The Fifty-Seven Lives of Alex Wayfare (35 page)

If I want answers, I'm going to have to get them myself.

My phone lights up again and I look down, hoping Porter changed his mind, but it's from a different number.

Wayfare. 4got 2 tell u. Miss ur specs. Brng em bak, yo.

A tiny fraction of my anger lifts. I smile and touch my cheekbone where my glasses would be resting if I had worn them. I'll think about it, yo. I didn't even know Jensen knew my number.

So? U talk 2 ur boy yet?

Um. It's been like 2 minutes.

Wut u w8n 4? An invite?

Finish Pride & Prejudice yet?

:-P

Jensen thinks it's simple. Just call the guy up, right? But it's not like I can call Blue or shoot him a text. I have no idea where he is, and even if I did, making contact in Base Life would be the stupidest thing I could do. If Blue's working for Gesh, then Gesh would find out who I am.

As I'm thinking of a way to reply to text back to Jensen, a brilliant idea hits me. I may not know where Blue is in Base Life, but I know he was at AIDA with me in my most recent past life. We were partners. If I descend back there, I'll bring his soul along with me. I could confront him. I could find out what Porter's hiding.

Before I talk myself out of it, I pull the Polygon stone out of my pocket, close my hands around it, and ascend to my garden. This time I'm doing it without Porter, before he puts a soul block on me and I can't descend anymore. Before I lose my last chance to confront Blue.

I know Porter will be furious, but I don't care. That's what he gets for treating me like a child. For not trusting me. For lying to me.

Let him be the one in the dark for once.

 

CHAPTER 28

 

 

My garden feels cold and empty without Porter by my side. Darker than usual.

I wasn't expecting that.

My soulmarks sway before me, eerily and silently. They cast a blue-white glow at my feet. The only sound is my timid breath and the gurgle of the fountain.

I'm alone, and it's very unsettling.

I know I'm safe – I know there isn't anything hidden in the swaths of shadow, watching me – but I can't help but feel like there's something lying in wait, somewhere in the deep expanse of black that surrounds me.

Like savage gray plumes of smoke.

A shiver ripples through me. I start to think maybe this was a bad idea. But it's not like I can go back and tell Porter my plan and ask for his help. He'll forbid it. He'll put a soul block on me. I have to confront Blue before that happens or I'll never know the truth. I'll never have closure. I'll just go on wondering, never knowing for sure who played me, Blue or Porter.

Even if Porter's right and Blue and I are enemies, and I have to take him down along with Gesh, at least there will be closure. I'll be able to move on.

Eventually.

I make my way toward my soulmarks, dipping my hand in the lukewarm water in my fountain as I walk by. I take a deep breath. I flick the perception of water from my fingers.

How do I know which is the right soulmark? When I found the right one to take me back to Nick Piasecki in 1927, it drew me in more than the others. Maybe that will happen this time.

I move slowly through the rows of my own personal forest of lights. The blue-white glow melts across my skin. I can feel the energy radiating from each soulmark, pulling at my edges. The pull is stronger with some than others, but even after pausing beside each individual soulmark, I don't feel drawn to any one in particular. In the end, I decide to just reach out and try one. I'd do a touchdown. Land, look around, then come right back.

I start with the first soulmark in the center row. It sways gracefully before me, taunting me, tempting me to touch it with its silent siren song. It doesn't have to try hard – I am willing prey.

I dip a fingertip into its center. The light swells, then consumes me.

I landed gently, like a feather on grass. I pulled breath into my lungs, filling them with… dry, warm air? I opened my eyes. I was nowhere near the right time period.

Sprawling prairie land rolled out before me as far as I could see, dotted with strange, gnarled trees and scraggly bushes. A balmy breeze rustled the dry, golden grass. The sun shone with reckless abandon above me, but in the far distance, a dark thundercloud hovered over a mountain plateau, smudging the horizon with slanted sheets of gray rain.

