"Well, whatever. But just say past lives do exist. And what if someone's life kept repeating in a sort of cycle, with certain people showing up in sort of the same roles. Do you think those people would have a choice in how they felt or what they did?"
His eyebrows came together as he considered my question. "You mean, regarding the events that keep repeating themselves?"
"Yeah."
"I personally believe in free will. I don't believe there's some force out there controlling or predetermining our actions."
He didn't ask why I'd wanted to know, which was one of the good things about my brother. Most of the time he acted kind of shallow, probably trying to impress people, but he was there when I needed him, always ready to listen or stick up for me. A good brother, really.
At home, we discovered our mom had gotten a job. She'd gone grocery shopping so she could fix a celebratory dinner. I was happy for her, for us as a family, but my enthusiasm was only skin-deep. I hung out in my room as she prepared dinner, doodling on my sketchpad. The evening grew deeper. I kept glancing out the window, not sure what I expected—Ahaziel tapping on the glass, whispering for me to let him in, maybe—but all I saw was a reflection.
Later, after dinner, I couldn't seem to shake a restless feeling. I paced my room, straightening things, hanging up clothes. I lay on my bed for a while, eyes seeking shapes in the ceiling, but still I couldn't calm down. Eventually the house grew quiet as my mom and Brandt went to sleep. The hum of the refrigerator and soft drone of the heater were the only sounds.
I crept out into the living room without turning on any lights. I tried to be silent, as if I were sneaking through a stranger's home in the middle of the night. I crossed the room to the window, lifting the curtains to peer out into the darkness. My street looked the same as ever—ordinary houses, ordinary shadows, comforting if feeble glow from the streetlights. This was how a street was supposed to look at night. No people, no cars, because everyone was home in bed, dreaming ordinary dreams.
Tiptoeing to the front door, I unlocked it slowly and quietly. The faint crack of it releasing from the painted frame seemed astonishingly loud. I waited a moment for my mom or Brandt to come investigate, but the house remained silent. Holding my breath, I stepped over the threshold and pulled the door gently shut. I hugged myself and danced a little to hold off the chill, wishing I'd had the forethought to grab a sweater. But I hadn't and I wasn't going back inside. Not yet.
However much I wanted to see him, I wasn't brave enough to go searching for Ahaziel, not with Merko wanting to kill me. Going outside at all, especially in the dead of night, was probably suicide. But I hoped Ahaziel would come to me. I hoped he'd realize I needed him. My eyes searched across the street, hoping to see his form rippling the shadows as he walked towards me.
By the time my toes had grown numb inside my socks, there was still no sign of him. Defeated, I started to open the door when I noticed a dark shape fluttering down from the sky. I watched it swish back and forth and land at my feet. It was an evergreen leaf, I saw when I picked it up, with spiky needles. It felt dry and brittle. I handled it gingerly, twirling it by the stem until I'd determined it had come from a yew tree. I was no expert on trees, so I wasn't sure how I knew this so certainly.
Still holding the leaf, I headed inside and locked the door behind me. I went to the TV and sat down in front of it, setting the leaf on the carpet beside me. I switched the set on for light and muted the infomercial. Along with a few movies, my mom kept an encyclopedia and dictionary, the only books we owned, on the cart beneath the television set. I reached for the encyclopedia and flipped it open to Y, bluish light flickering over the tiny text. Quickly I found the entry for yew and a detailed illustration confirmed the leaf I had found did indeed belong to that tree. Holding the large book close to my face, I skimmed the entry, hardly daring to breathe.
Yew tree . . . exceptional longevity . . . highly poisonous nature of the seeds and foliage . . . slow growth, resistance to decay . . . branches bending to rest on the ground . . . often referred to as a tree of life . . . resurrection, faith, and sorrow . . .
I snapped the book shut. My skin tingled.
The leaf was a message.
Ahaziel was in trouble and he needed me. Something must have been keeping him from meeting me like we'd planned or else he'd have been here already.
