Once Again (11 page)

“No way,” I whispered. “I’m not leaving
you.”

“Good,” he said. “It’s probably selfish, but
I want you to stay.”

I shook my head. “Not selfish.”

He smiled then, and leaned forward to kiss me
softly. Surprising how quickly I’d grown accustomed to his touch,
the way he handled me with care and familiarity.

I thought about his reaction when he’d seen
me for the first time at school and smiled. How crazy it must’ve
felt to him when I walked in the building.

“What did you think when you saw me the first
time in person?” I asked. “In the lobby, the first day of school.
You looked kind of shell-shocked.”

He inhaled deeply, a slow smile spreading
across his face. His deep brown eyes lit up as his grin encompassed
his entire face. He pressed his forehead against mine, forcing my
gaze to lock with his.

“I thought,
finally
,” he whispered.
“Finally she’s here.”

A
week had passed since Lucas and I found each other on the beach. A
week since I discovered I was the reincarnation of a woman from
some previous century.

In many ways, it was almost like it hadn’t
happened – the dreams, the fear – but I knew it had all been real.
I’d had no dreams or visions in the last week, and neither had
Lucas. Perhaps our predecessors had decided to give us a break from
the intensity of what we’d been shown.

Whatever the case, it was a relief.

My routine with Lucas continued. Literature
class second period. A walk to my third period U.S. History class.
A quick meeting in the parking lot after school.

And lots and lots of phone conversations in
the evenings.

Luke ran every day after school, and, given
that he was an honors student, his evenings were taken up with
homework and studying, as were mine. But he always made time to
talk with me.

I’d had a couple of boyfriends in Nashville,
but I’d never felt like a priority to either of them. Lucas’s
attention made me feel special, and cared about.

We’d agreed to always keep our cell phones
handy. I even slept with mine in my hand or beside me on the
mattress. Once we discovered that our dreams and visions were
happening simultaneously, Lucas said it only made sense for us to
be able to call immediately.

He even told me to call in the middle of the
night if I had a dream.

He’d been dealing with the reincarnation
business for quite some time, and though he was taken by surprise
by the specific and frightening nature of our recent visions, he
knew that for me it was especially scary.

He said there was no reason for me to be
afraid alone, when he was just a phone call away.

Our relationship wasn’t exactly public,
though after the football game speculation had increased. But
nothing about our appearance at school had changed. He didn’t move
to hold my hand in the hall or the parking lot, and I had a
suspicion Lucas wanted to keep some things private.

It also kept me from looking like a total
liar to Chris, Robbie, and Lance, whom I’d turned down because I
“wasn’t ready to start dating”.

Today was Friday, and Luke was running in a
cross-country meet after school. The host school was in Belfast, a
town only twenty minutes away, and my parents agreed to let me
drive over and watch.

Not that cross-country was that exciting to
watch. I basically just sat near the finish line with Gwen and
waited for him to show up. The runners would end their route in the
high school parking lot, and several chairs had been placed under
the awning at the front of the school.

Gwen settled in to read a book while we
waited, and I decided I could also make good use of my time. Luke
said he let his mind wander when he ran, that relaxing his mind
while running sometimes allowed the visions to come to him in a way
that didn’t knock the breath out of him.

I figured I might as well try to chill out
and see if anything popped into my thoughts. I wouldn’t mind
something flashing around in there so much if I was expecting
it.

The day was overcast, not rainy, but damp and
cold, like some sort of anti-sauna. I’d bundled up in black fleece
pants and a black turtleneck. Lucas had insisted on lending me one
of his Sky Cove X-Country hoodies. It said
Ellis
on the
back.

Wearing it thrilled me to pieces.

I lifted the hood, pulling the sides tight
around my face and ears, and leaned back in my chair. Ipod
headphones went in my ears, and I hit shuffle and tried to
relax.

