by Suzi Davis
“Look at her arm,” I heard Sebastian murmur, his voice low and slightly hoarse. My eyes flew open as soon as his voice reached my ears. He’s conscious – he’s okay, I thought, deliriously happy and relieved. I found myself staring straight up into his dark and beautiful eyes. His face was so familiar and comforting, I let out a small sigh of relief. His expression was confusing though, the look in his eyes unreadable. And that’s when I realized that the ancient wisdom I’d often seen glimpses of within him now dominated his expression, it filled his eyes. He looked years older but exactly the same; he looked tired and desperate and full of regret, yet youthful and hopeful and innocent all at the same time. I automatically reached out to touch him, needing to feel the familiar comfort of his smooth, warm skin beneath my fingertips. I had forgotten that there was something wrong with my arm though and new waves of nauseating, mind-numbing pain came coursing through me as I tried to move. I squeezed my eyes tightly shut and panted through my clenched teeth.
“Shush, easy Gracelynn, try and lie still,” Sebastian comforted me, his voice calm and soothing though a little rough sounding still. “The pain will fade quickly; I remember how intense it was in the beginning but it doesn’t last long… though I suppose you wouldn’t remember that.”
“What?” I asked, confused and feeling slightly afraid. I reopened my eyes, searching Sebastian’s face for answers. It was then that I realized both Mr. Jenson and Sebastian were no longer looking at me, they were staring down at my arm. I carefully lifted my head, turning my neck so that I could examine exactly what had happened to me. What I saw shocked me more thoroughly than anything else in my life; I had been totally unprepared for this.
A dark, intricate pattern twisted up the whole length of my arm. It began in the center of my palm, curling down and around my wrist, wrapping and coiling around my forearm and disappearing beneath my t-shirt sleeve. I stared in mute horror, knowing without ever having to check that the pattern continued up and around my shoulder, snaking down my side nearly to my hip. It was identical to Sebastian’s tattoo in every way, every detail perfectly formed and precisely matched. The twisting black design that had haunted my dreams for months now was carved and burnt under my skin and into my flesh, as solidly and starkly as if it had always been there, as if it had always been a part of me.
“What happened?” My voice was hushed with shock. I tried my best to lie as still as possible in an attempt to avoid the consuming, excruciating pain. I saw Sebastian turn to look sharply and significantly at Mr. Jenson instead of answering.
Mr. Jenson gave a quick, tired nod of understanding. “There are things that I am not meant to know, and things that I don’t want to. I’ll give you your privacy,” he assured us. He flashed me one last concerned and strangely fearful look before turning and walking out the room, quietly shutting the door behind himself.
“Will you help me up?” I asked Sebastian. I desperately wanted to get up off the floor, to cover up the frightening black marks that snaked across my pale, white skin. It reminded me of the first day I had met Sebastian, the black ink spilling from my pen to form this very same dark and mysterious design contrasting across the pure, white page.
“Lie still a little longer,” Sebastian encouraged. He moved quickly across the room to pull his jacket off the back of a nearby chair. He came to kneel on the floor beside me, carefully draping the jacket over my torso, hiding the frightening tattoo from my sight.
“Thank you,” I whispered gratefully.
“Anything for you,” he answered, his voice thick with emotion. He reached out to lightly stroke my cheek with a trembling hand. “I can’t believe I’ve finally found you. I’ve searched for so many years, so much longer than I had suspected – thousands,” he told me, speaking softly as if afraid he might frighten me.
“You were searching for me?” I asked confused. “Wait – what did you just say? Thousands of years?” I repeated incredulously, staring up wide-eyed into his beautiful, ancient face.
“Yes. I remember everything now Gracelynn – everything. All two thousand years of my existence, right back to the very beginning when I last held you, when you gave me my abilities, when you made me become like you, and then the very last time we were together, when you died in my arms,” he whispered, a strange and haunted look to his eyes.
“My dream,” I gasped. I struggled to keep up with him, to follow the path his thoughts were taking him. “I was… like you once?” I asked disbelievingly. I struggled to sit up and immediately fell back with a gasp as a wave of stabbing, piercing pain consumed me. I wavered on the edge of consciousness, breathing hard, trying my best not to move or twitch my muscles in the slightest.
“I’ll tell you everything if you’ll promise me you’ll lie still,” Sebastian told me, his voice surprisingly stern and disapproving. I forgot about my pain, quickly looking up to see what was wrong. A smile twitched at his lips; he really was a master of distraction.
“Don’t tease me,” I grumbled.
His smile quickly faded. “I wasn’t,” he assured me. “I would never joke about this, Gracelynn, about the history between us. Our love really does go back thousands of years.”
“When I was like you?”
“Yes,” he agreed. He glanced back towards the window, his eyes focusing on something far away as he spoke. “Your name was Caoilinn,” he told me, his voice hushed, almost reverent as he remembered. “You were a priestess in the temple near where I lived. You were one of the youngest priestesses ever heard of, and the most powerful. You were respected and feared.” He eyed me significantly as he spoke, his words sinking in, sending shivers down my spine. I tried not to wince as the hairs on my arm tried to stand on end. Sebastian took a deep breath and then continued.
