ARC: The 57 Lives of Alex Wayfare

by M. G. Buehrlen

  Like savage gray plumes of smoke.

  A shiver ripples through me. I start to think maybe this was a bad idea. But it’s not like I can go back and tell Porter my plan and ask for his help. He’ll forbid it. He’ll put a soul block on me. I have to confront Blue before that happens or I’ll never know the truth. I’ll never have closure. I’ll just go on wondering, never knowing for sure who played me, Blue or Porter.

  Even if Porter’s right and Blue and I are enemies, and I have to take him down along with Gesh, at least there will be closure. I’ll be able to move on.

  Eventually.

  I make my way toward my soulmarks, dipping my hand in the lukewarm water in my fountain as I walk by. I take a deep breath. I flick the perception of water from my fingers.

  How do I know which is the right soulmark? When I found the right one to take me back to Nick Piasecki in 1927, it drew me in more than the others. Maybe that will happen this time.

  I move slowly through the rows of my own personal forest of lights. The blue-white glow melts across my skin. I can feel the energy radiating from each soulmark, pulling at my edges. The pull is stronger with some than others, but even after pausing beside each individual soulmark, I don’t feel drawn to any one in particular. In the end, I decide to just reach out and try one. I’d do a touchdown. Land, look around, then come right back.

  I start with the first soulmark in the center row. It sways gracefully before me, taunting me, tempting me to touch it with its silent siren song. It doesn’t have to try hard – I am willing prey.

  I dip a fingertip into its center. The light swells, then consumes me.

  I landed gently, like a feather on grass. I pulled breath into my lungs, filling them with… dry, warm air? I opened my eyes. I was nowhere near the right time period.

  Sprawling prairie land rolled out before me as far as I could see, dotted with strange, gnarled trees and scraggly bushes. A balmy breeze rustled the dry, golden grass. The sun shone with reckless abandon above me, but in the far distance, a dark thundercloud hovered over a mountain plateau, smudging the horizon with slanted sheets of gray rain.

  I stood on a porch under a thatched roof, barefoot, watching a wagon pulled by two oxen depart down a two track road. One of my hands was raised in mid-wave, the other clutched an old stick broom. I wore a very plain dress and some sort of wide-brimmed hat. A family of giraffes grazed amid a stand of trees far off to the right.

  I was in Africa, I guess? But I had no idea what year. Sometime in the 1800s?

  I was tempted to stay a while longer and explore that past life – I mean, it was Africa after all – but I forced myself to ascend back to Limbo while I still had the willpower to do so.

  I reach for the soulmark directly to the right of the last one before I change my mind. It pulls me in and plunges me into its depths.

  In this life, I was sitting in a rocking chair, my bare toes nestled into the fibers of a thick, warm rug. A fire crackled in a hearth before of me. I was knitting something – I couldn’t tell what – and rocking, listening to some kind of radio theater filtering through the speakers of an old-timey radio. The Forties? Thirties?

  I ascend back to Limbo. I grab the soulmark to the left of the African one.

  I landed at the top of a wintry moor, shivering in heavy, woolen clothes under a dark, cloud-covered sky. A black lace veil hid my face. Snow fell lightly on my shoulders. The flakes lighted upon on my veil, melting the moment the ice met the thread. I stared down at a freshly dug grave. A simple wooden coffin rested at the bottom covered in a thin layer of snow. A small group of people stood gathered beside me, all dressed in thick, black layers. A priest stood at the head of the grave, reciting something in an ancient-sounding language. Gaelic, maybe? There were a dozen headstones scattered across the moor, and a foreboding, fort-like castle resting in the distance.

  Cold tears had left streaks on my cheeks. My veil ruffled against my nose in the bitter breeze. I looked down and saw my black, lace-gloved hands cradling my belly – my very swollen belly. My eyes widened. I stared down at my hands. Something deep inside my abdomen shifted to the left.

  I ascended immediately.

  The moment I return to Limbo, I stumble backwards and fall down, staring up at that soulmark. The thought never crossed my mind that I might have been pregnant in a past life. That I might have had children. If so, then my children might have had children. Which means my own descendants could be alive and well today in Base Life.