I stood on a porch under a thatched roof, barefoot, watching a wagon pulled by two oxen depart down a two track road. One of my hands was raised in mid-wave, the other clutched an old stick broom. I wore a very plain dress and some sort of wide-brimmed hat. A family of giraffes grazed amid a stand of trees far off to the right.

I was in Africa, I guess? But I had no idea what year. Sometime in the 1800s?

I was tempted to stay a while longer and explore that past life – I mean, it was Africa after all – but I forced myself to ascend back to Limbo while I still had the willpower to do so.

I reach for the soulmark directly to the right of the last one before I change my mind. It pulls me in and plunges me into its depths.

In this life, I was sitting in a rocking chair, my bare toes nestled into the fibers of a thick, warm rug. A fire crackled in a hearth before of me. I was knitting something – I couldn't tell what – and rocking, listening to some kind of radio theater filtering through the speakers of an old-timey radio. The Forties? Thirties?

I ascend back to Limbo. I grab the soulmark to the left of the African one.

I landed at the top of a wintry moor, shivering in heavy, woolen clothes under a dark, cloud-covered sky. A black lace veil hid my face. Snow fell lightly on my shoulders. The flakes lighted upon on my veil, melting the moment the ice met the thread. I stared down at a freshly dug grave. A simple wooden coffin rested at the bottom covered in a thin layer of snow. A small group of people stood gathered beside me, all dressed in thick, black layers. A priest stood at the head of the grave, reciting something in an ancient-sounding language. Gaelic, maybe? There were a dozen headstones scattered across the moor, and a foreboding, fort-like castle resting in the distance.

Cold tears had left streaks on my cheeks. My veil ruffled against my nose in the bitter breeze. I looked down and saw my black, lace-gloved hands cradling my belly – my very swollen belly. My eyes widened. I stared down at my hands. Something deep inside my abdomen shifted to the left.

I ascended immediately.

The moment I return to Limbo, I stumble backwards and fall down, staring up at that soulmark. The thought never crossed my mind that I might have been pregnant in a past life. That I might have had children. If so, then my children might have had children. Which means my own descendants could be alive and well today in Base Life.

I shake my head and run a trembling hand through my hair. I can't think about that right now. And I definitely can't think about the possibility of being a descendant of myself. That's just way too weird.

I get back on my feet. I need to focus. The soulmark to the left of my African past seemed to take me further back in time, to some sort of Celtic period. The one to the right brought me closer to Base Life – the Forties? So if I keep working my way to the right…

I take a chance and head to the very last soulmark in the very last row on the right. Maybe it's number fifty-six.

I wrap my fingers around the light.

 

 

I opened my eyes to shadow and storm. I was lying on my side on a soft mattress, my body warm and heavy beneath a down blanket. It took a moment to orient myself because everything was turned sideways. I blinked once, twice, then made out the shape of a window. A large, metal-framed pane of glass like you see in commercial buildings. Intense, heavy rain beat against it. Thunder rolled. Glittering lights from a city outside struggled to pierce through the darkness of the storm. The driving rain distorted the lights as it streaked and swirled on the glass. Beads of shadow dappled and played across my skin.

My past life body was so content that I thought about lying there for a while longer and falling asleep to the drumming rain. I hadn't realized how exhausted I was until I felt that overwhelming sense of rest and relaxation. I was in the most deliciously comfortable position – the kind that usually eludes you until five minutes before your alarm goes off in the morning. I didn't want to move. My hips were sunken perfectly into the mattress. My head was perfectly cradled. My cheek rested on a warm, smooth surface.

A surface that rose and fell along with my own breath.

I bolted upright to find myself sharing a bed with a boy. A bare-chested boy. My bare legs were entwined with his.

I gasped and pushed away from him, only to lose my balance and fall right off the edge of the bed. I landed on a cold stone floor with a smack.

“Ivy?” the boy said, reaching for me in the dark.

I scrambled to my feet and backed away from him. I was wearing a guy's long-sleeved collar shirt – only a guy's collar shirt – which barely came down to the middle of my thighs. I tried to pull it down further to no avail.

