by Nicole Bross
“Father, wait,” one of the men said as he stepped toward the tree. “She’s not—She didn’t survive the storm. The Lord has taken Alexandra home.”
Silence seemed to fall all around Father Lvov as all his senses, save his vision, deadened. Whatever the men were saying fell on deaf ears; the rawness of the cold no longer stung his aching skin; his brain cleared of all thoughts but one: he had to see her.
Slowly, he pushed aside a branch, crawling on his hands and knees to pass under it. Sure enough, there was a little pocket where no snow had entered. Here, curled up into a tight ball against the trunk of the tree, sat Alexandra Rusova, pale and still, clutching two hares on a string.
Father Lvov held his breath as he looked into her face, wondering how he could continue to enjoy the luxury of oxygen in a world where Alexandra would forever be denied it. Her skin was gray, lips tinged blue. Her dancing eyes were closed, the skin around them smooth. She looked as though she was sleeping.
“My love,” he whispered. Hot tears burned scalding paths down his half-frozen cheeks. They were words he’d never had the chance to speak to her in person, and now never would. Regret and grief burned deep in his belly, warming him in a way nothing else in this moment could, and he shoved his gloved fist into his mouth to keep from sobbing.
“Father,” a voice said from outside. “Let’s take her home.” Father Lvov nodded, although no one could see him, and crawled backward out from under the tree.
14
“Good morning, Audrey,” Naomi says to me with a warm smile when I follow Kellen upstairs. “It’s good to have you. Now, have a seat, and help yourself.” The table is set for three, laden with a stack of pancakes, a serving dish full of fluffy yellow scrambled eggs, and a plate of breakfast sausages. Kellen hands me a mug of coffee with the logo from the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics on it and passes me the eggs with a mischievous isn’t this so nice smile.
Meanwhile, I have absolutely no idea how to behave. This is completely foreign territory for me, so I keep piling food onto my plate, despite the fact that I almost never eat breakfast. If cooking is how Naomi shows her approval, then I’ll eat anything she puts in front of me with a smile and a thank you.
“Joanne told me the coroner finished the autopsy on Marnie yesterday,” Naomi says, adding for my benefit that Joanne worked as the dispatcher for the local police station. “They’re saying it looks like foul play could be involved. She was hit in the head before she drowned. She might not have even been conscious when she went into the water. No one has a clue how she ended up in that pond. Kenzie told the police that right as she was getting ready for bed, her mom got a phone call and told her she’d be back soon—Kenzie assumed she was going to open up the pharmacy for someone like she sometimes does. No one knows what happened after that.”
I wipe my face with my napkin, all traces of appetite now lost. “That’s absolutely terrible,” I say, looking at Kellen to see how he’s taking the news. His head is bowed over his plate, and he looks sick.
“I thought you should hear it at home, instead of from someone else,” Naomi says, resting her hand on her son’s forearm. Kellen places his hand on top of hers and gives it a squeeze.
“Thanks, ma,” he says. “Thank you. What else did Joanne say?”
“The police are trying to figure out who called Marnie that night, to see what they have to say, I guess. That person might have had something to do with it, and they might not, but Marnie never did open up the pharmacy—the alarm wasn’t disarmed. So far no one has come forward to say they were looking to meet up with her.”
The food in my stomach sits heavily as my mind churns over this new development. Not only have two people in Soberly died in the same way they did in a past life, at least one of them looks to have been murdered.
“Do you think it’s related to Mr. Blackmoor’s death?” I say, more thinking out loud than anything. The look on both Naomi and Kellen’s faces is one of confusion.
“Of course not,” Kellen says with Naomi echoing his denial. “Bill took a fall down some stairs. He was getting on in years and had been having trouble with his hip lately. It might have given out on him at just the wrong moment. Why would you think otherwise?”
