Vision (19 page)

And yes, I knew everything had come easy to
me. Grades, opportunities, awards – even mind reading required no
effort. Having the chance to go to England to study had been the
icing on the cake, something rare for a high school student from
Portland. All the events had lined up perfectly, my whole life, to
lead me to this place. I remembered being compelled to search for
exchange programs just to get out of the house, and finding Sixth
online accepting applications for international students.

Yes, something pulled me here, to this, to
Stuart.

And it was then the floodgate opened to the
hidden memories of my past.

Sarah’s soul lived in me. This island,
Abbey’s house had once been home.

I had been a healer, using plants and herbs
to cure people. I would read their minds and bodies to determine
exactly their ailment. I helped young mothers deliver their
children and nursed those same children through illness.

Aloe, lemon balm, lavender, valerian,
juniper, eucalyptus, and hawthorn berry – I grew them, remembered
their uses, the mixtures I made, the cures they gave to those I
served. I did know botany, and remembered thinking I heard Stuart
send something about how I should have this knowledge when we first
strolled the Botanical Gardens. You used to know all this, too,
long ago.

I remembered gossiping and laughing with
Abbey, her long flaming red hair and bright blue eyes bent over
washing. She hadn’t changed much. I remembered comforting her as
the screams climbed her throat begging for release, stroking her
hair, and reassuring that she had a gift and not a curse. I
remembered her dashing husband George with his golden hair and
hazel eyes.

And there was Wilbur. Hate rose up at his
memory. He followed me around, begging for my love when he found me
alone, like Andre. Even though we were both married, me madly in
love, he persisted. He persisted until I was dead – burned and
dead, taking my child.

I remembered making love with Jonathan,
cooking meals with him, bottling medicine with him, and his
ecstatic reaction to the news of our baby. Our love was so crystal
clear that tears formed in my eyes. Perfect, unconditional love.
Even through the memory I could feel the pull toward him.

The same pull and same love I now had for
Stuart.

I felt the overwhelming grief the night I
burned, running to the sea to end my life, not grief over death
itself, but over leaving Jonathan. It was only ever about Jonathan,
our family.

I gazed out from where I sat, the colors
sharpening in the bright light of mid-winter, the focus of objects
intensifying in clarity. Blues were bluer, greens were greener and
the sky was deep lavender, the puffy clouds so white they would
hurt a mortals eyes. The smells were vivid too. Salt water, kelp
just below the surface, the lime and moss deposits on the sea
rocks. The individual plants and trees popped with their own
fragrant sweetness, each unique and alive.

Had everything always looked this way but I
saw through dulled senses, or was this new vision? Whatever it was,
it stayed with me when I ran full speed to the house and found
Abbey still in the kitchen. She turned to me and smiled showing a
dazzling rack of snowy teeth, a young woman again and always.

“What am I seeing?” I asked, because I knew
she knew.

She threw her head back in delight, laughing
the words, “The truth of your life.”

I nodded so hard my neck nearly snapped. I
kissed Abbey’s cheek quickly, embracing her before leaping toward
the front door. She was stirring a pot at the stove when I turned
around to explain where I was going. Go to him, she sent.

The vivid luminous colors, smells and shapes
had not diminished when I stepped back outside. I was thrilled to
think this was my new perception of the world.

All around me the wall, the skin that had
formed on me for sixteen years began to shed, dropping and
crumbling as I walked. I had to get home, to Cambridge, and hoped
to catch the next flight out of Glasgow later in the day. In my
rush to leave Cambridge I only purchased a one-way ticket.

He stood at the end of the driveway, smiling
the crooked grin that has buckled my knees for hundreds of years,
suddenly feeling the heavy loss of time apart while my soul
wandered, and knowing eternity would not be enough time to spend in
his arms.

I’m not sure who moved first, or if it was
simultaneous motion, a natural gravitational pull to home, but I
was shaking by the time I jumped into his arms, linking my legs
around his hips. Crazy kissing reunited us with such tenderness and
passion our tears blended together. He smelled of heaven and earth
and all things in between.

