Maybe ever.
“So, when did you know this Sebastian guy?” he asked impulsively.
Lilith’s full lips curved. “Oh, you and I were together six hundred years ago.” She wrinkled her nose playfully. “Give or take.”
Mitch stomped hard on his skepticism and told himself he was just being polite. “That would be in a past life?” he asked as mildly as he could.
“Oh no.” Lilith shook her head and frowned, much to Mitch’s surprise. “Well, speak for yourself, at least.”
Just for himself? Their supposed meeting six hundred years ago wasn’t her past life? That could only mean one thing. Mitch felt his brows shoot skyward as he stared back at her.
Lilith’s gaze never wavered, the intelligence he saw there never flickered.
Mitch cleared his throat and came up with his best reporter voice. “Are you implying that you’re six hundred years old?”
“No, I’m saying it.” Lilith winked. “Frankly, I don’t think I look a day over thirty.”
Mitch stared as the words sank in. That was crazy, plain and simple. Trust him to find a wacko so attractive - it fit perfectly with every other incident in his romantic history!
Mitch was out of there.
“Right!” he called with false cheer from the safety of his own porch. He waved, then ducked into his door, feeling decidedly at-odds.
His gorgeous, passionate, clever neighbor thought she was an immortal. She was completely nuts - and he liked her.
Oh, Mitch could pick ‘em, that was for sure.
“Tell your stepmother to drop over for a free reading anytime,” Lilith called. “I’d be delighted!”
“I’ll just bet,” Mitch muttered and stormed toward the kitchen without answering.
He reminded himself that he didn’t like people - like fortune-tellers - who preyed on others. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. But even knowing that, his gut response to Lilith wasn’t readily dismissed.
He liked her, strange assertions and all. He was tempted to believe her.
Which was almost as insane as Lilith thinking she were six hundred years old. Mitch’s gut instinct was always right, it had been honed to a fine edge of journalistic integrity.
But obviously, it had just been fooled.
Mitch felt all jumbled up inside: guilty over losing his self-control, confused by Lilith’s easy acceptance of what had happened, frustrated by her crazy claims and itching with a desire that had been safely in cold storage for years.
Women. He hadn’t missed them at all.
Mitch growled at the chocolate icing adorning the kitchen. He could hear the kids’ voices upstairs, but needed a minute to collect himself. Andrea trotted down the stairs, and trailed him into the kitchen.
Mitch rummaged in the fridge and ignored her. He needed a beer. He deserved a beer.
And he wasn’t going to even consider that some guy named Sebastian had Lilith waiting for him. Mitch certainly wasn’t going to wish on any level that he could have been this Sebastian. Now or ever. It was all a bunch of baloney.
The beer, to his delight, was wonderfully cold.
“Did she say a free reading?” Andrea demanded with evident excitement. Mitch turned to find her hands clasped together like a child on Christmas morning.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Mitch retorted. He shook a heavy finger at Andrea. “And don’t even think about going over there. Don’t you go over there. Don’t let the kids go over there. Period.”
“Why not?”
Mitch indicated the window facing Lilith’s house with his beer bottle. “Because she’s nuts.”
And that, to Mitch Davison’s mind, was that.
He should have known better, of course.
* * *
Lilith shut her front door and leaned against it with a frown. It certainly wasn’t very convenient that Sebastian had forgotten everything about her, no less his pledge to return.
It was going to make living happily ever after a little bit more difficult than Lilith had planned.
But they were destined to be together. Surely everything would work itself out?
Leaving such important matters to the whim of the Fates wasn’t a very encouraging possibility after what they’d endured before. But what should she do?
Lilith stepped away from the door and remembered that her sign was still on. She grimaced, headed for the switch in the living room, then froze halfway at the sight of something on the floor.
It was one of her tarot cards. It was on the floor, face down, the rest of the deck still wrapped in silk on the table where she had left it.
She couldn’t have dropped it. Lilith was not careless with her cards. They could taste disrespect and they would punish anyone who treated them poorly. The cards were vengeful and mischievous.
Mischievous. Lilith shivered suddenly as she stared at the card. It couldn’t have pulled itself from the deck.
Could it? She frowned and stepped closer, her eyes widening as she picked up the card.
The High Priestess. A card of intuition, of trusting your gut, of going with what you know. A card counseling belief in your own convictions. A card that opened the path between conscious knowledge and unconscious belief.
Lilith turned the card in her hands thoughtfully, well aware of her instincts in the matter of Sebastian. So what if Mitch just didn’t remember his past life? It would hardly be a first. In fact, some people insisted that reincarnation routinely wiped away all past life memories.
Lilith remembered an ancient priestess telling her that the indent between the nose and the upper lip was the mark of an archangel’s kiss, a kiss that swept memory of all but this world and this life from a babe’s mind.
And if Mitch didn’t remember everything that had happened between them, then that would explain why it took him so long to find her. Lilith should be encouraged that he had reincarnated and found his way to her door, even if he didn’t remember exactly why.
And he had admitted that he had bought the house right next to her own months ago.