  I shake my head and run a trembling hand through my hair. I can’t think about that right now. And I definitely can’t think about the possibility of being a descendant of myself. That’s just way too weird.

  I get back on my feet. I need to focus. The soulmark to the left of my African past seemed to take me further back in time, to some sort of Celtic period. The one to the right brought me closer to Base Life – the Forties? So if I keep working my way to the right…

  I take a chance and head to the very last soulmark in the very last row on the right. Maybe it’s number fifty-six.

  I wrap my fingers around the light.

  BINGO

  I opened my eyes to shadow and storm. I was lying on my side on a soft mattress, my body warm and heavy beneath a down blanket. It took a moment to orient myself because everything was turned sideways. I blinked once, twice, then made out the shape of a window. A large, metal-framed pane of glass like you see in commercial buildings. Intense, heavy rain beat against it. Thunder rolled. Glittering lights from a city outside struggled to pierce through the darkness of the storm. The driving rain distorted the lights as it streaked and swirled on the glass. Beads of shadow dappled and played across my skin.

  My past life body was so content that I thought about lying there for a while longer and falling asleep to the drumming rain. I hadn’t realized how exhausted I was until I felt that overwhelming sense of rest and relaxation. I was in the most deliciously comfortable position – the kind that usually eludes you until five minutes before your alarm goes off in the morning. I didn’t want to move. My hips were sunken perfectly into the mattress. My head was perfectly cradled. My cheek rested on a warm, smooth surface.

  A surface that rose and fell along with my own breath.

  I bolted upright to find myself sharing a bed with a boy. A bare-chested boy. My bare legs were entwined with his.

  I gasped and pushed away from him, only to lose my balance and fall right off the edge of the bed. I landed on a cold stone floor with a smack.

  “Ivy?” the boy said, reaching for me in the dark.

  I scrambled to my feet and backed away from him. I was wearing a guy’s long-sleeved collar shirt – only a guy’s collar shirt – which barely came down to the middle of my thighs. I tried to pull it down further to no avail.

  There were only three positives I could see in my particular scenario. At least I had underwear on under the collar shirt. At least I wasn’t completely naked like in 1961. And at least I landed in the right time period. The boy had called me Ivy.

  I glanced around to locate a closet or wardrobe, anything that might contain clothes. It was a cold, sterile-looking room with bare walls and floors, harsh lines and corners. The bed was the only source of warmth and softness, even though the linens were hospital white. A gray steel door stood to my right, which could be a closet. Another steel door stood behind me, a sliver of fluorescent light leaking through at its base.

  I took a step toward the closet but froze when I felt a draft on my head like a frosty breath. My hands flew to my scalp. My hair was buzzed so short I was practically bald. My jaw dropped as my fingers searched the top of my skull.

  I remembered the day Audrey came home demanding to have her head shaved. Two weeks after she began chemo, her hair started falling out a few strands at a time. One or two would fall and tickle her nose or cheek while she’d be talking to me. She’d sweep them away with her hand or send them flying with a puff of air. It was a small inconvenience then, but soon
they fell into her plate at the dinner table. She was always picking them out of her soup. Brushing them from her shoulders. Her pillow. She said she felt covered in hair when she took a shower. And one day three years ago, when she still attended school, a boy sitting at a desk behind her raised his hand and said, “Mrs Cuthbert? Audrey’s shedding all over my stuff.” When she looked behind her, a layer of her hair covered the boy’s desk and books. All the other kids laughed. The boy sneered at her.

  She demanded the clippers that very day. She didn’t even want to wait for Mom and Dad to come home. Gran buzzed all her hair off, all her long, beautiful sand-colored hair, and it fell in a circle around her feet on the back porch. I remembered the look on her face when Gran handed her the mirror. She made no expression, save the tiniest quiver of her bottom lip. Then she handed the mirror back to Gran and, without a sound, went to her room to be alone. Gran saved a lock of her hair to tie with a ribbon. I swept the rest into a pile, then scooped it into the trash.

