Council of Souls

by Jen Printy

  Leah rises from the bed and walks toward me, her expression intense.

  Water droplets drip from my hair onto the curve of my shoulders and roll down my chest and back, following the groove of my spine. Her eyes scan my body, searching for any trace of injury. Suddenly, I’m aware that, except for the terry-cloth towel slung around my hips, I am naked.

  My gaze drops to the floor. I stand as still as stone as her soft, warm fingertips draw featherlight patterns first across the rigid muscles of my back then down the thin covering of dark hairs on my arm, not stopping their torturous march until they reach the planes of my chest.

  She comes to a stop in front of me, her fingertip lingering at the tattoo that reads Foi apporte la force scripted in arched calligraphy over my heart. “You made me a promise, you know,” she says, looking up at me.

  It takes me a moment to assemble my thoughts. “I didn’t stay on the train on purpose. Things just got out of control. I’m sorry you worried, but I was never in any danger, love. Artagan was there well before any rescuers came to dig me out.”

  “You were buried? In what? The wreckage?”

  Crap, I planned to leave out that little detail. I give a half shrug.

  If the look of outrage that flashes across Leah’s face could kill, she’d have dropped me right where I stand. She turns with a snap of her head and returns to the bed. She lifts my pocketknife off the nightstand. After opening the blade, she presses the sharpened edge to her forearm hard enough so the skin dents under the blade’s pressure.

  I lunge, almost losing my towel. Grabbing her by the wrist, I knock the knife to the floor. “What are you doing?”

  “But I’d heal in an instant,” Leah says. “So you still don’t like the idea of me hurt or in pain. Why should I be any different?”

  I suck in a large gulp of air to bring my emotions under control. As the burst of adrenaline slips away, the fatigue returns with a vengeance. “I’m sorry I made you worry.”

  “You already said that. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I’ll be fine. I just need some sleep,” I say, rubbing my forehead. “Can we discuss this more in the morning?”

  After Leah returns to her room, I fall straight to sleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I stare at a ceiling I can’t see, counting sheep that don’t exist. From sheer emotional exhaustion alone, I should have slept through the night. But close to two, my eyes sprang open, and I haven’t been able to fall back to sleep since. I push up onto my elbow and punch my pillow into a more comfortable shape for the hundredth time. Flopping onto my back, I listen to the creaks and sighs of a familiar lullaby, soothing sounds that remind me of my childhood. Many a night as a boy, the song of my house—the wind whistling between the rafters, the moans as the foundation shifted, making itself more comfortable for a long winter’s night—lulled me to sleep.

  Every time I feel myself sinking into a much-needed slumber, visions of Gladys spring to life behind my eyelids. I may not have known her past our brief conversation or feel any personal grief for her death, but her passing still bothers me.

  More struggles. Her words haunt me from the back of my mind. Was she a fortune-teller, a madwoman, or something else entirely?

  I consider skulking down to Artagan’s study and poring over his hoard of books, but in this leg of the research, none of his books will be of any use. I need to verify Gladys was telling me the truth, which means I need newspaper articles and records of some sort, not folklore. The library might have access to information I need, but there’s a fly in the ointment. Portland Public Library closed hours ago.

  I toss back the covers and stand, flexing my back to loosen the tension in my shoulders. A slight chill lifts the hair on the back of my neck and prickles my scalp. Unsure if nerves or the nip in the air is to blame, I retrieve the thick, downy quilt from the bed, wrapping it around me.

  Light from the full moon brightens the room in monochromatic hues, softening all details with a blue reflecting gleam, rendering the lamp unnecessary. I plod toward the settee with some reluctance. With no librarian to bail me out this time when I botch things up, I fear I’m up shit creek.

  I fumble through Leah’s backpack, forgotten in my room after our afternoon of normalcy—an afternoon that feels like a lifetime ago and not just a few hours—to retrieve her laptop. With great care, I place the infernal device on the settee, hoping my gentleness might gain its help. Then, plopping down in front of it, I say a quick prayer to the technology gods just for good measure. But none of my efforts have any effect because when I flip open the lid, I am greeted by a request to enter a passcode.