“I just…” There was no way I was going to explain to them both about the visions I had. Maybe Kellen, on his own later, but not his mother. “It seems so strange, two people dying unexpectedly so close together in a small place like Soberly. Maybe someone is…” I don’t finish my sentence. Kellen’s brows are furrowed deeply and Naomi’s lips are pressed tightly together.
“Soberly’s not like that,” Kellen says firmly. His mother nods in agreement. “I know you’ve lived a lot of places, big cities where that sort of thing might happen all the time, but not here. There’s no indication at all that Bill’s death was anything other than an unfortunate accident.” His expression changes to one of concern. “Saying otherwise definitely won’t make you any friends in town, I promise you that. Please, put the idea out of your head, Audrey. For your own good, and for the sake of Bill’s and Marnie’s families. They don’t need that kind of rumor going around.”
“You’re right,” I mumble, prodding listlessly at my eggs with my fork. “I read too many mystery novels. Everything’s always connected.” Although I say it, I’m not quite sure I believe it. It would be easy to push someone down the stairs and have it look like an accident. If so, did that mean there was someone out there like me, who could see people’s past lives through some means? The thought is both tantalizing and terrifying, and I feel a surge of excitement that doesn’t quite line up with the seriousness of the situation. Being able to compare notes, so to speak, with someone else who had the same ability would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: a chance to learn about how it manifested in them, if it was also via touch and whether they had discovered anything about it I hadn’t. On the other hand, that person could very well be a serial killer who took pleasure in murdering people in the same manner as their past death. Was it a coincidence that we were both in Soberly at the same time? Were they able to recognize me as having the same gift? There were so many unknowns to pore over. I needed to spend some time sorting things out in my journal.
Then there was the matter of Kellen’s vision. It seemed to take place early in the winter, during the initial onset of the blizzard that cut the village off from the rest of the world. The heartache his past-self felt at the loss of his would-be lover still dwelled deep in my chest. Although present-day Kellen had done a fine job distracting me in the shower, all the details of the vision were still sharp in my mind. I needed to transcribe them as well.
“Thank you for breakfast,” I say to Naomi. I scrape my plate and load it into the dishwasher, waving off her insistence that I leave the dishes for her. “I have some work I want to get started on, so I’d better go.” I also need to change out of yesterday’s clothes, but I figure the less reference to the fact that I spent the night, the better. I still feel a bit awkward with the whole situation, even though she’s been nothing but welcoming. Kellen rises to show me to the door—the front door. I suppress my sigh and hope the neighbors have better things to do than look out their window to see me leave. Cora’s house is less than a block from here. Despite what Kellen says about the disinterest of the townspeople in my sex life, it’s going to take some time to get used to being open about our—well, whatever we are.
Out of sight of the kitchen, where Naomi can be heard loudly clattering dishes about, Kellen bends to kiss me, pulling me close. The vision he gives me is a flash of a lifetime I haven’t seen yet from him, but it’s the sort of mundane scene that always fades from memory seconds after I see it.
“Thank you for staying,” he says. “Come for supper tonight. I want you to tell me more about your plan for that little smuggling room we found. Oh yes—I know you’ve got plans,” he says when he sees my shrewd expression. “You’re cooking up something, I can tell. Maybe I can even help you out if you’ll let m
e.”
“All right,” I reply. “See you at six.”
***
I let myself into Cora’s minutes later, without having met anyone on the street, peel out of my dusty clothes, and jump into a stretchy maxi skirt and tank top. I tuck my journal into my shoulder bag and head for the inn, bracing myself for a confrontation with Cora, in case she decides to ask me where I’ve been sleeping. She must either feel it’s none of her business, or she already knows and has nothing to say about it, because she only offers me a tepid good morning when I walk in. She’s already retrieved the box of paperwork from the safe and set it by the door, so I hoist it up onto my hip and head up to Roz’s office. From the balcony doors, I can see it’s shaping up to be a beautiful day, and I risk opening them to let in the fresh smell of the sea and the sounds of birds. The box of paperwork gets deposited on the table. I do plan on working on it at some point today, but my first priority is my journal.
