Lives of Magic (Seven Wanderers Trilogy) (16 page)

“G
wen!”

I opened my eyes but couldn’t see a thing. It took me a moment to realize I was back in my bathtub and someone was banging on the door — hard. Then I couldn’t breathe. Choking and sputtering through the smoke I climbed out and ran to the door, tossing myself out of the bathroom. Oh, and I was naked, of course. All the nudity!

“Are you okay? What happened?” Garrison and Seth were holding their arms to their faces to prevent breathing in the smoke that had seeped into the suite from under the bathroom door. The fire alarms were going off and someone was knocking on the door.

“I’ll go deal with that,” said Garrison, avoiding looking at me.

“I’ll come with you,” Seth added.

My eyes were watering from the smoke and I was still finding it hard to breathe. Kian dragged me up by my arm and helped me to my room. I leaned on him and stumbled to my bed, climbing under the covers. It was still night outside.

“What happened?” he asked. He was confused and worried — I welcomed it. His human side drew me to him like a moth to a flame. He opened all the windows in the room and the sound of highway traffic seeped in. Somewhere nearby, an airplane took off.

“I had a memory again — not a dream this time,” I replied. It hurt to speak. “What’s all this smoke?”

Kian picked something white off my arm and showed it to me. “The bathtub was lined with something rubber. When you heated up or used your fire, it must have melted and began to burn.”

I suddenly became very aware of random bits and pieces stuck to my arms, legs, and back. I squirmed in the bed until deciding to investigate further when I was alone in the room. I noticed Kian stayed by me, reluctant to leave. I could hear the other two explaining the smoke to a man at the door.

“Why am I having so many of these memories?” I asked him.
And what do they mean?
a voice yelled inside me. “I’ve had two in the past few hours. Why?”

I got one of his looks of worry and tenderness that made my heart flutter a bit. “We are coming closer to where everything first began.”

I pieced it together. We hadn’t just come to England to find another one like us. Kian was hoping that bringing us back to wherever our old home used to be would ignite some memories and abilities. I felt bad for yelling at him earlier — he had had a plan.

“But how do I stop them? How do I control them, at least?” I realized I sounded desperate. I
was
desperate. It was not only embarrassing, seeing as how Seth and Garrison had not nearly burned down our hotel, but also exhausting and confusing.

Kian shrugged and looked truly remorseful. His eyes were downcast and his lips were pursed. “I’m sorry, but I cannot answer that. And you need to remember how to use your magic,” he said.

That sounded strange. It was like he was implying he knew but could not tell me.

“But what about all of the other stuff?” I asked. His eyes widened and it dawned on me that he didn’t know what I knew. It was the first secret I had kept from him.

“What other stuff?”

I needed to change the subject, not wanting to talk about anything I had dreamt or seen. “I don’t feel like myself anymore,” I told him sternly. “There are too many memories. Too many things are getting mixed up.”

He opened his mouth to ask me more questions I probably didn’t want to answer, but luckily Seth and Garrison came in.

“We convinced the hotel manager that the smoke is not coming from this room,” Garrison announced, sitting on the corner of my bed. “Which is a lie, of course, because Gwen nearly roasted us.”

He meant it kindly and Seth laughed at his joke. Even Kian smiled and I was very thankful that this was the company I kept, and that they had changed the subject.

The next day was the first of November. I felt only slight anxiety this month about being absent from school. It felt silly, but I imagined all the classes that I wasn’t taking and how my future was effectively postponed. If I had a future at all after this.

Kian rented a car in the morning and we piled in, with Seth and I in the back. No one had asked me what happened the night before but I felt the questions hanging in the air. We drove for about an hour until we reached a town called Chester.

The town was large and the overcast weather fit in perfectly with the stout brown buildings. I could only stare out of the window as we drove through many pedestrian-only streets, all of which looked posh. However, I could tell this town was old. The streets and shops looked like the twenty-first century had been smashed in with ancient times, as a medieval church stood next to a half-buried ancient coliseum and a very modern parking lot. The whole town had the look of an ancient fort revamped to serve the functions of a shopping mall.

