Book of Life (2 page)

I blushed in return. “You shouldn’t spy on people. Hasn’t anyone ever taught you that?”

She plucked a piece of grass from the ground. “Of course, but having lived a seer, you find that eavesdropping is sometimes unavoidable.”

“You’re too young to witness that sort of stuff,” I went on.

Eliza laughed again. “Hardly. I’m far older than you. I just don’t look it.”

I fell silent, looking back at the river. Eliza was already irritating me to the point that I wished she’d leave, no matter how lonely I felt. “Whatever.” I wasn’t being my normal self. In fact, I was even starting to sound a little bit like Emily. I tried to reconcile and change the subject, seeing that the girl didn’t seem all too keen on leaving anytime soon. “You said I won’t forget?” My voice was forcibly more pleasant.

Eliza nodded. “Yes. That is right.”

“As long as I’m here, correct? At least that’s how you made it seem. But, where else would I go?”

Eliza tied a strand of grass into a bow and handed it to me with a sly look on her face. She was mimicking Max, as I’m sure she’d seen him do this a hundred times from a distance. “Back.”

“Back? Back where?” I quickly assumed she meant to the real world—to life. “I can go back?” I was leaning toward her, gripping the ground with excitement. Though Max promised to bring me back, he also warned not to try it on my own. He hadn’t told me why, but now I was curious.

She shook her head. “It’s easy to do, but you won’t be yourself. You won’t remember anything of who you were before, and your life’s challenges will have changed. You become a new person all together. You see, if you go back the way I know of, who knows how long it will take before that boy ever finds you again. It could be lifetimes. I said it was easy, but maybe not considering the whole picture you’re considering.”

My steeled spine slackened with disappointment. “Lifetimes,” I whispered. I could see now why Max told me not to try it on my own. He’d done this enough already. He’d lived a life without me, waiting for me. He’d probably lived countless lifetimes without me. He wasn’t about to do that again. If anything, Max needed to come here and recede on into the Ever After with me. That was the whole game, after all. He wasn’t about to die, though, that was asking too much of his ego. I knew enough about Max that he wasn’t going to leave the world in the state it had become. He had a drive to fix it first.

“But if he came here I couldn’t touch him anyway. I can’t touch anyone here, it seems.”

She tilted her head. “That’s not true. Love can be touched, whether that’s true love or not. If you love someone, in a way other than how you love your father, Fate likes to allow you to touch each other.” She blushed again. Clearly this was not a subject she’d had a ton of experience with. “It’s like her little game. Fate wants to see how you’ll interact and if you deserve the love you seek.”

“Have you found your love . . . ?” My voice trailed.

Eliza giggled. “Certainly not in my last life. I died too young.”

“Why haven’t you gone back, then?”

She bit her lip. “It’s all so hard. I’m just not ready yet. I’m not ready for that next life challenge.”

“But surely your other half has come to the Ever After too. He has to die as well. Wouldn’t you find him here?” I assured. I guess the exception would be if he were an angel, pixie or something of the sort and hadn’t chosen to die yet, but that didn’t seem to be the case as far as I could tell.

She looked me in the eye. “But it doesn’t work like that. You have to meet your true love in life in order to know who they are in the Ever After. I simply haven’t found him yet. Truthfully, I’m scared to.”

For as sure as Eliza seemed before, she now had a vulnerable side that I could definitely relate to. I was scared also. “How many times have you died and gone back?”

She shook her head. “Who knows? As soon as you are reborn, everything starts over. Your mind is wiped clean.”

“A clean slate,” I nodded.

She didn’t seem to know the slang, giving me a confused look.

I just ignored her. “I take it you’ve been here a long time,” I looked at her clothes once more.

She nodded, but again it was a vague sort of nod. “Yes, but it doesn’t feel like it. I know it’s been a long time because I always ask the new ones what era they’ve come from. Things really lose perspective here. There are plenty of others like me, working out their fears and reflecting on their past lives before building the bravery to go back.” She shuddered. “Time becomes lost.”