Although I’ve avoided it up until now, the temptation of the balcony is too great, and I curl up in one of the chairs to transcribe my thoughts. The details of the vision Kellen gave me comes first, then my thoughts about how Marnie’s and Bill’s deaths could be connected. If someone is intentionally killing them the same way they died in a previous life, the most logical solution is that there’s someone else who has the same ability as me. How can I find them? I wonder if it’s something I’ll recognize the first time our skin meets, a connection different from everyone else’s. If that’s the case, I’m certain it’s not anyone I’ve already made physical contact with. Although there have been several intense visions, notably from the townspeople who have cast me back into that small village in the midst of famine, no one has felt different or ‘other.’
I sigh and look over the pages I’ve written, then out at the ocean, electric-blue in the sunlight. If Roz were here, I would have confided in her. She would listen, I was sure of it. More than that, she would believe me, even though it seems like madness and is completely unprovable. For the first time, I wonder what sorts of visions she would give me, should our skin meet. Was she, too, a resident of that tragic Russian village? I flip through my notes, looking for anyone who seemed adventurous, a mentor to others, a nurturer, but no one springs to mind. That doesn’t mean she wasn’t there, however. I haven’t met the full cast of characters by far.
Looking for personality traits similar to Roz’s gives me an idea. If I use the knowledge that people tend to carry over their dominant behaviors from lifetime to lifetime, perhaps I can find the person who killed Marnie and Bill by connecting with their past lives and examining who they once were. It’s not absolute proof, but if there’s someone who exhibited traits like rage, sociopathy, or even someone who had been guilty of killing someone in the past, there’s a chance they could be involved with the Soberly deaths. There’s a certain amount of risk involved since I could out myself as another person with this type of ability. But, but if it can prevent another death, or bring a killer to justice, I’ve got to chance it. It’s an easy enough plan to execute—make physical contact with as many people as I can, as often as possible, searching for any suspicious past-life mannerisms. Once I find someone I feel could be a suspect, I’ll have to get the police to investigate. How—I have no idea. That’s a problem for Future Audrey. Present-day Audrey is going to go into town and start shaking some hands.
***
By mid-day, I drag myself back to the inn, emotionally exhausted from the near-constant influx of foreign experiences. I need to pace myself. Walking into the cafe and introducing myself to nearly every person there on the pretense of ordering a chocolate sundae might have been overdoing it, and that was after I browsed my way through most of the shops on the main street. Shopping isn’t going to be enough for me to reach the majority of the population of Soberly; I tally up the total number of townspeople I’d encountered at over a dozen, none of whom had provided me with any useful information.
I’m going to have to go to church.
The thought fills me with a sort of dread I thought I’d buried long ago. As the daughter of a fundamentalist minister, church had been my entire life growing up, but rather than it being something I found comfort and purpose in, my father used our faith as a weapon to break my mother and I to his will. We were never faithful enough, never virtuous enough. We were filthy sinners who would burn for all eternity. My mother escaped it by turning to drink. I’d turned my back on the church the day I left his home, and my father essentially turned his back on me, his only child. Needless to say, I have a lot of baggage around the faith community. Tomorrow’s Sunday, though, so whatever I need to do to mentally prepare myself to enter that environment again, I need to do it fast. The ice cream I’ve finished starts to churn in my stomach, and for a moment I feel like I’m going to be sick. Maybe I can sit in the back and wear headphones. I discard the idea immediately. If the point is to mingle and meet people, I need to be right up there in the thick of the congregation.
It’s hard to concentrate on the inn’s paperwork over the afternoon. I keep returning to the thought of walking through the doors of the small, clapboard building my father preached in, the simultaneous sensations of fear at not being holy enough, and the dread of having to sit through the long, hate-filled sermon washing over me. The anger at what the forced isolation and social ostracization of being the preacher’s daughter from “that weird church on the edge of town” meant for my childhood. The fact that my own parent nearly let his child die to prove faith could heal. Nausea in my stomach gets progressively worse, and several times I dart into the washroom, fearful that I’m going to throw up, but never managing more than a dry heave or two and a bit of bile.