Our car ride had been silent, and as we stepped out onto the street with our luggage, a feeling of restlessness buzzed inside me. I should have been exhausted after last night, but I felt like I could run a mile. I looked left and began to cross the street, but Kian grabbed my arm. A car zoomed by from the right.

“Oh yeah,” I said.

My wrist tingled where he touched me. It warmed me and I scolded myself. I was supposed to be with Seth. Or the man who said he was my husband. Definitely not Kian. I had had no memories of Kian, even though he said he had known me. Another confusing twist to my story, which I pushed to the back of my mind. When I had time to think about it, I would examine my options. For now, I only smiled stupidly at him.

We got to our new hotel and were led up narrow flights of stairs to two rooms.

“Sorry, only two left,” the woman explained. “It’s usually quiet this time of year, but we’ve got a lot of shoppers down for the weekend.”

She handed two keys with oversized key rings to Seth and Kian, and then looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

“If you let me know in which room you’ll be, I can have someone bring up your luggage, dear.”

I stared for an instant, not knowing what to say until Kian replied for me.

“She will be in my room. Thank you.”

The woman smiled and left without further comment.

I didn’t look at the other two as they shuffled off to their room next door. My cheeks were too pink. I didn’t know why it should be different now than in New York, but the restlessness in my heart beat against my chest. I felt an excitement and I didn’t know what for.

Kian unlocked the room and we went in. I gaped at the bed. The only bed in the room.

“I can sleep on the floor,” he told me, then moved to look out the window.

The room was decorated like a bed and breakfast, with a floral pattern on the quilt and pastel ceramics on the dresser and night table. The ceiling was the same colour of wood as the floor and slated with the roof. Kian had to duck as he moved towards the window.

“It is amazing how things change over time,” he commented absentmindedly. I smiled.

My feelings for Seth had cooled since meeting him, but the vision of the waterfalls showed me that my previous self had been deeply in love with him. In this life, Kian had got to me first.

But how do I feel?

I didn’t know, but as I watched Kian duck and twist in order to see all the way out of the window, my heart warmed for him. For the first time in a while, I felt a clear distinction between my past life and this one.

“What?” Kian asked.

“Hm?”

“I can feel you staring a hole through my back, Gwen,” he answered. “What is it?”

Embarrassed, I fought to find something to say that wasn’t what I had actually been thinking about him.

“How close are we to our former selves?” I asked.

Kian’s eyes narrowed and I wondered what he knew about my memories. “What do you mean?”

“You know … appearance … personalities …”

I figured if I was a traitor in my past life that frolicked in forests with men who weren’t my husband, I couldn’t have been a stellar person. Kian sat on the windowsill.

“Like I said.” His hands were clasped. “I knew you, but you are considerably different in this life. How you feel, think, and live changes how you look. You’re also much younger than I remember you …” he thought about it for a moment “… and changed. But you have retained the appearances of your former selves. You have been scattered into safe places where you can blend in and disappear until you are needed. You are close in every aspect to your past life, except …” He walked over to me and touched a finger to my heart. I held my breath and looked up at him as he stood over me. He loomed like a cave enveloping me but I welcomed it. “Your character. Your soul is divided. But,” he gave me a crooked smile that weakened my knees, “remember that you are not your past, and only you determine your future.”

The restlessness had turned into an all-out frenzy. My body buzzed.

“Gwen … you’re …” Kian placed both his hands on my shoulders and looked at me confusedly, “vibrating.”

Maybe he hadn’t felt the vibration in the air between us before. I didn’t know what an anxiety attack or a heart attack felt like, but I was convinced I would be on the verge of both in seconds. He was so close.

While Kian looked me over for the source of the magic pulsing from my body, I let the heat from his hands on my shoulders wash over me.