  I pull in a sharp hiss of air through my teeth. Rubbing my chin, I give the illuminated screen a long stare as if willing it to divulge its secrets. Birth dates, parents’ names, favorite color, what might it be? I should be able to guess, but two lifetimes to choose from doubles all my choices. I begin with the obvious and hunt and peck my way through Leah’s birth date. No luck, so I move on to Lydia’s birthday. Still no good. After numerous attempts as safecracker followed by several Try Again messages, every button I click makes a god-awful buzzing noise. The words on the screen might as well be “Give up, loser.”

  Defeated, I climb back in bed.

  Somewhere between dreamland and wakefulness, I hear the squeak of a door. I open my eyes to a narrow blade of orange light cutting through the blue dimness and catch a glimpse of a figure. Light shines through Leah’s hair, encircling her shadowed face like a halo, before dark eclipses the room once more. I listen to the pattering of soft footfalls, then the mattress shifts under her weight and her body curls into me, the soft cotton of her T-shirt brushing my side.

  “Leah?” I ask, more out of a lack of anything else to say.

  “Were you expecting someone else?” I feel the curve of her grin against my bare shoulder.

  I chuckle and rest my cheek on her silky hair, breathing in until the concerns about tonight’s events are no more than a twinge in my mind. “I wasn’t expecting you. It’s a nice surprise.”

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Neither could I.” I sigh into her hair. “I sleep better with you by my side.” One corner of my mouth quirks upward.

  Leah raises herself to look at me, her features lost in shadow. “You said staying on the train wasn’t on purpose. I can’t stop thinking about what kept you there.”

  I shift so I’m facing her. The weight of her gaze rests on my face. I can feel it, probing and intense. Self-conscious, I gulp in a breath. “I met a woman.”

  Although I cannot see her features, I imagine her eyes narrowing, making a small crease between her eyebrows.

  “According to her, she was there by her own design because she knew.”

  “Knew what?”

  “Everything, it seemed.” I snort a short chuckle. “The woman claimed to know what we were, why you were there, what the train’s future was. Her story was fascinating but completely unbelievable. At first, I thought she might be there to cause you problems. Hence, I sat with her. Then I wondered if she was sane. That’s still up for debate, I suppose.”

  “What does your gut tell you?”

  I force myself not to roll my eyes. “That she was telling the truth and had seen the things she claimed. But I don’t know. From her appearance, she wasn’t Endless, or Soulless, thank God.”

  “Could this woman be another soul immortal? With memories like I have?”

  “Perhaps. Still, if everything she said was true, I’m not sure if that makes any sense. Although right now, from the little I know, it is my best guess. But it doesn’t explain how she knew who we were.”

  “If she were, that would mean there have been at least three of us,” she says more to herself.

  “It would.” Besides Leah and now possibly Gladys, there had been one o
ther known soul immortal named Amun who also remembered past lives. Years earlier, he and Kemisi had fallen in love and married. From Artagan’s story, they lived a long, happy life together until Amun’s death. To Kemisi’s surprise, when Amun’s soul moved on to its next body, his memories of Kemisi went with him. Those recollections were so strong that he sought her out. Before Leah, the council believed Amun’s retained memories were an abnormality. However, their story didn’t have a happy ending. In the man’s third life, all memories of Kemisi vanished, and he never returned.

  “Did you Google her?” A glimmer of excitement brims in her words.

  “Ah, well… about that,” I grope, helpless, then rake my fingers through my matted hair in a nervous reflex.

  Lost in enthusiasm, Leah doesn’t seem to hear the tentative tone in my voice or see the guilty expression on my face, even after she turns on the light. She slips from the bed with all the eagerness of a child on Christmas but stops short when she sees her laptop sitting open. Her lips purse into a tight line—a sure sign of impending doom.

  I avoid her gaze as I swing my legs off the bed and grab a shirt off the floor. “I tried Googling her after I remembered you left your laptop, er… but I hit a roadblock, um…” My words trail off, ending with a shrug.