I desperately wanted to know what kind of life she had lived before, but I was afraid to ask. Her visible discomfort suggested it was a horrible one. Only that reason could explain her hesitation. I’m sure she was afraid to live it over again. I know I would be—I know I am.

“It’s a gamble not knowing what your next life challenge would be, or what you’d look like. What if I came back a child in the Amazon jungle?” she went on, smiling mildly.

I thought about this. Max would never find me there. I began to see why Max was right. I shouldn’t try to go back on my own. There were endless combinations and endless lives between us. It’s a miracle we found each other at all. It’s a miracle that anyone ever does.

STELLA:

I flew back to the rock and landed, quickly changing into my human form. I had grown ever more comfortable with life in this human figure, but I still didn’t understand who I was beyond a name—Stella. I set the rabbit I’d just caught on the rock where I’d been born into this world. Once the rabbit was laid to rest, I pulled on some clothes I’d managed to steal from a nearby hunter’s cabin—an old sweatshirt and jeans. Still, it did little to keep me warm in this blooming winter weather.

Sliding my palms against each other, I made quick work of skinning the warm rabbit. In my mind I wanted to cook it. I’d watched the man at the cabin perform the task of skinning a rabbit and making fire a number of times now, but I’d not yet attempted it on my own. I was curious, though. As an owl I knew I could survive the winter just fine on instinct, but I craved the chance to be human.

I picked up an arm-length stick I’d stripped of its foliage. With a length of string, I tied it to each end of the stick, making something that looked like the bow the man in the cabin hunted with. I looked at the bow, wondering how it was I knew what it was at all. I must have lived a human life before this one, but I couldn’t remember it. All I could remember were things like words, and general skills like walking, running, and jumping, just not speech beyond the simple line of ‘who am I’. That wasn’t going to get me very far.

I grasped a bit of foliage and made a small pile. Picking up a second stick that was half the length of the first, I looped it onto the string of the bow and stuck the tip of it into the pile of foliage. Holding the bow horizontal with the ground, I began to drive it back and forth like sawing down a tree. The faster I did this the faster the stick looped in the bow spun against the foliage that was wedged against the rock. Soon enough, smoke began to wisp its way through the foliage. I stopped and dropped the bow and stick to the ground. Bringing my face close to the foliage, I blew gently. Within, an ember began to glow.

I gathered the ember in my hands and added it to the pile of kindle I had collected earlier. Fanning the small ember, it eventually grew into a flame and then a fire. Right away I was impressed by the heat it put off. Anxious to eat cooked meat, I skewered the rabbit and set it close to the flames. An hour passed before the meat appeared cooked as I had seen the hunter’s. With anticipation, I pulled the rabbit away from the flames, pinching a bit of flesh near the leg. Right away I yelped as the heat of the meat took me off guard. I waited a moment, my leg shaking with impatience before trying again. This time, the meat was cooler to the touch and I was able to slip off a chunk. It felt noticeably drier than the fresh meat had against my human hands, but it flaked in a way that made my mouth water. I touched the meat to my tongue, and instantly the taste was far more complex than I’d ever tasted with the tongue of the owl. I was taken by the whole experience, and before I knew it, there was nothing but bones.

Finished, I couldn’t help but feel restless as my stomach felt full. The task itself had been completed, but I was bored. I wanted more of this new life. Inside me, something began to tickle up my spine. I tried to determine what the feeling was. Trying it on for size, I began to get the sense that it was a memory that wanted to come out. In this memory, there was the intense feeling that there was someone I needed to find. But who was this someone and why?

Looking at my hands, I picked at the dirt caked under my fingernails. If my purpose was to find this person, this person I now saw as a man, I knew that I could not find them in the human world looking the way I did. What resources did I have to make myself into more of the human I observed watching the hunter? The question presented all the answers I needed. Quickly, I switched back into an owl and flew toward the cabin. It was dusk and I knew the hunter would still be out hunting. It was the only chance I had for the next few days.

