Echoes in Eternity (The Pella Series Book 1) (5 page)

Stella shouts with authority: “You stop right there! Did you ask your daughter if that was ok before making an appointment with that creepy shrink? Ellie doesn’t like him!”
 

“I’m her mother! I know what’s best! She needs help! I am traumatized with her...” she searches for a word that wouldn’t be as offensive and she finally settles on, “her condition!” accompanied by a face that looks martyred.
 

“Miss Sarah…isn’t it convenient for you to declare yourself a victim in every situation? This one is actually not about you,” resonates Stella with a calm control I have not seen
in her  before. She then turns to my uncle. A silent conversation passes between the two. My uncle turns to my mom, escorting her out of my room. As soon as they were out of the earshot, Stella turns to me and asks,

“What clothes can I bring for you to wear today?” she asks, completely surprising me.
 

“Oh, I can do that Stella, thank you!” I answer.
 

“You know I like to spoil you
 
s'il vous plait! 
But how about that? You get dressed, and come down to the kitchen to help me sort some green beans.” 

“
Andrew doesn’t like us invading his kitchen,” I say trying to smile. 

“I’m sure our presence will be tolerable,” she says. “I’ll go change
, too. Meet me in the kitchen in 10 minutes.”

“I don’t have a lot of time today Stella. I have a job interview in LA this afternoon. I have to get ready and
then drive.”

“Job interview?” she asks turning on her heels.

“Yes, you know I graduated last week. I need a job.”

“You’ll have a trust fund when you turn 25!” she says.

“Which is four years away,” I say shrugging, “and frankly, I don’t want it. Sarah keeps bringing it up, that it’s her parents’ money. I don’t care for it. I think that’s why she keeps forcing me to go to her shrink. I don’t want to be certified crazy because she cares for the money more than she does for me. I need to make my own living. I need to move out of town, LA, New York, Paris, London... I don’t know. Just not here.”

“But, honey, it’s your birthday today!” she says.

“Perfect time to grow up!” I reply smiling.

“You really want to move away?”

“Not only do I want to, but I 
need
 to move away Stella. I need to be away from Sarah, away from this house. I need the distance. I need to find myself,” I say and her gaze widens for a second, but she conceals it immediately.

“Well then baby girl,” she says smiling. “Let me be your nanny one last time. You pick your outfit, and let me see if you look sophisticated, mature, and intelligent as a prospective new employee!”

“Okay. Thank you Stella. You’re the mom I never had... You'll always have a special place in my heart. But, I need to find myself and soon. I want to move next week,” I confess leaving her gaping, I walk into my closet.

CHAPTER II

THE EQUINOX

Alexander Aurelius Pella

“Mr. Pella?” Anthony slowly approaches placating as if not to disturb a wild animal. He stands ten feet away from me accompanied by Henry. He oddly looks out of place even though he’s in his running gear, his shirt off and his large muscles bulging like a well-oiled machine. Henry on the other hand is in his cowboy boots, black jeans, and pale blue shirt, his wide brim hat in place and yet he looks at home in the middle of a California beach.

“What?” I ask sharply, still looking at the pathway where Elissa disappeared running.
 

“Is it her, sir
?” he asks in a gentle tone. 

My eyes are still fixed on the pathway as if she’ll come back any second, but of course, she doesn’t. “Yes, it’s
Elissa,” I respond, reticently. 

Ever since my dreams
 of Elissa started two weeks ago to date, I’ve been searching like a mad man to find her. But then, I've always looked for her every place I went, in every person I've met, in many, many women, and hadn't, of course found her. The task wasn’t just like looking for a needle in a haystack; but it was as if I was looking for a needle in mountains of needles. It's been exhausting, excruciating, soul shredding to the point of losing it. I've scaled the globe, went to so many countries, searched through millions of faces I've met day after day and not having found her, not feeling her presence in the here and now, and having to start all over again, and coming up empty handed for such a long time, the task would have destroyed a lesser man... 

Then again, I'm only half man. Half my resilience comes from the angel who fathered me, and the other half is lent through the angel who bound me to him for eternity with a task I willingly took
, protecting the only woman I ever loved in my very long existence, Elissa. I knew she was going to look different, and even have a different personality. But our souls always called to one another. I felt the familiar pull, as the earth would call to her moon. Helplessly, inescapable... Since the first night my dreams of our past started, everything else became secondary. After I felt her presence two weeks ago and finally knowing she existed in the here and now, any other woman I ever fucked, any of my businesses though I make billions, or any endeavor I ever desired to accomplish or ever accomplished, ceased to mean anything. My sun finally rose after having left me in the dark for two-hundred and fifteen years! This is my second chance, my equinox! I feel alive! 

“Are you quite sure Alexander?” asks Henry
 pulling me out of my reveries. 

“Do you think I
 wouldn't recognize my own wife?” I roar at Henry turning on my heels, my gaze stormy, ablaze with anger, piercing him with my glare. If it was anyone other than these two men who dedicated their lives to me for centuries, they wouldn't be able to question my judgment without being the recipients of my wrath. 

