The Secrets of Their Souls

by Brooke Sivendra

  Please take as much time off as you need to recover.

  I’m sorry, Zahra, I have never been more sorry for anything in my life.

  Jayce

  There was no way to fix things this time, no way for them to move forward, and that cut through her like a razor. She prayed for the pain to stop, but there was nothing to ease her heartache; she would have to deal with it the hard way and go through the grieving stages. There was no easy way out, no magic pill.

  Zahra’s bedroom door opened and she quickly hid her phone under her pillow and closed her eyes, grateful her back was to the door.

  Jemma climbed into the bed and snuggled into her sister’s back. “Please stop crying, Za Za. Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No,” Zahra said. She didn’t want to talk about it to anyone and she never would—their past, and their story, was their secret.

  *

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Jemma asked, standing in the hallway with her hands on her hips.

  “It’s Monday and I’m going to work,” Zahra said, pushing past her. Church Street was ready to be styled and she had worked too hard to miss this. Broken arm and lingering concussion or not, she was going to work.

  Jemma sighed and followed her to the kitchen. “If this is your definition of ‘taking it easy,’ you got more than a bump on your head.”

  She knew her sister meant well, but Zahra was about to throttle her. “Jemma, I am fine. I have done nothing but sit around this apartment all weekend. I need to be at work today, and I feel good, so please don’t bust my ass about this. I have enough shit to deal with as it is.”

  “What are you going to do if you see Jayce?”

  “I’m going to focus on my work and treat him like my boss,” Zahra said, stuffing a banana into her handbag.

  “Do you really think you can do that?” Jemma didn’t look convinced.

  “I don’t have a choice, I have to be able to if I’m going to stay at Mason. I won’t run into him today anyway—he knows that my team is styling, so he won’t go to the showroom. I won’t see him.” Zahra’s voice trembled as she said the last words.

  Jemma hugged her. “Okay. Just give me five minutes to get dressed and I’ll go with you.”

  *

  Work was a good distraction for her mind and, true to his words, Zahra barely knew Jayce existed. She had not seen him for two weeks, nor had he tried to contact her. She only knew he was alive due to the management emails that she received. She missed him and her heart ached for him but, ultimately, love hadn’t been enough to save them.

  Every day she tortured herself by reading Jayce’s email and she asked herself the same question he asked himself: why had they found each other again? It doesn’t make sense, she thought, because if we don’t have a relationship, how can the debt be balanced? What lessons are we supposed to learn from our past?

  Everything seems so unfinished, Zahra thought. Even her dreams seemed unfinished—Raven’s story not yet concluded. Since the night of Dryas’ death, Zahra hadn’t had a single dream. Her nights, on the rare occasion that she did manage to fall asleep, were a dark theater—not a single light on, not a single picture playing. And as painful as her dreams were, they held the keys to her past and she had to know what happened after Dryas’ death. Zahra didn’t know why, but she felt like that piece of the story held the clue to the future, the key to why they had come together again. But, that clue would remain hidden if she couldn’t access her dreams. I have to try regression again, Zahra thought, and called Dr. Moore’s office.

  As usual, Dr. Moore was fully booked, but the receptionist added her to the cancelation list. So far, Zahra had had good luck on the list and she prayed for another appointment soon.

  *

  Her prayers for an appointment were answered, but her prayers for a successful regression were not. Why can’t I regress?

  Zahra took her time walking home from her appointment, her mind lost in despair. The pure heartache and sense of loss she felt were still as raw as the day she had woken up in the hospital. Life had become so painful, so complicated, so confusing. A year ago she’d had a good life, a great life, and now she was an emotional wreck on the tipping point of a breakdown. Her moods swung like a pendulum that could net get centered, and she cursed God and the universe and anyone else behind the mastermind of this world. She was furious that this was her reality—this was not the life she expected and it was not the life she wanted. The only good thing she had left was her career and even that was in question, at Mason at least. She loved her job and her team, she loved the scale of the projects that she worked on, the challenges that surfaced every day and the challenges they conquered every day. She didn’t want to resign, and so far things were working out, but at the end of the day it was still Jayce’s company.

  *

  In her office, Zahra looked at the stack of reports on her desk but pushed them aside—she had come in early for another reason, one she was procrastinating on. While she hadn’t been able to regress at her last appointment, the good doctor did have another suggestion—one that she hadn’t considered, one that was complicated and one that was destined to be painful, but one that might just work. This suggestion, and her morning task, were one and the same. Zahra knew it could be done over the phone but she also knew she had a much better chance of succeeding if she could get in front of him. She would have to improvise though because, despite staring at the ceiling all night, she had not been able to formulate the right words. There were no right words, she’d concluded, but it had to be done because he held the only other key to her past.

  With shaky hands, she picked up the receiver.

  11057

  Her body shivered and she wondered where she was going to get the strength she needed to go ahead with this plan.

  “Good morning, Jayce Tohmatsu’s office, Olivia speaking.”