“This might —”

I didn’t let him finish. I stood up on my tiptoes and leaned into him, keeping just far enough from his lips to not touch them. I felt bold. A small voice in my mind blamed the English air, though I knew better. It was my strength making me so bold, and it was growing as we came closer to the land we remembered.

Our one and only previous kiss flashed in my memory and it fuelled my audacity. An instant passed as Kian considered, then pressed his lips against mine.

I could have melted right there and then. His touch cooled the ache that threatened to send me into cardiac arrest, and I felt my entire body ease. He brought his hands to my face and stroked my cheek while kissing me. I could only stand there and enjoy the moment.

“Are we ready to … whoops. Sorry!” Garrison had opened the door without knocking then quickly shut it again. I had turned around just in time to see Seth behind him.

“C
rap!”

I grabbed my coat and ran out of the room. I nearly crashed into the man bringing our bags up the stairs. He was struggling with my frumpy green suitcase. Kian was on my heels, which turned into an awkward mess on the narrow stairs. By the time we sorted ourselves, I could hear Seth and Garrison leaving the hotel.

“Gwen, what’s the matter?” Kian asked in the lobby.

After having unattached myself from him, the pressure in my chest was slowly rising again. I turned to face him.

“I just don’t want to be caught —” I stopped. Caught doing what? Straying from my past life’s path? Making a decision? “I don’t want things to become awkward between all of us.” I tried to ignore the mix of emotions that played out on Kian’s face.

“Why would it?” he asked. “Because of Seth?” His voice was casual, but I could tell he was nearly wincing.

“It’s the magic.…” I really didn’t know where I was going with this. “In our past lives … I don’t know.…” The weakest explanation I’ve ever given. Kian had put on a mask of indifference but I didn’t believe it anymore.

I didn’t want to go into the details. No point in telling him that I had only followed him because of the waterfalls vision that turned out to be Seth, that I had only kissed him the first time because I had wakened from a dream and thought he was Seth, and that Seth was probably a Roman or a traitor. None of this made me sound good at all.

“It’s not important,” I lied.

Lying to Kian created a lump of guilt that sat in my stomach.

I finally managed to get Kian out of the lobby, still posing a million questions. I was just thinking about where to start looking for Seth and Garrison when I spotted them a few metres away from the hotel. Seth’s back was turned to me.

“Just wait!” Garrison was saying. “Let’s figure out where we’re going.”

Seth had obviously wanted to take off. I didn’t know if he was mad, but I didn’t have time to care. We had come to an unspoken agreement that our past lives would stay as such. I had nothing to be sorry for. Or at least, that’s what I kept telling myself.

I jumped in on their conversation before Seth could retort.

“We should explore,” I said, trying to keep my tone light and the colour from rising to my cheeks. I didn’t want to think about what they had just walked in on. Pretending like nothing happened was my only card to play.

“Sure. Maybe split up?” Garrison suggested. “Cover more ground?”

“Seth, come with me,” Kian said quickly.

My heart skipped a beat.
No!

Kian would get the story out of Seth and know I had lied. I remembered his sour mood in New York. He knew there was something between us, he just didn’t know what. If what I had seen were true, he would hate me. I was a traitor, and more than likely an adulterer too. My mind raced, hoping Seth would say no.

Seth didn’t question it, and he and Kian walked down the cobblestone street with a quick wave to Garrison and me. I watched them go, noting their similar posture. They hunkered down against the breeze in the same fashion, moving in step. I sighed.

Garrison smiled. “I guess you’re with me today.”

His kindness at not mentioning anything he had seen steadied my heart a bit, but every time I thought of what Kian and Seth could be talking about, my pulse would race again. The secrets were stacking up.

The day passed quickly and the buzzing in my chest eventually dissipated. Garrison was long and lean and it was a challenge to keep up. He told me all about growing up in New York and his forward-thinking parents who let him choose his own name.

When he had begun to remember his past life at a very young age, he told them about it and they encouraged him to consult with various psychics and mediums to learn the truth about his life. Garrison laughed as he recounted his parents taking him to fortune tellers as a child.

