by Jaime Loren
My throat constricted, and I threaded my fingers through hers. “Too quickly, for some.”
April stifled a sob. “I love you with all of my heart, Scott Parker. I’ll never leave you.”
“April—”
“Scott?” My mother placed her hand on my shoulder, and both April and I turned our heads to look at her. My mother had the same eyes as me, blue with green flecks, but her hair was as black as night. “My sweet boy,” she whispered, placing her hand on my cheek. Tears filled her eyes. “April isn’t here.”
The air escaped my chest in a whoosh, as if I’d been kicked by a horse. I cast my gaze across the table again. April’s hand wasn’t in mine. The chair opposite me was empty. I lowered my head and cried, and my mother took me in her arms, her words of comfort doing nothing to ease my grief.
I was broken, mind and soul, my only medicine lying in a wooden box, buried six feet under.
Later that night, when the house was quiet, I climbed out my window so as to avoid the creaky staircase. Not even the dogs woke up as I jumped from the white oak tree and made my way down to the barn for the first time since I’d kissed her cold lips goodbye.
The hardest part was saying goodbye to Shadow. My parents had bought him when I was two years old. I’d been riding him since I was five. The thought of riding him now, without April alongside on Nutmeg, was too much to bear.
After smoothing his neck and whispering farewell, I took one of his ropes, tied a noose, and flung it over the beam that sat above the place where April had taken her last breath.
Chapter 14
(April)
We sat a good six feet apart, facing each other.
“You tried to kill yourself?”
“I didn’t know you were coming back.”
I swallowed hard. Scott had lost me nineteen times already. When I thought I’d lost him just the once, I was broken. But I’d only lived that reality for a few seconds before realizing he was okay. Scott had never had that luxury. I was the love of his life, and all I’d been able to bring to his life was … death.
I was his living hell.
The more he told me, the more energy drained from my body, but my thirst for information was too great.
“So, I came back, and you found me again.” Another shiver ran through me. It was incredible that we were even having this conversation. “But when I’m … gone, what do you do?”
He sighed. “I search for answers. I look for connections between your deaths, but so far I’ve found none.” His eyes landed on mine. “And … I wait.”
“For me?”
“I will always wait for you, April.”
My heart swelled, but my stomach hollowed. What did I do to deserve such devotion? I wasn’t special. Why would he spend almost three centuries trying to find me? Surely Scott Parker could do better than me. What if I didn’t live up to his expectations this time around? What if I didn’t live much longer at all?
I stood up and paced back and forth, my mouth dry. “How else have … how many ways have I died?”
“April. I don’t—”
“A fire?” I stopped and faced him. “Stabbing?”
His eyes narrowed in question.
“I have nightmares,” I said, rubbing my hands together. “I mean, you’re supposed to wake up before you die in your dreams, aren’t you? Like when you fall? You’re supposed to wake up, but I never do—not until morning comes. I die, and there’s nothing but darkness for what feels like eternity, and … it terrifies me.” I looked up at him, my voice shaking. “And now I know why.”
Shock whitened his face. He wasn’t talking, so I kept going. I needed to fill the silence.
“I take pills.” I knew I was talking too fast, but I couldn’t slow down. “Benzodiazepines. They help me sleep. I don’t have the nightmares when I take them, but you took them away, and—”
“I took them? The pills? I haven’t touched them, April.”
My cheeks burned as I stared at him. “They were in your room.”
“I swear to God I haven’t touched them. I would never jeopardize your health like that.”
His eyes didn’t falter in their sincerity. But if it truly wasn’t him, then who had moved my pills? Rowan? Stella? Why would either of them do that?
He ran a hand through his hair. “You … This has never happened before. Not that I’m aware of, anyway.” Color rushed back to his cheeks. “Do you see anything else in the dreams? Anything other than …?”
“No,” I replied. “Just the last few moments.”
His shoulders sagged, his face filling with sadness. “I’m so sorry.”
“Not your fault.” I looked away, wondering when it was going to start sinking in that my nightmares were memories.
Memories!
When I sank to the ground, Scott knelt in front of me and placed his hand on my shoulder. “April—”
I recoiled. “Don’t.”
The hurt in his eyes when I finally met them broke my heart.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“No, I … I wasn’t thinking.”
“I just—I need some space.”
“Of course.” He shuffled back.
With increased distance between us, though, came an overwhelming sense of loss. Jesus, I was so confused. “How does this sort of thing even happen? Why do I keep coming back?”
“I’ve been asking that same question for nearly three hundred years.”
It sounded worse when he said it like that. Three hundred years?
“This isn’t—this can’t be happening. What is this? Some twisted nightmare?”
He couldn’t answer. I tried to think about it rationally, and snorted. Rationally? None of this was rational. I nodded and rose to my feet. “Okay.” I paced back and forth again. “What if I don’t die this time? What if I was supposed to die yesterday, but you saved me?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s possible.”
“Well, if you started out like me, why are you stuck like this now? Will you be stuck like this forever?”
