Destined (17 page)

“What do you think?” he said, in response to her thoughts.

Then: “Follow me.”

*

Caitlin and Aiden walked slowly, side-by-side, along the outskirts of the island, right along the water’s edge. Caitlin was struck by the tranquility and beauty of the place. The island was covered in a lush, green grass, dotted with Italian Cypress trees, and, in the distance, lined with small cemeteries. Water was visible from everywhere.

They walked slowly in the silence. Caitlin began to wonder if Aiden would ever talk.

Finally, she could take it no longer. She had so many burning questions she needed to ask.

“How much do you remember?”

“
Remember
is a funny word,” he said. “It’s more like…seeing what might have been.”

Caitlin was alarmed by his choice of words. “
Might
have been?” she asked.

“When you travel backwards, you of course affect your future. Everything is connected. Your future, after all, is only the sum of your past. Whatever you are doing now, your actions last night, this conversation we’re having—all of your actions in this time and place—will change the future you would have had. It is all a chain of events. Alter one link in the chain, and the entire chain alters with it. You’re changing your future right now, by being here. And you will continue to change it, with every choice that you make.”

He turned and looked at her.

“The consequences are infinite. You are not just affecting this time. You are affecting all times to come.”

Caitlin’s mind reeled with the implications. She felt scared to say anything, to do anything; she felt burdened. Had she made a mistake to come back here? Then again, what choice had she had?

To just let Caleb die?

“I’m so confused,” she said. “I don’t know why I’m here anymore. At first, I thought it was for Caleb. It
was
for Caleb. I wanted to save him. I wanted to be with him. But now…he’s with someone else.”

Aiden sighed. “Time is a tricky thing, isn’t it? You want things to be exactly as they were. But they never are.”

“Then tell me,” she said. “Why am I here?”

“That is something you will need to find out for yourself.”

“But is there a reason? A point to all of this?” she pressed.

“There is
always
a reason. You look through a too-narrow lens. What you still fail to see is that Caleb is just one piece of a very large and complex puzzle. He was the driving force that brought you back, yes. But perhaps he led you back in time for another reason. You assume you brought him back in time. But perhaps all the while, he was leading you.”

Caitlin’s mind reeled.

“You
do
have a mission, don’t you?”

Caitlin stared, and suddenly her dream came back to her.

“I dreamt this morning of my father,” she said. “The same dream I always have, but this time, I saw these golden doors. They were so tall, so beautiful. I tried to open them, but I couldn’t. I knew that if I could just open them, I would reach him.”

“And what did these doors look like?” he asked.

“They were gold, and they had these carvings all over them.”

“Scenes from the Bible?” he asked.

As he said it, Caitlin suddenly realized he was right.

“Yes,” she said, excited. “How did you know? Do you know these doors? What does it mean?”

“It’s meaning is for you to find out,” he said. “Those doors you describe, they exist in but one place in the world. Florence.”

Florence
. Caitlin remembered the priest’s words:
you will find your father in Florence
.

“Your father has sent you a message. He wants you to find him there.”

Caitlin thought hard. Had she failed in not going there right away? Should she have avoided Venice to begin with?

“Caitlin, you hail from a special lineage. It is not too much to say that the fate of the entire vampire and human races rests in your hands. And yet, you have not fully chosen to embrace your mission. Instead, you chase past lovers. You still follow your heart. As you knew from the start, your mission begins in Florence. It is time for you to embrace your responsibilities. You must lead us to the shield. And find your true father.”

“But I don’t know how to do that,” she pleaded.

“Yes you do,” he answered. “You already have the meaning in your dream.”

She looked at him. Florence. Those doors. At that moment, she knew that was where she needed to go.

The sky suddenly darkened, and a strong wind picked up, blowing his hair, and his eyes shone with more intensity than ever.

“You cannot escape your destiny.”

Caitlin stood by herself on the end of the gondola, rowing it across the wide canal of Venice.

Polly was worried for her to go by herself, but after much pleading, she had let her borrow her boat.

Caitlin felt that she could handle it, and she really needed to be alone. She needed time and space to think. And most importantly, in the place where she was going, she didn’t want anyone by her side.

It was a place she had to go alone. Rose was the only one she took; she sat at her legs appreciatively, happy, as always to be at her side.

After her meeting with Aiden, Caitlin had realized that he was right. She had to fulfill her mission. She had to at least to try, to get on the road, to follow the clues, to see where it led her.

But at the same time, she realized that she could not embark without closure with Caleb. She needed to know with absolute certainty that he truly didn’t remember, that he truly didn’t love her, that he was truly happy with Sera. After all she had been through, after all that they had been through together, she just
had
to know. Last night, everything had happened so quickly, perhaps he had just momentarily forgotten. Now, the following day, perhaps things would be different. Perhaps it had all come flooding back to him in the middle of the night.

If she looked into his eyes, now, in the daylight, and he told her again that he didn’t remember, or that he no longer loved her, that would be enough. She would be settled, and could go on her way. She would leave Venice behind, and continue on her journey alone. But until then, she still felt in limbo, and unable to move forward.

The sun was setting, and it got colder as she rowed, the current picking up, along with the wind.

She rowed more strongly, heading for the island on the horizon, following Aiden’s directions. When she’d told Aiden that she refused to move on without seeing Caleb, he had finally, reluctantly, told her where to find him. The small island of Murano, on the outskirts of Venice. But he had also warned her not to go looking for him, that it would bring trouble.

But what else did she possibly have to lose, if she lost him? She had to risk it. She had to follow her heart. She knew it wasn’t safe. But then again, love wasn’t safe, either.

