Past Presence

by Nicole Bross

  “Here you go, child.” Naomi sets an enormous plate in front of me. Two thick pieces of battered fish and potatoes so freshly fried I can still see the glisten of oil on them. That was the second time she’d called me child, a term that should have made me bristle and instinctively want to defend my adulthood. Coming from her, however, it felt like a term of affection. “Let the woman eat, Kellen,” she adds. “Come help me in the kitchen for a spell, hmm? Just pop your head through the door if you need anything,” she says to me and pulls Kellen away by the elbow. As he reaches the end of the bar he slides a bottle of ketchup in my direction, and I catch it right before it hits my plate.

  “Thanks,” I say around a mouthful of fish and homemade tartar sauce.

  “Does Cora know you’re here?” he asks, resisting his mother’s pull for a moment. My mind registers a blank for a moment. Roz’s wife. I shake my head.

  “She’s on the inn side. Want me to ring her and tell her to come over?”

  “No.” A thousand times no. “I’ll go over when I’m done eating.”

  My trepidation must have shown on my face because he shakes himself free of Naomi’s grip and resumes his position across the bar from me.

  “Hey. It’ll be fine, Audrey. Chin up. Don’t even think about sneaking away without saying goodbye, okay?” He covers my hand with his and gives it a squeeze.

  He paced back and forth outside the door, wanting to stop his ears against the cries coming from within, but not as much as he wanted to burst through it and comfort his wife. The birthing room was no place for a man, the midwife had insisted. He would do anything to take Anna’s pain away, to shoulder the burden for himself. She was so small, but she had the strongest will of anyone he knew.

  Her screams tapered off, and he wondered if it was done and the child was here.

  “Anna,” the sharp voice of the midwife said. “Anna, open your eyes.”

  Something wasn’t right. Despite the midwife’s edict that he remain outside, he ran into the room, only to stop short just inside the door. The bed was covered with blood, and his wife lay reclining in the midst of it, her face as white as the sheets.

  “The bleeding won’t stop,” the midwife said as she threw a wad of bright red bandages aside, replacing it with a fresh compress that soaked through in seconds.

  “Anna?” he whispered. Her eyes fluttered open briefly but fell shut without any sign she had recognized him. “I’ll go for the doctor,” he told the midwife. It was only half an hour’s hard ride to town.

  “There isn’t—it’s too late for the doctor.” Her words knocked the air out of his lungs.

  “And the child?” The words sounded like they were coming from another man’s mouth, someone far away. The midwife said nothing, just pulled a clean sheet up over Anna’s legs and stepped back.

  “Anna…” he reached for her hand, folded it into his own. “Anna, don’t leave me. Please, I need you. Don’t leave me behind.” She opened her eyes then, those warm brown eyes that had captivated him ever since they were schoolchildren together.

  “Allen,” she said, and the sides of her mouth turned up in a faint smile. “My love.” Her fingers squeezed his and he smiled back, certain that she would be fine, she was poorly but she would fight through this. There would be more children. They were meant to spend the rest of their lives together. Her eyes flickered shut again, and her chest, which had been rising and falling rapidly, stilled. His own throat locked, and the room closed in on him, a darkness that threatened to extinguish everything around him.

  “No, Anna, wait,” he wailed, falling to his knees by the side of the bed, clutching her hand like a lifeline.

  2

  Ican see into the past. Every human body, from the moment of their birth to their last breath, carries within them the memories of lives lived before, something that once existed in another time and will live on again in a new body when this one expires. The religious call it the soul. The non-believers call it consciousness. I call it curious, and when my flesh presses another’s, I get a glimpse of it.

  I wasn’t born with the ability. When I was fourteen, I got sick with what I first assumed was the flu—high fever, body aches, especially my head. My father promised the Lord would heal me if I prayed hard enough. So, I prayed. Oh, how I prayed. I prayed until I screamed, and my mother screamed back for me to shut up because she couldn’t hear herself think. I remember begging for the doctor and being called a filthy sinner. If I wanted to be delivered from my suffering, I had to repent and ask to be saved.

  Some days later I woke up in the hospital. A concerned congregant at my father’s church had stopped by to pray for me and, possessing the barest shred of common sense my parents were missing, called the ambulance.

  Bacterial meningitis, they told me. Antibiotics would have cured me days earlier. As it was, I was lucky to be alive, although they feared there could be irreversible neurological damage. Rigorous testing failed to turn up any evidence of harm, however. My father, in a true bout of hypocrisy, called it a miracle and claimed that the parishioner had been sent by Jesus to save me. My mother never came to visit me once. Sick daughters were no competition for daytime TV and boxed wine. I left the hospital three weeks later with a clean bill of health and a standing monthly appointment with a social worker to check on my welfare.

  What failed to show up on the scans and in the cognitive tests were the visions. I never was sure if it was the infection that caused them, damage from the fever, or something I brought back from the days when I’d been on the threshold of death’s door. Every time a nurse held my arm to help me to the bathroom, or a doctor took my pulse, a short scene unfolded in my head of times long ago and places far away. Usually, they were only about half a minute long. The rational part of my mind wrote them off as the fantasies of a bored teenager stuck in a hospital bed. Except I couldn’t make them stop. They flooded my mind against my will, every time I touched another person, and while they did no harm, nor were they useful.