Cora comes up the stairs at one of these moments, when I’m bent over the bowl, wishing my roiling stomach would get it over with and purge already.
“Audrey, what’s wrong?” she cries, hurrying forward. There’s genuine concern in her voice.
“I’m just—” I burst into tears, to my surprise and dismay. With my face pressed into the cool porcelain of the toilet, I sob noisily while she tucks my hair behind my ear and rubs between my shoulders. Whatever vision she might have given me is for once blocked out by my own mental cacophony, so I hope it isn’t an important one. Once the crying fit starts to subside, she hands me a wad of tissues, and I push myself up so I’m sitting against the wall, knees tucked in front of me.
“I get nauseous when I’m upset too,” she says. “I couldn’t stomach food for days after Roz…left. My guess is you’re pretty stressed about all this stuff with the inn.” I nod. It’s not why I’m sick, but she’s not wrong. “And maybe…other things?” I meet her eye for the first time since she came in and nod again, then look away, feeling nothing less than abject misery now. Definitely other things.
“Well,” she says after a moment. “There’s nothing I can do about the latter, that’s something you’re going to have to figure out on your own. As for the former, maybe this has something to do with it.” She hands me an envelope addressed to me from Greta Pickler, the lawyer I’ve retained to be the executor of my aunt’s will. It’s what must have brought her up to the office in the first place. I tear it open, wondering why the woman didn’t just call. I’ve been leaving her messages for two days. Then when I read it, I understand. The cover page inside states she’s filed the will with the court, and it does not need to be probated, thanks to the fact that Roz and Bill Blackmoor set the inn up in something called a living trust for me. All I have to do is sign the documents included and mail them back to her, and the ownership of the inn will be transferred to me. I breathe a sigh of relief and pass the letter to Cora to read. Finally, some progress. I still need to complete the bookkeeping before the inn can be properly valued for the sale to Cora, but at least we’re getting somewhere now.
“There, you see?” she says, handing it back. “It’ll all get sorted out, Audrey. If you want, we can send the whole lot off to an accountant today and let them figure it
out.”
“No, that’ll cost a fortune,” I tell her. I know from the work I’ve already done it is money the inn can ill afford. “I can finish it myself. Maybe we can sit down in a couple days and go over everything together?”
“Sure,” she says. “Let’s do that.” I heave myself up onto my feet and toss the snotty mass of tissues into the garbage.
“Well then, back to it,” I say, forcing a weak smile. “Thanks.” I hadn’t expected sympathy from Cora after my outburst. Maybe there’s still hope for us to build some sort of a relationship. Cora retreats to the desk downstairs, and I splash some water on my face, grimacing at the puffiness around my eyes.
Just over an hour later it’s suppertime, but I feel less like eating than ever. My head is pounding after my ugly cry, so I stop into the pub to tell Kellen I’m heading to Cora’s for an early night.
“You’ve been crying,” he says as soon as I take my usual stool. He tosses the bar towel he has slung over his shoulder onto the bar and motions for Drew to take over for him, but I wave him off.
“I’m fine, it’s nothing. I have a terrible headache. Too much staring at numbers all day. I just need some rest.” He gives me a long stare. If he catches the lie, he doesn’t call me on it in public.
“I’m going to come see you tomorrow morning, all right? After Cora’s left.”
“Tomorrow I thought I’d go to church, actually.” I feel the bile rising in my throat again saying it out loud. “What’s the church here like?”
“It’s pretty progressive, very forward-thinking.” He’s hyper-focused on me now, his eyes searching my face closely. “For some reason, you don’t really seem like the churchgoing type.”
“My father’s a minister,” I say, my voice rising half an octave on the word minister. “I grew up going to church. Do you? Attend, that is?”