He laughed joyfully, the familiar sound
imbedded in my memory.

We had always been.

Existing for a time apart, but really only
separated by small gaps of eternity.

And now we were home.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

We traveled back to Cambridge old school.
Stuart charted a small, private plane. I asked him how a
“seventeen” year old could afford so much, to which he replied,
“Stock market.”

Are you done running from the truth, love? He
shook his head and looked at me; his expression so possessing and
consuming that warmth stirred deep inside. Are you done running
from me?

I love you, Fairchild.

He let out a deep breath, his fingers sliding
through my hair, his lips grazing my face. “I’ve waited so
long.”

He scooped me up and carried me inside his
small house. After sliding me onto the sofa, we stared at each
other until the light shifted, touching and caressing until it was
too much to physically bear without crossing lines we weren’t ready
to cross, which sent me into a hysterical fit of laughter.

Stuart was in on the joke, reading my
thoughts. “I know, right? Our souls have done that thousands of
times in a previous life, I’m bloody ancient, yet we still check
ourselves as if we should wait.”

I nudged him hard with my elbow. “Don’t worry
Fairchild. You’ll get the ‘v’ card…again.”

We stayed up all night lying next to each
other talking and not talking and pulling back only to giggle about
our unique situation.

It would take time to learn what he had been
doing the past two hundred eighty years without me, but we had
eternity to talk, and it was probably best to digest slowly.

Eternity.

A gift from George MacDonald, the unsung hero
whose mission it was to join our souls back together after the
murders of 1731. There would be no way to thank him except to stay
close to Abbey, his bean sidhe widow who continues to silently
grieve, damned to a long life without her partner.

The thought made me shiver. Thinking about
life without Stuart now was unbearable, impossible, and that made
me want to kiss him even more – a vicious, delectable cycle.

A short but formal leave of absence from
school had been arranged on my behalf by Mom and the Brown’s who
vouched for my guaranteed return, while Sienna collected homework
assignments. Relieved I would not be viewed as a defector, I could
at least finish the term and complete my year. Leaving things
unfinished always bothered me.

At some point we slept but didn’t shift
position all night, clinging to each other, making sure neither of
us fell off the face of the earth. Two hundred eighty years was a
long time, and when morning came I couldn’t refrain any longer.

“Fairchild…”

“Layla, we have been through so much, waited
so long…can we solve the worlds problems tomorrow? I just want
to…mmmm.” He grumbled softly, a low moan that sent my pulse racing
and my heart pounding while he expertly nuzzled my neck.

What have you been doing for the last nearly
three centuries? I sent him when his eyes opened.

Oh, a little of this, a little of that,
love.

His vague answer made me pounce him like a
tiger, playfully holding his arms down, pretending in that moment
he couldn’t take me.

Answer Fairchild, or prepare to meet your
doom.

He thought for a moment, reliving years and
years of solitude, waking up alone, trying to fill the days.

I learned lots of languages…

So you said. Like Croatian? And
piloting…?

That too. I make no apologies. Eternity is a
long time and I missed you terribly. I mastered several
instruments…

Like?

Violin, guitar, piano…

You need to teach me piano. Are you good?

The question made him pause, and I guessed
the answer. He was good.

Uh…I was a fairly well known concert pianist
at the turn of the century.

I sat up. Which century?

Early 20th.

I grabbed his laptop and returned to the
bed.

“I’m doing a name search.” I entered Stuart
Fairchild in the query.

He sat up and laughed. “My last name was
Rathbone then, different family.”

I hesitated then acknowledged the change of
direction. “Okay, Stuart Rathbone.” I typed in the name, adding
“But you can’t keep changing your name, Fairchild. I like Fairchild
and if you change again I can’t call you Fairchild.”

“Okay. But my first name then was Pierre.” He
stretched his spectacular torso.

“Holy rollers!” Several links and one old
sepia image, likely scanned by someone, popped up. “Oh my god, this
is you!”

