Time After Time

by Wendy Godding

  Anxiously I yanked the book from the shelf and raced back to my desk.

  The cover was worn and dusty, the letters of its title old-fashioned and boxy. Lessons of the Soul, they read.

  It was unmistakable. Harry had written a book on reincarnation.

  I opened it, my eyes roaming slowly over each page. In the front was a dedication. For me. Well, not me, but for Penelope Broadhurst. My heart caught in my throat. Broadhurst, not Lockwood, which meant that Penelope hadn’t married Heath. Everything had happened before they could even claim a moment of true happiness. Penelope had run out of time.

  Feeling sick to my stomach, I read the dedication.

  To my forever beautiful and innocent cousin, Penelope Broadhurst, a victim of the vicious cycle of life. May she one day learn the truth about her past—for it is only when we face the truth that we are set free. It is for her, for her future, that I write this book.

  There was more.

  And to Jane Smith, who sees so much and whose wonderful insight and abilities have helped significantly in this research.

  I blinked.

  It was all too much of a coincidence. Why would Harry have written such a book? And what were the odds that two hundred years later I would read it? And Jane Smith…I remembered the way Jane had looked at Penelope all those times. Had she ever managed to tell Penelope whatever it was she had to say?

  But she’d told someone. She’d told Harry.

  The question was, what had she told Harry?

  Turning the page, I ran my fingers down the list of contents, my blood running cold. A myriad of names, the very same collection as the ones printed in the front of my journal, swam before my eyes.

  Orla, Claire, Maria, Katherine, Antonia, Prudence, Vivienne, Veronica, Elizabeth, Penelope.

  I couldn’t breathe. Oh god, Harry had written about them. He knew about everyone.

  With trembling fingers, I turned to Orla and began to read. Then I flicked to Claire, then Maria, then to Kathleen, reading just the first few paragraphs. Then to Prudence, Vivienne, Veronica, Elizabeth, and finally, Penelope. I didn’t read the whole of each chapter, they were too long. I just needed to see if they matched my recollections. My memories. My dreams.

  They did.

  Flicking back to the contents page, I stared at the other name, the last name. The one that didn’t appear in my journal. Rebecca. Terror coursed through my veins.

  It was the only life I didn’t remember and the one that mattered most, according to Rem. The ancient one. Rebecca and Anthony.

  The urge to flick back to the chapter on Penelope and read about her was strong, but I didn’t think I could bear it. I was already having trouble breathing and was shaking all over. Plus, having seen Heath’s tombstone and the dedication at the front of the book, I knew what had happened.

  Sebastian had happened.

  Instead, I turned the pages, flicking past all the chapters, all the stories, to the very last one. The one I didn’t know.

  With my heart thrumming anxiously in my chest, I began to read.

  And kept reading, until my eyes were bleary and my head spun.

  As I read the story, my story, I felt ill. Nausea at the facts scrawled across the pages roiled my stomach.

  Nausea at what I did.

  Marcus could never know. No one could ever read this.

  Rem knew. And he loved me still. It was unfathomable.

  I sat with my head in my hands for a long time, staring at the open book. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it all. Snippets of the story lodged themselves in my mind, but the tale read like an encyclopaedia, flat and emotionless.

  Rebecca was beautiful…sold as a slave to a rich man named Cyrus who planned to institute her in his household…As part of his household…not a wife…She was desperate and Anthony was in love with her, she knew it. A Roman legionary, he had a bright future. He was expected to go far within the Roman Army; he had already caught the eye of the Emperor and was to marry the daughter of a rich merchant…

  But Rebecca lured him…seduced him…

  She recruited him into helping her escape, which he did, expecting they would be together forever…Then, in order to save her own life, she betrayed him and turned him over to the Army for helping a slave escape…He was punished cruelly…

  I was aghast as I read his punishment, and I had to cover my mouth to keep from gagging. Those were cruel, cruel times.

  Yet he loved me still. He continued to show up in each life, trying to make me love him, to make me remember. And when I didn’t, when I couldn’t…he killed me. Yet he knew; he knew I’d betrayed him, left him, and still he kept coming, time after time.

