by Jaime Loren
It was a beautiful day, and the clothes I’d already hung on our line whipped around in the breeze, allowing the sunlight to flash across my face. Kneeling on the ground, I heard a noise in front of me. I looked up to see a pair of black shoes about a yard away.
“I couldn’t see the man’s face at first because he was standing behind a sheet,” I told Scott, who was holding my hand.
A gust of wind then lifted the sheet out of the way, and he lunged toward me before I could move. He pushed me to the ground and I screamed for Scott, hoping he had, by chance, come back to the house to get something. But he was gone, and it was just me and my attacker, struggling on the ground. He held me down with one arm, crushing my chest, and a sharp pain in my side left me momentarily dizzy.
I cried, “No, no, please, no—”
But my attacker looked away from me and plunged something into my stomach.
It was then that I realized he’d stabbed me—twice now. I couldn’t even scream anymore. It was too painful. I simply cried. Struggling, I called quietly for Scott, but he never came.
I left that part out.
“He actually apologized for stabbing me.”
But then he plunged the knife into me again, and I cried in silence. He rolled off and sat next to me on the grass, wiping the sweat from his brow. My mouth filled with the taste of metal as he used my dress to wipe the blood from his knife.
In a whisper, I asked him why he’d done this to me, and he shook his head, telling me it was the only way to make him feel better. I rolled painfully onto my stomach and attempted to crawl toward the house.
The sun began to set prematurely, and I shivered. I gave up in my bid to crawl back inside, and rested my cheek on the warm grass, hoping Scott would return before I closed my eyes.
Scott’s eyes were red and glassy when I opened mine, his jaw clenched. He blinked and cleared his throat. “Could you draw him?”
“I don’t remember his face. Just that he was tall—taller than you. And he had long dark hair, down to his cheek.”
Scott pulled me in and wrapped his arms around me. “Anything would help.”
I closed my eyes. “But it’s … distorted. Abstract, almost. Like my memory of that glass of juice at the cabin.”
He rubbed my back. I’d told him about the glass last night, but when it all came down to it, that didn’t mean anything. We had to wait and see if I remembered anything else.
“Why did they think they’d caught the guy who’d stabbed me?”
“He’d stabbed two other women that week, and he’d run from one of the murders with blood all …” Scott tensed in my arms.
I drew back. “What?”
He peeled away from me and picked up the journal. “Can you please open a browser?”
Without questioning him, I sat at his desk and clicked open a new tab.
“Type in ‘Stanley Kennedy, Isobel Coulson, murder, 1909.’”
Holding my breath, I hit enter, then sat back. A few records popped up.
“Bring up an image, if you can,” Scott asked.
There were a few, mostly modern day, but when I scrolled down, my blood ran cold. “Sco …?”
The floorboards creaked as he came over and leaned in behind me, his hand on my chair. “Shit.”
I nodded, my lips tingling and my hands numb.
Before us, there was a picture of Isobel Coulson: pale-skinned with her chocolate brown hair in a loose bun. The portrait of her was so beautiful, I was surprised there was no wedding ring on her finger. Beside it, there was another picture, her hair also tied back in a loose bun, her straight teeth gleaming white in her broad smile, her hand raised to hold onto a hat that was clearly seconds away from being stolen by the wind.
One picture was from 1909.
The other was from Facebook.
Both of us sat in stunned silence. A gamut of emotions ran through me: horror. Curiosity. Sadness. But also relief, then guilt about relief, and more guilt about the excitement bubbling up.
“There are more like me.”
“I’m wondering how many more,” Scott said.
“Right, but … there are more like me. Does that mean there are more like you?”
“I have no idea.”
“Is this a thing?” I said, standing up. “Is this a thing that’s going on in the world, but we’re not in the cool club so no one told us?”
He raised his brow. “Cool club?”
“You know what I mean.” I pointed to the computer. “These girls probably have no idea, do they? I mean, everyone googles themselves, but I wouldn’t have looked twice if an old image came up.” I looked up at him. “They’re walking around, blissfully ignorant, not knowing they’re living a multiple life. That they’re going to die any minute.”
“April, most people are walking around like that every day.”
“Yeah, but most people don’t die, Scott.” He opened his mouth to point out the obvious. “You know what I mean. How are you not freaking out about this?”
“I am freaking out, okay? Of course I’m freaking out! This is huge, but I’m not sure what to do with it.” He clutched the back of his head. “This is too big. We can’t research this and research the whole immortality aspect, too. We’re supposed to be going to Hong Kong tomorrow morning.”
“We have to research it. We have to find these girls.”
“And I have to prevent your death, April. That’s my number one priority.”
I pressed my hand to my forehead. “What if these girls know something? What if they’re having nightmares like me? What if they’re committing suicide, left, right and center?”
He dropped his hands to his sides. “Clearly they haven’t figured out how to stop it.”
“But, we can’t—”
“April!”
My blood pressure rose, my throat tightening. Scott turned away, took a deep breath, then faced me again.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
I nodded, and he pulled me into his arms. His heartbeat was strong against my ear.
