Sweet Unrest (18 page)

“I can’t allow—”

“But you will.” I smiled sadly. “It’s not like you can stop me.”

Twenty
-
Nine

Thisbe’s house stands in the shadows of the grove. The day is hot, still, and yet the bottles hanging from the trees clink together, stirred by an impossible wind. I shouldn’t have come here. I should have stayed far, far away.

And yet …

There is no choice but to go forward. Onward.

I’m approaching the steps when the old woman appears in the darkened frame of the doorway. She watches me with cloudy eyes.

“Back so soon?” Her smile is vicious. “Greedy little thing, aren’t you?”

“I’ve changed my mind.” I clasp the locket in a shaking hand. “Please. You must help me. You must undo it.”

The smile is gone now, but still the old woman looks strangely pleased. “What’s done is done, child. I told you before, the magic in that charm can’t be undone.” The bottles rustle, clinking an uneven rhythm in discordant tones, and Thisbe gives me—Armantine—a slick, sickening sneer. But I don’t run. I promise the moon and stars and my entire being, and I beg.

“Get off your knees,” Thisbe says finally. “Come on inside.”

The cabin is cooler than the day outside, but the air is murky, filled with the cloying sweetness of some herb smoldering on the fire.

“Sit,” she says, pointing to a three-legged stool by the table.

I do as she says, my hands still clenched together in a half-prayerful hope. She will help me. She will fix the mistake I made and he will never, never have to know.

Thisbe taps one craggy, arthritic finger thoughtfully on her chin. “You can’t just undo magic like this, girl. But there might be something for your problem. It’d be dangerous, but if you’re willing to try … ”

“I am. I’ll do whatever I must.”

“It isn’t magic that can be worked from afar. I’ll need to be close for it do any good at all.”

“How close?”

Thisbe’s mouth curves up into something that should’ve been a smile, and suddenly, I know. She—the girl in the dream—doesn’t know, but I know. Thisbe will never free him.

“Close enough to touch,” the old witch says.

Armantine’s thoughts race: how will she convince Alex to come here? She will do anything, anything, to undo what she has done.

But I know. With an absolute certainty, I’m sure this is the beginning of what happened. This is the moment that determined every one that came after. That determined every day of every year that Alex has been trapped.

But the moment tumbles and twists and I’m falling into nothing. And then into a room where a steamer trunk stands open. She sees each piece of clothing with French eyes. Every frock seems suddenly provincial, worn, and so most of them are left hanging like limp bodies in the wardrobe. She reaches for her canvases and paints, charcoals and paper. These are who she is. These are what she cannot leave behind.

It is dark by the time we finally reach the docks. The night is so thick I can hardly see the ship that will take Armantine from the only home she has ever known.

It doesn’t matter. She straightens her back, stiff against fear, and the small vial Thisbe gave her shifts against her skin.

“
Tomorrow, mon coeur,” he tells her, squeezing her hand. His eyes shine like emeralds, alight with anticipation. “Tomorrow, you shall be mine.”

Tomorrow. Tomorrow he will be safe and we shall be wed, she thinks. Tomorrow it will all end, and tomorrow something else will begin.

The ship’s cabin is small but comfortable, and happiness wars with nerves within her. The vial still feels cold against her skin. It will be over soon.

He has brought them a dinner of cold chicken and bread slathered with thick, sweet butter. It will be over soon.

She pulls the vial from her corset when he goes to find more wine. Thisbe is waiting for the signal. And then all will be well.

But I know otherwise. And I hate her for not knowing as well.

Armantine takes the bottle of wine from him when he returns and, turning her back on him, she opens it. She pours the scarlet liquid into pewter cups, where it sits dark as death. And then she takes the vial …

And I scream, words that only I can hear. Pointless words to warn her. Because she’s opening the vial. She’s pouring one … two … three drops, as she’s been instructed.

And I struggle, and I fight, and I scream for her to stop.

And suddenly, unexpectedly, I’m not in her body any longer. I’m standing apart, watching with horror as Alex takes the cup. And drinks.