  It was black and white. Rem should hate me more than anyone. I did. I hated what I’d done, hated what he’d suffered because of my selfishness.

  Feeling wretched, I lowered my head to the book, inhaling the musty smell of the pages. Harry had done well. Jane Smith was cleverer than she’d been given credit. She must have become stronger than her mother.

  But that wasn’t all. Harry had garnered and recorded the facts, sure enough, but he’d missed something, I was sure of it. It couldn’t be so simple. It didn’t feel simple, not at all…

  Closing my eyes, I felt the world tilt slightly, felt myself slip, like I was falling asleep. Only I wasn’t sleeping. I was remembering.

  The air was thick, and I waited inside the small tent anxiously, nervous and afraid for what would happen should I be caught, but I knew there were no other options.

  He was here soon enough, striding through the curtains, the sight of his broad, muscled frame pulling the air from my lungs. He was magnificent.

  ‘Becca.’ He reached for me, and I fell into his arms, the smell of sweat overwhelming me.

  ‘Kiss me.’ I tilted my head up and parted my lips. A low growl escaped his throat as he lowered his head.

  His lips were firm and hot, and I slowly let myself be devoured by him, relishing the hardness of his body, the way his arms encircled me and pulled me within his world. It was where I wanted to be.

  Arching against him, I traced my fingers over his arms, which were slick with perspiration from his training. He would be leaving for battle in just a few days, and I was to be sold soon after. I was running out of time.

  His mouth left mine, running hot kisses down my throat, and his fingers pulled at the clasps in my hair, letting the curls tumble free to my waist. Pulling back, he gazed down at me, his eyes heavy-lidded, his expression dark and sensual. ‘You are so very beautiful, Becca,’ he murmured.

  I smiled, knowing that in only a few moments he would do anything for me. Anything. ‘And I am all yours.’

  I tugged at the clasp on my tunic, and it pooled at my feet. A few more moments and he would do anything.

  Opening my eyes, I stared blankly at the shelves around me, seeing nothing but the image of Anthony—Sebastian, Rem—and sensing nothing but the way I felt when he had touched me. When he had touched Becca.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  Chapter Forty

  Meredith was waiting for me when I arrived home that afternoon.

  ‘Did you cut class?’ she demanded, looking more shocked than angry as she launched straight into attack mode.

  I shrugged. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Marcus rang me,’ Meredith informed me. ‘He was worried about you. Said you were sick but that when he tried to get hold of you, you weren’t answering your phone and weren’t at home either.’

  ‘Oh.’ I pulled my phone out of my bag and switched it back on. Immediately it started to trill with messages. Beth. Marcus. Laura. Meredith. Rem.

  ‘Well? Where have you been? You obviously aren’t sick.’

  ‘I had to go to the state library for school,’ I explained, bristling slightly under Meredith’s interrogation. ‘I didn’t want to go at night and couldn’t wait for the weekend.’ I felt slightly irritated with Marcus for his obvious betrayal.

  Meredith’s face falt
ered and I hesitated. I’d been gearing up for an argument or confrontation, and I was disappointed it was about something so benign. I felt hot and itchy, like I wanted to shout and rail at someone, but it wasn’t fair to do so to Meredith. None of this was her fault.

  It was mine.

  ‘Well. I suppose that’s okay, but you really shouldn’t cut class, Abbie.’

  ‘It’s no big deal,’ I told her. ‘I’ve never cut before, and I’m not likely to make a habit of it.’ I paused before swiftly changing the conversation. ‘Why are you home so early anyhow?’

  ‘We have an appointment this afternoon.’

  ‘Oh. That’s right.’ My face fell as I remembered. The therapist meeting. It was the last thing I felt like doing, but there was nothing to be done about it. ‘Let me just get changed and—’

  ‘Stay like that,’ Meredith said. ‘You look nice. You’re really pretty without the makeup.’

  I made a face. I’d only gone barefaced because I didn’t want to draw attention to myself on the bus and in the city, ditching school and all, but now that I was home I felt the need to smother my face. It somehow made me feel stronger, safer. ‘I’ll just be a minute,’ I told Meredith, disappearing upstairs.

