The Past-Life Chronicles Box Set: Volume 1 & 2: Duet Omnibus Edition

by C. K. Brooke

And…

  “You’re the one who needs forgiveness, Heather,” I tell her quietly.

  She abruptly stops her prayer. “What did you say?”

  “I hope you find peace.” The tear breaks free, rolling down my cheek. “True peace, with yourself. And I hope that, someday, you can accept yourself enough to start accepting other people, too. I want to be like normal sisters—none of this fake, conditional B.S. But you’ve got to take me as I am and stop trying to change me to be like you.” It didn’t work the last time; it won’t work now. “Mom, too. If you want that as much as we do, well…you know where we live.”

  I’ve said my piece. Wiping my eyes, I know I’ve outstayed my welcome, if I ever was welcome here to begin with—probably not. I flick down the latch and pull open the door, leaving my sister standing, dumbfounded, behind me.

  19

  It’s Tuesday. Halloween—Samhain. Today marks the Sabbat of the Witches’ New Year, and I’ve thought long and hard about my resolutions. It’s a time for evaluating the last twelve months and setting goals for the next. And, of course, for honoring the dead.

  Except, now I know the dead don’t stay where we bury them. They follow us into the present. They live among us—they are us. Just like the seasons, the soul has a cycle. Life, death, and rebirth. Like the ancients had always taught.

  The scent of firewood is strong and invigorating outdoors as our neighbors burn leaves and prepare bonfires for their Halloween parties this evening. Mason is coming over later to pick me up. But we aren’t going to circle at Ash and Oak with our moms’ coven. We’re going to the park to do our own ritual, just us two. I’m finally going to hear him play his guitar—he promised me a private concert at his apartment afterward.

  Maybe I’ll even get the kiss I’ve been waiting for—my first kiss, which Henry has blocked approximately twice now. It would be the perfect way to ring in the pagan New Year…

  In my warm, knit sweater, thermos of chai in hand, I step out onto the back deck, savoring the autumn day. I notice Henry, raking leaves. “I didn’t know you were home,” I call down.

  He looks up. “Oh. Hey.” He leans the rake against a tree as I climb down the steps to the backyard.

  “How’s it going?” I ask him.

  He shrugs, as if weighing his response first. “It’s going.”

  “How’s school?”

  “Challenging.”

  “I don’t know about you,” I smile, cupping the warm thermos between my hands, “but I thought that was kind of amazing when Joy said that Ray had wanted to be a doctor. It’s like…your destiny.”

  When he doesn’t return my smile, mine fades. “Yeah.” He scratches the back of his neck. “Last week, if you would’ve said something like that to me, about destiny, I would’ve written it off and said you sounded like your mom. But now…I guess there’s still a lot that science can’t explain.”

  “Maybe you’ll be the one to explain it,” I offer hopefully, but he only rolls his eyes at me. I watch him, a tenderness for him spreading in my chest.

  Seeming to sense this, his expression straightens. “Willow…” I can tell by his tone what he wants to discuss—or the gist of it, anyway—and I prepare myself. “Have you given any thought to what I said on the phone yesterday?” His neck reddens, whether from shyness or the cold, I don’t know. “About healing this thing between us?”

  I nod, but with reservation. “I think…maybe we can heal the past,” I say carefully, “without necessarily having to repeat it.”

  He watches me, evidently still waiting. I know I need to give him more than that.

  I toe the leafy ground with my boot. “Listen. I won’t lie and say I don’t have feelings for you.”

  Surprise ripples across his features, brightening his brown eyes.

  “But…” Gods, this is harder than I thought. “We’re family now. And it’ll be that way as long as our parents stay married—which could be forever. If you and I hooked up, then things didn’t work out between us, how awkward would that be at every family function for the rest of our lives?”

  He shakes his head. “Why wouldn’t it work out between us?”

  “Well, first of all, you want to get out of this small, Midwestern hick-town, right? You’re becoming a doctor. You’re going to move to a big city like you’ve been dreaming of and build the life you always wanted.”