  There was a time when the belief that I must be delusional almost drove me to suicide. I did everything I could to prevent people from touching me so I wouldn’t have these scenes forced upon me. Then, I found them. My parents, or who they had once been, according to the visions I’d collected of them from the past, which over time revealed their names, the village where they’d resided, and other clues which made me believe they might have really existed. Tracing one’s roots was all the rage, and an online genealogy site took less than four clicks and twenty bucks to come back with a positive result. Friedrich Bauer, Sr. and Jr., a father and son who lived in the mid-1700s in a small town in northern Germany. They had been real. I never spoke a word of it to them, even when my fears of mental instability passed. A man who worshipped the Bible and a woman who worshipped Franzia would never believe me.

  Over time, I found others, and learned that the energy making up our consciousness seeks out others it has been close to, again and again. We don’t remember these past iterations of ourselves, but it’s almost certain that the people we are closest to will have been with us through our lifetimes in some role or another. My parents, for example, were related by blood when their energies co-existed in that small German village. Others might be neighbors in one era, and siblings in the next. Gender doesn’t seem to matter, nor does age. We find each other and love each other in whatever way best suits the bodies we are born into, as friends, family, or lovers.

  There are other rules to the visions. I never see the same scene twice, and I am often given scenes from different lifetimes on successive contacts, rather than a series all from the same time and place. Visions usually correspond to major life events or something that parallels what’s going on in the present. Curiously, I’ve never encountered anyone who offered me visions of more than six separate past lives lived. One of my most pressing unanswered questions is what happens after the seventh and present life meets its end. Does that consciousness move on to something else? Do souls not have the
capacity to carry the memory of more lives than that? I’m not sure I’ll ever know.

  One thing that’s been clear since the beginning is that people often follow the same path throughout their lives. Personality traits are frequently the same, both positive and negative. Just as we are drawn to the same consciousnesses, time and time again, so do we find ourselves drawn toward the same passions, even if they manifest in different ways.

  If you find yourself unable to control what you eat and are obsessed with consuming as much food as possible, even at the expense of your health, I know it’s because two lifetimes ago, you starved to death in a famine the preacher said was one of the seven signs of the apocalypse. In fact, I’m half-convinced the obesity epidemic in the Western world is caused by the hard times many people suffered in the past as much as it is by the fast-food culture. Or when you turn up on the doorstep of the shelter seeking sanctuary, battered and broken, only to return to the man who beat you, a simple handshake tells me it’s because, in some distant age, your father instilled in you the deep belief that the best way for a man to discipline a woman is with his fists. I’m also sorry to say if you consistently wind up trusting fools in this lifetime, you’re probably going to do it in the next one, too. The end result might not be the same, but the tendency behind it is, as many times as not.

  As for my own past? What sorts of lives have I lived throughout the centuries? I have yet to find out. I don’t see any visions when I touch myself, and I’ve never been able to pick out anyone who might have been me through contact with others. Years ago, I started writing down all the details of my visions in a spiral-bound notebook, trying to find my own past amongst the people I encountered. I have close to a dozen notebooks filled with anecdotes, historical details, names, and descriptions, but I’m still no closer than the first day I woke up from the fever. In that sense, Roz might have been right—I still haven’t found my home, the people whose essences I’m connected to on a deeper level. I hope I know them when we meet, just to relieve myself of the burden of seeking them.

  I keep searching in the visions of other people’s lives for someone with an interest in the past, someone who is interested in people despite feeling disconnected from them. Someone who is different, but longs to be the same. Someone who hasn’t yet found their home.

  3

  I’m not in the mood for any more scenes from the past after Kellen’s jarring vision, and I pull my arms back into my zip-up hoodie and stuff my hands deep into my pockets, despite the heat. I would have preferred to just slip out of the pub without a word but honored my promise to say goodbye to both him and Naomi by popping my head into the kitchen and giving a brief wave. People who had suffered a devastating loss in a past life usually clung tightly to their loved ones in the present, I’ve learned. Is that why he chooses to work in the same place as his mother? Sometimes visions create more questions than they answer.

  I’m sure there’s probably a path through the back of the pub leading to the inn side, but I step out the same door I entered instead and walk under the awning to the front entrance. A few seagulls barely make way for me as I pass, the prize of half a hot dog bun more important than whatever threat I might pose. Their squawks ring in my ears as the distance between the door and myself narrows. Suddenly I’m lightheaded, feeling the effects of the gin I’d gulped down combined with all the sun from the morning. I don’t remember opening the door, but a blast of air conditioning revives me somewhat, and I’m inside before I can change my mind.

  I was expecting your typical antiseptic hotel lobby, heavy on the marble, light on the brass, and inoffensively decorated in neutral shades. Instead, as the sound of the bell above the door fades, I find myself standing across from a spinet desk that might have come over with the Mayflower, judging from the way the corners are worn and the scars marring the carved legs. It’s a beautiful piece, and my fingers ache to run along its edges to try and absorb some of its history. I’ve often wished I could discover the past from objects the same way I can from people.