  ‘And how are you feeling, Abbie?’ Dr Evans was asking. ‘How are the antidepressants going?’

  ‘I’m not taking them,’ I replied quite firmly. ‘I’m not depressed.’

  Dr Evans frowned, looking quite the stereotypical psychiatrist with his pointy beard and round spectacles. Dr Freud eat your heart out. ‘What do you mean, you aren’t taking them? I see here you’ve had a refill.’

  I shook my head. ‘No. You must have me confused with someone else.’

  His frown deepened. ‘That is not possible, Abbie. We are very careful here. No, I can see already they are working just by the change in your appearance.’

  ‘But I’m not taking them,’ I replied quickly, before my mind churned over his words. I’d refused to take them. Meredith had insisted they were important. She had backed off but was watching me all the time; only that morning she had come to see how I was ‘feeling’. And the dreams had stopped.

  I felt sick as realisation dawned on me. She wouldn’t! Meredith wouldn’t have been so sneaky, so devious and sly, as to dose me with antidepressants without my knowledge, would she?

  Then I recalled how worried she’d been. How she had stared, her red-rimmed eyes watching me carefully. Of course she would have dosed me. Meredith had promised Gran on Gran’s deathbed she’d take care of me, and take care of me she had.

  I was so angry I could barely look at her as I stormed out of Dr Evans office, leaving him stuttering after me. I pushed right past her and out to the car, where I sat stiffly in the passenger seat as I waited for her.

  The betrayal stung.

  My guardian. The only family member in the world I had left that I could trust. Now, I didn’t even have that. For the first time since Gran died, I suddenly felt very, very alone. And frightened.

  ‘Abbie, I…,’ Meredith stumbled as we drove home in silence.

  ‘Forget it,’ I said, my throat catching on the words as I turned away from her and stared out the window. We were passing the industrial part of town, the ugly, grey buildings and the dirty streets flashing past us. Soon we would be on our side of town, the suburban side. Home. ‘Just forget it.’

  I thought about Penelope, about Sebastian getting closer to her, and her growing confusion and fear. She was dead. Of course she was. But I didn’t know how or when. I didn’t know what Georgie and Harry had learned, what Jane Smith knew; I knew nothing. I had lost the edge that I’d had for the first time ever when it came to him: my power of knowledge. I knew things, and that would keep me safe.

  But the antidepressants. My vanished dreams. I didn’t have to think too long or hard to put the two of them together. The antidepressants had stopped the dreams.

  When we pulled into the driveway I raced inside and began pulling the kitchen apart, searching everywhere for the antidepressants, for the little happy pills Dr Evans had prescribed and Meredith had given. I trembled, my eyes blinded by tears, as I pulled things out of cupboards.

  ‘Where are they?’ I screeched.

  ‘Abbie, I had to do something,’ pleaded Meredith, her voice all scratchy, ‘You’ve been so troubled, and I just wanted you to be normal.’

  ‘Well, I am normal!’ I cried. ‘I’m one hundred per cent normal now! No more bizarre dreams for Abbie! Do you even know what you’ve done? Do you?’ Of course she didn’t, how could she know that by taking the dreams and memories away from me she’d be risking my life? That the memories and truth were all that stood between me, Rem, and history repeating itself?

  Over and over again.

  ‘I’ve seen such a big change in you since I’ve started giving them to you,’ Meredith said. ‘You and Marcus are so nice together.’

  ‘Yeah, but not for much longer, thanks to you!’ I saw them, perched in the spice rack next to the expensive saffron that only Gran had ever used.

  Taking the pills, I raced upstairs and flushed them down the toilet, pressing the button over and over until they were all dissolved and gone. Then I rounded again on Meredith, who hovered in the doorway.

  ‘You don’t have to worry about me anymore,’ I said, my voice low and surprisingly steady. ‘I’ll go. I’ll get out of your hair. I will not stay here and be drugged against my will. It’s not even legal! Dr Evans is probably on the phone to Child Welfare. I probably don’t even have to leave. I’ll probably be taken! Who would do that? Who would drug a teenager against their will?’

