Did Burke’s horsepower extend to lethal force, I wondered? The pains they took to keep his organization carefully hidden in the shadows suggested something more than traditional surveillance duties of groups responsible for national security and intelligence gathering. Unless Burke showed again, we were left with little more than supposition.
AFTER TWO EVENTLESS days, Marion called while we were on the road home from a shopping excursion to Wrexham. Aline pulled over so we could change positions and give her the freedom to listen and take notes without distraction, but the call didn’t last long. When she disconnected and looked at me, I was sure we were out of luck, but she smiled and said, “Andre’s story wasn’t hard for Marion to find.” I asked her what that meant, and she began a narrative that brought at least some satisfaction and understanding.
Renard himself was unremarkable, and even his connection to Hurd turned out to be ordinary and free of the intrigues I’d expected to hear. Instead of a shared experience in a distant, unpublished past colored by sneaky bilateral operations no one ever hears about, Hurd and Renard had become relatives by marriage. Marion was thorough and followed the clues in a simple notice taken from a Liège newspaper nearly eight years earlier of the impending wedding joining a British diplomat and a local girl. The groom, Keith Hurd, was Gregory’s youngest son and a junior actuary in the British Embassy’s vast array of trade missions. His soon-to-be bride—a graduate student named Camille Jenneau—also happened to be Andre Renard’s niece. I thought about that for a moment as the picture emerged.
Over time, Renard and Hurd clearly developed a friendship, and from it an avenue opened few enjoy. Somewhere along the process, Renard must have been given enough of a glimpse into Hurd’s world that brought the comfort of knowing a senior operative within the British Defence Ministry had his back in the event anything went wrong. It wasn’t the kind of relationship one would likely need, given their respective positions and nationalities, but Renard knew enough to reach across the English Channel before his ill-fated trip to Denbighshire on the chance he would need additional, political firepower. It seemed a bit excessive to me, but there was an understandable wisdom to it, and we wondered what Renard knew about Hurd that couldn’t be found in Marion’s database investigations.
“There has to be more to it than that,” I declared. “Renard’s a cop—why would he feel the need to bolster his position by calling Hurd?”
Aline didn’t know, and we were left to speculate about something deeper, but at least we understood how they came within one another’s sphere of influence. We found ourselves closer to the end story than we had been, but it only invited more questions about Burke. A lone detective trying to find meaning in his friend’s unexplained death was a solvable problem because he had mounted a search completely on his own initiative. It didn’t matter that Renard’s former position as a cop wasn’t enough to finish the job when matched against Aline’s power. Burke, on the other hand, was differently placed. We would wait but the inevitable conclusion was obvious to Aline, even if I couldn’t see it, and with that truth another step in a long, strange process began.
NOVEMBER arrived and the leaves were nearly gone as we walked among the trees on our customary morning stroll. I pointed to them and wondered what she thought of our life together that grew from origins in that very place. Aline turned and held my hands in hers.
“I knew you would stay, but after Renard’s involvement I wasn’t at all sure how it would turn out.”
“And now?”
“We are exactly where we’re supposed to be, Evan,” she said. “Where we will always be.”
It was a simple reply made without hesitation, and her words seemed to wash over me like a warm tide. It felt wonderful to hear them, for all the reasons it should, but there was more than romantic attachment and I can only describe that moment as the feeling when fears and doubts are suddenly beyond your thoughts. She didn’t mean a path through the woods where we went each day but rather our place beside each other where only we could go.
We went into town and strolled along the river walk, free of tourists and clatter of the summer season, and by any measure I was no longer a strange foreigner. Glances toward the Berwyn Mountains seemed as familiar as those from my childhood in Batavia where Vienne and I ran and played. I mention this only to remind myself how quickly things change and the transition from calm and quiet contentment that’s so often fragile and temporary.
As it had been in the days after Andre Renard went home to Belgium, there was no sign of Burke or his people. Well, I should say no sign we could detect. Aline’s powerful “thought radar” hadn’t gone off suddenly, and it became clear a waiting game was being played out. We knew he’d be back eventually, but I was grateful for the break and a chance to live without fear or suspicion for a change.
I wanted Aline to show me new and exciting examples of what she could do but not by the painful method she released in my living room. I decided to leave it alone for fear it would seem a frivolous ploy for cheap entertainment—which it absolutely was—but also because she scared the hell out of me and I wanted nothing to do with a repeat at that level. Still, there was more to learn and her words echoed in my thoughts as I considered all that had happened and what it would mean. We watched the needles of sunlight pry their way through thick clouds at dusk, but the need to move out of a haze made by simple ignorance pushed me finally to speak.
“How did you talk your way out of that hospital?” I asked. “It doesn’t matter to me, and I know that sounds terrible, but you didn’t black out for a second at that bus stop, did you?”
“Is that what you believe?” she asked suddenly. “That I’m an insane murderer who kills for sport?”
I heard the echoes of betrayal in her voice, but that was not what I meant, and it felt strange to explain what I thought had become obvious.