  “Come with me.” He’s so sincere, it makes me ache. “When I graduate and take up residency somewhere, we could…we could rent an apartment—”

  “I’m not leaving Middling for a strange city.”

  “Why, because you have so many friends here?” he asks ironically.

  “No. Because I’m perfectly happy here.”

  “You wouldn’t have to drive in the city,” he coaxes. “You could walk, bike, call a cab…”

  “I’m getting my driver’s license. I’m not afraid of cars anymore.” Well…not as afraid.

  He relents. “Okay. Well, if you ever change your mind, I guess we still have—as you said—every family function for the rest of our lives to tell me so.” He grins, taking up his rake again. “And I’m pretty sure I’ll drop whoever I’m engaged to at the time to be with you instead.”

  I bite back my laughter. “Not funny.”

  His grin stretches as he combs the leaves into a pile.

  I’m about to head inside but decide to round back. I stretch onto my toes and give my stepbrother a kiss on the cheek. He pauses to regard me, both of us lingering, his cheek against mine.

  “I’ll always love you, Henry Hayes,” I whisper. “Just how I’ll always be your sister.”

  I won’t say the longing in his eyes as I back away doesn’t affect me. With my walls down these past few days, I know I could fall for him again, easily. And maybe someday, I might. I mean, he’s right—there’s time. For instance, if things don’t end up panning out with Mason and me…

  But, I’m getting ahead of myself. Today, on Samhain, under the awning of trees in our backyard and the carpet of multicolor leaves they’ve shed at our feet, it’s good enough to know that my stepbrother and I are overcoming the past. The unresolved mysteries have been, for the most part, resolved. I can stand to live without them burdening us anymore.

  I can also live without knowing the future. I can live in the moment, for now.

  Epilogue

  “Good maneuvering there, kiddo.” My stepdad, Greg, ruffles my hair as we head up the dark walkway lit with little solar-powered orbs.

  I grin up at him. Someday, I’ll have to tell him that it’s nice to have a dad again. Just not right this second, when we’re about to greet—

  “Come on in, you guys!” The front door flings open, revealing a slender silhouette wearing a knockout cocktail dress. “Hey, little brother! Long time, no see!” She squeezes Henry into a hug, then reaches for Greg. “Hey, Dad!”

  But she hugs Mom the longest, and while they embrace, I cross the threshold into the house, stepping onto the fine ceramic tiles.

  “Hi, Willow.” Brad the banker appears around the corner, wearing oven mitts and an apron over his Oxford button-down.

  “Hey, Brad.” I lift a hand. “Happy Thanksgiving.”

  “Willow, there you are! You snuck past me!” My sister, Heather, pulls me into her skinny arms. I return the embrace, patting her toned back.

  “Ugh. Why are you always in such better shape than I am?”

  “Pilates!” she replies cheerfully.

  I slip my car keys into my purse, and Heather’s eyes widen. “Willow, did you drive here?”

  “She dii-iid,” answers Mom in a sing-song voice, and I groan.

  “Guys. I’m not five years old.”

  “Well then, I won’t tell you how proud I am of you.” Heather rubs my upper arm excitedly, then steers me up her professionally decorated hallway toward the dining room. “Guess who beat you here?”

  I already saw his car in the driveway when I first pulled up, but all the same, my heart thumps l
ike an 808. He looks smokin’ hot in his leather jacket, hair behind his ears, smelling like Sandalwood, blue eyes twinkling at me in a way that makes me as limp as the cranberry Jell-O sauce on the table.

  “Hey, beautiful.” Mason wraps an arm around my shoulder and plants a kiss atop my head.

  I lean my face against his chest to hide my enormous smile. “Hey, babe.”

  We quickly break apart as Heather corrals everyone to the table.

  “Hey.” I reach for her forearm. “Thanks so much for inviting my boyfriend. His mom’s away this week, so he would’ve been pretty lonely.” I glance back at Mason. “And hungry.”

  “Lucky Persephone,” says Mom, overhearing. “She’s on a cruise.”

  Heather snaps a finger. “That’s where I know you from, Mason! When Willow first introduced us on my birthday, I thought you seemed familiar. You’re Persephone’s little boy! Well,” she catches herself, “not little anymore.”

