Endless

by Amanda Gray

  She didn’t pass her dad, had no idea if he was even home. She crossed the field and hit the path through the woods with only one thought.

  Please be there, Nikolai. Please.

  She saw him as he’d been in her dream. Heard his voice in her head.

  I will always find you.

  And then, the guy named Nikolai next door. The same dark hair and green eyes. The same person.

  I’ve finally found you.

  She hadn’t worked out the logistics, didn’t know how it was possible. But the Nikolai from the past and the guy next door were one and the same, and she belonged with him.

  Belonged to him, even though it didn’t make any sense at all.

  She flew through the trees, dodging low-hanging branches that threatened to hit her face. She had her first moment of hesitation just before she reached the house. The practical side of her, now just a whisper, wondered if she had gone crazy. If Nikolai would think she was crazy, too. If the whole thing was one wild dream taken way too far.

  But then she crashed into the clearing in front of the house, and he was there, standing in jeans and bare feet at the bottom of the porch steps. Waiting.

  There was reverence in his eyes as he opened his arms to her.

  She didn’t even slow down. Just let her feet carry her over the lawn, up the hill leading to the porch.

  He reached out for her, his arms encircling her waist, pulling her to him like a drowning man clinging to a life raft.

  Finally, she thought. Finally.

  She buried her face in his neck. Breathed in the familiar clean scent. She felt alive, awake, in a way that she’d never been. And something else. She felt found.

  “Jenny, Jenny,” he murmured into her hair. “I knew you would remember.”

  * * *

  “I don’t remember,” she said later. “Not exactly.”

  They were sitting on the porch steps. Nikolai was turned slightly to face her, as if he was afraid to take his eyes off her for even a minute. He held her hands in his. The feel of his touch seemed the most natural thing in the world and the most thrilling all at the same time.

  “It may take a while or you may never remember everything,” he said, his voice sympathetic. “But you know. That’s what matters.”

  And she did. She knew. They had belonged to each other in the past. Belonged to each other now and always, though there was no rhyme or reason to it.

  “I don’t … ” She shook her head. “I don’t really understand any of this.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “It is you, right? Nikolai? From my dreams?”

  “Tell me about them,” he said.

  She took a deep breath. “I’ve had more than one dream, but I’m always a girl named Maria. I think I might be … ” She laughed a little. “It sounds crazy, but I think I might have been a Romanov. I’m always in danger.” She met his gaze. “And you’re always there.”

  He looked at her tenderly. “Those aren’t dreams. They’re memories.”

  “But I’m only seventeen.” She said it even though her mind had already started to formulate the possibilities, was already preparing her for the truth she would have to acknowledge.

  “The body is just a vessel, but our spirits are energy. They go on and on. And they remember. Sometimes, if someone dies in a traumatic manner, their soul can’t be at peace in its new form. Occasionally, the person actually remembers their other life, though the memories aren’t usually as vivid as the dreams you describe. It’s usually more of a … sense. A feeling. An unexplained aversion or fear.” He reached out, touching a fingertip gently to the birthmark on her collarbone. “A mark, carried with you from one life to the next.”

  She knew what he was talking about, had always believed in reincarnation. But believing it in the abstract and believing you were actually having past-life memories were two totally different things.

  “So I was Maria Romanov in another life.” It wasn’t a question. Not really.

  He nodded. “And I was the clockmaker’s grandson.”

  His words made the world tilt around her. She hadn’t told him about the dream with the still-life painting, the clock repair made by the young man named Nikolai while Maria painted with her sister.

  “How are you here, now?” She looked at him carefully, confirming what she already knew. “You look just the same.”

  “I came here a different way.”

  “What way?”

  He looked off into the trees, clasping his hands together in front of him. “To tell you that, I’ll have to tell you the story of your death. It isn’t something I like thinking about.”

  “But I have to know,” she said.

  “Surely you know what happened to the Romanovs.”

  “They were … executed.” It was harder to say than she expected. She’d always thought of the assassination of the Romanov family in the abstract. Tragic, yes. And sad. But now it was difficult to think about it.

  “I tried to get you out. Tried to get you to come away with me.”

  “But I wouldn’t leave my family,” she murmured.

  He nodded. “They came for you in the night, but I only heard about it some time later, when Igor ran to our quarters with the news. I tried to hurry, to get there in time though I knew there would be nothing I could do. But I was too late. By the time I got there they had already begun.”

  “I don’t remember that part,” she said softly.

  He turned his green eyes on her, his voice fierce. “Be glad of it.”

  “What happened to you?” she asked.

  He returned his stare to the woods. “I was shot, too. They thought I was dead. They dumped me in the forest with the rest of the … with the rest of the family.” He paused, and she saw the tightness in his face as he tried to keep his composure. “They left me for dead. I wanted to be dead. Wanted to die without you.”

  “But you didn’t die.” Her voice was a whisper.

  He shook his head. “Someone came for me after the soldiers had gone. A woman with long black hair and soft hands. She took me to her cottage in the forest and nursed me back to health”—he laughed harshly—“though I begged her not too. It was only later that I learned she was my mother.”