“No, I don’t believe that, but there’s more to this than you’re telling me, and you said so yourself.”
“Did I?” she replied with a noticeable tone of defiance.
“Yes, you did,” I answered. “You said I wasn’t ready but knowing what you can do makes me wonder when I will be ready.”
I was prying without regard to consequence, but what she had already demonstrated brought us to a new and coldly different place.
“I can’t imagine anything more weird and unlikely but there must be something, so what is it, Aline?”
She looked away, and it was obvious we waited at the end of one mystery as another was about to begin. Time, and our shared experiences, tested me, but I hadn’t wavered or turned away, and it was a bit insulting to think she couldn’t bring herself to open that final door and show me who she was. I watched her in those last seconds, tormented by worry and doubt, never suspecting what waited on the other side. I wasn’t afraid but I had to know the final, most guarded secret she held. I know she’d hoped it wouldn’t come up again, but when it did she was ready: at last, it was time.
Aline stared at me for a moment before steering me toward her house. When she turned to me again I saw the lovely, comforting face I’d come to adore and in her eyes no trace of malice or ill will.
“My time in hospital, and the things I had to do to protect myself, are not what I meant when I told you there is something more.”
“But I thought…”
She held up a hand to shift the discussion where she always knew it would land.
“When I showed you that first time,” she began, “it was necessary so you would understand the things that brought Renard up here. It was the only way because no one believes that sort of thing without seeing and experiencing it.”
“I hear that,” I replied with a smile.
“I didn’t want this for you, Evan,” she said softly. “I’d hoped we could live a normal life; to love each other and grow old together. Renard put things in motion we cannot avoid any longer because Burke isn’t going to leave it alone the way the inspector did.”
&nbs
p; The narrative was needless because I’d lived through the details she described. Still, I knew enough to keep my mouth shut as she continued.
“I showed you those images and made you feel pain because there was not enough time to explain and let you adjust easily. Now, everything is going to change again, and I need you to see and understand what I could never tell you before.”
“I’m not afraid, Aline,” I said bravely, but she just smiled and placed her palm gently against my cheek.
“I know, but this is different, and what you know about me in this moment and the things I can do will seem insignificant an hour from now.”
“It can’t be that bad,” I said with a smirk to show her I could take it like a man.
“I know you worried about my sanity, but it’s nothing to do with this. You will fight against something impossible for you to accept—something that cannot be—until it becomes plain and inescapable. When that moment arrives, there will be fear and confusion but you will become a different person, too.”
I felt a chill when she asked me if I was truly ready because there would be no way back, no chance to unlearn what she was about to reveal. I told her the question was a formality; I had no intention of turning away, but Aline already knew.
“Do you have to pee?” she asked abruptly, and the question seemed absurd and out of place.
“Well, no, not right now…”
“This will take a while, Evan. I can’t have any distractions, so if you need to go, now is the time.”
“I don’t have to pee!” I said with a laugh, but she could hear my nerves fraying in that odd, uncomfortable place between the things we know and those we are about to discover.
“Come on, then,” she said as she took my hand. “I want you to come to bed with me.”
“Wait; right now?” I said, but she laughed and pinched my side.
“Not in that way! But it is important for you to be relaxed completely; no clothes to distract you and just our skin touching so you will feel at ease the way you did when you were a baby.”
I nodded and we walked hand in hand to her bedroom, undressing in the fading light. Aline climbed slowly onto her bed and knelt where she propped her pillows against the headboard, motioning for me to lie on my back. She slid her legs down each side of my body, pulling me toward her until the back of my head rested against her breasts. She brushed back my hair for a moment, cradling my head in her hands, and I could feel the tension and worry begin to ease as though drawn away by an invisible force. It occurred to me Aline’s power was at work once more, but it didn’t matter, and I had no reason to complain. I reached for her hand because I couldn’t see her face behind me.
“If Renard hadn’t come up here to start all this, would you still be showing me this today?”
“No,” she replied flatly. “It’s a horrible thing to say, but I never intended to tell you about any of this.”
“Ever?” I asked.
“What I am,” she said in a near whisper, “is so far from your reality, it would be wrong to burden you with the knowledge unless I had no other option. You struggled when I showed you my abilities, but this...it will be much harder still for you to accept.”
“You make it sound as if you’re some kind of alien. I hope you don’t grow two more heads or sprout dragon wings.”
She leaned forward and placed a soft, gentle kiss on my forehead.
“When we first met in the wood, I wondered about your family and how long it’s been since they left Wales.”
“Yes.”
“You asked me if I was a student of history; do you remember my answer?”
“You said, ‘I am history,’ which I thought was a little weird, but…”
“It was a mistake to say it that way, but I didn’t think we would ever speak of it again.”
“And now?”
“Now that everything has changed,” she continued, “what I couldn’t tell you then is something I must show you tonight. I lied to you about what happened in Brugge, but I will never do that again; you need to see what this is…who I am.”