“Here I am,” he said, “maybe ten years old. Probably not even. This woman pulls out her cards and starts telling me about this past life that just didn’t match with what I knew. I basically corrected her throughout the whole thing.”

He was speaking and laughing while climbing one of the hundreds of staircases in the city centre. I had been out of breath and sweating for about half an hour.

The city of Chester was built on many levels, as if all of time was visible in this one place. Relics and structures from previous eras and people poked through to later periods and even the present day. The various levels of shops were connected by countless staircases and walkways, which I suspected had once been Roman aqueducts.

“So what set you off?” I huffed. “What convinced you these weren’t just dreams?” I was fighting to keep my voice from revealing how out of breath and out of shape I was as he led me to yet another level of the city’s ancient walls. “Do you even know where you’re going?”

“No,” Garrison said. “I thought you wanted to explore.”

He turned around and saw my sweaty face. Smiling, he sat down on a bench for a break. I plopped down next to him. He had avoided my previous question. Running his hand through his brown curls, he stared straight ahead. I could feel an answer coming so I didn’t press.

We sat for a few moments as I could feel anxiety bubbling off him. Maybe it was magic or my imagination, but the carefree and happy-go-lucky personality was gone. Was this what I looked like when I reflected on my past life? An age settled over him.

“I remembered having a good life,” Garrison said suddenly. I turned to look at him but his gaze was far away in a memory. “It’s hard when you have all of these feelings, and all of the … repercussions that come with having lived a whole life already. But none of it is within your control. You can’t go back to that life, but you’re saddled with all the baggage.”

Tell me about it,
I thought bitterly.

The sky was growing dark. The sudden change of weather surprised me, but the air felt charged. I felt like he was using magic, but I had to remember to ask Garrison about it at another time. For now, I listened. The air felt so thick around us that I didn’t dare move.

“I was just a child when I saw my entire family murdered,” he said flatly. I stared at him in shock. “I couldn’t tell what was then and what was now, I was too young. I would live two lives — in one I would have my hippy parents who encouraged me to develop any kind of psychic ability, and in the other I would live in the past, on my own.”

I didn’t know what to say. My bad situation seemed just peachy compared to his.

“So what happened?” My voice came out in a whisper.

“I just dealt with it,” Garrison shrugged. “The memories grew when I grew. I remembered becoming a soldier. I knew how to fight. I’ve actually enjoyed these lessons with Kian. Sometimes an image will float through while I’m waving that damn heavy sword around. Then my magic kicked in. I could move things, draw things to me and push them away.”

I eyed the clouds moving quickly to hover over our heads. Garrison saw me look.

“That happens sometimes,” he dismissed, waving a hand at the clouds. “Then,” he continued, “just as I thought I was going crazy, I found Seth. This was about,” he counted on his fingers, “three years ago. We tried to add our memories together — his had just started — but it still didn’t make complete sense. So we just decided to wait until someone showed up one day to claim us.”

Three years. Three years that Seth had known about me, and I had no idea about him. I processed Garrison’s story. My naiveté seemed ridiculous now.

We spent another hour or so wandering around town. We eventually returned to the hotel for dinner. While we waited to be seated in the small dining room, Kian and Seth finally shuffled in. If it weren’t for the hard lump in my heart that formed at seeing both of them, I would have laughed at their similar sulky postures.

Inside me a conflict raged. The past me wasn’t turning out to be an awesome person. I felt like I needed to hide this side of me if Kian were to ever come near me again. But he encouraged me to develop who I was. And embrace it. He didn’t know what I might become.

As they both walked in, I felt it clearly for the first time. Yes, it was Kian I wanted. My past life ached for Seth, but I couldn’t let her win. She would take me over and turn me into her. I processed it with the clearest logic I could muster. Just like I couldn’t be judged now on the merits of my past life, so he couldn’t be loved for his. I startled myself with the thought. I guess my decision was clearer than I had thought.

