All You Desire

by Kirsten Miller

  “Oh,” Haven said, casting her eyes at the redbrick mansion that lay east of the Ouroboros Society on Gramercy Park South. The first time she had visited, there had been a small bronze sign identifying the building as the Gramercy Park Historical Society. The sign was gone now, replaced by an even smaller plaque engraved with a silver ouroboros. Long an annex of the Ouroboros Society, the mansion hosted Adam’s secret meetings with the organization’s most esteemed members.

  Haven couldn’t stop her eyes from scaling the brick walls to the fourth floor of the building, where Adam kept his macabre museum. The sight that had once inspired terror now brought her relief. Maybe she was doing the right thing after all.

  “You needn’t worry. There’s nothing there anymore,” Adam said.

  “What?” Haven pretended she hadn’t understood.

  “The room at the top. It’s empty.”

  Haven could hardly believe that he’d broached the subject. She thought of all the things she’d seen in that horrible room—her possessions from previous lives and the corpses of six women she’d once been.

  “It’s not in my interest to remind you, but I thought you should know,” Adam said. “A moment of discomfort is better than a lifetime of uncertainty. I had all of your belongings removed. Some were donated to museums. Others were packed away in a storage facility. The key is yours if you’d like it.”

  “And the bodies?” Haven asked.

  “They’ve been laid to rest. I had a mausoleum built for them in Brooklyn. Have you ever visited Green-Wood Cemetery?”

  “No,” Haven said.

  “It’s lovely,” Adam told her. “There are tall trees, and hills that look out over the city. The mausoleum itself is quite simple. A man-made structure couldn’t have added to the beauty of the surroundings. So I had the tomb constructed beneath one of the hills. Only the entrance is visible. There’s a lake a few yards away, and in the summer you can watch the swans gliding by. Even I find it peaceful. Though I must admit, I haven’t visited since the mausoleum was finished. After all these years, I thought you deserved your privacy.”

  “You really have changed.” The words almost caught in Haven’s throat. She didn’t want them to be true. But now that she was finally looking, she could see that he had.

  “I’m merely a work in progress,” Adam corrected her. “The truth is, I didn’t expect you to return in this life. I thought I’d have more time to get things in order. I want to build a Society you’ll be proud of. One you may even choose to lead by my side.”

  “Will I really have a choice?”

  “Yes,” Adam promised. “You will.”

  AT EIGHT O’CLOCK, Haven stopped half a block from the redbrick mansion, unable to convince her feet to move any farther. She simply couldn’t go through with the Horae’s scheme. Haven’s heart ached for Iain and Beau, but she couldn’t bear the thought of betraying Adam. He adored her, and she pitied him. It seemed a cruel twist of fate that she might have to trade Adam’s freedom for the lives of the two people she loved most. If only there were another way. She’d spent hours trying to reach Iain, hoping to learn what progress he’d made—and to warn him to be more careful. But her calls never went through, and Frances Whitman hadn’t seen Iain in days.

  Haven felt her heart slow and her body begin to freeze. Still, she couldn’t turn back or propel herself forward. Then she saw the door of the redbrick mansion open. Commissioner Williams charged down the stairs and turned toward Third Avenue. Remember what matters to you most, she heard Phoebe say. Haven set off in a sprint.

  Adam caught her as she flew into the mansion’s foyer.

  “Did you run all the way from the hotel?” he quipped. “Who would have guessed that my company could be so alluring?”

  “I saw Commissioner Williams outside,” Haven said, struggling to catch her breath. “Was he your seven o’clock appointment? Was he here to talk about Beau?”

  Adam let her go. “I didn’t mention anything earlier because I didn’t want to worry you without cause. There has been some news. Would you care to have a seat?”

  Haven looked around. Her former bodies might have been moved to Brooklyn, but the mansion still made her skin crawl.

  Adam seemed to sense her discomfort. “I have a better idea. Why don’t we walk toward the restaurant? I made reservations at Amrita.” He held the door open for Haven. It wasn’t until they were a block away that she realized Adam hadn’t bothered to wear his coat. It couldn’t have been more than twenty degrees outside. Seeing Adam outside in his thin cashmere sweater was a bit like glimpsing Clark Kent without his glasses.