He got out of bed shirtless, wearing only
drawstring pajama bottoms and nearly stopping my heart. I smiled
knowing he was all mine, thinking I would never grow tired of
watching him stroll around in whatever.

“Come back here, Fairchild!”

“The loo, love. Nature beckons.” He strolled
with nonchalant grace as if my discovery about him being a über-hot
debonair pianist should be taken in stride, as if I should be
unfazed, as if my heart shouldn’t flutter madly. His long fingers
grazed through his thick, coal hair just before he shut the door
behind him and my phone rang.

It was Mom calling from the main house. She
was leaving England tomorrow and wanted us to drive her to
Heathrow. Dad had been home alone and I missed him already.

Colin and Mom had been preoccupied with
StoneWall business since the incident, doing who knows what. I was
too enthralled with the new feeling of being in love and leaving
the dreadful kidnapping debacle behind me I didn’t care what they
did.

“Mom, Stuart was a concert pianist in the
1900’s. Oh, but he was Pierre Rathbone. How cool is that?”

Her reaction was similar to when I would show
her yet another paper marked with an ‘A’ – “That’s nice.”

So maybe we would never have a “sharing”
relationship.

Stuart emerged from the loo, still tousled
from sleep, a look he pulled off well and I labored to resist the
urge to tackle him after the call.

“That was Mom needing airport transportation
tomorrow. Hey, how about pancakes?” I pace when I talk on the phone
so had ended up in the kitchen when he walked in.

He didn’t respond to the food suggestion.
Instead he took a moment to scan my body then wrapped his arms
around me, his fingers crumpling the back of my nightshirt. There
was hunger in our kisses – almost a fear something else would try
to destroy our couple, our destiny together. We were desperately
clinging to each other for dear life, memorizing every inch, taste,
smell of the other.

He held me tight, lifting me off my feet and
sitting me on the kitchen table. We kissed and tasted the skin on
our necks and face and lips until we were without breath, and then
I tightened my legs around him with all the strength I had, our
hands uninhibited, our kisses still new despite the familiar.

The pancakes could wait.

EPILOGUE

Mom took a taxi from StoneWall to the
Fairchild’s then we hopped in Stuart’s car for the drive to London.
Her face had aged in the last few days and she barely spoke. I was
accustomed to her distance, but this felt different. She seemed
genuinely worried, the weight of stress heavy on her shoulders.

I figured we had been through enough that
confronting her shouldn’t be an issue any longer. “Why so quiet,
Mom?”

She stared out the car window at the gray
drizzle saying nothing. I couldn’t read her, and didn’t know if she
intended to respond so I just gave her a smile.

“StoneWall is busy,” she finally offered.

Decidedly stubborn, I wasn’t going to settle
for monosyllabic speech fragments yet again. “Define busy. What’s
going on?”

She turned to me, her face cast in stone and
void of expression. “The usual. Fighting against evil forces. Blah,
blah.” The shake of her head was almost imperceptible. “We’re
taking care of – things.”

I turned back and faced the road, fuming she
still wouldn’t open up to me and talk. Stuart sensed my
frustration, probably reading the four letter words roaming my
thoughts, and covered my hand with his.

Let it go, love.

But I twisted my torso to face her again, to
glare at her in the backseat. “Mom. Seriously. After everything
it’s really that hard to tell me things?”

She threw her eyes at me like laser beams,
causing me to almost duck from radiation, but I saw she wasn’t
angry at me; she was worried about whatever was going on, concerned
for our safety, my safety. “I just don’t want to bog you down with
so much information your head will feel like imploding as mine does
now. God, I need aspirin!”

I pulled a bottle of headache tablets from my
purse leftover from the migraine phase.

“Here.” I dumped two in her hand. She
swallowed the pills quickly and without water, throwing her head
back with enough force to cause whiplash. “Easy there, Courtney
Love.”

She caught the joke, and I was rewarded with
a small upward twitch of her mouth.

We opted to go through security and walk her
to the gate.