by Jaime Loren
She sighed. “Oh, Mr. Parker. You were right. I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of you.”
Chapter 26
(April)
Scott had stayed up for the rest of the night to watch over me while I slept, smiling whenever I’d opened my eyes. He wasn’t used to sleeping, nor did he want me to disappear from sight. The fact he was now snoring softly in my ear was comforting. He’d finally relaxed. Right now, in this moment, we were just a normal couple.
And I was starving.
I slipped from his grasp, careful not to make a sound, and drifted from the room.
I opened the fridge and swept my eyes across the shelves. A couple of glassfuls of juice did the trick, and a banana and a muffin satiated my hunger. Well, that particular hunger, anyway. My stomach fluttered at the memory of last night. If it was that good the first time, I could only imagine what our future held.
It was going to be different this time. It had to be. I knew who we were, and I’d even started remembering things from our past. We were together again, the way we had been before … before everything went wrong. We were happy now …
Happy.
I sat at the kitchen counter, staring at the marble laminate, tracing the swirling patterns until my eyelids grew heavy again, wondering how …
What was I wondering? I think I was going to wonder something …
I slipped off the stool and lost my balance, slamming my knees into the hardwood floor before feeling it smack against my cheek. This can’t be … Does the …
I’m going to be sick.
Minutes passed, I think.
“Good morning,” came a faraway voice. Not Scott.
I was heavy.
Cold, and hot.
It was bright outside, aside from the black shadow hanging over me. My arms, my legs—so heavy.
“Sorry,” I said. At least, I think I said it out loud.
So tired. Time to sleep.
Fight, April. Fight.
The sound of water.
“Swim … swimming … Can’t,” I slurred, my mouth numb, my tongue swollen. I tried to shake my head, but all it did was roll, the planks of the dock beneath me echoing the thumping in my head. We stopped for a moment, I think. Warm lips touched my cheek. A sweet kiss.
And then my world was cold. Too cold. And wet. My yelp was cut short by a mouthful of water. My heart was pounding and squeezing so hard that, even if I were above water, I didn’t think I’d be able to breathe.
Scott!
Wobbling bubbles floated up and out of reach—bubbles that held pieces of my life. They were seconds in time, free to be reunited with the atmosphere above as I sank in my invisible cage, weighted down by unresponsive limbs. My chest burned. My legs screamed with a dull pain, pumping adrenaline I couldn’t use.
Scott!
My head throbbed as darkness closed in.
Scott …
And then everything went black.
Chapter 27
(Scott)
I jolted awake, my heart racing, and reached out for April.
She wasn’t there.
“April?”
I sat up and threw on my shorts. The cabin was silent; there was no sound of running water or things banging around in the kitchen. The stairs creaked as I went downstairs, but not even Duke came to greet me the way he usually did. My stomach turned.
“April?” I yelled, my voice echoing throughout the empty dwelling.
No.
I yanked the door open and stepped out into the cold morning fog—or what should’ve been cold morning fog. But my skin didn’t prickle with goose bumps.
No.
I shuddered. My fingernails had no effect on my arm. None.
“No, no, April!”
I turned left and right, searching the woods, searching my truck, refusing to let the tears that blurred my vision overflow. I couldn’t be invulnerable. She was here, alive. She knew who she was—what I was—and she loved me. She’d made love to me only a few hours ago. She’d slept in my arms. I’d watched over her and held her so tight.
There was no possible way she could have died.
“April!”
I’m not invulnerable. I can’t be.
After checking the barn and finding the horses still in their stalls, I turned back for the cabin. Did I check the bathroom? Maybe she’d fallen and hit her head.
Or she was walking Duke.
Yes. She had to be. Why else would he be gone, too?
She would walk him around the lake. She wouldn’t have gone far.
Oh God, I’m invulnerable.
“April!” I sprinted toward the lake, but I saw her before I reached the shore, floating on her stomach a few yards from the end of the dock. I dived in, reaching her in one stroke. She was cold. So cold. The twenty-yard swim to the shore felt like one hundred yards. As soon as I was waist-deep, I was running, April’s limp, blue body in my arms.
“No no no no no April! Come on, baby, come back to me.”
Once we were on dry land, I laid her down and started CPR. A rib cracked under the force of my first compression, horrifying me. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, unwilling to acknowledge the fact her eyes were void of light. I tried not to look at them. I tried to remember the feel of her in my arms last night, and the way she’d looked at me then.
“Damn it, April, please!” I begged, straddling her and joining my hands together to make a fist, then slamming it down on her breastbone. Water gushed from her mouth, but she still didn’t move. I did it again, forcing more water out, and again. “April!” I climbed off her and rolled her on her side to drain her mouth, then rolled her back and continued compressions.
She’d been in the water a long time.
She’s not dead. She’s not.
Why didn’t I check the water first?
I can bring her back.
I must’ve woken up when her heart stopped beating.