I liked music a lot, and I liked a lot of
different music. Lucas said shuffling through the library on my
iPod was the equivalent of aural-whiplash.

I leaned back in my chair, closed my eyes,
and tried to turn my mind loose.

Plenty of things ran through my thoughts. Of
course, Lucas was the star. I thought of school, the football game,
the countless phone calls, even that awful dream that guided us
both to the beach last weekend. It all kind of flitted across my
consciousness, flashing in and out like slides on a power-point
presentation.

But there was nothing new. No new pictures
from the past, no new emotions from the long dead people who had
invaded our present reality.

I was both disappointed and relieved.

Disappointed because as much as it frightened
me and interrupted my normal life, I really wanted to know what had
happened. I wanted justice or vindication or whatever would make it
right
for the people Lucas and I had once been. I also
wanted the dreams and visions to stop. At least the scary ones.

The relief I felt was two-fold. For one, the
visions left me ragged and raw, emotionally drained, and it would
have been difficult to hide that in front of Gwen. True, she knew
about Lucas’s reincarnation, and she knew that he’d seen me in his
dreams before I came to Sky Cove. But she didn’t know about the
dreams I’d had, or about what Lucas and I had discovered about
ourselves. I was also relieved because Luke wouldn’t be distracted
by a vision during his run. He could focus totally on his sport,
and hopefully come in first again.

I wanted to see him cross the finish line
before anyone else and cheer him on as he did.

“You know,” Gwen said, breaking the silence
between us. “Lucas has a birthday on Sunday.”

I pulled the headphones from my ears, a smile
spreading across my face. “He didn’t tell me.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” she said. “He
never likes to draw attention to himself.”

“Which is exactly why he gets so much
attention,” I added.

She nodded. I wasn’t telling her anything she
didn’t already know.

“Would you come to lunch on Sunday?” she
asked. “We’ll surprise him with a little get-together, just the
three of us.”

“I’d love that!”

Instantly, my mind whirled with possibilities
for a present. With Lucas, it couldn’t be ordinary. It had to be
unique, unexpected. But, of course, he wouldn’t want anything
extravagant. He’d be embarrassed if I placed too much attention on
his birthday.

It came to me then, the perfect gift for him.
Funny, yet special. Something that would commemorate all that had
happened between us.

A group of runners came into sight, just as a
sliver of sunlight peeked trough a tiny break in the clouds. They
curved around the bend in the road on the hill above the school.
One runner broke from the pack, as if a burst of energy propelled
him forward toward the finish line.

I knew at once it was Lucas.

Gwen and I cheered as he came down the hill
toward the parking lot, faster and faster, traveling further from
the rest with every stride, as if he’d saved his last burst of
energy for the end of the race. I decided that must’ve been exactly
the strategy, because other runners did the same thing, but with
much less effect than Luke.

He crossed the line first, to the cheers of
his coaches, his mom, and, of course, me. He only took a moment to
catch his breath, down half a bottle of water, and then he came
toward us. He kissed Gwen on the cheek, then scooped me up in his
arms and twirled me around, as if having me there waiting for him
was the best thing in the world.

The heat from his body seeped through the
layers of my clothes and warmed me as I wrapped my arms around his
neck. He smelled a bit sweaty from his run, but not in a bad way.
In a way that reminded me how hard Luke worked for the things that
meant something to him.

While watching the world spin as Lucas
laughed and twisted around, I thought this must be what falling in
love felt like.

Yikes.

Ashley Emerson was as pretty as I remembered, with bright green
eyes and the kind of dark auburn hair I’d always wished I had. But
mine was just one shade off it seemed... all of the brown without
the hint of red. And she was just as friendly today, when I walked
into Emerson’s antiques after my Saturday shift at String City.

“Looking for anything specific?” she
asked.

“Actually, yes,” I answered. “And I think I
remember exactly where it is.”

She waited at the counter while I made my way
to the back room. I found what I wanted quickly, pausing for a
moment to recall being here several weeks ago with Lucas.