There were only three positives I could see in my particular scenario. At least I had underwear on under the collar shirt. At least I wasn't completely naked like in 1961. And at least I landed in the right time period. The boy had called me Ivy.

I glanced around to locate a closet or wardrobe, anything that might contain clothes. It was a cold, sterile-looking room with bare walls and floors, harsh lines and corners. The bed was the only source of warmth and softness, even though the linens were hospital white. A gray steel door stood to my right, which could be a closet. Another steel door stood behind me, a sliver of fluorescent light leaking through at its base.

I took a step toward the closet but froze when I felt a draft on my head like a frosty breath. My hands flew to my scalp. My hair was buzzed so short I was practically bald. My jaw dropped as my fingers searched the top of my skull.

I remembered the day Audrey came home demanding to have her head shaved. Two weeks after she began chemo, her hair started falling out a few strands at a time. One or two would fall and tickle her nose or cheek while she'd be talking to me. She'd sweep them away with her hand or send them flying with a puff of air. It was a small inconvenience then, but soon they fell into her plate at the dinner table. She was always picking them out of her soup. Brushing them from her shoulders. Her pillow. She said she felt covered in hair when she took a shower. And one day three years ago, when she still attended school, a boy sitting at a desk behind her raised his hand and said, “Mrs Cuthbert? Audrey's shedding all over my stuff.” When she looked behind her, a layer of her hair covered the boy's desk and books. All the other kids laughed. The boy sneered at her.

She demanded the clippers that very day. She didn't even want to wait for Mom and Dad to come home. Gran buzzed all her hair off, all her long, beautiful sand-colored hair, and it fell in a circle around her feet on the back porch. I remembered the look on her face when Gran handed her the mirror. She made no expression, save the tiniest quiver of her bottom lip. Then she handed the mirror back to Gran and, without a sound, went to her room to be alone. Gran saved a lock of her hair to tie with a ribbon. I swept the rest into a pile, then scooped it into the trash.

Gone forever.

“Ivy?” the boy said again, snapping me out of my thoughts. He climbed out of the bed and eyed me with suspicion.

The shadow beads danced across his pale, bare chest. Light green pajama pants, like medical scrubs, hung from his slender hips and pooled at his bare feet. His eyes were narrowed, his mouth turned down. His short hair stuck up haphazardly on top, almost as if I'd been the one who messed it up.

That thought was enough to make me forget my bald head. This guy was definitely not Blue. I couldn't see the color of his eyes or his hair in the darkness, but he didn't feel like Blue. He felt like a stranger. Blue and I were supposed to be partners in this life. Soul mates. So why was I in bed with someone else?

I took a step back, feeling dizzy and faint. I thought back to my swollen, pregnant belly. Good Lord. How many guys had I slept with throughout my past fifty-six lives? Fifty? A hundred? Five hundred? Had I loved them all? Had I been happy? Had they treated me right? I dropped my arms slowly to my sides. This was going to gnaw at me. I could feel it.

The boy studied me from my head to my toes, then back up again. His eyes tightened. “You just descended.”

I blinked, not knowing how to respond. I didn't know if he meant it as a fact or a question. He had a thick accent, but I couldn't tell which one it was.

He spoke again. “You descended from the future, didn't you?”

He obviously knew Ivy was a Descender and what she was capable of. That actually made things easier. I wouldn't have to pretend this time.

“What's wrong?” he said. “Why did you travel back to this life?”

I still couldn't place his accent. German? Irish? English? It sounded like a mixture of all three. Before I answered him, I glanced down at my bare legs. “Could I… get dressed first?”

His eyes flicked to my legs too. It took a moment before understanding dawned on his face. I wasn't Ivy, the girl he'd been snuggling with. I was a stranger standing in front of another stranger, half-naked.

He whisked the closet door open, his movements agile and quick. He rummaged through it for a minute, scrutinizing several articles of clothing and tossing them over his shoulder if they weren't what he was looking for. At last, he handed me a soft gray smock, a pair of flowing black pants, black socks, and a pair of black slip-on shoes. Thunder peeled across the sky outside.