Lilith smiled, immensely reassured. Some part of Mitch did remember Sebastian! Something buried in a corner of his mind had forced him to reincarnate, had compelled him to come here, had urged him to seek her out when he was the right chronological age - even though Mitch himself didn’t know it! He was trusting his own instincts, without knowing he why.
Sako peskero charo dikhel. Dritta’s voice echoed in Lilith’s ears unexpectedly. But the words were apt enough. “Everyone sees only his own dish.” Lilith had been so focused on Sebastian returning, that she hadn’t considered events from his perspective.
The High Priestess seemed to shimmer slightly at Lilith’s conclusion. It was all so perfectly obvious that Lilith couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it before. The world truly did work in wondrous and mysterious ways!
She and Mitch/Sebastian were going to very happy together, once they worked out a few technical complications. Lilith kissed the card, silently thanking it for reminding her of the power of faith, and slid it back into the deck. She wrapped the silk around the ancient deck and put it on top of the highest shelf in the room.
Lilith flicked off her neon sign thoughtfully. The only question now was how to proceed. She had never imagined that she would have to deal with such issues, but then, the course of love did not always run true.
How could she prompt Mitch’s memory of the past?
Should she conjure up a little something, or give him some time?
D’Artagnan meowed, clearly indignant at the state of his dish, whether empty or full. Lilith, puzzling over her choice, followed him to the kitchen.
D’Artagnan bounded to the counter and flicked his tail at Lilith in evident annoyance. He howled, annoyed that he was being ignored, and Lilith immediately brushed him off the counter.
“We have a deal. You know better,” she charged.
D’Artagnan bared his teeth, as though to say “so do you.” He sniffed his d
ish with disdain, then sat down beside it, regal and expectant.
Lilith opened a can, her mind working busily all the while. Because Mitch seemed to be very much a man who put value in the tangible. And he seemed to find her attractive, even after all this time.
Lilith smiled. Maybe her personal magick would do just fine.
* * *
The Annex is a neighborhood in Toronto roughly sandwiched between the downtown campus of the University and the posh urban residences of Forest Hill village, that village long ago swallowed by the spreading city.
It’s a warren of one way streets and narrow lots, its houses pressed cheek to jowl. The area hosts an eclectic mix of artists, actors, flower children, activists and young professionals. It also boasts the dual distinction of having both the highest concentration of writers in any neighborhood in Canada and the highest rate of bicycle theft in the country.
The two statistics are not believed to be related.
Mitch Davison’s house was fairly typical of the area. It was about a hundred years old, made of reddish brick and nestled between two remarkably similar houses. There was a skinny walkway between his house and Lilith’s, while his house shared a common wall with the house on its other side.
There was a tiny front yard, long abandoned to the weeds, a rickety wooden front porch that might have been original. The lot allowed for a bigger backyard, with a garage in one corner. The garage was accessed by a common lane that ran between the lots facing Mitch’s street and those that faced the street behind.
The house was two stories high, with a high gingerbread-ornamented gable over the front second floor window. Similar trim - in an equal state of disrepair - graced the roofline of the front porch.
There was a living room, dining room and eat-in kitchen on the main floor, a back door leading from the kitchen to the backyard. Upstairs were four bedrooms - two quite small - and a bathroom. The basement had been made into a perfectly hideous apartment some thirty years before, though Mitch had plans to gut it and make the kids a playroom.
In his spare time.
Such as it was.
Mitch liked that the house appeared to be structurally sound, if in dire need of some repairs. He liked that it was close to the subway. He liked that the kids would have a yard to play in and he appreciated the friendly atmosphere of the neighborhood. Although the Annex was funky and urban, there was a vestige of small town concern between its residents.
And Mitch liked that. He also appreciated that he could afford the place, no small feat for a single income family in a city of high-priced real estate.
The realtor said the house had Potential.
Mitch wasn’t thinking about any of this at five the next morning, when a wet nose poked his ear in silent demand. He grimaced and feigned sleep but Cooley wasn’t fooled.
The damn dog could tell when his breathing changed.
Cooley took off like a shot at the first sign of life, his nails clicking on the hardwood floor, his weight thumping down the stairs to the kitchen. Mitch rolled to his back, managed to open one eye and survey the ceiling.
At least it was light out.
But it was already hot.
And Mitch had aches where he had forgotten he had muscles. He’d been up half the night, sorting, unpacking and moving furniture as quietly as he could while the kids slept. Andrea had retired at midnight, leaving Mitch to his work.
He surveyed the room, less than impressed with his progress. There were still boxes crowding the room on every side. A sheet was tacked over the window, Mitch’s sleeping bag was cast over the mattress still on the floor.
He would not think about families having two adult players.
It was the moment in the midst of a move when everyone is exhausted and it seems that the chaos will never be set into any kind of order. Mitch decided right then and there that he really hated moving.
Maybe he would die in this house, a good sixty years downstream, so he’d never have to move again. It was a cheering thought.
Mitch considered the wobbly line where the avocado green paint ran out and the chartreuse began. The previous owner must have shopped in the odd lots section of the paint store. All those colors mixed wrong that no one wanted. His gaze wandered to the miscellaneous Slavic blessings inscribed over the door in red crayon.