  Over on the settee, Leah stares at her computer screen. A flash of irritation passes over her face. My cheeks flare hot, and I find tugging on my shirt takes immense concentration.

  “What did you do? It’s frozen solid.” Clear astonishment mounts in her voice.

  I heave a sigh, hanging my head. “Did I break it then?”

  “It’s just locked up. Give me a minute. It needs to reboot.” The reappearance of the casual tone in her answer suggests whatever I did is nothing but a minor nuisance and not a disaster. Her fingers drum against her sweatpants while she waits. After a minute or two, she returns to the bed with the computer, plopping cross-legged atop the coverlet next to me. “Okay, we’re up and running.”

  I tilt my head in her direction. “Out of curiosity, what is the password?”

  Her mouth twitches as if with the urge to make a comment, but she bites her lower lip instead. Then with a smile, she shakes her head. “No.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “No, but I think it would be better if you never touch my computer again.”

  “Fair enough.”

  She stifles a laugh. “So where do we start?”

  “Well,” I say, “her name was Gladys, no last name. She said she survived a train wreck in ’39. Only five of them survived. She told me her name made it into all the papers, so that seems like a logical place to start.”

  “Agreed,” she says as she types. “Where am I looking?”

  “Britain. 1839. She mentioned being from Cheapside.”

  “1839? Not 1939?” she asks, frowning.

  “That’s right.”

  “Okay.” Eyes fixed on the display, Leah’s fingers tap a rhythmic beat along the keys. Her mouth, first screwed up in concentration, relaxes. “Okay, there was one, but not much information either, just a date, July 24, and a place. Whiston?”

  “It’s a small town in Northwest England. Then again, I’m sure it’s grown into a city by now,” I muse, but Leah doesn’t hear me, too lost in the hunt.

  “Here it is,” she says, glancing up from the screen. “In a paper called the Liverpool Mercury. Let’s see, it says there were seventy-five dead and only five survivors.”

  “That has to be it. It’s got to be,” I say, scooting closer and craning my neck to look over Leah’s shoulder.

  “Okay. Augustus Webber, of Liverpool, and Helen McMillian, of Oxford, Merrill and Betsy Hale, both of Whiston, all suffered injuries. A Gladys Anne Hathaway,” Leah says, emphasizing the name, “of London, walked away without a scratch, and I quote, ‘due to the providence of the Lord.’”

  The confirmation of Gladys’s story rouses another round of hope—hope that Gladys was more than a mere fortune-teller, hope that Gladys was indeed a soul immortal. Although with Gladys dead, I’m not sure how much help any of this research will be.

  I realize Leah’s still talking. “Her parents, Ezra and Agnes Hathaway, were both killed in the crash. She was thirteen. I can’t imagine losing both parents so young.”

  “Nor can I. One was hard enough,” I say. It’s an experience Leah and I share. My father died when I was seven, and Leah’s dad died when she was ten. I shake off the sadness and focus on the task. “How about Queen Victoria attending a concert given by Edmund Chipp at the Royal Panopticon in 1855? Can you find that in there?” I swish my hand at the computer, a strange waft of excitement slinking through me.

  “Let’s see.” After a few quick keystrokes, she smiles. “Yup, here we go, in the London Times. “Edmund Thomas Chipp, Gladys Anne Hathaway Perform For Queen”. Oh look, there’s even a drawing.”

  In a black-and-white engraved image, a man sits at an impressive organ, its massive, tapered pipes lining the wall on either side of him. At his flank stands a woman dressed in a fancy gown, singing her heart out, with Queen Victoria sitting stoic in the front row. Although I’m sure it isn’t accurate, the rendering showcases all the essential players, but the faces are small and the details vague.

  “You said Gladys looked old. How old? Best guess,” Leah says, her eyes focused on the screen.

  “In her eighties.”

  “Okay, that means she was born in, what? The 1930s?”

  I nod but say yes when I realize Leah isn’t looking my way.

