The Seventh Life of Aline Lloyd

by Robert Davies

  No one found my remark amusing, and Aline least of all, so I apologized through a chuckle and the “conversation” resumed. Mo recovered enough to ask about parameters and limits to Aline’s “range” so that identifiable distances could be matched with obstructions and those barriers through which her thoughts could or could not be projected. Halliwell found the concept more interesting when Aline described one or two occasions when she could “hear” from a moving train, and a theory she had to be stationary was eliminated.

  I sat on the periphery while she took them through the details, but it seemed to blend into one run-on sentence after another. In a spectacular display of multitasking, I heard Aline inside me again with a silent, stern warning for me to stop acting like a bored child. All the while, she spoke to Halliwell without pause, and it was stunning to find her thoughts could be divided to work individual tasks and all of them enjoyed a disturbing level of autonomy.

  I went to a side table and found some bottled water, if only for a chance to stretch my legs. While I fiddled with its cap, Berezan stood as well, but he leaned on both hands and looked straight at me.

  “Have you approached a representative in any of our embassies?”

  “No,” I replied. “Why would I?”

  He waited and drew in a deep, dramatic breath as if to suggest I’d failed to meet a solemn responsibility, and that was when my dislike of the man took flight.

  “Without Alan’s considerate alert, neither I nor anyone in our government would know about this and your involvement.”

  “I didn’t realize I was under an obligation to tell you,” I countered.

  “You’re a citizen of the United States, Mr. Morgan, regardless of where you happen to live.”

  “Oh,” I said with as much false concern as I could manage. “In that case, I guess I should tell you my girlfriend has these really cool powers, see, and Mr. Burke here, well, his team is going to study them to figure out how it all works. Friends again?”

  I felt her hand on my arm gently pulling me back to my chair, but Berezan’s dismissive smirk remained.

  “We can discuss it later,” he continued. “There are interests beyond this gathering that will have to be addressed.”

  “Thank you, Gilbert,” Burke said quickly.

  I wanted Berezan to be in a pout, particularly after Burke’s skillful shift back to business, but he jotted a few notes on a pad with an indifferent expression as he waited for Mo to resume. Whatever he wanted to discuss “later” was unimportant to me, and I waited for a chance to tell him so.

  They went back to the playbook and a seemingly endless list of questions designed to establish the history of Aline’s abilities, but most of it was focused on her unique gift of hearing inside another’s thoughts. Burke was obviously interested in the passive aspect, but after an hour Halliwell’s patience was thinning.

  “Could we just divert for a moment?” he asked. “I’d like to understand more about thought projection and the process specifically for the intent of causing pain or discomfort.”

  “All right,” Aline said blandly.

  “You showed us an example,” he continued, “but I’m interested in the degree; was my or Gilbert’s example a low-level demonstration or was it the full extent?”

  “Quite low,” she answered.

  Aline’s speech slowed considerably, and I looked at her closely. Again, she was changing, and I know Burke could see it, too.

  “I see,” Halliwell replied. “If you decided, on the other hand, to turn it up a notch or two, what would a recipient expect to find?”

  Mo leaned forward in her chair as the colonel’s question went quickly to the physiological manifestation of Aline’s ability in tangible terms.

  “How far would you like me to take it?” Aline asked.

  “How far does it go?” Berezan said suddenly and with a demanding tone.

  I waited to see if she would retaliate, but instead Aline’s eyes darted between Halliwell and Burke and I felt the uneasiness return. Her toe began to tap in nervous anticipation when the first waves made their way through in my mind, and I sat sideways quickly to offer a clarification. It wasn’t needed, I suppose, but each second that ticked by brought Halliwell and Berezan closer to another painful demonstration, so I spoke.

  “I think the colonel means something more than what he experienced in Taunton but less than Brugge.”

  She looked at me, and I felt myself teetering on the edge; had it worked, I wondered?

  When she took a deep breath and looked away, the strange, pulsing sensation in my ears stopped and her toe-tapping also ceased.

  “It would depend,” she answered coolly. “If I want to warn somebody off, it would feel like a very severe headache. If they continue the pain increases and unpleasant images appear.”

  “If they’re not dissuaded after all?” Halliwell asked and the room fell utterly silent.

  They knew the answer could be found in a coroner’s report and the fatal damage to Claude Dumont’s brain at the very least, and two dead soldiers removed from her field in a helicopter when the full powers were released. Still, Halliwell waited to hear it from Aline.

  “You have seen the answer to that question for yourself.”

  “We know you can kill,” Halliwell continued without a pause, “but I am speaking of those levels that fall short of fatal intrusion; the images you referred to just now.”

  “It varies according to the person,” she replied simply. “I listen and find those things that frighten them most and if they cannot be warned away, it begins and there is no place for them to hide.”

  “It?” Berezan asked quickly.

  “Sometimes,” Aline answered, “your own imagination is more effective than physical discomfort; I give them a glimpse, and a warning that things will become far worse if they persist.”