“April!”
Jesus, she’s gone.
I shook my head.
I had to get my phone.
I had to keep up the compressions.
“April, please,” I begged.
After another minute, I knew it was pointless continuing by myself. I had to call for help. Pulling her into my arms, I ran for the cabin, bursting through the door and laying her on the living room floor.
Thirty more compressions and I ran for my phone, dialing 911 as I collapsed by April’s side and continued working on her whilst directing emergency services to our location.
It could’ve been fifteen minutes later when the chopper landed on the shore of the lake; it could’ve been an hour. I’d lost count of how many times I’d given her breath, compressed her chest, cracked a rib.
Begged her to wake up and tell me she loves me.
The EMTs took over as I told them, numbly, how long she’d been … dead.
Because she was dead. I was invulnerable, and she had no signs of life.
Dead.
Gone.
“I’ve got a pulse,” exclaimed one of the EMTs.
I staggered back. My relief came in the form of tears.
“Good work, son,” another told me as they wheeled her out and loaded her into the chopper. “You may have saved her life.”
Chapter 28
(April)
Scott pressed his lips to the back of my neck. I bit my lip and smiled when he slid his hand around my belly and pulled me harder against him, making his desires known.
I giggled. “Again?”
He repositioned his mouth near my ear and kissed me on the tender spot just below it. “You don’t want to?”
I moaned softly. “I always want to.”
His tongue replaced his lips, making me quiver, and his hand moved down to pull my nightgown up slowly. His fingers traveled the inside of my thigh to pull my knees apart as he positioned himself behind me.
The sound of footsteps down the hall put a fast end to things.
I gasped. “Mother!”
Scott rolled off the bed and pulled up his breeches while I fixed the bed sheets and my gown back into their original positions. He turned this way and that, realizing he was running out of time to secure a good hiding place. By the time my door handle turned, he was flat against the floor on the opposite side of my bed. I threw myself back onto my pillow and closed my eyes.
“April?”
I took a deep breath and rolled over, fluttering my eyelids. “Mm?”
“You have chores today. It’s your turn to milk the cows, and when you’ve finished that, I need you back at the house with me to finish Miss Reece’s wedding dress.”
I yawned. “Okay.”
“If we get time we might be able to make a start on your dress, too.”
I smiled. “I would like that, Mother.”
She came over and sat on the edge of my bed, and I kept my smile firmly in place despite the butterflies in my stomach. I lay down to pull her gaze away from the other side of the bed.
“It’s not long now, is it,” she said. “You must be getting nervous?”
I shook my head. “No. I love him. I’d marry him this very moment if I could.”
My mother’s hand came to rest on my cheek. “You’re a lucky girl, April. Your father and I couldn’t have chosen a better husband for you if we’d tried.”
I sat up and threw my arms around her. “Thank you.”
She rubbed my back and pulled away. “Now, go downstairs and get something to eat. You’ve got a busy day ahead.”
I nodded and smiled, and she stood and moved to the door.
“Oh, and Scott?”
My cheeks burned furiously as Scott sat up slowly, sheepishly rubbing the back of his head.
“There are some bread and eggs for you downstairs, and then you’d better head home before Mr. Fletcher comes back from mending the fences. God knows he loves you, but it’s one thing to assume you might have a certain knowledge of his daughter before your wedding night, and another thing entirely to see it in action.”
Scott’s neck reddened. “Understood, Ma’am. Thank you kindly.”
She smirked and closed the door behind her.
Scott and I turned to each other and burst into laughter. I collapsed back onto the bed, pulling the sheet over my face, but he was soon under the covers with me again, pulling me to his lips. He kissed me quickly but thoroughly.
I moaned. “Oh, can three weeks not come faster?”
“It will be here before you know it. And then you’ll be my wife—you’ll be stuck with me forever.”
“Do you promise?”
His smile brightened his whole face, and warmed me through. “I promise. I live for you, April. There is no force on earth that could keep me from being at your side.”
He kissed me again, and I wrapped my arms and legs around him to hold him tight.
Unable to open my eyes, I was vaguely aware of my parents speaking softly on either side of my bed.
The voice of a stranger was the loudest of all.
“We’re keeping an eye on her lactate levels, but the best thing we can do for her right now is keep her at ninety-one degrees. By applying therapeutic hypothermia, her brain has a better chance of survival. In around twenty-four hours we’ll take her off and start warming her up again, which will be a slow process. We don’t want to rush that.”
Mom sobbed. “When will she wake up?”
“We won’t wean her off the Propofol until she reaches ninety-eight degrees, and that can take around a day.”
“She’s going to be okay, though, right, Dr. Beckingham? Scott saved her.”
“The truth is, Mrs. Fletcher, we don’t know how long she was in the water. We don’t know how long her brain went without oxygen.”
“Will she have … brain damage?” Dad. “Because she’s a really smart girl—she’s going to Harvard. She’s—”
“We’ll know more in the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours.”
