Marked

by A.N. Meade

there, the riddle made sense. Her hands shook. She knocked twice, and then rang the dusty little bell at the base of the doorstep, only once as she held the lines up by the door.

  The energy of whoever was walking toward her was very strong. A dark figure approached. It was too difficult to make out any features. Her heart was racing. Her fast had begun to take its toll. Her head was spinning. She thought that she would pass out, when finally a tiny old woman opened the door. She looked to be about sixty with silver strands streaked throughout her hair. Her dress had many bold colors, and her green paisley apron matched the kerchief on her head. Her eyes had a brightness to them, even though they were a bit clouded with cataracts. She smiled.

  “Bonjour, Aimee. Come on in.” She greeted her like an old friend.

  This took Aimee off guard a little. “Are you Elsie?”

  “That’s what they been calling me, child since I can remember. Now, come on in, we can’t be standing out here with the door gaped wide open.”

  Aimee was afraid to step inside. She knew that Elsie was a good friend of Marc’s, but the power of her presence was suffocating. It reminded her of Damian, and she didn’t like that at all. She had come a long way to speak with Elsie, though, so for the moment she put her fears behind her and stepped inside.

  The store downstairs was strange. It was more than the eerie lighting, dim as it was. The shelves were lined with many curious things, far stranger things than were in the old man’s shop earlier. There were jars with frog legs and rooster’s crests, and a pig fetus. Above their heads hung all different kinds of dried flowers and herbs. There was incense and dusty old books, and even what looked like a human skull, up on a high shelf. They kept walking past the shelves, and up a narrow staircase, into the apartment above.

  They went directly into the kitchen. “Have a seat. Would you like some tea?”

  Aimee took a seat at the table as directed. She wasn’t thirsty for tea, but Elsie certainly had a way about her that though she spoke softly, you did not want to offend her. So, Aimee took some tea. Elsie stirred a pot on the back burner and then came and sat down by Aimee. She lit some myrrh incense at the table.

  “You’re not surprised at all to see me here?” Aimee had to know why Elsie was treating her as if she already knew her.

  “Oh, I’ve been expecting to meet you for centuries now.” Elsie smiled, big and broad. She seemed genuinely happy to see Aimee.

  “Then you know why I’m here.” Aimee was anxious to get straight into things.

  “Why are you here?” Elsie knew many things, but the motives of a person were something that only that person knew.

  “I’m here to get answers. So far I’m not getting anything but a good cup of tea.”

  “Then, you aren’t asking the right questions.” Elsie wasn’t being intentionally evasive. She was actually amused by the young one’s eagerness.

  Aimee took a deep breath and thought before answering. “I want to know about my past. I need to know who I was before I can live my life now fully.”

  “To want and to need are two very different things, child. First, you must be certain that you are ready for knowledge. There are many things that we bury in our minds for a reason. Are you sure that you want to go digging up the past?” Elsie’s warning was gentle, and full of truth.

  “I can feel that there is more to our story than Marc is telling me, or that I am seeing myself. It scares me. I want to face it and get past it, so I can be with him and be fully with him, without secrets.” Aimee tried her best to convey that she had thought about this. She had the whole drive down here to think about this. She was hurting the one man that loved her so that she could offer her whole self. She had to understand.

  “Very well, finish your tea. For this I will need your mind to be open.” Elsie accepted her answer. She was not affected either way, but she wanted to know that Aimee had put some thought into the possible repercussions of doing this.

  It was hard to focus. Elsie’s sweet tea was very unique indeed. The colors in the room seemed to glow and move, melding in with each other.

  Elsie laughed softly, “Are you ready?”

  “Yes.” Clearly whatever this was had been the plan. Aimee never had liked the feeling of being out of control, so she tried not to fight the movement and the colors as much as possible.

  Elsie leaned in toward her. “Forget names. Forget time. You, the eternal essence of you, that is what I am interested in.” After a few moments, letting Aimee focus, she continued. “Who are you? Where are you? Tell me what you see.”