  Jenny couldn’t keep the surprise from her voice. “Your mother?”

  “I had been raised by my grandfather. I was always told my parents were dead. Turns out my grandfather was only half right.”

  “But why was your mother living in the woods? Why didn’t she come and get you?”

  “It was a dangerous time,” he said. “And my mother was … different.”

  “Different how?” Jenny asked.

  “She was a mystic. Like Rasputin but not in favor with the royal family.”

  “So she told you she was your mother and she nursed you back to health,” Jenny said. “But I still don’t understand how you came to be here, looking exactly like the Nikolai I saw in my dreams. The Nikolai I saw when I was Maria.”

  He looked down at his hands. “This may be … difficult to believe. You’ll have to open your mind to the possible in order to believe. Can you do that?”

  It wasn’t a stretch. She’d been opening her mind to the possible against her will all her life.

  “I think so,” she said.

  “The first thing you have to understand is that time isn’t linear the way most people think it is. In other words, one time period doesn’t lead only to the next and the next, like a time line in a history book. All times run parallel to each other and all at the same time. Most people just don’t know how to access a time other than their own.”

  It made sense in a weird kind of way. Jenny had always had the sense that her past self and future self were somewhere out there, going about their business at the same time as present Jenny. She’d just never said it out loud because it would be one more thing to make her seem insane.

  “Keep going,” she prompted.

  “In my time, in Russia, I ha
d no will to live. My mother used every potion, every spell, every spiritual trick, but I kept failing. I didn’t want to go on. So she promised me something. Something that gave me hope. Something that gave my healing purpose.”

  “What?”

  “You,” he said simply. “She told me she could access the planet’s portals—there are many along the earth’s ley lines—and send me forward to a time when your soul was reborn and you were ready to remember me.”

  “Wait … ” She stood up, pacing the grass, trying to process the fantastical story. “So you … traveled through time?”

  “That’s the short answer, yes.”

  She stopped pacing and covered her face with her hands. “How is this happening?”

  He rose from the porch step and stood in front of her. She felt the heat of his body, the power of it. “I’m sorry. I know it’s a lot to take in. I wish there was some other way to explain it all, to give you time to think it over, but we don’t have much—”

  A hum from Jenny’s pocket stopped him from continuing. She pulled her cell phone from her pocket, glancing at the display, and looked at Nikolai.

  “I’m sorry. This is my dad.” She pressed the call. “Hello?”

  “Where are you?” There was an undercurrent of worry in her dad’s voice. “I heard the front door slam but you never even said good morning.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I have to work today and I really wanted to finish this sketch I’ve been working on.” The lie rolled easily—too easily—off her tongue. “I didn’t know you were home.”

  “Oh. Well, I was.” There was grudging relief in his voice. “And speaking of work, Tiffany called to see if you could give her a ride to Books. She said she tried texting you.”

  “Really? What time is it now?” she asked.

  “Almost one.”

  “One?” she squeaked. “I didn’t realize it was so late. I’ll text Tiffany and be right home.”

  “Okay, see you soon, then.”

  She slipped the cell into her pocket and turned to Nikolai.

  “Is everything okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I just … ” she sighed. “I have to go to work. It sounds boring and dumb after everything we’ve talked about, but I have to go.”

  “I understand,” he said.

  She looked up at him, suddenly feeling shy. “Can I … come back or something? Will you be here later?”

  He stepped toward her, placing his hands on her face the way he’d done behind the sofa in the sitting room before Ana had interrupted them. Her eyes were drawn to the fullness of his lips, the pronounced line of his jaw. Even in the shade of the trees, his hair shone as black as a raven’s wings.

  She felt the pull of his body, of his lips. She was almost rocking with the need to step into his arms and press herself against him, though if someone had asked her a week ago whether she could feel this way about someone so soon after meeting him, she would have answered with an unequivocal no.

  He lifted a hand to her face, running a fingertip across her cheekbone and down to her mouth. It lingered for a moment before he dropped his hand to his side. “I’ll be here.”

  She had to brace herself to leave, but she finally turned and headed for the path, her lips burning where he had touched her.

  TWENTY

  Her dad was standing by the door when she came in. She hadn’t thought about the fact that she didn’t have any of her art supplies and that she was barefoot.

  Not her usual sketching mode.

  She wondered if he would call her on it, but he just looked her over, suspicion in his eyes.

  “You’re back,” he said. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah, I just have to shower and get ready for work before I leave to pick up Tiff. I’m really sorry about this morning, Dad.”

  And she was sorry. Her mother’s disappearances would be legendary if her dad actually talked about them. Instead, Jenny had heard about them from Morgan, who told her that her mother had been complicated, that she had needed more time alone than most people, and that she wasn’t always “considerate” about letting Jenny’s dad know where she was going or how long she’d be gone. It made Jenny ashamed now.

