Paranormal Realities Box Set (50 page)

"You did this." I accused
Holden.

He flinched and his expression turned
wide-eyed and stricken.

My mind raced for answers. "Are you
death?"

"No." Holden strode to me and,
despite my cringing from him, he grasped me by the shoulders. "No. I'm
life."

"No," I said. "I'm lying
in the street. How can you say that?"

"Because it's true. I'm your life.
Or rather, we are each other's life. We're fated hearts. We were meant to be
together."

He tried to pull me into a hug but I
resisted.

"You said before that we knew each
other in a past life." I searched to make sense of this.

"Yes," he answered. "We
were married during one of my five lifetimes."

"Five lifetimes? I don't
understand," I cried, shaking my head.

To add to the confusion, the sound of
footsteps climbing the steps freaked me out. What now?

Mrs. Gazardi, still wearing the flowing
gown of the previous night, emerged to frown first at me and then at Holden.
"You still haven't done it, I see."

"Done what?" My voice was a
shrill shout. "Kill me? I think he has since I'm bleeding in the
street."

"No you foolish girl," Mrs.
Gazardi said. "He was supposed to educate you." She stalked to the
window. "It's almost too late. We have to do it now or never."

I felt tears streaming down my cheeks.

How could I feel the moisture of tears
when I was dead?

 
I must
have spoken aloud because Holden answered me.

"You're body isn't dead. Not
yet," Holden said with a sad shadow in his eyes.

Shaking my head a sob slipped out.
"What are you saying?"

"You can go back to your body now
and you'll survive. You have a choice."

"I can live?" Turning out of
his arms I made to descend the stairs. "Okay then. Let's go."

The sad eyes returned. "Like I said,
you
have a
choice. But if you choose to live...if you don't die now, we can never be
together."

"Why? You said—"

"You can go back but I can't."

"What?"

"He's already dead," Mrs.
Gazardi said. "He has no body to go back to. And his soul can only remain
on earth for three days after his body passes."

"I didn't move here from Miami, I
died in Miami." A tremor shook his voice as Holden said the word died.

"But—"

"And if you don't die now, we won't
be reborn at the same time for our next lives," Holden explained. "We
won't live and love each other in the next incarnation."

Shaking my head, I tried to clear it.
Fear still pounded through me forcing out every other thought, making my mind
foggy. "This makes no sense."

"Don't be afraid. Fear blocks love
and it's your fear that has kept us apart before."

He placed his palm against my chest and
memories flashed in my head. Memories of him. Of me. Of us together as teens
running hand-in-hand through a field. His appearance was different then and so
was mine but somehow I knew it was him...me...us...in a past lifetime. Maybe he
really was a Viking then.

"Why didn't you do that
before?" I asked.

"Because you weren't ready,"
Mrs. Gazardi interrupted with an impatient twitch of her hand.

"I'm still not ready." But I
had to be. This was happening.

Locking eyes with Holden, he answered my
unspoken question. "I appear to you now as I will when we meet each other
in our next life," His lips twisted in a grimace. "
If
we meet
each other next."

"You mean I'll remember all
this?" My arm swept in an arc around me.

"No," he shook his head.
"Probably not consciously. But your unconscious will know me."

"You said we were married in one of
your five lifetimes. Did we have children?" My tears had stopped and I
moved closer to Holden, leaning against him.

"One." I felt his smile against
my forehead. "A boy. But then I was called to war and died in battle. So
we didn't have the years together we should have."

"What about your other four
lifetimes? Weren't we together?"

"No." He stiffened. "You
were too afraid to feel the pain of loving someone to take a chance in each of
those lives, so we missed each other. That's why this time they allowed me to
come here and talk to you."

I felt his displeasure. His
disapproval—anger even—lashed me with guilt and I pulled away.

More memories of my past lives came to
me. No painful jolts this time. The images were more like old friends. But from
them I realized that the pain of losing Holden in our first lifetime together
had so traumatized me that I had not wanted to experience that soul wrenching
pain ever again. And that fear had followed me from life to life. I still
didn't know if I'd be able to break free of the fear. Hadn't I been living this
lifetime shackled by inhibition, choosing not to take chances?