Mitch thought somewhat more critically about Potential.
Cooley howled plaintively from the kitchen.
“All right, all right.” Mitch rolled out of bed and hauled on his shorts.
He peeked in on the kids, making Cooley wait, his heart contracting to find them sleeping like little cherubs. Jen had a death grip on Bun, her cherished toy of the moment, Jason frowned as though concentrating on sleeping very well.
The door to the guest room was closed but he knew better than to look in on Andrea before she declared herself ready to face the world. Mutual respect was based on understanding the Rules.
Cooley barked, his low woof resonating through the house. Mitch took the stairs two at a time, not wanting the dog to wake anyone. As soon as Mitch set foot in the kitchen, Cooley wagged his tail and nosed the back door with rare impatience.
“Really gotta go, eh?” Mitch unlocked the door and grinned at the dog. “Don’t let the dandelions get you. They’re pretty big.” He barely opened the screen door before Cooley shoved it open and took off.
Barking all the way across the yard.
Dammit! It was five o’clock on a Sunday morning!
“Cooley! Give it a rest!” Mitch called sotto voce, but the dog was oblivious to his command.
He muttered a curse and lunged out the back door, just in time to see a cat’s silvery tail flick amidst the dew-encrusted sunflowers.
Having everything make sense was little consolation right now.
“Cooley! Be quiet!” Mitch darted barefoot across the yard. He quickly discovered that the dandelions were mixed with a healthy crop of thistles. Mitch cursed and picked a thorn out of his toe, hopping closer to the barking dog.
He’d certainly had better mornings.
The cat watched Mitch from its perch on the fence, its tail waving as though it taunted him to come and shoo it away. Something in its expression was eerily assessing. Then the cat looked down at Cooley and hissed in open antagonism.
The dog went wild.
Cooley barked and jumped on the fence, thoroughly ignoring Mitch’s commands for silence or sitting. The wolfhound’s considerable weight made the fence wobble dangerously. Mitch realized with horror just how old that fence was and saw what was going to happen.
Right before it did.
“Cooley! No! Get down!” he roared, forgetting his own demands for quiet in the heat of the moment. He sprinted across the remaining distance and got one hand on the dog’s collar.
But it was too late.
The rotten fence posts gave out with a moan and a creak. The fence went down with a bang - right into Lilith’s crop of sunflowers - the cat yowled in astonishment, then ran like hell.
Cooley shook off Mitch’s grip, bounded over the debris and gave chase, barking all the while. The pair cut a swath of destruction through Lilith’s yard, the dog clearly trying to gobble up the cat, the cat running for its life.
In a heartbeat, they had wrought havoc.
One glance was enough to tell Mitch that Lilith treasured this garden. It was all blooms, little pathways lined with nodding flowers Mitch couldn’t name, a horticultural haven like the ones in glossy magazines.
And his dog was trashing it.
Mitch wasn’t doing a very good job of stopping him. He bellowed, but to no avail. He darted after the pair but couldn’t get a grip on Cooley.
Suddenly, the cat scrambled up a trellis. It perched on the roof, looking daggers at the dog, as its tail lashed angrily.
Cooley had his front paws up on the house, his back paws planted in flattened flowers, while he barked fit to beat the band.
“Cooley!” Mitch shouted, certain every
single one of his neighbors was all awake by now.
Maybe they were entertained.
Either way, it was a hell of an entry into the neighborhood.
The dog, his prey clearly out of range, stopped barking. He looked at Mitch and seemed to suddenly understand that he was in Deep Trouble. The wolfhound sat back on his haunches, right in the middle of something with a lot of crushed orange flowers, and looked as sheepish as a big hairy dog can look.
Mitch surveyed the damage and felt sick. Flowers were broken, tomatoes lay bleeding on the pathways, sunflower stalks were snapped. He didn’t know a lot about gardens, but he guessed that this one wouldn’t recover this summer.
Mitch met the dog’s gaze, snapped his fingers and pointed imperatively to his own yard. Cooley skulked across Lilith’s garden, steering a wide path from Mitch. The huge dog was trying so hard to make himself small that Mitch might have laughed under other circumstances.
But there was nothing funny about this. Mitch owed his neighbor, however nutty she might be, another apology. Another biggie.
“Well done,” he commented to Cooley, who lay down in the furthest corner of the yard to sulk. “We’re making a great impression here. Thanks a lot for doing your part.”
The wolfhound dropped his nose to his paws - no doubt a bid to look pathetic - but Mitch wasn’t interested in making up just yet.
He shook a warning finger at the dog. “Cat or no cat, don’t even think about crossing that fence line again.”
Cooley inched further back into the corner, as though acknowledging the command, his big brown eyes so sad that he looked like he might weep.
Mitch heaved a sigh and winced as he looked at the damage one more time. It was too damn early for this kind of stuff. Even the birds were still quiet. Lilith would be asleep and Mitch wasn’t going to wake her up early for this.
How was he going to make this come right? He shook his head and went back in the house. At least Mitch knew where the coffeemaker was. He’d treat himself to a cup of brew. Maybe that would help him come up with brilliant solution by the time Lilith woke up.
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