  “Tell me,” she said.

  “Haven, do you think there’s a chance that Beau may have vanished on purpose?”

  “No!” Haven insisted. “Why would you even say such a thing?”

  “Gordon Williams thinks it’s odd that Beau left school right before his midterm exams.”

  “He was excited,” Haven argued. “He thought he was flying to New York to see a man he was meant to meet. I doubt he even remembered the exams.”

  “Gordon also found it a bit strange that Beau was seen on the street uptown. It doesn’t sound like someone being held against his will, does it?”

  “What are you talking about? He had bruises all over his face! Where is all of this going, Adam?” Haven demanded.

  “You’ve been paying for Beau’s tuition, is that right?”

  The reminder of her poverty made Haven’s frown deepen. “I was until Virginia Morrow accused me of fraud. But what does that have to do with anything?”

  “Gordon told me that Beau hadn’t been striving for academic excellence this semester. He was skipping classes, and his grades were atrocious.”

  “He wasn’t even halfway through the semester!” Haven countered. “Beau had plenty of time to turn his grades around.”

  Adam softened his tone. “But perhaps he didn’t expect to. Perhaps he was embarrassed that your money wasn’t being put to good use.”

  “Right. I see what’s happening,” Haven glowered. “Instead of looking for Beau, Commissioner Williams has been busy finding excuses for his own incompetence. Is that why he came here tonight? To convince you that Beau disappeared, so I wouldn’t know he was flunking out of Vanderbilt?”

  “It’s just a possibility Gordon felt he had to put forward.” Adam stopped. “Haven, I’m able to see the sides of people that they would prefer to hide. Do you think there’s a chance that Beau doesn’t want to be found?”

  “No!” Haven insisted once more. “I can’t believe this! Does Commissioner Williams really think Beau beat himself up?”’

  “There could be another explanation for the bruises.”

  “No! Just no, Adam! Beau would never scare everyone he loves just to save face. Besides, if Beau had been failing all of his classes, he’d have told me!”

  “And risk ruining the perfect image you have of him?”

  “He’d have told me!” Haven cried, refusing to question one of the last things she still knew for certain. She’d felt it too. There was something odd about Beau’s disappearance. Maybe he had been in trouble at school. But he wouldn’t have willingly put Haven through hell. It didn’t matter what evidence there might be to the contrary. Beau Decker couldn’t hurt her. And that, Haven knew, was an indisputable fact.

  “I’m sorry,” Adam said, backing down. “It was merely a suggestion. Gordon was surprised that his men haven’t solved the case yet. He wondered if Beau might have gotten word we were looking for him and moved on.”

  Haven chewed on her lip, trying to hold back her rage.

  “I’m sorry,” Adam told her. “We’ll keep searching for Beau. And I’ll put more pressure on Gordon. Don’t worry about that. Can we try to forget this conversation and enjoy a pleasant dinner together?”

  “I’M AFRAID I’M not very hungry anymore,” Haven grumbled.

  They were already on the far side of Madison Square Park, with the Flatiron Building in front o
f them when Haven stopped. The triangular tower had been constructed a few short years before Constance Whitman was born. As a little girl, Constance had marveled at the skyscraper, which even then was one of the most famous buildings in the world. Haven had a vision of wild winds stirring women’s skirts as crowds of men dressed in old-fashioned three-piece suits held on to their hats and waited for a glimpse of a lady’s ankle.

  “May I ask what you’re thinking about?” Adam asked, and the vision ended. “You had the funniest look on your face just now.”

  “Sometimes the past and the present mix together,” Haven explained. “It makes me feel like I’m losing my mind.”

  “It happens to all of us,” Adam assured her. “Time isn’t the straight arrow that most people imagine.”

  On another day, in another mood, she might have asked for an explanation. “You’re making my head hurt,” Haven told him instead.

  “I apologize. What do you say we skip the restaurant? Are you feeling up for a stroll?”