There was no evidence to prove this. But I knew, just as I had known the leaf belonged to a yew tree in the first place. And there were no yews in our neighborhood or anywhere in town I'd seen. The leaf had come from the forest, and somehow Ahaziel had sent it.
I wanted to help him. But what if this was some sort of trap Merko had laid trying to lure me to him? If I went to Ahaziel, perhaps we would both die.
I needed help.
My first instinct was to go to my brother, so I put the encyclopedia away and wasted no time getting to his room. I didn't care that he was sleeping. We had to do something now. I shook his shoulder roughly and hissed his name until he peered at me in confused annoyance.
"What?"
"Remember those questions I was asking you earlier?"
"Yes. This had better be good." He rubbed his eyes, yawning.
"There's a reason I was asking."
And then I laid everything out for him. How I first met Ahaziel in the forest, the day I'd ditched school. I told him Eve's story and Olivia's, how they had lived, how they had died. I mentioned my nightmares, which I was sure had to do with the times I'd died at Merko's hand. I told him Merko wanted to kill me again. I confessed how I had decided I did have a choice to love Ahaziel or not, only to doubt myself later while wondering if Austin could decide for himself whether he liked me. When I'd finished, I watched my brother expectantly.
He was sitting up now, no longer sleepy. "Okay, first of all, we already had this discussion about free will. Even if people from your past lives keep showing up, they're still making their own choices. Austin's probably just letting his hormones control him, like every other guy his age. And you loving this Ahaziel guy isn't set in stone. You either do or you don't, but it has nothing to do with what happened however many hundred years ago, except that maybe you know him better in this life because of what you experienced then."
I blinked at him. "You believe me?"
"You aren't exactly fanciful, so I don't think you made this up. But maybe you're crazy, I don't know. I'd like to believe you're telling the truth, though." He swung his legs off the bed and stood up. "Now about this Merko guy."
"I need your help with that."
"How so?"
"I want to kill him."
Brandt rubbed his face, silent for a moment, then placed his hands on his hips and looked at me. "Seriously?"
"I know how it sounds," I admitted, recognizing the desperation that had begun to creep into my voice. "But I have an idea. Sort of."
"Okay. What is it?"
"Ahaziel told me Merko can't be killed as a normal man. And when I was Olivia, he said something to me that got me thinking. He said I could become part of his world if I ate food he offered me. I thought the same thing might work in reverse. This is how we can make Merko a normal man." I paused, not liking Brandt's raised eyebrow. "How we can kill him," I added helpfully.
"By offering him food from our world."
"Yes."
He shook his head and looked skeptical. "This is far-fetched, Lilly. Really far-fetched."
"I know, Brandt. But please, help me. I promise you he'll kill me if he gets a chance."
For a moment he looked at me, as if searching for any trace of deceit or madness. Then he raised his arms, smiling a little in disbelief of himself. "All right, Lil. Let's do this shit."
~
What we needed was a solid plan. We didn't have one, not even after hours of trying to formulate one. The best idea we came up with was to overpower Merko, tie him down, and force him to eat food from our kitchen.
"Pretty lame," Brandt observed.
&nb
sp; "Well, it's all we've got," I reminded him testily. It was early, so early the sun hadn't risen and half the town was probably still sleeping. "Did you call Austin?"
"Yeah. He'll be waiting."
"Good." I paused a moment to breathe evenly, to steady my pulse. I was doing this, no doubt. I just needed to focus on the fact that I was about to attempt to kill a supernatural being who'd tormented me in past lives. "Why now?" I asked suddenly. "Why did I remember these lives, but Eve didn't remember Olivia's?"
"Because it's your third life," Brandt said, though it was obvious he'd thrown the response out as a guess.
"What does that mean?"
"Three is like, a magical number or something," he answered with a shrug. "And once I heard somewhere that a triangle is the strongest shape. But sometimes other numbers are important too, like five or nine. So I don't know."
"I read something recently about three consecutive lives. Where did you hear this stuff?"
"The Discovery Channel, I think. Or maybe the History Channel. I can't believe I remembered it."
"So you're not just a future frat boy after all."