“It was around the end of the second Century in Ireland. The world was a very different place then, with different beliefs and different realities; magic was much more commonplace. But still, the extent of your powers was nearly unheard of. You had the ability to change fate to meet your needs, to get whatever you wanted and… you wanted me,” he explained, smiling ever-so-slightly as he remembered. “You were young, barely a year older than I. Neither of us had ever experienced love before, we weren’t prepared for how it would affect us, how powerful it could be. From the very first moment we met, there was no turning back; the desire, the connection between us was so strong and undeniable.” His eyes flared passionately as he spoke. I found myself caught up in his story, his words sparking emotions that were buried deep within me, almost as if a small part of myself remembered and was responding.
“You were sworn to the sisterhood, to never take a lover, to never share your magic or your secrets with any other than the priestesses. But then you met me, and you broke all your vows. Our love was so strong we were both powerless against it. Though it was forbidden, you took me as your lover, you shared your strange powers with me and made me become like you so that we might live together, forever.” Surprisingly, there was a faint, rosy glow to Sebastian’s cheeks as he spoke. I had the feeling that he was glossing over many details, that there was much more to the tale than the events he was skimming over. I didn’t dare interrupt him. I wasn’t even certain I could speak if I wanted to; I could barely even breathe. It was unbelievable that we had known one another and been in love thousands of years ago and yet at the same time, it made perfect sense. I could hardly believe I had lived as a powerful, Celtic priestess and that I had actually given him his abilities yet I didn’t doubt his words for an instant. No matter how difficult it was for my mind to accept, my heart already knew the truth.
“The other priestesses discovered our affair. They weren’t as powerful as you were, no one was, so you were able to hide from them that you’d already changed me, that you’d already given me the same, if only slightly weaker, powers as yours. They decided you had to die; you were too powerful and they could no longer trust you. There was only one way they could do it. They out-numbered you and focused their wan
t. They all wanted you to die, to be punished for what they thought you planned, for your intended betrayal. They never realized you had already shared with me your secrets, had already made me like you. Their combined want for you to die was just enough to overpower our combined desire for you to live… it took five of them,” he added quietly, his voice strained, his eyes full of remembered pain and loss.
“It was the night we were planning on running away together. You had gone back to the temple to retrieve your book of spells. You had promised me you would be safe and I believed you – it was what we both wanted after all. I waited for you in the forest but you never came. I knew something was wrong and wanted to find you, and so I did. You were lying on the ground in the clearing near the ceremonial altar. Despite the warm summer night, your skin was cold and white as moonlight, your blood black as night. They had slit your wrists and watched you bleed to death, then left you for dead, your body to be devoured by the forest predators,” Sebastian told me in a flat, emotionless voice. His eyes betrayed him then, an unspeakable anguish and pain flooding their black depths. A slow shiver trickled down my spine as I realized he was describing my death. I could picture it clearly; the memories from my dream blending seamlessly with his words.
“I rushed to your side, I kissed your cold lips and wanted more than anything for you to still live. I prayed desperately that I might have the chance to hear your sweet voice again even if just to say goodbye. I couldn’t believe it when you suddenly took a deep, ragged breath. For a moment I thought I wasn’t too late, that perhaps I had wanted you to live badly enough that I had brought you back. But I wasn’t strong enough; I’m not certain even you could have managed that.”
“Your eyes kept shifting in and out of focus, your voice was so faint that I had to strain to hear each word. That was when you told me your final secret, the secret of reincarnation – that you would live again. You told me where in the temple I could find your magic spells so that I might keep them for you, for when I found you in your next life. You said they would teach you how to use your magic – that they’d help you to remember. You whispered to me your promise that once we were reunited our magic would be limitless and no one would ever keep us apart again.” I stared up at Sebastian in wonder, suddenly afraid and uncertain.
“You gave me your amber necklace to keep for you. I couldn’t believe the other priestesses had left it with you; it was the focus of your magic but they were afraid to touch it, afraid of what spells you may have protected it with. You used the necklace one last time, to Bind us together, to mark our souls so that we would recognize one another when we met again, so that I would know you when I found you in your next life. The Binding was painful, more excruciating than I’d ever imagined. You only cried out once though, it was with your last breath.” His voice broke at the end, just a small crack in his careful composure. I automatically reached out to squeeze his hand, or at least I tried to. I only managed to shift my arm slightly under his jacket before my whole arm and side seized up with fiery, agonizing pain. It was worth it though as my suffering momentarily distracted Sebastian from his own. He gently stroked the side of my face while I tried to get my breathing under control, lying as still as possible. Once he was certain I had recovered he took another deep, yet slightly shaky breath before continuing.