  She wasn’t. She hadn’t worn the right shoes for a walk, and her thin dress and wool coat weren’t enough protection from the cold. But Haven knew she shouldn’t say no. A romantic stroll was the perfect opportunity to finish the terrible task that Phoebe had set her.

  “Where do you want to go?” Haven asked, trying to forget that the previous conversation had taken place.

  “This way. There’s something I’d like to show you.”

  They ambled west toward the Hudson River. Twenty-fifth Street was lined with antique stores and mannequin makers. Behind the metal mesh that shielded one of the shop fronts, the bald plastic heads of a hundred beautiful women had been mounted on a wall. Each wore a different expression—some laughing, others somber and composed, like an audience unable to interpret the show. Haven and Adam were almost to Tenth Avenue when Adam came to a stop in front of a rusting gate beside an old brownstone. He bent and removed a brick from the building’s wall. Behind the brick lay a key.

  “We’re here,” Adam said as he unlocked the gate. “Don’t worry, I’m allowed to visit whenever I like. Come, take a look.”

  “Whose house is this?” Haven asked. A tight alley led to a garden. She stepped into the passage and let the gate close behind her.

  “A very old man named Matteo Salvadore. He’s a friend of mine. Follow me.”

  The garden behind the brownstone was barren. There were no plants or trees, just marble statues lit by the moonlight. They were all so lifelike that they might have been real women frozen in place by a spell. Adam approached one of them. It was the figure of a girl dancing alone. Her dress, which she wore draped around her body in the style of the ancients, clung to her skin, revealing every curve. Her long, curly hair floated freely, and her crown of flowers had come loose and threatened to slip to the ground. Adam reached out and caressed the statue’s cold, dead arm. It was the first time Haven had seen his eyes come alive in another woman’s presence.

  “Do you recognize this girl?” he asked.

  “No,” Haven said, jealous to think that the lovely creature might once have been real. “Should I? Is she someone I’ve known?”

  “It’s you.”

  “Me?”

  “This is what you looked like when we first met. I saw you dancing in the gardens behind your father’s house in Crete.” He smiled at the memory. “Do you know what I did when I saw you there, spinning around to the music inside your head? I laughed. You might not believe it, but I’d never laughed before. But you were so young and beautiful, so full of life and passion. You were everything that I wasn’t. Matteo must have seen you too. The resemblance is uncanny. I often wonder how many lifetimes it took him to acquire the skills needed to craft such a masterpiece.”

  “Is Matteo Salvadore a member of the Society?”

  “No,” Adam said firmly. “He visited the OS back in the 1940s. He was only eighteen when I first met him, but he said he’d been sculpting for well over a decade. He remembered little snippets of previous lives. Nothing remarkable, just the sort of meaningless memories that stick around for no reason. I asked for a chance to inspect his work, and he brought me here. He’d just completed this statue. He said it was a girl he was sure he’d once seen, but he couldn’t remember where or when. Of course I recognized you in an instant. It was so soon after losing Constance, and the pain was still fresh. I asked him if I could sit with you for a while. I stayed here in this garden for three days. Matteo never asked a single question.

  “He wanted to join the Society, but I refused. I couldn’t bear to see his talents be misused or destroyed. So I became his patron instead. I gave him the money he needed to pursue his art, with no strings attached. In the past seventy years, I’ve asked only three things of him. I asked him never to sell your statue. I asked that I be allowed to visit this garden whenever I like. And a year ago I asked Matteo to create two statues for the mausoleum I had constructed in Green-Wood Cemetery.”

  “He’s known you for seventy years? Has he ever wondered why you still look the same as the day you first met?” Haven asked.

  “Matteo knows I’m not like everyone else.”

  “Is he frightened of you?”

  “Why would he be?” Adam asked. “I’ve never been anything but kind to him. May I ask you a question?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you still frightened of me?”

  “A little,” Haven admitted. “When I was last in New York—when we were upstairs in that room together. You were going to . . .” She couldn’t say it. “What would have happened if Beau hadn’t shown up?”