  “So if Gladys was a soul immortal, then why didn’t her name change from one life to the next? Mine did. I guess the last name could stay the same depending, but the first?”

  “A family name, maybe? One that’s been passed from one generation to the next. Must be.”

  Gladys’s and my conversation thrusts into the forefront of my mind. The moment I thought Gladys truly was crazy—

  “‘It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.’ I like to think I gave him that line, but I’m sure he wouldn’t have agreed.”

  “Gave whom? William Shakespeare?”

  I stare at the drawing, wheels turning. Then, glancing away from the image, I say, “This is a long shot, but I need you to find something else for me. A painting of William Shakespeare’s wife, Anne Hathaway.”

  Leah narrows her eyes into slits, a little bewildered by my new path. Then as her eyes widen, she says, “You can’t think—?”

  “Just show me, please.”

  “All right.” Leah puffs out her cheeks while she pursues my request. “I had to do a report on her portrait last year in art history. There’s only one. Sir Nathaniel Curzon drew it years after Anne died, traced it from an Elizabethan portrait. It’s the only surviving image. The original painting was destroyed or lost. Here it is.” She turns the laptop so I can see the sketch.

  I study the flowing lines of the woman’s hair swept up under a rough illustration of a close-fitting cap. Quick, curved strokes represent the ruffled collar gathered tight around her throat. Both the cap and the ruffle are indicative of the sixteenth century. My attention wanders from her collar to a pair of bowed, thin lips and then up her defined Roman nose, settling on her almond-shaped eyes. Although Gladys’s features were aged, the similarities are uncanny, if not identical.

  “At the time I found it odd,” Leah goes on, pulling me from my thoughts. “You’d think there would be more records of her existence, besides this”—she points at the display—“and a few remarks in legal documents. But I suppose she wasn’t notable like her husband.”

  “Younger, but that’s the woman I met today. I’d swear it.”

  “But.” Leah pauses and her lips purse in thought. “You told me looking like Lydia was a fluke. What? Another fluke?”

  I rub my hand across my chin. “I know it seems unlikely, but
why not? And anyway, we should see this theory through to the end, see if it will be of any use to you and your status. Gladys mentioned controlling her destiny. Maybe you can, too.”

  “Free myself from the council, you mean. That’s what we’re talking about, right?” Leah’s voice is as placid as her face, but despite all her effort, I hear a hint of strain in it. She touches the locket Artagan gave her.

  I can’t deny that the thought hasn’t crossed my mind. Hope stirs again, threading its way through the hesitations and the doubts to the forefront of my mind. “Well, yes, that would be the ultimate goal, wouldn’t it? I’m not saying it’s even possible. Artagan would like us to believe it’s not.”

  Leah’s expression remains skeptical.

  “Look, even I know I’m grasping at straws here, but I’ll never stop wishing or searching,” I say.

  “No, I guess not.” Her gaze strays to the floor.

  “Nor can I sit idly by if there’s a possibility of setting you free. You can’t ask that of me. It was you who asked me to follow my gut, to cling to hope. That’s what I’m trying to do.” I continue, “Artagan himself admits he doesn’t understand everything when it comes to soul immortality, despite being one himself. From the brief time spent with the council in the catacombs, it was evident that the members don’t have a complete understanding of this abnormality themselves.” My throat tightens at the memory of my hours in the belly of that monastery, thinking I’d never see Leah again. I draw in a breath, not letting the feelings of remembered dread get a foothold, and go on. “And they have thousands of years of knowledge. Much more than Artagan. So who knows what you’re capable of.”

  “But I’m not a soul immortal anymore. I’m immortal.”

  “True. But we don’t know enough to assume anything.” I settle back against my pillow and stretch out my legs in front of me. Eyes toward the ceiling, my fingers pluck at an eyebrow while I think. “We’ll start with Kemisi. She’d be our best bet because of her relationship with Amun, and her friendship—I guess that’s what you’d call it—with Artagan. He says he trusts her. That must be true since she’ll be living here.”