A moment of silence.
“I think I … I know I broke some ribs.”
Scott.
“Two. But that’s the least of our concerns right now. Let’s just—”
A thump stole my breath, and my limbs grew painfully heavy. The second thump triggered an alarm. I tasted blood; I couldn’t breathe.
“Turn off the machine!”
The doctor’s voice faded. The alarms stopped sounding. The pain in my limbs disappeared, releasing me into a warm, dark place. The same place I’d been thrown into only a few hours ago. A place that only Scott had been able to pull me from.
More dreams, a patchwork of my numerous lives.
Painting flowers …
Nutmeg as a foal …
Shadow clearing my fence …
Scott dancing with me to Louis Armstrong …
My sister, Sarah, and my brother, Ben …
A young Daphne Porter putting an extra marshmallow in Henry’s coffee …
Duke licking my face …
A knife slitting my throat …
Air. Every five seconds.
Air.
Without fail.
Air.
An occasional beep.
Air.
A warm hand in mine.
Air.
Too soft and small to be Scott’s
Air.
“The chest X-rays showed bilateral infiltrates consistent with Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, which would explain why she was increasingly difficult to ventilate. We’ll keep her intubated until that resolves, but for now it’s best if she remains under sedation.”
“Will she have any heart damage from the vent … the ventri …?” Mom sounded so tired.
“Ventricular fibrillation? No.”
“How long will she be in this coma?”
“It could be a week, it could be three. We’ll have to monitor her lung injury.” The doctor sighed, then spoke softly. “It would be remiss of me if I didn’t bring to your attention the possibility she might not wake up.”
I will. I will. I’m right here!
“Or that if she does, she might not be as functional as she was before.”
Oh Mom, please don’t cry.
Please don’t.
Scott, comfort her.
Scott.
Scott?
Another alarm.
Another fall into darkness.
I searched frantically for a way out. I listened intently for Scott’s voice. I waited for the magic of his touch. I looked for the light that would lead the way.
The light didn’t come.
Chapter 29
(Scott)
England – May
Professor Tom Newberry’s office at Oxford University looked as if it had been furnished in the early eighteenth century, so it was no wonder I felt at ease. There were globes of the world—some dating back to the days when it had only just been theorized that the world was round, and hundreds of books, with subjects ranging from Ancient Greek Mythology to Quantum Physics. Compasses sat on his dark wooden table, and notebooks were scattered around in no particular order that I could make out. They reminded me of my office at the cabin, where everything was chaotically organized.
The professor himself was in his late fifties. As a teaching theologian, he specialized in reincarnation but was also schooled in physics. I’d figured him the best person to point me in the right direction to help figure out what was happening to April, and to me. The memory of her lying in a bed, intubated and comatose, racked me with guilt. I’d had no choice but to leave her. I couldn’t just sit there and watch her die. She had her parents, and Rowan, and because Joshua had woken up, she now had Stella.
We needed answers before it was too late, so I’d gone back to the cabin to search for Duke and collect some of the journals. I’d almost given up on finding him, but then he’d staggered across the shore as I was loading Big Blue up. From the look of him, he’d been through hell and back, no doubt picking a fight with a beaver across the other side of
the lake. After dropping him back at Henry’s with a bandage on his leg, I’d caught the first flight to London.
After the pleasantries were over with, I asked him what he knew of immortality.
He smiled, obviously intrigued by where my inquiries were leading. “While there are no real documented cases of humans achieving immortality, there is a species of jellyfish known to be biologically immortal. As well, there are microscopic animals that are extremely difficult to kill. The combination of two such biological attributes has been the quest of man ever since the dawn of time—or at least when man became intelligent enough to ponder such things.”
“What about humans capable of coming back as the exact same person?”
He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his chin. “Bacterial cells are considered to be replicas of their parent cell. Scientifically, they are biologically identical. But they’re soulless. What you’d be suggesting is almost biologically impossible. Reincarnation is defined by the rebirth of the soul, not the flesh. Even the Dalai Lama, whose reincarnation is documented and accepted by millions, does not come back resembling the previous Dalai Lama.”
Impossible. Of course.
“But,” he continued, “there are theories in modern times that how one person dies can determine their bodily appearance in the next life—birthmarks where the previous body was shot, etcetera. That’s the closest thing I can think of for a case of physical reincarnation.”
Just as I’d expected, April’s case was unexplainable.
“I’m not saying it’s impossible. I would be more than interested if a case were to present itself.”
I nodded slowly and took a deep breath. “What about soul mates?”
“Mr. Spencer, may I ask what has inspired you to ask such questions?”
I leaned forward. “What if I told you I know of a woman who has been reincarnated as the exact same person—and that she even has the exact same name each time? Every detail is the same, from the length that she grows her hair, to the position of her birthmark.” I eyed him carefully.
