered fearlessly about by a people unafraid to be noticed. People unafraid to be happy.
A little whimsy was good for the world.
He’d intended to wait, to ask her back on the Sadicor, but somehow the first salvo burst from his mouth. “I’ve always been drawn to the idea of reincarnation.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Science tells us of conservation of matter, conservation of energy. Only follows there’s conservation of souls.”
Jill sniffed in disdain.
“Doctor Mallory, here on the island, convinced me.”
“How?” she demanded. “Did he swear you were Sir Francis Drake? Or I know…Nelson at Trafalgar.”
There was genuine anger in her tone. What had Nita shown Jill to get her this upset?
Leaning across the table, he grasped her hand as she automatically started to pull away. “When I was little, mermaid, I … rebelled. Constantly, against all authority. And it only got worse as I got older. Dad threatened, punished. Even sent me to counseling.”