“Your wife in a different time, Alexander!” Henry reminds me urgently, as if this would make any difference to me. Nothing would stop me from reacquainting myself with her. “And, no, I don’t doubt your judgment, sir. But, I have an oath as well to protect her, and there’s something different about her this time. Everything depends on her remembering, and she seems to...” he says pausing, “...not want to remember. Or maybe it’s simply not Miss Ellie. You have to consider the possibility,” urges Henry. 

             
It is Elissa! When I saw her running down the driftwood plank stairs to the beach, I felt a tremendous pull, an ineludible desire to be near her. It was unmistakable; everything ceased to exist. Like a magnet pulling mindlessly and I’m blinded to anything else, but to answer her call. I know that she felt the same, because when I closed into her vicinity she doubled over. That was what I would have done if I had not learned to control my body and reactions, perfected over hundreds of years.

             
“It’s been two hundred and fifteen years, Mr. Pella. By the changes in you, we know that she’s here, in this time, and alive. But even if she were to dream about her past and you, she’ll only be remembering the way you looked then, not the way you look now. And you must still consider the possibility that the barriers her father erected might click in place on this life cycle. Unfortunately, it will not work for you anymore, because you haven’t matriculated through time, but she has. First we have to make sure that, this is indeed Miss Ellie.
Your
Elissa!” Anthony says emphasizing.“ You know that more than her life depends on it, sir. You can never be too overcautious.” 

I look at both Henry and
Anthony with a glacial stare, and the tone of my voice tells them I’m not to be trifled with.

             
“I’ve seen her eyes. Everyone's eyes are the windows to their soul; those were Elissa’s eyes,” I growl and add in a low murmur only audible to me, “still blue as pale sapphires...” with longing.“ She may have matriculated through the tunnel of time one last time, but her soul is intact, and by the way she reacted to me; I know her conscience has some recollection.

Her
soul remembers! I just need to help it along.” 

             
When we were sitting atop the arch, she lifted her sunglasses, and I got to see her eyes, that blue still gives me the shivers! When she looked up at me, I wanted to hold her and never let go, kiss her until neither of us had any breath left in us! Aristotle always told me that our breaths carried our souls; although after all I’ve done during my tiringly long existence, I doubt if I still have mine intact. He said that when two lovers kissed, their souls would unite. I’ve known that to be true! Because she’s my twin soul. She’s always been the one who made me feel...whole. The only person who ever satisfied the never ending yearning for more of everything. Nothing I have ever tried since she has been gone ever assuaged the propensity for the reckoning in me. How could anyone fill a black hole? The depravity I have in me is a dark, menacing abyss. She’s the only one who has shone light to it, chasing away the darkness; the only one who quenched the insatiable beast in me. No other woman 
ever
 made me feel the way she made me feel. 

“Alexander, you don't look the same!
 If she'll be looking to find Alexander back then, and she'll never find 
you
. This is one of the last precautions against...” Henry says chasing away my visions of Elissa and looks at me with a carefully hidden commiseration, knowing that I don't care for anyone’s sympathy, or pity. “How would she remember you? It has to be her who does the remembering. It has to be her free will to choose,” Henry adds in a serious tone. 

             
'Remembering me... remembering us...
' I think to myself. She promised! 

             
“Do either of you doubt me? Doubt my ability to locate her? Have I not chased her existence throughout the entire world... many many times? I am one of the best trackers the world has ever seen! Hell! This is a world I’ve started conquering when I was only 22 years old!” I raise my voice opening up my arms, “I have become the shrewdest businessman in the world, yet I kept a low profile. I have learned to read the signs of time, of wind, of fire, of earth, of water like you would read a book. The shadow men everyone else around the globe including the governments are wary of, are afraid of my fucking wrath! Because I know how to find them, neither do I have any qualms about fucking punishing them, should they ever cross me! And, I know, 
that
,” I say jabbing my thumb in the direction Elissa disappeared, “...was Elissa!” 

             
“There is one better. Nieto...He's still the best tracker of anything, or anyone. No one can find him, unless he wants you to find him,” corrects Henry, but Anthony cuts him off.

             
“How do we confirm it Mr. Pella? How do we, beyond the shadow of any doubt know that it’s Miss Ellie? Names can be a coincidence, looks can be a coincidence. After all, her mother was human. She had to have human descendants. That could very well account for the resemblance you’re seeing.” 

             
I hold my wrists up to show them, and both of them take a step back as if I punched them and left them breathless, their eyes widen. I know Elissa's marks had to come alive too! She looked like I shocked her with a thousand volts of electricity. The moment my seals came alive, the marks became scorching hot. Even though they seared me like a hot branding iron and it was excruciating, it would have made me tremble if I didn't use all my physical faculties. But the pain was well worth it for having her fall into my arms, inhaling her unique scent after two-hundred and fifteen years of missing her!