  ‘It happens all the time,’ Meredith argued. ‘I’ve read heaps about teenage depression and suicidal tendencies—’

  ‘I’m not suicidal.’ I trembled with slow burning rage. ‘Believe me when I say I want to live more than anything.’

  ‘Abbie, I—’

  ‘Go away. Get away from me,’ I mumbled, staring at the empty toilet bowl. ‘Just go away.’

  Meredith remained for a few more moments, hovering in the doorway, her hands twisting together as she struggled to find something to say, but I ignored her. After a while she left, moving away and leaving me staring at the empty pill bottle wondering if the dreams would come back now, or if it was all just too late.

  ‘Abbie, can you come down tonight to the library?’ It was Simone.

  I rubbed my eyes and sat up, glancing at my watch. It was seven o’clock, and my room was dark. After such a draining day, I’d dozed off on my bed. ‘What for? Your date call?’

  On the other end of the line I heard Simone’s exasperated sigh. ‘Actually, I wanted to show you something I came across.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Something to do with that girl you asked about.’ Simone paused, and I could hear the seriousness in her voice. ‘Georgina Broadhurst.’

  I blinked, the fog in my mind clearing immediately. Simone had something to tell me about Georgina? There was more?

  ‘Just tell me now,’ I demanded, too tired and impatient.

  ‘I…can’t,’ she paused, ‘Just come down, will you?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Throwing my phone on the bed, I went to the bathroom. My face was bare. After the encounter with Meredith I’d had a shower, needing to cleanse myself, and had removed my makeup, leaving my face fresh and clean. I considered my reflection for a moment, Penelope’s bare face staring back at me. Rebecca’s too. I swallowed, not wanting to think about that girl.

  It was mid-week and the library shut at eight. It was hardly worth applying my slick of foundation and black liner when I would remove it only an hour later.

  Feeling braver than I had in ages, I left my face bare. But I added a few extra studs in my ears and decided to definitely get a tattoo. Maybe some hummingbirds, for timelessness. It seemed appropriate.

  Or an orange rose.

  I blinked, not sure where that thought had come from. I would most definitely not be getting an orange
rose.

  The moon was hidden behind dark clouds that lingered over the town. It might rain, I thought as I walked down the blackened streets, About time. Every morning for weeks I’d woken to clear, cloudless blue skies outside my window. It was unnatural for this time of year.

  Tonight the streets were unusually quiet. It was as if the clouds had scared all other people away, and everyone hid behind closed doors, terrified of the approaching storm.

  How dramatic you’re getting, Abbie. The words were a whisper in my head, and I knew I hadn’t thought them. Now I really am going mad. Hugging my bag closer, I picked up my pace, hurrying through the streets.

  Pushing open the heavy glass doors, I found the library foyer in complete darkness. The only light came from the streetlight behind me and the faint, artificial glow of flickering computer screens.

  ‘Simone?’ I called tentatively, wondering if she had decided to lock up early. But why hadn’t she called to let me know? ‘Simone, are you here?’ I called again, starting to feel silly. It was like I was in a horror movie and was the stupid victim walking into some place, when I should have been running away.

  Making my way to the service counter, I noticed Simone’s bag and books stacked neatly, ready for her to leave, one of them lying open. But Simone was nowhere to be seen. Curious, I approached the open book and looked at the page.

  A picture of myself stared out at me.

  I choked, the air coming in short, shallow gasps.

  The picture wasn’t really of me; it was of Penelope.

  ‘Abbie.’

  I jumped at Simone’s voice behind me, my heart racing frantically. ‘God, Simone, you scared me.’ I rested my hand on Penelope’s picture, hiding it.

  ‘I’ve seen it,’ Simone said, ‘That’s why I asked you to come down.’

  I blinked, but I couldn’t find anything to say. I glanced around the library. ‘Why are there no lights on?’

  ‘I think a fuse has blown, since we have no lights but still have the computers. I just went to call an electrician.’ Simone moved towards me and I inched back. ‘Abbie, you asked about that girl, and I’ve just found a picture of a girl in that book which looks exactly like you.’