WES:

Lacy and I stood outside Emily’s bedroom door. “This is hard for her,” I whispered.

“Hard for her?” Lacy rolled her eyes. “Brother, I realize it’s hard for her. But, don’t you think it’s maybe a little harder for her mother? She saw Jane die.”

“Jane isn’t dead,” I snapped.

Lacy gave me a look, one that told me not to get my hopes up.

I sighed, pinching my fingers around my forehead. I had a headache. Voices murmured their way up the stairs. I couldn’t make out what they were saying but I imagined they were speculating as to how Jane had—gone.

Who was I kidding?
The best chance I had of getting over this was to say it—died.

Jane had died. She was dead. I knew no one wanted me to refer to it this way, but really, what other way was there to say it? As far as I was concerned, I would never interact with Jane again. Though Max could still see her, what did that do for me? I couldn’t see her, and as far as I was concerned, she was dead.

Dead.

But it felt silly. All this felt silly. A funeral? I realized her mother wanted to make this as traditional as possible for everyone who didn’t know about the family secret of magick. But still, she knew the truth, knew that Max was trying to bring her back. What if he did? What would she tell people then? That Jane just reappeared? I was still angry about what Jane’s mother, Sarah, had decided to do with Jane’s body. She gave it to the priory for safe keeping.
Safe keeping?
The whole idea gave me chills. Jake had promised me it would be fine. Apparently they replaced the blood in her veins with infected vampire blood in order to keep her preserved. But, doesn’t that make her a vampire? A chill ran down my spine. Just the thought of her body frozen in time like that made my stomach churn.

Oh, and did I mention that they’ve never done this before?

Never had they successfully brought a soul back from the Ever After. It’s just not possible—yet. At least that was the rumor around Winter Wood. But knowing Max’s stubborn demands, I guess they had to try. After all, they owed it to her. She’d been the only hope left against the Black Angels, perhaps even still, I’m not sure. I’m not really sure what happened in the first place.

In some ways I think keeping Jane suspended as she was gave the people of Winter Wood hope, even if Jane’s future had nothing to do with saving it anymore. Everyone was nervous right now, and without a better plan in place, this was it. We’d all heard the stories about the European priories. They’d been taken over by the Black Angels already. Just two weeks since Jane’s death and you’d think it was like opening a floodgate. Perhaps the thought of simply having Jane’s body made people think they’d never come here, but I wasn’t so naïve. It was only a matter of time before more Greg-like characters showed up in town. I wasn’t looking forward to it.

And what was it with this prophecy, anyway? I hadn’t even heard about it until after Jane died. If it were so important, why didn’t I know about it before and why hadn’t it worked? In my short familiarity with the history of prophecies, it seems that they’d always come to fruition. Why didn’t they better protect her? It was careless of the priory to let Jane wander on her own—with that Avery girl, nonetheless. I’m sure they knew what was happening—I figure they know everything. Perhaps they thought Max would do a better job. I almost couldn’t help but feel bitterness toward him for failing, but seeing him now, I knew he was punishing himself enough without me adding to it.

Lacy was leaning against the wall, staring at a picture across the hall. I wondered what she was thinking and if it were as complex as her look would suggest. I mimicked her, arms folded across my chest. I was just about to strike up a conversation when I heard Emily’s door open at last. A small sniffle escaped. I stood up straight, turning to peer in through the small opening.

“Are you okay?”

I saw Lacy shake her head out of the corner of my eye, annoyed with my obvious question. I ignored her.

Emily nodded.

I felt so hopeless. Her eyes were stained red as they’d been almost every morning for the past two weeks. “Are you ready?” I urged. I didn’t want to push her into this assuredly awkward situation but everyone was looking for her. Quite frankly, I had run out of excuses as to why she was hiding. At some point, though, she was going to have to face this—tomorrow was going to be her first day back at school.