Stepping toward the window, I gazed down
at the street as an ambulance screeched to a halt.

"Come on," Mrs. Gazardi
demanded. "This is taking too long."

"So who are you in all this?" I
asked. "Obviously, not just my school counselor."

Her inner light began to shine so bright
I had to shield my eyes.

"I am Gazadriel," she said in a
booming voice, part the woman I knew and part otherworldly baritone. "I am
here to guide you to where you may go."

"Are you certain if I go with you
now we'll have a lifetime together?" I asked Holden.

"Nothing is certain," he
replied. "We will still have to make it happen. But it's certain we will
have the opportunity. If you stay here now...we won't.

He held out a hand. "Please, my
love. Take a chance to be with me."

"I don't know." Gnawing on my
lip, I tried to process everything.

"The time is now or it will be
never." Gazadriel climbed onto the sill where the wind whipped the long
strands of gray-white hair that had escaped from her bun. The folds of the gown
billowed about her body.

A whirlpool turned in the clouds over the
square and the swirling increased its velocity.

"You have to make the choice now.
There's no more time." Holden held out a beckoning hand. The hand shook.
His face was grave and serious.

Through the window I could see the
paramedics performing CPR, trying to save me.

At that moment, I knew my decision. I
chose my fate. I would save myself.

The bell tolled in the clock tower,
indicating 9:15. Only three minutes left.

Just thinking about returning to my body
caused my soul or my consciousness, or my whatever, to jerk out of the bell
tower, and it traveled down the stairs, passed over the sidewalk and reached
the street. For a few moments I hovered over my still form before slipping back
inside.

"She has a heartbeat," one
paramedic shouted and ceased the rib cracking compressions on my chest.

No pain. That was the first thing I
marveled at as I pried up my lids and peered up into the face of the man
working over me. I didn't feel anything but a heaviness in all my limbs. Still
I managed to lift one arm that felt like our living room sofa was on top of it
as I moved to take the oxygen mask off my face.

Opening my mouth, I shouted out a whisper.
"Lashonda."

"I'm here," my friend said,
inserting herself between the paramedics to kneel beside me. Tears had etched a
path down her cheeks and kept flowing. "You're gonna be okay. Hang in
there."

I wished I could reach up and put a
comforting hand on her arm. I wished I could tell her it would all be okay. I
wished I could say so many things.

"Tell my dad I love him." The
sofa seemed to be on my chest now, but I forced myself to speak anyway.

My words caused a new gush of tears to
flow down her cheeks.

"You gotta stay strong so you can
tell him yourself," Lashonda cried.

I just had one more thing I had to say.

"I love you too...girlfriend."
I closed my eyes again and sighed out relief.

"Eve, don't go," I heard
Lashonda shout from far away.

But by the time she spoke, I'd willed
myself from my body and my soul had already traveled halfway up the stairs of
the church again. In an instant I was in the steeple where Holden waited.

His expression went from pleading to
joyous.

Reaching out, I placed my hand in his
outstretched palm.

"If you are coming, it has to be
now." Gazadriel spread her wings wide, silvery long locks windswept and
flowing free around her head. She tested the edge of the window with her feet
and pointed to the full-blown tornado in the sky. "There's no more
time."

"I'm ready, I said, squeezing
Holden's hand. He squeezed mine in return, pulled me to his side and pressed a
sweet kiss against my lips.

Side-by-side, hand-in hand, we climbed up
onto the parapet beside Gazadriel. We grasped her robe with our free hands and
she took off with us in tow. With Gazadriel as our guide, Holden and I flew off
the side of the church, traveling up and into our future together.

#
# #

**Thank you for reading Paranormal
Realities. If you enjoyed it, I hope you will post a review at Amazon.com. And
if you would like to know more about me, please visit my websites at
http://www.prmason.net
and
http://www.patriciamason.net
.You might
find some freebies there!

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In Deep Shitake (humorous romantic suspense)
-- Take one devastatingly attractive
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food-word obscenities. Mix in a dose of mistaken identity and a handful of
Russian mobsters...And they're all in deep shitake.
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