Transcendence

“What do you remember?” she asks. I might be reading too much into it, but her voice sounds colder to me. More distant than just a few seconds ago.

“Just bits and pieces,” I say in a rush. “I remember the party. And you being so nice to me—letting me use your cello when mine broke.” I stop, picturing the last time I saw her. “And I remember the roof.” Her eyes are kinder now, and I’m shooting for forgiveness. “I don’t know what happened exactly, but I know that I wouldn’t have done anything to hurt you. We were friends. Weren’t we?”

Veronique puts her hand on my arm, and I realize that for the first time, I feel nothing from her touch. No vibrations. No wayward memories. “Of course we were,” she says. “You were like the little sister I never had. It was all an accident—”

“But it wasn’t an accident. I can prove it.” A horn honks, and Rayne leans out the passenger side window of her sister’s car at the curb. I look over and wave. “That’s my ride.”

There’s so much else I want to tell her. About the newspapers. About Paolo. But Rayne honks again and there’s no time. The moment’s gone.

Veronique reads my mind. “Call me. Tomorrow, okay? Then we can talk more.”

I feel a shudder as I swallow the last of my tears. “I will. Tomorrow. And thanks.”

She squeezes my right hand, and I feel the Akhet vibrations again. But there’s something else. An uncomfortable undercurrent. Something desperate and uneasy. “I’ll talk to you soon,” she says lightly.

“Okay.”

Veronique waves as I climb into Sienna’s backseat, and for a split second I wonder if I’ve done the right thing. Can I really trust her? Can I really trust anyone? I push the uneasy thoughts away. I want to believe her. More than anything, I want to believe that someone, somewhere, is telling me the truth.

Twenty~Two

“Can I stay here tonight?” I ask as we slip through Rayne’s front door and pull it shut.

“Counting on it.” One thing I love about Rayne is that she doesn’t ask too many questions. At least, not at first. She didn’t ask me anything in the car while Sienna was driving, just kept turning around to watch me from the front seat.

Rayne’s books are spread across her bed, and I slide a few of them to the side so I can lie down and curl up into a ball. I think that if I can make myself as small as possible, the ache in my chest will somehow magically shrink too. I know Rayne is staring at me, but she’s uncharacteristically quiet as I lie there, trying to come up with a rational explanation about why my world is ending.

“So, I have to ask. What the hell happened? I’m assuming Griffon did something,” she finally says.

All I can do is shrug. Just the sound of his name makes fresh tears spring into my eyes.

“Bad kisser?”

I shake my head no.

“Girlfriend?”

“No.” If only.

Rayne sighs. “Well, you’re going to have to work with me a little here,” she says. “I can’t try to make you feel better if I have no idea what’s going on.”

I push myself into a semi-sitting position and lean against the wall. There’s been so much craziness the past few weeks that I can barely keep track of what I’ve told her. “I remembered more. About Griffon.”

“Wait a second. I thought we were talking about Veronique and what happened in San Francisco.”

“Another lifetime. In England. I thought all of my memories were just random, but it turns out Griffon was there after all.” I take a deep breath, pull a pillow into my lap, and hug it tight. “Let’s just say he’s not who I thought he was.”

Rayne’s eyes get wide. “You mean that you were together in a past life? Oh my God, that is so freakin’ romantic.” Out of everyone I know, Rayne is the only one who will take that kind of news as normal. And think it’s romantic. “Now you have to tell me everything.”

So I try. “We weren’t ‘together’ together in the time before,” I explain. “Not like that. I don’t remember all that much about it. Just that I lived a long time ago in England.” I suddenly remember the graffiti inside the tower. It had a date on it. “In 1538, I think.”

“In 1538 you think?” Rayne asks.

“Yeah. There’s some graffiti … oh, never mind.” I have to try to focus my thoughts. “I was some sort of Lady at the Tower of London.”

“Like a queen?” Rayne asks excitedly.

“I don’t know. I don’t think I was a queen, anyway. I keep having visions of parts of this one day. It was … the last day. I was led up to a platform while all of these people watched. There was a guy there with a hood on, and the only thing I could see were these intense eyes.” I have to stop here, my voice wavering as I picture the cold resignation of those eyes. I swallow hard. “It was the guy with the axe.” I close my eyes. “It was Griffon.”

Rayne puts her hand over her mouth. “No way! Are you seriously saying that Griffon executed you in another life?”

I nod, biting the inside of my cheek to keep myself from crying. “And he’s known all along.”

“Wait a minute,” Rayne says. “Didn’t you meet him at the Tower of London?”

“Yes. Right on the spot where the execution happened. He’s been lying to me the whole time. He admitted it when we were at the beach.”

“So what did you do?”

“What do you think I did? I got the hell out of there.”

Rayne thinks for a second. “I can’t believe he’d really do that. He seems so into you.”

“People like him are good at hiding things,” I say. “He can do things that other people can’t.” I’ve been pushing that thought to the back of my mind. It’s bad enough that Griffon has been lying to me. Thinking that he might actually want to hurt me, that part of his reason for being here is to repeat that time at the Tower, is overwhelming. “Think about it. He did just happen to be outside when the window broke.”

“That’s ridiculous. He wasn’t anywhere near you when you had the accident.”

“What if he doesn’t have to be near me?” Griffon was right. Being able to remember the days of the week or memorize entire books are just simple tricks. What else can he do? What other abilities does he have that I don’t know about? “Every time something bad happened, Griffon was somewhere nearby. When the glass broke, he was right outside. He was the one who dropped the cello when I almost fell down the conservatory steps. We almost had a motorcycle accident tonight on the way to the beach. He said someone was chasing us, but all I saw was a car behind us—I took his word for the rest of it. For all I know, he made the whole thing up just to scare me. Veronique is right. The pretense is over.”

“Veronique?” she asks. “Is that what you were talking to her about?”

“I ran into her while I was waiting for you. I told her what happened.” I see the look on Rayne’s face. “I had to. She’s the only other person on earth who might really understand.”

“Thanks.”

“Come on. You know what I mean. The only other person I know who remembers too.”

“Still, blabbing to Veronique about everything might not be the best move,” Rayne says, skepticism still edging her tone. “Did Griffon really try to hurt you tonight?”

“He might have, if Peter hadn’t been there. You should have seen the look in his eyes when I figured it out.”

“Well, no matter what, you were smart to come here.” Rayne looks up at the ceiling. She tilts her head as she looks at me. “When you were the queen back in England, what was your name?”

I shift on her bed, hugging the pillow tighter. “I wasn’t a queen. And I really don’t want to talk about this any more right now.” I just want it to all go away.

“Griffon knows what happened,” Rayne says quietly. “You said yourself that he admitted being the one on the scaffold that day. If he was the executioner, then he knows all about it. Don’t you deserve to know the truth