“Good day?” Garrison asked.

I tried to act casual but was dying to know what they had talked about.

Seth nodded. “It was alright,” he said.

I eyed Kian for any hint of what had happened, but his face was impossible to read.

The next few days crawled by. Kian didn’t seem to be interested in speaking with me and had been grumpy since our first day in Chester. I wanted to know when he would take us to where we were from, or even ask him why we were here, but he was avoiding me. He slept on the floor during our first night in the hotel, and the next day he took another room that had become available.

While Kian’s treatment of me hurt, the buzzing I had experienced during our first day came back in quick bursts, where I felt like my body was being zapped with electricity. I found myself using my magic just to burn some of it off. Moving things around with currents of air, I discovered my powers were similar to Garrison’s.

“Maybe we’re long-lost cousins or something,” he told me one day.

One evening we were watching television and news of the drought in the southern states and flooding in Florida played back-to-back. I had lost count of all the places the magicians’ touch had reached. We were in Seth and Garrison’s room; the two lay splayed out on their beds behind me, while I sat on the floor in front of the TV.

“How do you suppose we fight
that
?” Seth asked, waving a hand at the TV.

The footage showed people paddling boats through what used to be a town.

That question plagued me every day.

“I don’t even have any real magic,” Seth was nearly pouting. I turned around and gave him an incredulous look.

“Without you, we would never be able to find them. You can sense them. Know what they’re going to do … right?” I tried to sound supportive.

Seth shrugged, bypassing my comments. “That or get sucked in again by a trap,” he remarked glumly.

That wasn’t what I had wanted to hear. Deciding it was time for bed, I stood.

“See? You scared her off,” Garrison said half-heartedly to Seth.

“No way.” Seth smiled at me and his demeanour melted a little. I felt a pang of guilt as my eyes lingered over his face, looking for the man inside.

Your life to lead
, I told myself. I said goodnight and left the room.

Guilt hung over me like a dark cloud. I wanted Kian to like me. I wanted him to talk to me and joke with me like he used to. And wanting this made me roll my eyes. His marble personality made it that much more rewarding when he would open up to me and reveal the softness underneath the granite exterior. The man was like stone. But I had only come because of Seth. I had loved him for nearly two thousand years and a part of me still felt too insignificant to break the chain.

One foot here, one foot there,
Kian had once told me.
Be careful or you’ll never find your present.

Before entering my room, I heard Kian’s voice. It was the first time I had heard it raised in a long time. I immediately became paranoid about who was in his room. Before I knew it, I had crossed the hall and had my ear pressed to his door.

Subtle, Gwen
.

“… too difficult … have a lot of magic.” His voice came muffled through the door.

Damn you, Victorian hardwood.

After a second, there was no reply. I realized he was on the phone. I had never actually heard him speaking on the phone to one of the magicians who were sponsoring us. His attitude made it clear he followed their orders, whether he liked it or not, but now he argued heatedly.

“I won’t do it.” The words rang clear. Some more silence, then, “You cannot … the promise is …”

I strained.

The promise is what?

The door swung open and I nearly fell onto Kian’s chest. He took me by the arm and ushered me across the hall into my own room, where he slammed the door shut behind us. It startled me and I sat on the edge of the bed, staring at him. He was towering above me, his long nose making him look like a bird of prey. He eyed me like an eagle would do a snake far below. His eyes were narrowed with suspicion.

“What are you doing, Gwen?” His voice was hushed but dangerous. I realized he was angry with me. It stung, since this was our first conversation beyond “Good morning” and “Good night” in a few days. He had avoided me, and now he was yelling at me. Irritation itched under my layer of dismay at his treatment.

“I’m sorry I was listening in, I just thought —”

“You don’t trust me,” he stated.

His tone stung some more and I didn’t know how to answer. Seth must have told him everything about me that I had hidden. He must think I’m a horrible person. Something had been divulged. The paranoid thoughts circled my mind like vultures.