  While the desk is the oldest piece, the rest of the room is similarly furnished with well-cared-for antiques that evoke a Victorian style. Books stacked on spindle-legged end tables invite guests and visitors to relax on the brightly upholstered divan and lose themselves in a story. The artwork and curios continue the maritime theme found in the pub in a more subdued fashion. The smell of well-oiled furniture and hardbound books is a familiar comfort. It reminds me of some of the ancient libraries I’ve visited—Oxford, Trinity. Besides the paperbacks, the only modern concession is the sleek silver laptop with its glowing white logo sitting on the desk. I find myself smiling as I take in the welcoming atmosphere. This feels more like the Roz I knew.

  A woman I peg to be in her mid-forties pops her head through the doorway behind the desk.

  “Hello, dear, have a seat. I’ll be with you in a flash.” She disappears as quickly as she materializes, but not before I take note of her red-rimmed eyes, and the haphazard way her gray-streaked hair is fastened into a high bun. I nod, even though she can’t see me, slip out of my hoodie, and settle onto the couch. This must be Roz’s wife. When she emerges fully a couple minutes later, her hair is subdued into a tidier knot, and she has fresh concealer under her eyes.

  “Now, what I can I do for you?” she asks as she settles into the high-back chair behind the desk.

  “Are you Cora Veracruz?” She nods. “I’m Audrey Eames. Roz’s niece.” Her friendly expression slips slightly, her lips thinning into a less sincere smile. “I came as soon as I heard—the lawyer said he had a difficult time tracking me down because I’d moved. I’m so sorry for your loss. I wish I could have come sooner. I had no idea Roz was…sick.”

  “We didn’t either until the headache started a few weeks ago. I took her to the hospital to have it checked out, and she never went home again.”

  “I’m sorry. That must have been terrible.” We fall into an uneasy silence, looking at anything except each other. “How long were you married for?” I ask finally, at a loss for what else to say.

  “We never got the chance to have a ceremony.” Cora fiddles with the desk’s drawers, moving pens in and out of them. “It was important to Roz that we wait until the federal court case was settled. She wanted our marriage to be legal all across the country. We’d planned on holding it later this summer.”

  My mouth quirks. “That sounds like her, although it was animal rights she was passionate about when she was younger. She used to tell me that as soon as she could get the money together, she was going to join Greenpeace or one of those anti-whaling ships. I don’t think she ever did.”

  “When was the last time you saw her?” The unspoken question is clear from Cora’s tone. Why you?

  “When I was twelve. She came and stayed with us for a few days. Our house was small, so she had to share my room. She was incredibly patient with my girlish infatuation with her, and we stayed up for hours whispering in the dark about everything under the sun. I cried for hours when she left, it felt like I was losing my best friend even though she was eleven years older than me. She promised me when she was older, she’d come back for me, and we’d go off and have adventures together.” The memory makes me smile and feel sad all at the same time. Roz had never come back for me. Our paths never crossed again, even though I lived like a nomad and had been as close as Seattle a couple years ago. She would have been in Soberly then, just a few hours’ drive away, and if I’d known I would have definitely found the time to come visit. Maybe we could have rekindled that connection again. Maybe she’d just been humoring me the entire time, and my memories of her visit were tinted by the youthful naiveté that made me believe I truly was as important to her as she had been to me. Yet she’d brought me here now, all these years later, to hand over what must have been her most prized possession, her labor of love. It didn’t make sense.

  “Well.” My disclosure hasn’t answered what Cora wants to know.

  “Did she—did Roz te
ll you what…why I’m here?”

  “Not exactly.” Cora’s mouth thins into a frown, and her eyebrows pull together, revealing a deep vertical line in her forehead. “Only that it had always been her intention the inn should be hers and yours together. She decided all this after she got the diagnosis and knew there weren’t any treatment options for her. I believe she wrote you a letter. It’s with her attorney, along with all the paperwork to complete the transfer of ownership.” Cora glances at the door behind me. I know a dismissal when I see one. My hopes that we might have any type of familial relationship start to fade.

  “William Blackmoor. He was the one who notified me. Where can I find him?”

  “It’s not a big town, Audrey. His office is easy enough to find.” She’s tapping away on the laptop now, frowning at whatever she’s reading. Her frigidness roots me in place, and I can’t hold back the flinch. The breeze being circulated by the portable air conditioner humming in the window isn’t the coldest thing in the room by far.

  “One block north and one street over, on Lighthouse,” she concedes, still not looking up from the screen.

  “Look, I know you must be angry at me. You’re probably almost as confused as I am. Maybe you feel betrayed—I think I would. Honestly, I don’t want this. Even if Roz was still here—this isn’t my thing. I like my work. I’m not looking to make any big changes in my life, and I don’t know the first thing about running an inn. If she’d gotten in touch with me before she—when she was making these plans, I would have told her to choose somebody else. I would have said it should go to you because you must have as much of your heart and soul in this place as she did.”

  Would you? Would you have refused her dying wish?

  Yes, I argue. I’d help her see what a crazy idea this is. Remind her it would hurt the people she was leaving behind.