  “Wait.” I look between my boyfriend and sister. “You two have met before?”

  “All three of us have!” Heather ribs me, laughing. “Willow, my goodness! Don’t you remember? I mean, I guess you were both really little. But yeah, we used to go to circle with our moms and play together. Back when the coven met at that old UU church—don’t you guys remember runnin’ up and down them steps, playing tag?”

  I don’t know what surprises me most, the fact that Heather is speaking so openly about our Wiccan upbringing, or that I think I might vaguely recall what she’s talking about.

  Mason scrutinizes me. “Huh. Now that you mention it…”

  “I never realized you might’ve met back then,” says Mom from her seat at the table, as Heather’s husband, Brad, pours her a large glass of wine. “But it makes sense. Some of us used to bring our kids and we just sort of let you roam free while we were preoccupied with circle.”

  “You know, I thought it felt like we’d hung out before.” I reach up to swipe a strand of hair out of his eyes.

  “I guess we do go back.” He grins.

  “Not as far as we do,” murmurs Henry, passing me on his way to the table.

  “I’m gonna let him have that one,” Mason mutters to me, before I can respond. “But only because if it wasn’t for that, you’d have never sought me out. And we wouldn’t have had our sessions, or our dates…and I wouldn’t get to have your perfect lips,” he brushes his against mine as he speaks, “or your gorgeous—”

  “Hey, now.” I smirk, my heart fluttering like a swarm of butterflies, and his hands fall away from my hips.

  Everybody else is busy finding a seat or helping Brad carry in hot dishes from the kitchen. I take Mason’s hand, guiding him to our chairs. I don’t release him, even once we’re seated. My family falls silent as Brad intones an impressively religion-neutral prayer, and we all bow our heads.

  Across from me, Henry half-glances up. For the briefest of moments, our eyes connect. I look back down. Beneath the table, Mason squeezes my hand, and I squeeze back.

  Accepting the unknown—in either direction of time—isn’t always easy. But I believe that, greater than the mystery of what lies behind, is the possibility of all that’s ahead.

  THE END

  Author’s Note

  Dear Reader,

  I want to personally thank you for coming along on Willow’s journey. The Past-Life Chronicles: Volumes 1 & 2 are, in some ways, my most autobiographical works to date—although, enhanced on several levels of wish-fulfillment and ‘what-if’s which, I’ll be the first to admit, are highly romanticized. Ultimately, I wanted to write a story about a young woman achieving the virtually impossible: uncovering proof of her previous lifetime.

  If you can’t already tell, reincarnation is a topic near and dear to my heart, and has been for most of my life. It served as the inspiration for some of my earliest writings, including the first novella I ever self-published (no longer in print) at the tender age of sixteen, about a hospital that returned newborn babies to their past-life families, and a doctor searching for his long-lost soul mate.

  My fascination began at around eight years old, walking hand-in-hand with my father through downtown Annapolis, Maryland. Although it was my first visit there, something felt familiar about the harbor, as if I could picture it filled with people wearing Victorian-era style clothing. An idea occurred to me—one I’d thought was completely original—and I asked my dad, “Is it possible I’ve lived before, as another person, in another life?”

  To which my father, a doctor, promptly replied: “If you talk like that, people will think you’re crazy.”

  I dropped the subject. Little did I know at the time, almost a quarter of the world’s population believes in reincarnation, as do many of the globe’s most ancient, non-Judeo-Christian religions.

  Perhaps because my dad was so quick to mark the subject as taboo, reincarnation was one of the first esoteric topics I began researching around the age of fourteen, once I really learned how to utilize the Internet (for more than just AOL Instant Messenger, anyway). BeyondReligion.com with its testimonials is one of the first websites I found back then—and still frequent to this day. It contains a plethora of reader-submitted past-life recollections and personal stories. Willow’s discovery of ‘TranscendingFaith.net’ was, of course, modeled after BeyondReligion, although I’ve never web-chatted with its wonderful webmaster, John Sloat. (I have, however, been in correspondence with him for many years, and he’s sent me signed copies of his intriguing books.)