  “Hi, Olivia, it’s Zahra Foster. I wonder if it’s possible to speak to or leave a message for Jayce, please?”

  Olivia paused and then said, “Please hold.”

  Zahra waited, tapping her foot anxiously.

  “Zahra?”

  The sound of his voice resurrected a mountain of emotions that she didn’t want to feel, and when she opened her mouth to speak, nothing came out. Ten seconds passed before she finally she found her voice, one so dominated by nerves that she barely recognized it. “Hi, are you busy?”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Um… No, but I need to speak to you about something. Are you free sometime today?”

  He hesitated and she held her breath. “Zahra, that’s not a good idea.”

  “I know, but it’s important to me.”

  There was another long silence before he answered. “Okay… do you want to come up now?”

  “Sure, I will be there in a few minutes.”

  She didn’t want to go, she didn’t want to see him, but she needed him. She picked up her cell and walked to the elevator. Her legs felt weaker with each floor the cart ascended.

  Olivia gestured for her to go straight through. She hesitated at the door, though, eventually forcing herself to open it. He was sitting at his desk when she walked in and at first glance he looked exactly like the Jayce Tohmatsu she remembered, but as she walked closer, and looked into his eyes, she saw half the man she had once known—the man sitting in front of her was hurting and barely able to look at her.

  Zahra sat down, covering her plastered arm with the other, as if that would somehow make it less obtrusive. In a moment of weakness, she almost fled from the room, but needing to know their past made her stay. Her body sat heavy in the chair, moments passing with neither of them saying a word.

  “Church Street sold out and broke records. That must have made you happy,” Zahra said in an attempt to break the ice.

  He nodded his head softly. “Everyone did well. You did very well.”

  Zahra nodded her head, her heart breaking all over again. “I have a favor to ask.” />
  He raised his eyebrows and waited for her to continue.

  Zahra fretted with the piping on her blazer sleeve. “I have been seeing a past life regression therapist—Dr. Moore. Unfortunately, though, I can’t seem to regress despite several attempts. For a girl who has, or had,” Zahra corrected, “such graphic dreams, that seems inconceivable but it is what it is, I suppose. Anyway, I half-explained our situation to him—that we are colleagues and that we have both seen parts of our past-life together—and he suggested it might be worthwhile trying to regress you.”

  The color drained from his face and his veins became visible underneath his now white skin. He leaned forward on the desk and hid behind his hands. Zahra waited patiently, giving him time; she would no doubt have reacted the same way had he surprised her with this proposition.

  “Maybe your mind is blocking you for a good reason,” he said before looking up at her. “The past is done, Zahra. I’m trying bury it, not bring it back to life. Please let this go,” he pleaded.

  “I can’t! I can’t believe that this was all for nothing, that we found each other and have hurt each other again for nothing. There has to be some greater purpose to this or what has been the point? It doesn’t make sense to me.”

  “Life is painful and it doesn’t make sense. The sooner we accept that the better.”

  Zahra shook her head rebelliously. “No. I can’t believe that.”

  “What do you want to get out of this?”

  “I don’t know, but I feel like I need to see more of our past to understand what we are supposed to learn from this.” She chewed her cheek unconsciously, only stopping when she realized she could taste blood. She could see that he didn’t want to do this and she wasn’t going to beg, so she stood up and gave him a pass. “I doubt whether we would be able to get an appointment anyway, since he’s extremely booked up.” Zahra walked toward the door, defeated.

  “What is his number?”

  She paused.

  “I don’t want to do this, at all, but if it’s that important to you, I will,” Jayce said. “Write down his number, and I will organize it.” His chin was tilted up and he was looking at the ceiling, looking anywhere but at her. She wanted to take away his pain but she couldn’t, she couldn’t even take away her own pain.

  “Thank you,” Zahra said, writing down the telephone number.

  *

  Back in her office, Zahra held a team meeting for their next project. Church Street was a true success story but that was not emblematic of Luma Street—they would have to up their game again, a ceaseless ambition for the next project to be even better.

  As lunch approached, Zahra checked her cell:

  Dr. Moore is available tonight, 11pm, my office.

  Zahra read the message several times and was even more surprised to notice it came in several hours ago. She questioned how he had managed to get an appointment at eleven o’clock at night, in his office no less. Money talks, she thought, and Dr. Moore was not above it.

  For the rest of the day, the evening’s upcoming therapy session was like a ghost in the back of her mind. Zahra knew they only had one chance—if this didn’t work Jayce would not do it again. She decided to eat dinner at the office rather than go home, and at 10:55 p.m., she walked into Jayce’s waiting room. The lights were on but there was no sign of Olivia, which Zahra was grateful for. The door to Jayce’s office was parted and she could hear two voices talking. She recognized them both and she wanted to stay back and listen to their conversation, although she was sure the clicking of her heels had announced her arrival.