He just grinned and wiggled his eyebrows, though his face grew solemn quickly. "Maybe this life is the last point of your triangle. Your last chance. And you remembering is nature's way of helping you."
"Oh, that's great." I laughed a little, hoping he was completely, utterly wrong. If this was my last life and Merko killed me a third time, I would never see Ahaziel again.
"Anyway, how are we going to find this sea demon?"
"We're not," I said, zipping up my backpack. "He's going to find us. Me, actually."
We stepped out of the house and I waited as Brandt locked the door. The brisk wind buffeted about me, shaking the neighborhood trees and churning the clouds. The weather seemed portentous somehow.
I was beyond scared.
The sun still hadn't risen when we picked up Austin and drove to the edge of the woods. I'd chosen the entrance to the hiking trail near the area where I'd first seen Ahaziel. It was as good a place as any for Merko to sneak up on me, plus the car wouldn't look out of place, even in an empty parking lot. With any luck, Merko wouldn't even realize I had driven here with others. I hoped he'd think I was alone, searching for Ahaziel, perhaps.
"Fifteen minutes," I reminded the guys. "I don't want him to see you too soon."
Brandt nodded warily. Austin just looked confused. We hadn't told him what we were doing, exactly.
"Be careful," Brandt implored as I got out of the car.
Backpack hitched up on my shoulders, I set off into the trees, ducking to avoid branches, my footsteps on the frozen ground clearly audible. My knees trembled uncontrollably. I was prepared, more or less, to face the thing of my nightmares. To face death, dying.
Because there was always the chance I wouldn't see the dawn.
"Ahaziel?" I called, my voice sounding small against the distant whistle of wind.
Someone laughed. Chuckled, actually, as if at some private joke.
I scanned the trees in front of me, not able to pinpoint the direction of the sound. I glanced over my shoulder but saw nothing there either. Had I imagined the chuckle? Maybe the wind had carried the sound from somewhere else, somewhere I couldn't see. Maybe it hadn't even been a chuckle. My mind, frayed with fear, had been playing tricks on me.
"Hello, Lilly."
I whirled and found myself facing Merko. If I'd ever doubted it, I knew instantly I was right to be afraid. Looking into his liquid black eyes, I saw clearly he would stop at nothing to kill me.
"Get away from me," I said in the most threatening voice I could manage. Had it been fifteen minutes? Or five? I hoped I didn't have to stall too long until Brandt and Austin got here. It seemed Merko had always killed me quickly, hardly bothering to toy with me first.
"I have so much fun with you," he said in protest, grinning. His teeth were sharp and slightly black. Glistening droplets trickled off the ends of his curly hair, as if he'd just come from a swim.
"What are you?" I asked, as if I didn't know. I hoped he didn't realize how much I had remembered. I'd always had a natural dislike of him, even as Olivia, and maybe he wouldn't recognize how it had transformed into hatred and horror.
Merko only chuckled, more gleefully manic this time. I glanced around nervously. Where were Brandt and Austin? We needed to get this done fast. The longer it took, the longer it would be until I could find Ahaziel and help him, whatever trouble he was in. If he was well and able, he would have been here.
I hoped I wouldn't be too late for him.
"Where's Ahaziel?" I demanded, just in case Merko had something to do with his absence. Which was entirely plausible.
"He won't be coming for you, if that's what you're wondering. Not this time."
"What have you done?" I shrieked, backing away from him. A thick, sinking feeling seemed to bog me down, choking me, sucking at my feet so I couldn't move.
"It's nothing I've done," he said, looking too pleased. "It's what he's done. Or rather, hasn't done. Has he ever told you what he has to do to stay alive?"
A needling, gasping fear overtook me. I shook my head and kept shaking it, muttering "No, no" under my breath. The word got louder and louder until I was shouting it, screaming it in Merko's face without knowing exactly what I was protesting, only that I didn't like him or his words or the fact that Ahaziel might be dying and I wasn't there to stop it.
Merko's sharp-toothed countenance loomed horrifyingly in front of me until suddenly it didn't.