  Willow’s story is not terribly unlike my own. I, too, suffered a debilitating fear of being in control of a vehicle, which stalled me from obtaining my driver’s license until I was nearly eighteen years old. Like Willow, I’ve suffered recurring nightmares of being in an auto accident, even before I was in a near-fatal one in 2007. I used to become physically ill anticipating having to drive anywhere, until I went to see a hypnotherapist in 2011. I was actually seeing her for something else…but two sessions ended up getting rid of the majority of my driving phobia. I still can’t quite manage highway speeds, but I can drive pretty much anywhere else!

  The part about Missouri is also accurate to me. The first time I traveled to Missouri—just passing through on my way from Toledo to Albuquerque—I had two thoughts: Why have I never come here before? And Can I stay? My husband didn’t quite get what was so enchanting about it to me. Neither did I. I just knew it felt sweet, like a place filled with old, happy memories from another time. The images Willow recalled, of a curly-haired teen in the nineteen seventies or eighties rolling on lipstick, was also an image I’d once received during meditation. With a little help from my overactive imagination, I thought: what if I could connect all these little pieces of my own experiences to write a novel? Could I find a story there?

  Although I generally write high fantasy and some historical romance, given the subject matter and the fact that I’d need features like automobiles and the Internet to make Willow’s narrative work, it was time for my first full-length foray into contemporary fiction. I’d dabbled in contemporary paranormal before with my haunted house novelette, Deepwood, but I didn’t know where to begin with this undertaking. The old adage, write what you know, occurred to me. So, I sat and thought. What else did I know as well as I knew about reincarnation?

  Once a student of Wicca for more than a decade, I’ve long contained a headful of knowledge on Sabbats, Esbats, circles, elements, mythology, goddesses and gods. While I found ways to drip my ever-present awareness of solstices, equinoxes, moon phases, magic, myth, and philosophy into my fantasy writings, never had I written about overtly Wiccan characters in any kind of modern setting. Due in part to the stigmas and misunderstandings surrounding Wicca and witchcraft spirituality, I wanted to present my protagonists in the fashion of every pagan I’ve ever personally known and befriended: as loving, ethical, deep-thinking, hardworking, everyday people.

  All the same, I hope my portrayal of Willow’s Evangelical sister, Heather, isn’t interpreted as
a slight against all Christians. It was intended as an honest portrayal of what it’s like to be on the receiving end of another’s inflexible dogmatism and spiritual prejudice. The important part is that Heather did come around after Willow chose to heal, and not repeat, their past. And, I’d like to imagine, Heather finally does become pregnant with the baby she’d always wanted shortly after this duet ends.

  As aforementioned, the general outline for this story was originally about a young woman who explores proof of a previous lifetime to overcome the trauma it caused her. In the process, I intended for her to fall in love with the hypnotherapist who helps her along. Indeed, Mason is the longhaired, guitar-playing, pagan iconoclast of my teenage dreams. However, in the early stages of outlining these books, I quickly found the story to be lacking tension and a healthy dose of skepticism. I needed a voice of reason, a scientist who, like my father, would give Willow cause for doubt, even challenge her.

  Enter Henry—sweet, lovable, exasperating Henry—for whom I know a lot of you were rooting. Once I threw him into the mix, I realized just how large of a role he played. And I accidentally fell in love with him. (Whoops.) Although #TeamMason vs. #TeamHenry was a super-tough call, I applaud Willow for making the brave decision to move forward with a new partner. For now. Because, I mean, who says it’ll be forever? Maybe Henry’s right—maybe she’ll change her mind someday, and they’ll wind up together after all. Or, maybe the epilogue means she has officially chosen Mason, and they’ll live happily ever after. I don’t know. I’ll leave it up to you. *winks*

  By the way, the story Henry told Willow in Volume 1, about the housewife with cryptomnesia and her misappropriated memories of Bridie Murphy Corkell, is all true. Thanks to my dad for sharing that with me many years ago, as a scientific case against the validity of past-life memories.