  Jayce and Dr. Moore sat on the couches opposite each other. Zahra shook the doctor’s hand as she walked in and nodded to Jayce who, from the outside, appeared calm but she knew otherwise. She took a seat on the single chair, not wanting to sit next to either of them.

  “Jayce and I have been chatting,” Dr. Moore said. “I have advised him it is very rare that both involved remember the same past life, or are even aware of your past lives. In fact, I have never seen it in all my years.”

  Zahra nodded and glanced across at Jayce. He also nodded his head but said nothing.

  “What we’re going to do tonight is regress you,” he said to Jayce. “You will be comfortable and relaxed, but at no stage are you in any danger. It is very safe. You can open your eyes at any time and you can stop whenever you want. You will never get ‘stuck,’ as some people think. Just experience what you see or feel, don’t react to it, don’t judge it. Whatever comes into your mind is fine. If you want to sit back in the chair and relax, we’ll get started.”

  Zahra also sat back in her chair with her hands pressed together, nervous but grateful that Jayce was doing this for her.

  “Please close your eyes, and let your body relax. Relax the muscles of your face and your jaw, let go of all tension. Let go of the tightness in your body, go deeper and deeper and relax. Let all your troubles fade away. Relax your shoulders, your arms, your chest, your back, your legs, your toes.

  Imagine now that there is a beautiful, healing light above your head. Let that light come into your body now. Imagine that the light heals your body, wherever you need it most, and that it cocoons you like a bubble, a protective bubble. Let your mind go deeper now, so deep that you can remember every experience you’ve ever had whether in this body or any other body. You can remember everything.”

  He counted backward from ten, and after he reached one, he continued.

  “You are in a blissful state of calm. Imagine yourself walking into a garden, full of beautiful flowers. It is peaceful in the garden. Imagine now that you find a place to stop and rest. This place is filled with the healing light and you go deeper again. You can remember everything.

  Let us go back in time now. I am going to count down from five to one and you are going to go back to a time that is significant for you. Whatever comes into your awareness is fine.”

  After counting down the numbers once more, he asked, “What do you become aware of?”

  “I’m in a tunnel, it’s very dark.”

  It was working. Jayce spoke slowly, deliberately, and Zahra leaned forward eagerly, resting her chin on her hand, careful not to make a single noise.

  “That’s good. What else do you see?”

  “There are carvings on the stone walls, but I can only see a few steps ahead. I’m a young child, I shouldn’t be in here.”

  “Do you know why you are in the tunnel? How do you feel?”

  “I’m running to the end, to the light. I’m scared.”

  “That’s okay, you’re okay. Are you alone?”

  “Yes, but my friend is waiting for me at the top of the stairs, at the light. She has the blue stone. It sparkles.”

  “What kind of stone is it?”

  “… It’s a healing stone. She stole it and I have to get it back.”

  “Can you see your friend now?”

  “Yes, I’m at the bottom of the stairs now, and she is standing at the top.”

  “What does she look like?”

  “She is older. She has long red hair. She’s smiling at me.”

  “Do you know her name?”

  “… I can’t remember.”

  Dr. Moore’s eyes flickered to Zahra’s before he asked his next question.

  “Do you recognize her from another lifetime?”

  “… Yes, it’s Zahra…” Jayce paused. “No, no… She’s closing the tunnel door… I can’t get out!”

  //

  ALSO BY BROOKE SIVENDRA

  The Ghosts of Their Pasts

  [The Soul Series Book 2]

  Love hadn’t been enough to save them.

  Zahra Foster is alone again and once more haunted by the night. If Zahra thought Raven’s past was bad, nothing could have prepared her for Makare’s.

  While Zahra tries to piece together the fragments of her past lives, Jayce is dealing with his own demons. The Tohmatsu family is being threatened, and Jayce blames himself.

  Wit
h a security situation spiraling out of control, Zahra and Jayce are brought back together—along with the ghosts of their pasts. Can they make amends for their mistakes and learn to trust each other? Or are they still keeping secrets?

  A captivating story of love, forgiveness, and betrayal, The Ghosts of Their Pasts will immerse readers into a world that shows the choices we make can have unimaginable consequences. But, the power of love should never be underestimated.

  The Ghosts of Their Pasts is out now at Amazon.com and Amazon.com.au

  [The Soul Series Book 3]

  is set to be released in December 2015

  GET EXCLUSIVE #TSOTS CONTENT

  THANK YOU.

  Writing is often thought of as a solitary journey, but I disagree, because I write for my readers and nothing is more fulfilling to me than building relationships with you all.

  To keep in touch, I occasionally send newsletters with details on new releases, special offers and other bits of news relating to The Soul Series novels.

  And, if you sign up to the mailing list, I’ll send you some exclusive content:

  A Q&A with Zahra Foster

  A Q&A with Jayce Tohmatsu

  A Q&A with Kyoji Tohmatsu

  A Q&A with Rebecca O’Sullivan

  You can get these Q&As, for free, by signing up at http://eepurl.com/bzUKrv

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