  Halliwell nodded and that was that. He wanted to establish threat-to-response ratios, and Aline’s description made it clear her abilities could be meted out in distinct increments. He would never say it outright, but I think the colonel was looking ahead to a time when she might still be enlisted to a darker, more purposeful role inside Britain’s security apparatus.

  Silence is often hardest to maintain in those moments when it must be, and I squirmed in my chair with a powerful urge to tell them who and what Aline really is. I wanted to tell them if only to watch their world crumble, but a cool breeze of understanding moved past me. Burke announced a brief pause to rest, and they shuffled from the room in silence. I hoped the exchange with Halliwell was fresh enough in Aline’s mind to distract her, but the image of Claude Dumont sprawled on a sidewalk made me wonder if there was a difference when Tegwen’s influence was in control. She was ahead of me, and when we stepped outside to stroll around their abbreviated compound’s fence line, she smiled and said, “I wondered when you would come back to this.”

  As it had always been, she waited like a patient mother with outstretched hands to encourage and entice a toddler waddling along in a park.

  “I really wish you wouldn’t do that,” I protested. “It would be nice to have a private thought now and again.”

  “When you’re dwelling that way, it’s impossible for me to miss.”

  “Good job pointing the blame back at me, Aline.”

  “You know what I meant.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know, but it’s still hard to get my head around this,” I replied. “How can you be two people at the same time?”

  “We’ve already been through this, Evan,” she answered.

  “Each time there are two halves that make a whole—I remember. But one of those halves is always Tegwen; every life, every identity was lived as…I don’t know, a hybrid person?”

  “An odd way of putting it, but I suppose so.”

  “She emerges when your emotions run high?”

  “Tegwen and Aline are always here and one is never gone from the other.”

  I waited with caution to continue, but the qu
estions were piling up.

  “When something makes you angry, Tegwen’s personality is prominent.”

  “Not always,” she replied with emphasis. “When I lose my temper and shout at you, for example, Aline is often the one you hear, but it was Tegwen who wept when they opened Rhian’s time capsule.”

  “Aline doesn’t invade some poor bastard’s mind and rip it to shreds!” I complained. “That process belongs to Tegwen.”

  She looked at me with a barely concealed scowl and said, “You speak of Tegwen as if she’s not here, and I wish you would stop. I am right here, for Christ’s sake, and so is Aline!”

  “Damn it, this is confusing!” I said in desperation, but she looped her arm inside mine and pulled it close.

  “You’re making this harder than it needs to be. Others might find my ability a useful ally, not frightening or dangerous; have you ever considered that?”

  “I’m just trying to keep up, Aline; the last thing I want to do is become reliant on bizarre, supernatural shit I can’t even understand!”

  “It’s just new to you. When enough time has passed, you’ll know without being told—you will feel it and the influence of one or the other will be obvious. You will adjust to this, Evan, I promise.”

  Her arguments were reasonable and so I accepted them. And anyway, it’s not always easy discerning Aline’s reaction to the things we discuss; what might seem a signal of rising anger is just as often injured feelings and sadness. When she hears my thoughts, they’re unfiltered and raw because I am never given time to sort through and refine them. Aline cuts out the middleman and goes straight to the source, making it all the more interesting when she doesn’t like what she finds.

  WE HAD TIME, and the late morning air was warming in a mostly clear sky, so I decided to wash out a few nagging questions we hadn’t covered. The first was made by my weird trip to Sweden and the short visit with Birgit Nyström.

  “Before Damon bought the property, Jeremy says there were three other owners since you came down from Stornoway.”

  “Yes,” she replied as though we were speaking in hypotheticals. “Why do you mention it?”

  “Three owners in four years?”

  “What of it?”

  “Did you…”

  She turned away quickly, and I couldn’t see her face.

  “Some of them were assholes, Evan, rude and thoughtless assholes.”

  The answer hovered above me and Jeremy’s very mild description seemed a lot more plausible when I saw the scenarios and how it must’ve played out when they ended up on the wrong side of Aline Lloyd.

  “How bad?”

  “Them or me?”

  “You.”

  She looked away again but not fast enough to hide a sheepish grin. It was precocious and perversely endearing to me, but it also meant the turnover rate really was her doing.

  “I may have sent a suggestion or two from time to time.”

  “I see. Did they know where it was coming from?”

  “Maybe,” she answered through a coy smile, and I couldn’t stop myself from laughing.

  AFTER WE SETTLED, they continued to chisel away at their list, and Aline sat patiently through it all. Mo succeeded in convincing Burke to allow a preliminary physical exam ahead of schedule, but it left me isolated with the “inquisitors” and a battery of associated questions meant to gauge my emotional reaction, knowing Aline could chew me up and spit me out on a whim. Mo’s colleagues wanted to know if I felt my masculine identity was diminished because my position at home was made secondary by Aline’s extraordinary abilities. When I asked them “what man’s position at home isn’t secondary,” their frowns (and reaction to a deliberate insult) became my silent reward.