  Her dad smiled, but it was a cover for the worry in his eyes. “Just let me know where you’re headed next time, okay? If something happened to you, I wouldn’t even know where to start looking.”

  “I will, Dad. I promise.” She kissed his cheek and ran up the stairs to get ready for work.

  A half hour later, she was dressed in clean shorts and a layer of tanks in mismatched stripes and florals. She grabbed her crocheted bag and then stopped, the blank screen of her laptop staring out at her. She really wanted to look at the pictures she’d taken at the retreat center. She’d meant to do it this morning so she could check in with Ben, but her time with Nikolai, her need to see him and be sure he was real, had eclipsed everything else.

  She tossed her bag on the bed, pulled out a sturdier tote, then closed her laptop and stuffed it inside with her phone, keys, wallet, and lip balm. She would try to look at the pictures at work. She was scheduled in the cafe, and Samuel never minded her computer there as long as she kept it in the back and business was slow enough that she could spare the time. She’d studied for tests and completed term papers in between filling orders for lattes and hot chocolates. She could find time for a little Photoshop.

  Decision made and bag stocked, she left her room and skipped down the stairs. She made sure to stop in the kitchen to say goodbye to her dad. He was going to a town planning meeting that night but still wanted her to text when she got home. Her earlier lapse had cost her some of his trust.

  She picked up Tiffany, happy to let her carry their conversation. Jenny tried to look like she was paying attention, but all she could think about was Nikolai and everything he’d told her. It still wasn’t easy to believe everything that was happening. To believe that the Nikolai who lived next door was the same Nikolai who occupied her dreams.

  But they were identical. That much was fact. And he knew stuff about her—about the dreams that seemed like something more and the clockmaker’s grandson and the girl named Maria—that he couldn’t know unless he was telling the truth.

  More than that, Jenny felt like she’d known him. Like he completed her in some fundamental way. Not in a weird, I’m-a-helpless-female-who’s-nobody-without-you kind of way. Just that she’d been more alone than she had realized. Had been drifting through her days and nights, wondering why someone who had so much could feel so lost.

  And that was the other thing—when he’d talked about past lives and how people who suffered sometimes carried that trauma with them into the next life, it had made sense. Had made her ask questions she hadn’t even thought to ask.

  Was it really just her visions that set her apart? Made her feel different? Wasn’t it true, if she were honest with herself, that it was more than that? That she’d always felt out of place? Not quite present in her own skin?

  And if so, Nikolai’s explanation and her own dreams of Maria explained a lot more than their strange, compelling connection.

  “Jen? You with me?” Tiffany voice pulled her from her thoughts.

  “What?” She looked over at Tiffany, sitting in the passenger side of the car. “Oh, yeah! Totally. I’m with you.”

  Tiffany gave her a knowing smile. “Come on, don’t bullshit me.”

  “I’m not!” Jenny protested.

  “Then what did I just say?”

  “Uh … ” Jenny searched her memory. “You were talking about your mom and how she took off with the car again and how you wished Samuel hadn’t scheduled you to work the registers today.”

  Tiffany shook her head. “That was, like, five minutes ago. You so weren’t listening.”

  Jenny laughed. “Okay, you got me. I’m sorry. What were you saying?”

  “It’s not even important,” Tiffany said. “But whatever you’re thinking about obviously is. So spill it!”

/>   Jenny considered her options as she waited for the light to change. She could keep up the wall that she’d been constructing for as long as she could remember or she could do what she really wanted to do—tell Tiffany about Nikolai.

  Not all of it, of course. Not yet.

  But the other stuff. The stuff about Nikolai and how he made her feel.

  “Well,” she started, thinking of the easiest way to say it. “I met someone.”

  “You met someone?” Tiffany looked at her with fresh interest. “Wait a minute … You met someone? Who?”

  “Just … you know. A guy.”

  “Well, yeah. Duh. I figured. Tell me the rest. Like where did you meet him and stuff?”

  Jenny tried not to panic. She hadn’t thought this through. Didn’t know what to say. But she was in it now. She’d just have to improvise.

  “He lives next door actually. In that old house?”

  “The one that’s abandoned?” Tiffany asked, her forehead crinkling while she tried to figure it out.

  “Well, it wasn’t technically abandoned,” Jenny corrected her. “The guy who bought it just hadn’t done anything with it. But he’s there now.”

  “How old is this guy?” Tiffany asked.

  Jenny thought about it. “I’d guess around twenty.”

  “Twenty? And he owns a house?”

  “Yeah, I think he inherited it or something,” Jenny said, feeling stupid for not knowing. She had no idea how Nikolai had come to be at the Farnsworth house. No idea, even, if he really owned it. And how does that work, when you travel through time? Do you keep your money? Can you take it to the exchange window at a bank and turn in your rubles for dollars?

  The questions piled up in her mind. She put them aside, trying to remember them for later.

  “Anyway,” she continued, pulling into the parking lot behind Books. “It’s no big deal. He’s just a guy. I don’t even know him that well yet.”

  Liar, she thought. You know him better than anyone. And he knows you.