“No. There are times … when we’re together again … that I start to age naturally.”
“So you were seventeen when you found me this time, and now you’re nineteen because we’ve been friends for two years?”
He stood. “No, I—”
“Wait—you told me you were seventeen when we met, but in your journal it said you were nineteen when I was … fourteen … so does that make—Jesus, are you twenty-two years old?”
He groaned. “I’ve been nineteen for eighty years, April.”
I drew back, confused. He spoke slowly, but in no way did he speak down to me. I was glad for that. I already felt as though I was watching the lame movie version of an epic novel I was supposed to know by heart, and huge—no, massive—chunks were missing from the final cut.
“Whenever I lose you, I stop aging,” he explained. “I was eighteen the first time you died. But when I was reunited with you seventeen years later, I began to age again.”
“Right away?”
He looked down. “No. Not right away.”
“So how long does it take? Because we’ve been together for two years already—”
“I start aging again when you tell me you’re in love with me,” he blurted.
I froze.
“They were your last words to me before you died the very first time.” He shrugged. “I guess it’s fitting, in a way. It’s as if time picks up where we left off the first time.”
My mouth hung open for a moment before noise actually slipped out. “Oh.”
He folded his arms across his chest as his eyes settled on me. “Yeah.”
“So … what you’re saying is … if I never tell you those words, you’ll remain like this forever? Invulnerable?”
“I think so.”
I nodded, thinking hard about what he was telling me. “Do you want me to say those words? So you can be normal?”
He raised his eyeb
rows.
“I mean—so you can age normally,” I added, realizing I’d just insulted him. “If I’m the only thing that stands in the way of you having a normal life—”
He exhaled and stepped back. “I’d only want to hear them if you truly meant them. I don’t think they would work unless you did, anyway.”
“Oh,” I replied. The urge to tell him I’d already fallen for him was strong, but I had to be logical. The man I thought I knew no longer existed. The one in front of me was born three hundred years ago. I pressed my palms to my forehead and rubbed in circular motions. “I, ah—I …”
“If you don’t love me,” he said, “I’ll be happy just to know you’re okay, and that you’re happy. I don’t want you to feel obligated to … be with me.”
I stood still, but his gaze weakened my knees. “I don’t know what to do here,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.”
He shook his head. “You have absolutely nothing to be sorry for, April. Nothing.”
We stood in silence. I crossed my arms. Scott placed his hands in his back pockets.
“Is it okay if I go inside? I need to sit down,” I said.
“Of course.” He bowed his head slightly and stepped back, pale. “I’ll give you some space.”
My legs trembled as I turned for the cabin. Once inside, my strength failed me, and I stumbled to the couch. It all made sense now—those small mannerisms of his seemed like an obvious giveaway: the way he removed his cap whenever I was near, and the way he always held my door open or offered me his arm. I’d thought him old-fashioned, but could never have imagined it was because he was fashioned three centuries ago.
I sat in the living room for a while, trying to comprehend everything I’d just heard, before I returned to the study. The photos I’d thrown at Scott were still on the floor. I picked them up and studied them carefully. I looked happy with him. We looked happy together. I sank to the floor.
Nothing made sense anymore. Everything I thought I knew was wrong. My parents were just another set in a long line of parents. And my friends—how many of them were living lives they’d lived before? Did everyone get a second chance—or a thirteenth and fourteenth and fifteenth chance? Had my pet dog Barkley been reborn into another family as the exact same dog? Had they named him Barkley? Was he destined to be named Barkley, over and over again? It was entirely possible. The laws of the universe were breakable. Or perhaps there weren’t any laws.
I turned a photograph over to read the inscription. “April, Henry, and me—June, 1949.”
My heart skipped a beat. I’d pushed it to the back of my mind earlier, but of course Henry would’ve known about my past. He’d been pretending to be Scott’s grandfather.
I squeezed my eyes closed and pinched the bridge of my nose. Images of the two of them rough-housing the other day came flooding back. Oh God, they weren’t family at all—they were best friends. My hand shook as I scrutinized the photograph. I felt cheated. I was the only one out of the three of us who didn’t know anything about my past. We’d obviously all been friends in the forties. Did Henry know about me back then? Or did Scott have some explaining to do when I died? When Henry kept aging but Scott remained the same?
How on earth did we all get here?
I rose to my feet. Scott was still sitting outside on the stump. His eyes were fixed on the door as if he expected me to come marching out at any moment. I had more questions, yes, but I wasn’t sure if I’d get a completely honest answer out of Scott. I wanted to believe everything he’d told me—and there was certainly photographic evidence to support his claims—but it was all from his point of view. His feelings, his observations, his experiences.
All I had were nightmares and flashes of memories, and I certainly wasn’t going to ask him whether or not my memory of what took place in the lavender field was accurate.
I chewed my lip and glanced around.
I was at a cabin with a man who’d been my closest friend—a man who was very possibly my soul mate—and I’d never felt so alone.
I put the picture down and went upstairs. My cell phone was where I’d left it on my bedside table. I picked it up and wiped my thumb back and forth across the screen, thinking.