“The Binding left its mark on both of our souls, tying us together, connecting us in a permanent, unbreakable way. And it also left its physical mark on our bodies. It was the very first marking on and in my skin, reminding me of you always, of my love for you, my search for you, our connection to one another. I don’t know how I ever forgot.”
Sebastian was looking far away as he spoke, his mind taking him back thousands of years into the past. I stared up at him in wonder and in awe; I wasn’t certain what to think. His story had left me spellbound and speechless. It was amazing; I could almost remember what he described, his words painting images so clear in my mind that I wondered if a part of me might be remembering too. And there was my dream.
“I was afraid the priestesses would come back and see the Binding’s mark on your body and know what you had done,” Sebastian continued on. The sudden sound of his voice made me jump, I had been far away with my own thoughts. “I carried you as far from the clearing as I could, deeper into the Forests than I’d ever been before. I buried you beneath a tall and twisted oak tree and then climbed up into its swaying boughs, high above the earth. I carved your name into the bark, the only marker of your grave, the only written record of your existence.” Though his voice was even and calm, a single tear rolled down his cheek as he spoke. He didn’t seem to notice it as he continued on with his tale.
“I stayed in that tree for weeks, months, mourning your death. I’d never wanted to die so much or any time since. My desire for death was strong enough that I might have been able to die if I hadn’t known that I must live to find you again, so that we could be together… it was all that kept me going.”
“I searched for years, Caoilinn, hundreds upon hundreds of years but I never found you. Eventually, it became too much. My mind wasn’t meant to hold that many memories, that many experiences. Things started fading, my memories were slipping away. I was afraid I might forget you, forget the secrets you had shared with me, forget the spells I was to save and protect for you so I had it all tattooed on my body, encoded in designs I knew only you or I would ever be able to decipher.” Sebastian smirked down sardonically at me as he spoke. I wondered if he even realized that he had said Caoilinn not Gracelynn, if he differentiated me at all from this dead priestess of his past. Though perhaps we were one and the same soul, I also knew that I was a very different person than she. I may have been this Caoilinn once but I was not any longer; I was Gracelynn, I was me.
“I searched for you for years by myself. I was so lonely, I longed for company, for a companion, for a friend. And that’s when I started to create the Others,” he admitted quietly. He dropped his eyes in shame. “One by one I’d meet them, befriend them, grow to love each of them in their own way, enough so that I wanted them to become like me. But they were never you. I was never satisfied, I was never truly happy. For a time I’d think I was happy or at least content living with the family, the brothers and sisters I’d created. The world was our playground – we got whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted it. There were no rules for us, no consequences for our actions – or so I thought.”
“I told the Others about you and at first they helped me search, perhaps wanting me to find happiness or at least wanting to be close to your power once you were found. But soon the Others stopped wanting to find you, they realized what it would mean. I was already more powerful than any of them, and they knew that once I found you, I would be even stronger, sharing your power through the Binding between us. It scared them. They began to discourage and distract me from my search. They wanted me to forget and slowly I did.”
“I first forgot how to decode the designs, then I forgot what they might mean at all. It should never have been possible, but somehow I eventually forgot you and in doing so, I forgot myself. Maybe it was because I was so tired from my search, so full of heartache and hopelessness that a small part of me wanted to forget. I don’t know why... I’m so sorry,” he murmured, his eyes pleading, begging for my forgiveness. I tried to smile back reassuringly at him; all I could manage was a slight twitch of my lips. I was nearly frozen in shock.
“I always felt like something was missing though, like something was wrong. And so one by one I erased the Others’ memories of me. I abandoned them; left them to find their own way in the world, unable to age and with strange and dangerous powers that once given were impossible to take away. I didn’t want them to remember or find me though, so they didn’t, they couldn’t,” he explained.
“I was disgusted with myself for creating and then abandoning the Others, for the horrible, conscienceless way I had lived when I was with them. I was so tired, so exhausted, lonely, and depressed, and more than a
nything I just wanted to forget it all – my past, my self, even my true name. I didn’t want to remember who I was or the horrible things I had done. I didn’t want to remember any of it; I just wanted to crawl into a little hole, curl up and fall asleep and be forgotten myself. And so I did,” he finished with a simple smile.
“Your… hibernation?” I asked tentatively. He nodded his confirmation.
“Yes. You know the way my life went after that. Fate, eventually, brought me back to you. After thousands of years, I finally found what I’d been searching for and I was almost stupid enough to lose you again,” he added bitterly. The angry twist to his words didn’t sound right coming from his beautiful, soft lips, spoken in his wonderful, lilting voice.
“You were stupid,” I agreed.
“Not for wanting you to forget me,” he objected, his voice and expression serious. “I would do it all over again if I thought it would make you happy, if I thought it would keep you safe. But I realize now why it would never work – at least not for long,” he added upon seeing my frown. “I was wrong to try to push you away, even if it did seem to be for the best at the time. I should have known I couldn’t fight fate that way. I should have remembered you – should have realized that your wants would ultimately always be more powerful than my own.”