  Gone forever.

  “Ivy?” the boy said again, snapping me out of my thoughts. He climbed out of the bed and eyed me with suspicion.

  The shadow beads danced across his pale, bare chest. Light green pajama pants, like medical scrubs, hung from his slender hips and pooled at his bare feet. His eyes were narrowed, his mouth turned down. His short hair stuck up haphazardly on top, almost as if I’d been the one who messed it up.

  That thought was enough to make me forget my bald head. This guy was definitely not Blue. I couldn’t see the color of his eyes or his hair in the darkness, but he didn’t feel like Blue. He felt like a stranger. Blue and I were supposed to be partners in this life. Soul mates. So why was I in bed with someone else?

  I took a step back, feeling dizzy and faint. I thought back to my swollen, pregnant belly. Good Lord. How many guys had I slept with throughout my past fifty-six lives? Fifty? A hundred? Five hundred? Had I loved them all? Had I been happy? Had they treated me right? I dropped my arms slowly to my sides. This was going to gnaw at me. I could feel it.

  The boy studied me from my head to my toes, then back up again. His eyes tightened. “You just descended.”

  I blinked, not knowing how to respond. I didn’t know if he meant it as a fact or a question. He had a thick accent, but I couldn’t tell which one it was.

  He spoke again. “You descended from the future, didn’t you?”

  He obviously knew Ivy was a Descender and what she was capable of. That actually made things easier. I wouldn’t have to pretend this time.

  “What’s wrong?” he said. “Why did you travel back to this life?”

  I still couldn’t place his accent. German? Irish? English? It sounded like a mixture of all three. Before I answered him, I glanced down at my bare legs. “Could I… get dressed first?”

  His eyes flicked to my legs too. It took a moment before understanding dawned on his face. I wasn’t Ivy, the girl he’d been snuggling with. I was a stranger standing in front of another stranger, half-naked.

  He whisked the closet door open, his movements agile and quick. He rummaged through it for a minute, scrutinizing several articles of clothing and tossing them over his shoulder if they weren’t what he was looking for. At last, he handed me a soft gray smock, a pair of flowing black pants, black socks, and a pair of black slip-on shoes. Thunder peeled across the sky outside.

  When I reached for the clothes, I made sure not to touch his hands. I didn’t care that I’d known him in my past life. I didn’t know him now. “Can you turn around?”

  “Oh. Of course.”

  He went back to the closet, his back to me, and pulled a white T-shirt over his pale torso. I turned away from him and slipped into my clothes as fast as I could. I peered over my shoulder to see if he was peeking, but he wasn’t. Not that he probably hadn’t already seen what I was covering up.

  When I sat on the concrete floor to pull my socks and shoes on, he sat on the edge of the bed in front of me, elbows on his knees. His hands were clasped, his forefingers pressed together, pointing at the floor. We watched each other.

  So this guy was my boyfriend in this past life. I guess I could see why I liked him. He was cute, in a boyish, nerdy, emo sort of way. He hadn’t stopped frowning since I landed, but it was an appealing frown. The brooding kind you see immortalized as “art” in hipster magazines and photographs. Unlike Ear Nibbler, whose arrogant scowl I wished I could erase from my memory, this boy’s frown came straight from a sad and troubled soul.

  He kind of reminded me of me.

  He leaned back, his palms planted on the mattress behind him. There was an insignia on his T-shirt – a circular red logo bearing the words: AIDA Headquarters, Washington DC. In the center of the circle were three letters.

  LVI.

  CHAPTER 29

  SHOCK WAVES

  “You’re Levi?” I asked, my mouth hanging open.

  His lips parted in surprise. He sat up. “You know who I am in the future?”

  “I know of you.”

  He leaned forward. “Am I still alive?” He held me in an intense gaze, as if the whole world hinged on the answer to that question.

  “I... don’t know.” I couldn’t look at him when I said it.

  He let out a breath. His shoulders fell. “Oh. So, we’re not…” He glanced at the bed and the rumpled blanket and sheets.