“They’re me, Scott.”
“I know.”
“What if they have their own Scott Parkers?”
He held me tighter.
“What if they need answers right now?”
“I know.” He kissed my head, then drew back to run his fingers through my hair and brush my cheeks with his thumbs. “But you’re running out of time and I will not lose you again.” His eyes burned with determination.
My chin trembled. I nodded. “Then I’ll stay here.” Pain streaked across his face. “I’ll figure out who and what these girls are, and see how they relate to us.”
“I can’t just leave you here.”
“I’ve survived this long,” I said, realizing how stupid that sounded. My odds of dying were increasing with every passing day. I couldn’t just walk away from this, though.
“April.”
“Scott.” I stared at him.
“No.”
I raised my brow and stepped back. “No?”
He sighed, helpless.
I placed my hands on my hips. “Mr. Parker, need I remind you I once looked myself in your room for two days because you refused to tell me what Mary Ovingham had said about me?”
“That was last year, April.”
“Right. But I won didn’t I? You had to give in,”
He fixed me with a glare. “Yes.”
“And why did I win?”
“Because you’re stubborn as all hell.”
The Mexican standoff continued another minute. I didn’t budge as I watched him think. Didn’t he understand that this was the one thing I could do to help us? The one thing that gave me a fifty-fifty share in research stakes? A way that I could be truly helpful?
Scott narrowed his eyes, then turned away and shook his head. He crossed his arms, and I knew exactly what that meant. When he opened his mouth to speak, I lifted my chin in warning.
“Don’t make me lock myself in this r
oom again, Scott Parker.”
“Ugh.”
“You know I will,” I threatened. When his eyes reddened and he looked away again, my heart sunk. I moved in and wrapped my arms around his waist. “I don’t want to be apart from you. You know that. But you also know this is worth chasing down. I have to stay here. ”
Scott clutched the hair at the back of my head and kissed my forehead. “That goes against my every want and desire right now.”
“Well, think of the bright side.”
He scoffed. “There’s a bright side to being separated from you at a time like this?”
“Sure there is. Now you don’t have to worry about me catching Ebola on the plane.”
He laughed, spilling tears of sadness as he pulled me closer. “We can survive this, right?”
“Right,” I said, unconvincingly.
“You’re going to lock your door and windows,” he said.
I nodded.
“Put a fire extinguisher in your room.”
I nodded again.
“Call 911 if you hear anything, April. Even if … the wind doesn’t sound right outside. And stay in public places when you go out.”
“I will.”
“You’ll need more pepper spray—no. A Taser. And your car isn’t safe.”
“It just came back from the garage!” I argued.
“And it would crumple if a minivan looked at it the wrong way.” He shook his head. “You need something bigger. Practically indestructible.”
“O … kay?”
He rubbed his face. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this …”
“Are we doing this, Scott?”
He took another deep breath and blew it out slowly. “We’re doing this.” After another kiss—a deeper kiss—he pulled back and pressed his forehead to mine. “But you’re going to do it in style.”
*****
Whenever I’d seen people kissing in airports, I’d always wondered why they were holding on to their loved ones for dear life. Surely they were going to see them again, weren’t they? It wasn’t a life or death situation. They could always jump on another plane and hold each other again.
But this morning, I hadn’t wanted to let him go. I hadn’t wanted him to see me cry, but I hadn’t been able to keep from doing that, either. I’d held him so tight my arms had trembled, and he’d held me so tight I could barely breathe—and I hadn’t cared one bit. We’d shared our final kiss at least one hundred times before he boarded the plane, and I’d cried in my car in the airport parking lot until I thought my eyes would bleed.
My brand new, bigger, safer car. With my new fake drivers’ licenses. And my new, very real bankcards.
And a few million in cash, so I could buy as much information as I needed to split this thing wide open.
Chapter 41
(Scott)
Hong Kong – July
Cars buzzed past our small motel, honking horns as bicycle riders rang their bells. Tom grabbed a pillow and pressed it to his ear as he rolled over in his bed. It was three in the afternoon, but he’d been up for two days straight, making calls and reading academic papers. The Taoist belief had brought us here—a way of living with the hope of eventually attaining physical immortality.
So far we’d seen two historians who were more interested in telling us about the academic arguments over whether Taoism started as a folk religion, or as a philosophy. We didn’t care either way. We simply wanted answers as to whether there was any mythology surrounding the achievement of physical immortality. Any folklore. Any scripture that suggested this way of living might have worked in the past for someone, somewhere. Any “fictional” accounts. But after two weeks of research, we’d turned up nothing.
It felt as though no matter which way I turned, I was hitting brick walls. April’s bone marrow samples had so far returned inconclusive results. Maybe my murder theory had been wrong, after all.
I stood up and closed the window, drowning out some of the noise. We weren’t exactly in the five-star part of town, but we were trying to maintain a low profile. Tom’s grip on the pillow loosened, and he muttered in his sleep. Not wanting to wake him, I slipped out into the hallway and pulled out my phone.