The musty smell once again seemed pleasant
and welcoming, rather than old and moldy. I’d wondered if coming
back here would feel awkward. It didn’t. Instead, it felt
comforting, familiar, correct. Of course, my knowledge that this
was most likely the place the people in our dreams had lived added
to the emotional effect the place had on me.

Still, no vision erupted in my mind, as it
had the last time I was here.

I glanced around the room once, trying to
imagine it as it had been in my dream, with a wood burning stove
and wooden table. The room was small, and though several short rows
and cabinets of antiques now filled its walls, as a kitchen the
table and stove were probably the extent of what it could hold. I
closed my eyes, concentrating on the feel of the room, the air
temperature, the scent, the uneven slope of the floor beneath my
feet.

When nothing happened, I made my way back up
front.

“Interesting choice,” Ashley said, ringing up
my purchase.

“Sort of an inside joke.”

She laughed, a musical laugh that made me
feel warm inside. “Well, I hope he appreciates it.”

“How long has this house been an antique
store?” I asked, hoping to prod just a bit into the history of the
place, without rousing suspicion.

“My mother-in-law opened it three years ago,”
she said. “I’ve been working since earlier this year, since I
married into the family. My husband is Seth Emerson.”

“Did anyone live here before that?” I handed
her my money.

“Not for several years.” She counted out my
change. “Seth’s grandparents lived here until the early nineties,
but then it became difficult for them to maintain, so they moved
into a condo for elderly residents in Camden. It sat empty for
almost seventeen years before the store opened.”

“That’s sad,” I said. “That they had to leave
their home. Are they still in Camden?”

“Patsy is,” she replied. “That’s my husband’s
grandmother. Her husband, William, died eight years ago.”

William and Patsy Emerson. Strange to think
of someone else making their home in this house. Irrational though
it was, I had begun to think of this place as always having
belonged to Lucas and me.

I thanked Ashley, and promised to come back
soon. Making my way out to my car, a thought occurred to me.

There had to be public records of property
owners. Maybe even as far back as a hundred years. Of course, I had
no idea how to go about finding such records, but they had to be in
the courthouse or in some computer database.

If Lucas and I knew that William and Patsy
Emerson had owned the house several years ago, could we possibly
trace previous owners?

Could we maybe discover the names of the
people we’d been seeing in our dreams?

Definitely something I should run past Lucas.
But not today. And not tomorrow. At least not until we celebrated
his birthday.

Gwen’s plan to surprise Lucas was brilliant, if a little
complicated. First, she feigned a headache that could only be
helped by a specific herbal tea, available only at specialty health
food store on the opposite side of Sky Cove from my house.

With Lucas safely out of the house, off to
get the tea she needed, she pulled the casserole dish filled with
garlic chicken breasts out of the refrigerator and put it in the
oven to bake, calling me as soon as she finished. My mom, who was
in on the plan, drove me down to Sky Cove Harbor, a tinier version
of the harbor in nearby Camden, which was just about the halfway
point between my house and Luke’s. Gwen met us there, and with only
a split second to enjoy the view of the sailboats in and around the
harbor, we hopped in her car and raced back to the house. From the
harbor, the drive was just under ten minutes, and once there, she
retrieved the homemade birthday cake from its hiding place in her
office. How she’d managed to bake that and decorate it like running
shoes without Luke’s knowledge was beyond me.

I’d been put me in charge of decorations, so
while she tossed the salad, I set the table. In the center of each
plate went a black and gold party hat. I sprinkled the middle of
the table with gold confetti and hung a gold foil “18” from the
light fixture above.

The chicken came out of the oven just as we
heard Luke’s Bronco pull up to the house. Buttery garlic wafted
through the kitchen.

“Showtime!” Gwen beamed.

“Got your tea, Mom,” came his voice from the
living room. “Hey, what smells good?”