Thirty

When I woke the next morning, Alex was already gone, but the remnants of the dream from the night before still clung to me, pulled at me. I’d learned so much, and I needed to talk to him.

I dressed quickly, throwing on a comfortable pair of shorts and a soft T-shirt. My room seemed empty without Alex’s presence, but I was glad for the moment to myself. I knew where he’d be when I was ready to find him.

I took the path out to the pond, turning the entirety of the dream over in my mind. As I came out of the copse of trees and entered the clearing by the pond, I found Alex where I expected, sitting in the sun.

“It was her, wasn’t it?” My voice was flat, dead.

“You had another dream?” he asked. I noticed he didn’t deny it.

I nodded and tried to put into words for him what I was piecing together from the still-disjointed images.

“I don’t know why Armantine couldn’t see it,” I said. “It was so clear—the gleam in the old witch’s eyes. Nothing Thisbe told her was the truth. I don’t think Armantine wanted to hurt you. She didn’t know what Thisbe was going to do. But still, she set everything in motion with that love charm, and then she led Thisbe right to you.”

He didn’t respond, just continued watching me as I spoke.

“Why can’t I change it?” I moaned miserably. “I thought I changed it, but I couldn’t
do
anything. Everything stayed the same. I couldn’t save you,” I finished, my voice small and breaking.

“What do you mean?”

“When she went to drop the potion into your glass, I knew it was going to hurt you. I’m always trapped in her body,” I said, my voice shaking with frustration. “I can see what she sees and feel what she feels. Last night was different, though. I struggled, and somehow, I can’t really explain it, but somehow I changed perspectives. I wasn’t
in
her anymore. I was near her, watching everything play out like a bad movie.” I picked up a rock and threw it into the water. It sunk, hard and heavy in the center of the pond. “But I couldn’t do anything. I was like a ghost to them. They didn’t even notice me there, and I couldn’t stop her.” I looked up at him. “There was nothing I could do to save you.”

I turned back to him, afraid to meet his eyes and see the disappointment in them that I felt in myself.

He moved closer to me. “It is impossible to change our pasts, Lucy.” His voice was softer now. “We can only learn from them.”

“What do you mean, ‘our’?
This dream was about you.”

His eyes were steady on me, but he didn’t argue.

And then it clicked into place. The missing piece.

“No.” I shook my head in denial.

“
Mon coeur
. My love.” He whispered soft endearments to me, trying to calm me with his words.

“No.” I repeated the word. “They’re just dreams. I can’t be her. I’m
not
her.”

“No, you’re not,” he said gently. “You’re Lucy Eleanor Aimes. You are the daughter of Leonard and Sara Aimes, who raised you to be the strong-willed, beautiful woman you are. You live this life and you
are
this person. Wholly and completely.” His voice softened. “But there was a part of you, once, that lived a different life.”

“I don’t believe in reincarnation,” I moaned desperately, as though that solved everything.

“I would that much of this were different, but—” He shook his head. “It is not.”

“No,” I said, more forcefully now. “No. It’s not possible.” I was grasping for something to hold on to.

“Why not?” He shrugged again. “You are talking with a ghost, for lack of a better term. Who is to say what is and is not possible? A few weeks ago, you would not have believed that I was possible. You and I … ” He smiled gently. “Once, long ago, we found each other. Now we have found each other again. Perhaps one day, we will find each other once more. It is as simple as that.”

Simple? There was nothing simple about any of it. “Is that why this is happening? Why you’ve latched on to me—because I’m her?”

It had always about her.
Never about me.
I’d known that, and yet now this piece of information felt different.

“That is not true, Lucy,” he said, answering my unspoken accusations. “Perhaps fate has brought you here. Perhaps we knew each other once. Certainly, I loved you once. That I cannot deny, nor will I deny that a part of me will always love Armantine.” He paused and stared at me, willing me to understand. “But you are not her. She did not have your strength.” He smiled at me then. “Fate may give us opportunities, Lucy, but it does not control us. We make our own futures. We choose who we love.”