  Aimee had fallen into some kind of hypnotic state. IT was her voice that spoke, but her sense of awareness had drifted somewhere else. “It’s like I’m flying backward through a tunnel. Movies are playing all around. They’re me I think, pieces of the lives that Marc described to me. I can see our life together.” Aimee smiled. She loved being with him. Her smile faded quickly. She furrowed her brow in confusion. “I don’t know where I am now. There’s a castle on the shoreline. It’s at the top of a big mountain. There are cliffs all down the back side. I can see a girl in the tower. She has long dark hair. She’s so young, and she’s crying. She’s sitting on a window seat, looking out at the ocean. I think she is me. I want to die. I can hear a key in the door to the bedroom. It’s him. I’m so afraid, my hands are shaking and they won’t stop.”

  “Who? Who is it child?” Elsie was trying to find out more.

  “He says I’m his wife, but I’m not. He bought me from my parents for gold pieces, like a horse or a cow. It wasn’t my choice to be here with him. He thinks I’m ungrateful. He says he owns me. I guess he does.” Tears filled Aimee’s eyes.

  “Can you see him? What does he look like?”

  “I don’t like to look at his face. He makes me look at him. I don’t like his eyes. They’re cold. He wears some kind of armor like a soldier. He’s far too wealthy to be a soldier, maybe he’s their commander. He is strong, and he likes to control people. He’s angry, so angry that he can’t control me. He’s leaving and I’m happy. He won’t let anyone talk to me. I’m completely alone when he isn’t here. Sometimes I miss him, I hate it that I do. I just want to talk to someone so badly sometimes.” Aimee’s lip quivered as she spoke, fighting back the tears. She flashed quickly to another memory. “He’s been gone for a while now. I’m looking out the window again. He’ll be back in a few weeks. It’s always worse when he first comes home. He hurts me. I think he likes it more when I cry. I can’t do this anymore. I climbed onto the window ledge. I’m barefoot. I can feel the mist on my feet and legs. We are so close to the sea. I close my eyes. I’m done crying. I feel like a bird, soaring through the air, a beautiful red bird falling. He hates red, and I love wearing it. I didn’t feel the rocks. I’m free now.”

  Aimee leaned back into her chair, her breath slowed as she began to relax. Whatever trauma that she faced was over now it seemed, but there was more to the picture that Aimee did not yet see. Elsie looked into her eyes. They showed her what happened.

  “This was your first life. It was not with Marc. The place that you see is in eastern Romania, near the Black sea, and the man was someone very evil.” Tears rolled down Elsie’s cheeks. She could see the memories playing over and over again in Aimee’s eyes. “His name was Dacian, of the family Dracuul. I am so very sorry for what he did to you, child. In your desperation you found the only way out that you could. What a terrible fate for a girl who was just fourteen. Your parents felt like they had no choice. All of you were starving. He gave them so much money, and he promised that you would live as royalty. They made the deal with him, but they did not know what they were doing. You saw through his eloquence right away, from the very day that he came to get you. What a strange morning that was. You had never seen your mother cry before. You couldn’t help but cry too.”

  “She was in a hurry. She took my dress. He had left a new dress for me, but I don’t want to wear it. I asked her why. Why is this happening? What did I do
wrong? Please don’t send me away. She told me to stop talking nonsense, and that he was going to be my husband. She said that I must learn to be a good wife, to be obedient to him, and to hold my tongue. I told her that I don’t want to do this. I begged her over and over please to not make me do this. She told me to be silent, or else my father would hear. I listened to her. She bore the marks of my father’s rage on her face. Either I was silent, or he would beat me until I could be nothing but silent. I slid on the dress. It was too big. I was just a girl, and had the figure of a girl. I felt like a doll, being dressed up against my will for someone else’s amusement. Just before she opened the door, she pressed a rosary into my hands. It belonged to her, and the beads were worn from use. She told me to pray and to remember that God would guide and protect me. I wanted to hear that she loved me, but she never said it. She pushed me out instead into the great room of the house. He was coming through the doorway. He had to bend his head to clear the frame. He was dressed in rich fabric, and the leather of his shoes gleamed like water. He didn’t even look at me. He looked at my father when he spoke.

  “Here is the rest.” The stranger said, handing my father a velvet bag full of gold coins, they clinked in his palm.

  My father told him. “Thank