I blinked away the black spots that had crowded into my vision. Merko was on the ground, pinned by Austin and my brother.
"Lilly! The rope!" Brandt cried.
The rope. I scrambled to get the backpack off and my fingers were clumsy on the zipper, but somehow I managed to get the rope out and toss it to Brandt. Merko was struggling for all he was worth but Austin was strong and knocked him out with one punch. Brandt concentrated on looping a knot around his wrists, complaining about slippery skin, but in the end he managed it. Once he'd done the hands he took care of the feet, and then the boys were carrying him to the car. Merko swayed between them.
"I'll drive," I volunteered, only because it was more preferable than sitting in the back beside my killer. "You two sit in the back with him and whatever you do don't let him get away." I drove out of the lot onto the road that would take me to Austin's house. "Are your parents back yet? Are they awake?" I asked, noticing the subtle lightening in the air despite the storm clouds.
"They're back. But I think we can probably get him down to the basement without them noticing. Can someone tell me what's going on now?"
"This guy's been hurting Lilly," Brandt answered before I could come up with a response.
"Why aren't we going to the police?"
"It's more complicated than that," I said.
At last we reached Austin's house. As the boys hefted Merko out of the backseat, I ran ahead with Austin's keys to unlock a side door on the same side of the house as the basement. I watched them carry him across a corner of lawn and up the path, hoping Austin's parents were either still sleeping or else somewhere on the opposite side of the house, far enough away so they couldn't hear us. They were notoriously uninvolved but I was on edge.
This is before, I thought, shivering as we descended into the basement without incident. Before I turn Merko human. Before I kill him and become a murderer. Before I can carry on with my normal life and be together with Ahaziel.
But that was only if the plan worked. And if Ahaziel was still all right, which I hoped feverishly he would be.
After shutting the door to the rest of the house and locking it, I sat on one of the couches, chewing on a nail as I watched Austin and Brandt tie a still-unconscious Merko to a hard-backed chair. I couldn't help but feel we were all in some kind of gangster movie. I wondered if there would be blood like in a movie. Then I realized if we were successful, of course there would be. I wasn't sure if Merko b
led now but humans definitely did. Could I actually bring myself to spill his blood? I tried to picture myself slitting his throat or plunging a knife into his chest, but the images were comical. Maybe we could strangle him instead. But what would we do with the body once he was dead?
There seemed to be several details I had failed to consider.
"What if this doesn't work?" I asked Brandt worriedly.
"I guess you'll have to figure out how to kill him another way."
"Kill him?" Austin cried. "What is this?"
They stepped away from Merko, having finished securing the ropes. "If he's really a water spirit like you said," Brandt mused, ignoring his friend, "he may have a weakness to electricity."
I stared at him, waiting for an explanation that never came. "What, are we going to throw a toaster at him or something?"
"No. I doubt that would work. I was thinking more along the lines of lightning."
"Brandt, unless we're going to conduct some Benjamin Franklin style experiments, I don't see how we're going to make sure Merko gets struck by lightning."
He shrugged. "Maybe we could convince him to stick a fork in a light socket."
"What about fire?" I suggested. "Water and fire are opposites, right?"
"Are you guys planning to burn someone to death?" Austin demanded. "Because if I'd known that I would never—"
"Quiet!" I shouted.
Merko was awake and watching us. For how long I had no idea. I felt myself go still. Brandt and Austin were both clearly uneasy now in a way they hadn't been in the forest. Merko, with his thin pointy smile and blurry visage, was creepy enough to unsettle anyone.
I reached for the backpack on the coffee table in front of me and pulled out a package of fruit snacks.
"That was the best you could do?" Brandt asked, a tremor of nervousness in his voice. Maybe he was finally starting to wonder if I'd gone crazy.
I didn't take the time to answer my brother or even look at him. I just held the stupid little plastic package up, trying not to let my hand shake, until Merko grew curious enough to ask what it was.
"Fruit snacks," I told him. "Only they have nothing to do with real fruit, let alone anything that came out of the ocean. Pretty much every ingredient in these is some unpronounceable synthetic. A completely human food."
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