Caitlin finally rounded a bend, and the island of Murano stretched before her. It was beautiful, unlike anything she had seen. It looked like a miniature version of Venice, except all the buildings were brightly painted in different colors. As the late afternoon sun lit them up, it looked like a living rainbow. It was cozy and cheerful.

As she rowed down the canal, between the small buildings, she felt a sense of peace and comfort. It surprised her that Caleb’s coven would choose this place. She would have imagined something more Gothic. As she headed deeper into the island, she looked for the church that Aiden had described: the church of Santa Maria e San Donato. That, supposedly, was were Caleb’s coven lived.

She rowed and rowed, her arms getting tired, and after asking a local, was pointed in the right direction. She headed down another small canal, and then the church spread out before her. It all suddenly made sense: here was a massive church in the middle of the small island. It looked ancient, large, semicircular, and foreboding, with columns all around. In some ways, it reminded her of the cloisters in New York. She could understand why Caleb’s people would feel comfortable here.

Caitlin tied her boat and got out, Rose by her side, happy to be on dry land.

She walked across the wide, stone plaza, empty in the late afternoon, headed up the steps, and through the front doors of the church.

It was dark in here, quiet. It was another enormous, ancient church, with endlessly high ceilings, and stained-glass windows on every side. There were hundreds of pews, simple and wooden, and all empty. In fact, as far she could see, the entire church was empty. No priest, nothing.

Caitlin walked slowly down the aisle, taking it all in. She finally reached the altar, and looked up, examining it. There was a large statue of an angel on a pedestal, and behind that, on the wall, several huge animal bones. She’d never seen bones that large. They looked prehistoric.

“The bones of the Dragon,” came a voice.

Caitlin wheeled.

There, walking towards her in the empty church, was a person she recognized. At first, she could not remember who it was. Then, as he came closer, she realized with a shock: it was Samuel. Caleb’s brother.

He looked like he’d always had, with long hair and a beard, serious, straightforward, battle-hardened. He was a somber man, she remembered, but he’d always seemed to be a good person.

He came beside her, and looked up at the wall.

“Legend has it that they are the bones of a Dragon,” he said. “Slain by a hero hundreds of years ago. Of course, it is not a legend. They were slain by one of us. Although, of course, we don’t take credit for it.”

She examined the bones, high up on the wall, and wondered. Then she turned and looked at Samuel. She wondered if he remembered her.

“I’m sorry to trespass like this,” she said. “I was looking for someone.”

“My brother,” he said flatly. It was not a question. She stared into his eyes, and wondered how much he knew.

“Do you remember?” she asked.

He nodded ever so slightly. She wondered if that was a yes.

“Caleb is with his son,” Samuel said.

The word
son
came out like a reprimand, and Caitlin wondered if he was giving her a message: back away. Leave Caleb and Sera and their son alone.

“I’d like to see him,” she said. “I
need
to see him.”

He stared at her, thinking.

“Our coven has lived here for hundreds of years,” he said, disregarding her question. “The Murano glass—people always said it seemed inhuman. They wondered how it could be so superior, the best glass in the world. Of course, it is our handiwork. We cannot use mirrors, so glass of this quality is the next best thing.

“We don’t thrive in harming others. We thrive in industry, like the human race. We are at peace now.

“But when someone new comes along, someone from another coven, and makes visits unannounced, and seeks to speak to people whom she shouldn’t, it can only bring us trouble.”

“I don’t want to cause any trouble,” she said. “I just want to talk to Caleb.
Please
.”

“Do you know what makes a vampire vulnerable?” Samuel asked.

She thought.

“It is not humans. It is rarely weapons. It is rarely even other vampires. We can handle our own against most everything.” He paused. Then added: “It is love.”

Caitlin thought.

“Love is the weak point of a vampire. It can change us. It can lead to our destruction,” he said.

“You have good intentions,” he added. “But that does not mean it will yield good results.”

With that, he turned his back on her and walked back down the aisle.

As she watched him go, she wanted to say a million things, but she was too bewildered by all of his comments. She didn’t know how to react.

Then, suddenly, as he was walking away, he stopped by the door. He paused, and then called out: “You will find Caleb by the docks. With his son.”

*

As Caitlin walked across the wide, stone plaza, heading towards the pier, the sun began to set, a beautiful orange and red light breaking through the clouds, washing over everything in the surreal light.

As she walked, Rose by her side, she spotted the docks in the distance, and was grateful that the island of Murano, unlike Venice, was practically empty, with very few people in sight.

She couldn’t see Caleb, though, and her heart sank. Had Samuel been misleading her? Why had he been so worried about her presence? Had he seen something that she had not? She had an increasingly ominous feeling, given the warnings from them both.

She searched in every direction, but still, no sign of Caleb.

Then, as she looked down, she saw, sitting there, on the edge of the dock, a boy. He looked to be about ten, and as she looked closer, she realized it was his son. Jade.

Jade was sitting there all alone, staring out at the water, his legs dangling over the edge. He was so cute, sitting there, an exact replica of Caleb. It made her heart break, as it made her wonder what her life with Caleb might have been like. It made her think of the child they would have had together, made her again mourn her lost baby. It made her wonder if she’d made the wrong decision to come back in time.

As Caitlin got closer, Jade suddenly wheeled. He was quick and alert, like his father.

She looked down at his burning blue eyes, and wondered if he was human, vampire, or somewhere in between. She vaguely remembered Caleb having told her that, when he first married Sera, she was human. And she knew that vampires could not procreate with other vampires. So she supposed the child was a half-breed. Like she had been.