After six rings, she picked up, sounding groggy. “Hello?”
“Baby, I’m sorry,” I said, only now realizing it was three in the morning over there.
“Scott?” she said, her voice lifting.
“I’m sorry I woke you. I just desperately needed to hear your voice.”
“Oh,” she said, then fell silent.
“Are you okay?”
“I miss you so much.”
I gripped my phone harder and closed my eyes. Maybe I could go home. Tom and I weren’t getting anywhere in Hong Kong, and my need to touch April again—to hold her—was great. It’d been two weeks since I’d seen her. Kissed her. Made love to her. “I love you,” I said.
A few seconds passed before she answered. “I know.”
“How are your arrangements for Harvard coming along?”
“Good,” she grumbled, having given in to my argument that she should carry on with life as usual. Which meant she couldn’t get out of going to college.
“How’s the Tav?”
“Boring.”
“Your parents?”
“Helicopter-y.”
“That’s understandable. Their little girl is all grown up and heading for college.”
A pause. “They want to throw me an early eighteenth birthday party. You know, before I go … to Harvard.”
It was my turn to pause. “I think that’s a great idea.”
“It won’t be the same if you’re not here.”
“Then tell me when it is, and I’ll come home.”
“It’s in three weeks,” she replied.
“I’ll be there, April.” My heart weighed heavy, though. Her actual birthday was only six weeks away. Six weeks at the most before someone, or something, pulled the plug on her soul.
“Can you sing for me, Scott?” she asked.
I could picture her, lying in bed with her knees curled to her chest as she held her phone to her ear. I leaned against the wall and looked around to make sure the coast was clear, then began to sing “Some Enchanted Evening.” April was silent after I’d finished. I smiled. “Are you still awake?”
“You sang that to me on the end of the dock in 1949,” she said softly.
Emotion swelled in my chest. I closed my eyes, remembering how I’d wrapped her in a blanket, soaking clothes and all, then taken her in my arms and swayed us to a non-existent tune. When she’d smiled and asked me what song we were dancing to, I sang it for her, and she’d pressed her lips to my neck and held me tight.
“It feels like a dream to have you call me in the middle of the night and sing to me.”
“I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I love that you did.”
I didn’t want to pop this sentimental bubble, but I had to ask. “How’s the research going?”
“A lot easier when I flash the cash.”
I snorted. “No doubt.”
“It’s weird. I found two more who died just before me in the past, whose names pop up as births the following year.”
“Who were they?”
“Um …” She rustled some papers. I pictured them strewn across her bed. “Melody Ferriday, from 1891, and Elizabeth Hancock, 1927.”
Neither name was familiar to me. “Were they the same age as you each time?”
“Melody was. Elizabeth was two years older. But neither of them were alive right before their birth, and neither of them lived short lives after they died. And I’m just realizing how fucked up that whole sentence sounds.”
“I know.”
It looks like their first lives were the ones where they died around the same time as me—and get this: both of them had the same cause of death as me that year.”
“Are you serious?”
“Melody had an aneurysm, and Elizab
eth had an embolism.”
My shoulders sagged with the weight of confusion. “So fate …” I still hated the word “kill.”
“It takes us out in the same way, yeah.” Frustration boiled in her voice. “It’s like …” No. Not frustration. Guilt. “It’s as if they only died—”
“Don’t say it,” I warned her. “It’s not true.”
The sound of her shallow breaths was the only proof she was still on the line for the next ten seconds. They eventually slowed down. “There was one other thing that was super interesting.”
“Yeah?”
“If they were the same people in their next life—like, if they were reincarnated—they didn’t die before they were eighteen.”
There was hope in her voice now, and wished I could feel as optimistic, but given her statistics …
“I know, Scott,” she said, as though reading my mind. “I’m not getting my hopes up. Like I said: it’s interesting.”
“I would love for there to be a way to break the cycle. Obviously. And you’re right, that is very interesting.”
“Yeah, so anyway. Melody is currently forty-eight and living in Sacramento,” she said. “Elizabeth is twenty-nine and lives in Washington. The dates add up, but I haven’t seen photos. Well—Elizabeth is probably on Facebook now, but I don’t know what she looked like in 1927.”
“Right.” I made a mental note to have a look once we had a decent connection. “We’re really getting somewhere this time. Nice one, Cluedo.”
“Thanks, Sherlock.”
“Sherlock,” I groaned. “Which one?”
“Cumberbatch.”
“Noooooooo.”
She laughed. “Kidding. I’d only sleep with Robert Downey, Jr.”
I snorted. “Um. Thanks?”
“You’re welcome.”
“So, uh … I have a really important question, and I need you to be completely honest with me, okay?”
“Of course. What’s wrong?”
“What are you wearing?”
“Oh!” If she were here, I knew she would’ve whacked me. “Scott.” Her giggle warmed me through. “I’m wearing my super-sexy sweatshirt and my purple heart pajama bottoms.”
I groaned. “God, they’re my favorite.”
She laughed again. “You haven’t even seen them.”