  “I don’t know,” Adam confessed as his eyes swept the ground. “I look back at that moment, and I don’t recognize myself anymore. I’m ashamed to remember the events of that day.”

  Shame. He had put a name on the emotion still building inside of her. She was ashamed that she’d bartered Adam’s heart for Beau’s safety. Ashamed to let Adam hope that his love might be returned. And ashamed to realize that a bit of it already was.

  “Haven? Is something wrong? Have I made you unhappy?”

  “No. It’s not you,” Haven told him, trying to keep the tears from her eyes. “You’ve been so kind to me. Helping me find Beau, getting me a room at the hotel, convincing Alex Harbridge to let me design a dress for her . . .”

  “I told you I had nothing to do with Alex’s dress,” Adam said. “As for the rest, it has been my pleasure. I only wish I could do more for you. But I’m willing to wait.” He turned his gaze to the statue of the first girl he’d loved. The first of many who had fled from his embrace. “Haven, when you asked me to dinner, it was more than I could ever have hoped for. The idea that you might come to me of your own volition. Quite frankly, it’s astounding.”

  “I guess I’m just grateful,” Haven said. “And I can see that there is something different about you now.”

  “For the first time, I’m looking forward to the future,” Adam responded, the life returning to his dark eyes. “Before, all I had was the past. That’s why I hoarded everything that you’d touched. Now I don’t need those things. I’m sorry,” he added when he caught sight of the flush creeping up Haven’s neck. “I didn’t want to embarrass you.”

  “You didn’t,” Haven lied. “I was just wondering why you weren’t like this before. If you had been, I might not have kept running away from you.”

  “It’s not always easy to know what someone wants most,” Adam said. “At first I imagined that your affection could be purchased with gold and jewels. Those efforts to win your heart were spectacular failures. Then I tried solving the problems you encountered in each lifetime. That worked for a while. There were a few years in Constantinople when we both were happy. Then you discovered the truth about me and threw yourself into the Bosphorus. Later, in Florence, I lost my chance again. But now I know what it is that you desire. I know the one thing I can give you that you can’t ever refuse.”

  “What?” Haven asked.

  “Someone goo
d. Someone you can trust. I saw how distressed you were when Iain disappointed you, and I realized that if I wanted to be with you, I would need to be the man that he wasn’t. So I began making the necessary changes. I’m trying to reform the Society. I want to give our members a new mission. One day you may choose to rule by my side, and I want you to be proud of what we have. Think of what we might be able to accomplish with the OS behind us. It can be a force for good, just as August Strickland intended it to be.”

  “But I still don’t understand, Adam. You once told me that chaos is necessary. You said that without you, the world would grow stagnant. What’s going to happen if you become someone different?”

  “The universe has ways of keeping its balance,” Adam replied. “I have a plan, but I won’t lie to you, Haven. What I’m attempting might be dangerous. I don’t know what the results may be.”

  “But you’re still willing to change?” Haven asked. “Just for me?”

  Adam gazed down at her. “I love you,” he said simply. “I have from the moment I first laid eyes on you. I don’t think you realize how important you are to me, Haven. You’re my only imperfection.”

  “Your imperfection?” It wasn’t quite the compliment Haven had anticipated.

  “Nothing in creation was made without flaws. For thousands of years, I thought I was the exception to that rule. I believed I was a superior being sent to lead a race of weaker creatures. I despised humans, who could be manipulated by desires they couldn’t control. Then I discovered you, and I realized that I’m the one to be pitied. Only when I’m near you do I feel fully alive. I suffer the lust and the longing that mortal men must endure. I’ve become addicted to the sensation, and I’m jealous of the creatures I scorned. You were sent to humble me, Haven. I’m human whenever you’re by my side.”

  Haven knew Phoebe would be pleased by Adam’s admission. But she felt no relief or delight. She wished there was a way to give him the one thing he wanted. All Haven could offer Adam now was a brief glimpse of the way things might have been if her heart had never belonged to someone else. She reached out and took one of Adam’s hands. His fingers felt as smooth and cold as those of the statues in the garden. Adam gazed at her until his wonderment turned to joy.