There was only one person who knew Scott better than I did—one person who had nothing to gain, and nothing to lose, by speaking the truth. I held down the home button until it beeped.
“Siri—call Henry.”
Chapter 15
(Scott)
I stood and watched the cabin door for some time after April had closed it, my muscles coiled so tight I could barely breathe.
She’s going to leave. She thinks I’m a monster.
I lifted my hands and stared at them. She was right. These hands had held her while she’d died—four times. These hands had been dampened with blood, and with tears … They’d touched her in sacred places, and relieved me of tension when I’d not had the privilege of touching her in sacred places … They’d taken lives in four separate wars … and during a moment of pure rage on a hot summer’s morning in 1862 …
She’d been pulled from my arms during a home invasion, not long after she’d confessed her love for me. Confederate soldiers had dragged her, screaming, from my house while five of them held me back and beat me to a bloody pulp. I never saw the face of the soldier who’d made her kneel before him and placed the barrel of his gun to her heart. My head was held still, though, so that I had to watch him pull the trigger. The last thing I heard was April begging for them to spare me. Not once did she plead for her own life, even though it was obvious he was about to take it.
I was told her death was retribution for money I’d donated to fund the Union’s distribution of arms. Of course, their reasons were manufactured for their own purposes. For years I’d lived a quiet life in the countryside, avoiding attention whilst waiting for April. The minute they took her life and unwittingly returned my invulnerability, though, I did take up arms …
Closing my eyes, I hung my head.
It was a dark moment. A moment I wasn’t proud of—one that April could never, ever know about. But, given the chance, I would do it all over again.
After what they’d done to her, they’d deserved it.
I clenched my fists at the memory.
She’d be right to leave. She’d be smart to leave.
I bent down, picked up the axe, and placed a log on the stump.
It was better when she’d hated me for being wealthy and guarded.
I brought the axe down hard. One log became two halves, never to be one whole again.
I could beg her to stay. Beg her to love me. I could promise I’d never let anything happen to her, but that had never been in my control. If it were up to me I’d wrap my arms around her and never let go. I’d spoil her. Worship her. Lay my life down for her. If I could, I’d turn back time and be the one to fetch rope from the barn.
I brought the axe down on another log, and then another, until I’d run out of wood to chop. It’d been a long time since I’d chopped down a tree, but I wasn’t sure how long we’d be staying out here now, and I didn’t want her to get cold at night. I ventured further into the surrounding woodlands.
I shouldn’t have brought her here. I should’ve told her about the money from the start. I should’ve courted her properly, like Henry had suggested.
After picking out a decent-sized pine, I swung my axe.
She was better off with Rowan. The way he looked at her—I knew he would’ve treated her well.
I swung again.
Who was I to interfere? She’d made her choice by never making a move on me. It was Rowan who’d won her heart, not me.
Pieces of bark fell from the tree with each strike. I froze, mid-swing.
But … she’d never slept with Rowan. They’d been together more than two years, and she was still a virgin.
I dropped the axe.
When she’d been with me in our first life, she’d never held back. Our passion had been unrestrain
ed, and a lot of the time she’d been the one to make the first move—just as she’d been the one to untie the laces of my breeches when we’d shared our first kiss in the field. It had been her hands that had wandered down, not mine. Well, at first, anyway.
I pushed against the tree.
And now she can’t lay her eyes upon me without a look of revulsion.
I pushed with all I had, groaning, and felled the tree with a crack. Its branches collected smaller trees on the way down, sending pine needles through the air and flinging pine cones to the ground. There was no way I was going to be able to lift the tree to take it back for splitting. I was invulnerable to harm, but I didn’t have superhuman strength.
The cabin was barely visible from where I stood. It wasn’t as if April was going to come running out to me any time soon, if at all, so I decided to go and collect the chainsaw from the barn.
Nutmeg came trotting down the road on my way there. Shit. In my haste to get back to April this morning, I’d left Nutmeg’s gate open, and abandoned Shadow at the cabin’s front door. He was nowhere in sight now. I called for him, but there was no thundering of hooves or whinny in reply. With forty square miles to roam, finding him was going to be no easy task.
“Are you up for a challenge?” I asked Nutmeg. She nudged at my pockets as I walked toward the barn. After grabbing a bridle and a handful of sugar cubes, I mounted Nutmeg and headed down to the lake.
Shadow had been frolicking in the shallows of the lake about a quarter of a mile away. It wasn’t difficult to lure him with the promise of sugary goodness. He was an obedient horse for his green age of three years, but he was a stallion, and with that came a small amount of unpredictability. He also had a keenness for adventure, which I could admire. His reins hung loosely over his neck, stopped only by his ears when he lowered his muzzle to the water. I dismounted Nutmeg and removed the reins from her bridle, then mounted Shadow. With a nudge in the ribs I brought him to a trot, and Nutmeg followed behind.
Once we reached the dock I pulled Shadow up to avoid the pebbles on the other side, and glanced over at the cabin.