I took in a deep breath and nodded when she paused for a moment to offer a last chance for me to remain innocent.
“When you see…when you understand, there’s no way back to where you are in this moment, Evan. You can never forget or pretend not to know, and if you don’t want this after all, then say so right now.”
“I’m not leaving and I’m not afraid,” I replied firmly. “Show me, so we can get past it and move on.”
“Then it’s time,” she said at last. “The images will seem strange and foreign, but in time you will understand them. This is just the beginning, a first of many journeys. Be patient and all of it will make sense in time.”
“Will it hurt?” I asked innocently. “The way it did when you first showed me?”
“Not at all,” she answered quickly. “Relax now; it will be a bit like a vivid dream, but we’ll be able to speak to each other. You can ask questions as we go because I will see what you see. Are you ready?”
“I’m ready.”
AFTER ALINE SHOWED me a relatively tame example of her abilities, I was sure there was nothing left in life that might leave me in awe, but the presumption was made too soon. Another mystery—another secret—waited to be discovered. I told her I was ready (and I believed it), but behind me Aline came at last to her own decision point and another fork in life’s road that required action.
I take deliberate care to remember these things because I spent too long seeing it from only my own, limited perspective. It was selfish and inconsiderate, perhaps, but without real understanding I had little choice. As I struggled just to accept her incredible powers of the mind, she fought a hidden battle against an inevitable day when her true identity would be pulled from its hiding place and laid at my feet. Aline knew the risk, but our future together compelled her to what she once refused to reveal. It was getting dark outside but she turned on no lights or lit even one of her many candles. It was “better this way,” she insisted, and I went along at her direction without a word.
It began with a physical sensation I still can’t fully describe: a strange feeling, like cool fluid flowing through my veins, spreading out from my head and down through my torso to my extremities as the first images began to emerge. I thought perhaps my imagination was anticipating—filling in the blanks—but it wasn’t that at all. She didn’t tell me before we started, and I shouldn’t have been surprised by it, but there were so much more than visual cues. She said I would feel things—that I could smell and taste them, too. I waited, watching as my understanding of life changed, and when the objects around me began to clear in my vision, it was crisp and different from the vague images of an ordinary dream.
I saw people across a broad patch of bare dirt, but they were dressed in odd costumes and their words were distant—unintelligible. The smell of smoke met me at once and with it the crackling sound of a carefully kept fire. I saw houses left and right, but they were little more than large huts and circular in their construction with heavily thatched roofs at a severe pitch to form a distinctive, conical shape, like a giant Hershey’s Kiss, perhaps. Between them, people moved through, yet they didn’t notice me. It seemed like a clip from a documentary or dramatic history series describing a place long ago in a time I couldn’t recognize by any outward signs.
I felt a cool breeze moving past me and above, the sun was blotted out by heavy overcast that seemed to hug gentle, barren hills nearby. It took a moment or two before I heard an odd echo, as though from a recording being run backward, until at last I recognized Aline’s voice calling out.
“Evan, can you hear me?”
“Yes,” I mumbled stupidly.
“What do you see?” she asked, but still her voice was distant.
“A village, I think—huts and people moving around a compound,” I answered. “What is this place?”
“Watch a while,” she said, “I’ll explain when we finish.�
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The images faded and re-emerged, but each time it was different. I saw a woman’s face appear more than once and her importance was somehow obvious, even if it remained strange and undefined. I saw a group gathered in a glen near an ancient, gnarled tree, watching as an elderly man with a snow-white beard reached upward to the sky. As he spoke, the others replied in what seemed a bizarre conversation with no one.
“Can you see the old man, Evan?”
“I see him.”
“He is very important, so watch carefully; he will speak to us soon.”
More images passed through like slides in a presentation, but I could feel physical sensations as minute and precise as the uneven ground beneath my feet, cloth against my skin or the sound of rain as more images showed a different place, and I knew without being told time had passed. In an open area bordered by thin plates of slate half-buried vertically in the soil, the old man, wrapped in a heavy, beige-colored robe with folds gathered around his neck, leaned against a smooth wooden staff as he spoke. Beside me three others not more than fifteen years of age sat in a close group to listen.
His language was unlike any I had ever heard, and it lilted like a song filled with odd phonemes from an alien place I couldn’t know. He appeared again in a new image but speaking only to me with a solemn expression meant to hold my attention. Gray, flowing hair framed the creased, leathery skin of his face and within, eyes like Aline’s, blue and shining like the sky on a summer day. Though his words were strange gibberish, I felt a sudden, inexplicable feeling of gratitude for where I was and the reason he spoke. I was held in the embrace of an unexpected sensation of reverence as I listened, and it didn’t matter that I understood none of it. Soon after, the images began to dissipate, and I remember mumbling out loud in complaint because I simply wanted to see more. When the darkness closed in, Aline’s voice called out to me a last time.
The Seventh Life of Aline Lloyd Page 23