“It doesn’t feel like a choice,” I said. It felt like a trick—the dreams, the way I’d been lulled into feeling what Armantine believed. The day before, I’d thought I loved him of my own free will. Now I wasn’t sure.

“Love is always a choice, Lucy. Remember that. It isn’t a blind tying. If I loved Armantine once, if I love her even now, it has no bearing on what I feel for you. What
you
are to me.”

“Did you know who I was from the very beginning? What I’d done to you in the past?”

He nodded, and at first I was angry, but then I thought about all those times he’d held himself apart from me. The times he’d closed down his emotions so I couldn’t read the pain or the worry or the love in his eyes. And I understood.

“You gave me a choice, didn’t you?” He could have pursued me with an intensity that I wouldn’t have been able to refuse.

“It was all I could do, love.”

“No. That’s not true. You could have told me and forced my hand, but you didn’t.” I wasn’t exactly sure what to do with that piece of knowledge, but I knew I had to keep it safe, hold it close, and maybe it would be enough of a tether to hold me when things threatened to overwhelm.

“I did that once before—pushed you before you were ready. Asked you to give up far more than was right. It is the reason everything else happened. This time, I forced myself to be patient. To give you the time you needed. This time, things had to be different.”

“She wanted to save you,” I told him.

“I know,” he said. “Through the haze of whatever was in that wine, I could hear everything. See everything. And I could do nothing to help her.” The frustration and desperation in his voice as alive as the energy thrumming between us. Then he smiled softly, as if remembering. “She fought like a wildcat.”

“It didn’t work,” I said numbly.

Although Armantine had tried to stop the two large men Thisbe brought that night to take Alex, it hadn’t done any good. The men easily pulled Armantine away from Alex and pinned her to the wall.

I’d awoken from the dream at that point, but I instinctively knew what came next. It made sense now. All those years I’d dreamed about drowning, it had always been her. And it had always been me. The overwhelming sense of guilt I always woke with made sense, too, now that I knew what she’d done. What
I
had done.

“Why don’t you hate me?” My voice shook and I couldn’t blink back the tears any longer. “You should hate me, Alex. You asked her for trust and she betrayed you. You asked her for love and she caused your death. How do you know I won’t do it again?”

“I’m not dead, Lucy.”

“That’s worse, though. Isn’t it?” I already knew the
answer, but with a small jerk of his chin he confirmed it. I watched as his jaw tensed and he struggled to find the words he needed.

“I am not sure I can explain to you what it is like to live on for years beyond when I should have died,” he said.

“Thisbe hurt you by trapping you here.”

He looked at me, his eyes bleak. “Maybe, but when I’m with you, I can remember what I once was—what I want to be again.”

“Why didn’t you tell me all of this before now?”

“You weren’t ready for more.” He smiled sheepishly. “It’s not the sort of thing that is easily believed.”

That much was true. If he’d told me that first day in the clearing that I’d been his love in another life and he was a ghost trapped in a Voodoo-induced limbo, I would have been on the first plane back to Chicago.

Still, there was one question I needed the answer to. “What am I to you, Alex?”

He smiled then, and warmth bloomed in my chest. “Light,
ma chère
. You are my light. You may have been Armantine once, but that life pales in comparison to what you are now. That love, it pales in comparison to what I feel for the person you are in this life.”

His words hit me like a killing blow, and I sank to my knees. He knelt down next to me and ran his hand across my hair, trying to calm me in the only way he could. I craved those whispers of ethereal warmth caressing my skin, but I wondered if it could be enough for either of us. Even as I knew that it had to be. Because of who I’d once been and what I’d once done to him.

And yet, he had somehow forgiven that girl I once was and accepted the one I’d become. More than accepted. Because when I finally met Alex’s eyes again, there was an intensity and fierceness there that gave me hope that maybe there was an answer to our shared pain. That maybe our love could be more someday than a deep well of regret. That, at the very least, having him—even like this—could be enough for us both.