  I tried an honest description, mostly to satisfy Mo’s curiosity, but also to correct an obvious misperception. There was no doubt, I told them, Aline would win any real fight between us before it could start. However, you could say the same about an ordinary man attached to a karate black belt, or maybe a girl who practices mixed martial arts at a high level. It doesn’t mean we’re sissies or “metro boys” temperamentally suited to a submissive role. The distinction in our house is never at the forefront and Aline hasn’t asked me to surrender my manhood to avoid conflict. When I finished, Mo just smiled and nodded. To this day I can’t decide if her response was a sign of understanding, or if she thought I was only blowing smoke to save face.

  Midway through the afternoon session, Aline decided she was done for the day, and Burke disappeared to arrange our plane ride back to Liverpool. The RAF guys were waiting on a noisy ramp while a gray Boeing E-3 Sentry jet, with the disc of its huge rotodome perched above, taxied past us. We crawled into our King Air’s seats feeling better about the first full “discussion” than we had that morning, knowing the second pass would be interesting at the least.

  BY an agreement with Burke, our day off the next morning was spent sorting through the things that could be left as-is and those valuables to be removed and secured at a storage facility while we were away. Regular visits by Jeremy’s people watching over both properties (and the occasional check-in by Margaret) bought peace of mind, but it didn’t stop Aline from inspecting with painful diligence, “Just for in case,” she said.

  The weather was quiet and dry, inviting us for a walk in the trees we knew would be missed all too soon when our grand “tour” began, so we strolled the length of it in our mismatched Wellies as the sun climbed beyond the distant ridge. What to take along was a good question, and we talked about it all the way around to where the tiny brook at the far side of Aline’s field gurgled like an old friend. I was working my way through a mental list of things not to forget when she stopped and turned to me.

  “When we leave his laboratory for the last time, Burke is going to warn you,” she said. Aline’s expression reminded me of the face we sometimes wear when hearing sad news from a casual acquaintance: we don’t feel its impact as they do, but we still need them to see a gesture of kindness and support. She had heard his thoughts, and the silent eavesdropping revealed something new.

  “Warn me about what?”

  “He believes I’m manipulating you—controlling what you think and how you feel, especially about me.”

  “Are you?”

  “Not in the way he thinks.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “I have shaped your thoughts once or twice, but that was a long time ago and I simply wanted to learn about you.”

  It wasn’t betrayal or even disappointment I felt because I’d moved past such useless emotions after enough of the subtle “reminders” she lobs at me from time to time. Instead, I heard a rare and direct admission that her influence is something greater and focused at me for a deliberate purpose. I remembered her earlier words and held them up like a badge.

  “When I asked, you said influencing my thoughts would make our relationship worthless if they weren’t natural and made without external forces.”

  “That was only in the beginning, Evan,” she said quickly. “After we met, I wanted to see how you would react, so I provoked a response and watched; it is not the same thing and certainly not what Burke is afraid of.”

  There were times when I could feel her inside and recognize what it was, but Aline’s description pointed to something altogether different and my curiosity became more important than any notions of hurt feelings.

  “Okay, I’ll bite; how did I react?”

  She steered me back toward her house, and it was clear the answer wasn’t going to be simple.

  “Our first time, after we met in the glen, you asked if I couldn’t sleep,” she continued.

  “I remember.”

  “I told you I knew you were there but not the reason why.”

  “I didn’t understand at the time, but I figured later on it was just your ability to hear my thoughts that brought you out.”

  “It was, but there’s more,” she replied softly. I waited for her to finish,
and it was easy to see a struggle within—a hesitation—to show me what I couldn’t know.

  “You came to me that night because days before, I sent something while you slept; vivid thoughts of us alone together.”

  I felt my face run red when the images returned, just as they had on that first night when I saw the powerful, raw images of a sexual encounter beyond any I could imagine on my own. Aline saw it and moved close.

  “That wasn’t a dream, Evan; I gave you those sensations and images but only to see what you would do. I wanted to know if your desire for me was already there and waiting or if you would recoil from it. When you walked to where I stood in my field, the answer was very clear.”

  “So, all that work was…priming the pump?”

  “You never told me about those images because you didn’t want me to know about a sex dream so vivid and extreme. It was much more than that, but there was no way for you to describe it to a person you’d only just met a few weeks before.”

  The truth behind another mystery emerged, and with it, a more important question called out and I spoke the words with no hesitation.

  “That first time…it was different from most of the other times when we’re in bed.”

  “Yes, it was.”

  She heard my thoughts and finished the question for me.

  “You wondered if our first time together was different because of Tegwen’s influence, and now you know that it was.”

  “When you spoke, I couldn’t understand some of the words. That was Tegwen coming through?”

  She nodded and said, “It was a very emotional moment, Evan.”

  I smiled because I understood better her first life’s unique and fundamental part in it all. She followed her own nature, unfettered by modern-day notions of morality or societal judgment because they didn’t apply to a girl born in 460. In fleeting memories trickling one by one into my thoughts, the weird, conspicuous shifts when she seemed to drift away or transform into somebody else offered a clue I had missed completely.