  He didn’t have to finish his sentence. I knew what he meant. “No. We’re not together. We’ve never met. I’ve just heard your name.”

  His frown deepened, as if that were possible. A thousand unspoken sentences passed between us. Finally he looked over at me, almost reluctantly. “What’s your name?” His voice was soft. Restrained.

  I lifted my chin. “I can’t tell you.” How did I know it wouldn’t get back to Gesh?

  “Why are you here?”

  “I need to talk to Nick.” I shook my head. That wasn’t his name in this life. “I mean Tre.”

  Levi’s eyes narrowed. “Why can’t you talk to him in your Base Life?” When I didn’t answer, he said, “You aren’t partners anymore, are you?”

  I didn’t want to answer that. I didn’t want to tell him anymore than I had to. “I just need to talk to him. Can you tell me where he is?”

  “He’s still in recovery. He really shouldn’t have visitors. Besides, you’re not scheduled to be down in the labs today. You have the day off. That’s why we…” He glanced at the bed again. The rumpled blankets.

  I pushed myself to my feet. “It’s really important I speak to him. Just tell me where to find him. I’ll go myself.”

  “You don’t have the proper clearance.”

  “I’m a Transcender. Level Five. Doesn’t that mean I’m ranked pretty high?”

  “Yes,” he said, annoyed. “But that refers to your clearance in Limbo, not the research labs. Descenders aren’t allowed in the labs without a supervisor present.”

  “Who are the supervisors?”

  “Hr Flemming or Hr Gesh.”

  He pronounced it “hare,” making me think he was German. I took German my freshman year, and we had to address our teacher, Mr Juniper, as Herr Juniper.

  “Are they the only ones with the proper clearance?” I asked.

  Thunder rolled outside. Levi sighed through his nose. “No.” He leaned across the bed and grabbed what looked like a key card and a pair of glasses from the window ledge. He gave me an I-hope-I-don’t-regret-this look, and said, “Come on.” He swung wide the heavy steel door behind me, and I followed him out into a brightly lit, empty hallway.

  That’s when I really saw him for the first time, bathed in that bright light.

  Dark blond hair. Dark brown eyes. Wire-rimmed glasses.

  Levi was the little boy from my memory at AIDA. Not Blue. Levi was the one I remembered so strongly that the mere thought of him brought on the strongest déjà vu. Levi was my ever-present link to Limbo. My key to the past.

  Why hadn’t Porter mentioned him? He must’ve meant a great d
eal to me in this life. More than Blue, which seemed weird. Wasn’t Blue supposed to be my soul mate? But maybe Porter had meant “mate” as in friend. That our souls were companions. Maybe he hadn’t meant the star-crossed fated lover definition at all.

  Levi strode purposefully down the hall to an elevator at the end. I kept pace, staring at him, trying to remember more about him. Anything at all. I didn’t like the idea of having lovers in other lifetimes only to forget they existed. It seemed heartless and cruel.

  He swiped his card through a card reader on the wall. It beeped and a tiny green light blinked. The elevator doors slid open. We stepped inside and he used his card again to gain access to the lowest level of the building.

  The doors closed. We started to descend. It was silent inside, no elevator music, no beeping to signal the passing of floors, only the rumble of the cables lowering us. We stood side-by-side. Levi kept his eyes forward, still frowning. I kept stealing glances at him.

  I couldn’t remember anything about him, this boy attached to my Polygon stone. We were strangers on an elevator, and I didn’t want it to be that way. I didn’t want to be the cause of his perpetual frown. Something told me Ivy never made him frown like that.

  “Are you a Descender too?” I asked, my voice coming out louder than I anticipated in the small space. “Is that why you have a number for a name like Ivy?”

  “No.” His tone was flat. “I’m just a Sub.”

  “What’s a sub?”

  “A Sublunary,” he said, like I was stupid for not knowing. “It means I’m earthbound. Subs are those who can’t ascend to Limbo. We’re foot soldiers. We do the work here in the present, while the Descenders do the work in the past.”

  “Is that why you have security clearance and I don’t?”