Once Again (12 page)

“Kitchen, Lucas,” she called.

He stepped into the room and the two of us
shouted, “Surprise!”

For half a second, he seemed stunned, but
then his eyes lit up and his beautiful smile began. He eyed the
decorations on the table, the cake on the counter, and started
laughing.

“You didn’t really have a headache, did
you?”

Gwen shook her head, laughing too much to
answer.

“Happy Birthday,” I said, stepping forward to
hug him.

He wrapped his arms around me and kissed the
top of my head. Gwen moved to embrace us both, then scooted us all
toward the table. She insisted Lucas and I sit while she served
lunch.

The level of comfort I felt with Gwen
continued to amaze me. I found myself, in many ways, anxious to
confide in her about the dreams, to have her input on the
situation. But, like Luke, I also felt reluctant, as if sharing it
right now would be too personal.

At any rate, it was comforting to know we
could talk to her and not worry she’d think we’d lost our
minds.

My pitiful attempt at singing “Happy
Birthday” was made tolerable by Gwen’s lyrical voice, and after
cutting the cake and stuffing ourselves with devil’s food and
chocolate buttercream frosting, Gwen announced it was time for
presents.

He opened hers first. A new pair of running
shoes, apparently the exact kind he’d been looking at for some
time. I was certain Gwen had paid a pretty penny for them, but they
were the kind of gift Lucas would consider practical and necessary.
He’d have them broken in in no time.

I handed him my gift. He opened the card
first, which was sweet, but not too sappy, the sentiment inside
wishing a happy birthday to someone very special. I thought it
struck just the right chord of acknowledgement of our relationship
without being overly serious. He found the iTunes gift card inside
and smiled. I’d discovered in the last week he did indeed have an
iPod, but his playlists were sorely lacking. I’d even told him
shuffling through his music was an endless loop of black and white
newspaper print.

My heart skipped a beat when he reached for
the little box and started unwrapping. Would he think it was
stupid? Would he even remember?

But when he pulled the Tequila bottle
saltshaker out, his laugh was instantaneous.

“Perfect,” he said, laughing and leaning over
to kiss my cheek. “Love it!”

“I’m not even going to ask,” Gwen said,
shaking her head and hopping up to clear the dishes from the
table.

I offered to help with the clean up, but Gwen
wouldn’t hear of it. She insisted that Lucas and I enjoy the rest
of the afternoon together. Though it was nippy outside, the sun was
out, and we opted for a walk.

At the door, Luke tossed me his X-Country
hoodie again, and I pulled it over my head with a grin. I was
beginning to think he liked seeing me in it.

I liked being in it.

We walked through the wooded area behind the
house, down to the creek that formed the western perimeter of their
property. The air was still, the slight breeze doing little more
than making a soft rustling sound in the trees. I decided the
peacefulness of the moment was right for telling him what I’d
thought of.

“I had an idea,” I told him, as we walked
hand in hand along the creek bank. “Some research we could do that
might give us some information about the people in the dreams.”

“Let’s hear it.” His voice was playful,
carefree.

I enjoyed this side of him a great deal, and
I was glad we’d been able to spend a few days as normal teenagers.
The reprieve was a welcome change.

“Well, when I went by Emerson’s yesterday to
pick up your birthday gift, I got Ashley talking a bit about the
house and about her husband’s family. Did you know her husband’s
grandparents lived there?”

He shook his head. “I never paid a lot of
attention to the house before, since I didn’t see it in my dreams
until a few weeks ago. But thinking back, I guess it’s been empty
as long as I can remember.”

“She said they lived there until the early
nineties, and then moved to a retirement condo up in Camden. Their
names were William and Patsy Emerson.”

“Interesting,” he said. “I wonder if it’s
always been in the Emerson family?”

“I think it has been, at least for awhile.
And, that’s kind of what my idea is.” I pulled to a stop, turning
to face him. “There has to be some kind of public record, right? Of
property deeds and owners? And if we know that William and Patsy
Emerson owned the place, couldn’t we start there and work our way
backwards? Maybe we could find the names of other people who lived
there. Maybe even figure out who it is we’re seeing in these dreams
and visions.”

Lucas crossed his arms over his chest,
considering.

I went on. “I mean, it might be a long shot
to think we could find out who they are, but we might run across
something helpful.”

“You’re brilliant Layla.” He smiled at me,
his brows drawing together in thought. “The records should be at
the courthouse.”

“Someone might think we’re a bit weird,” I
said. “Two high school students digging through old records.”

“Maybe not.” He tilted his head to one side.
“I could just say I’m doing some genealogy research. It wouldn’t
exactly be untrue.”

“Well, whenever you have time, just let me
know.”

We started walking again, this time back
toward the house. Lucas remained lost in thoughts. The silence
between us was comfortable, and I didn’t feel the need to fill it.
He’d talk again when he had something more to say.

But the quietness seemed such a change from
his jovial mood earlier.

“I wanted to talk to you about how we are at
school,” he finally said.

“Okay.” I felt a bit confused. He hadn’t been
any different at school than he’d always been.

“I know I haven’t exactly been affectionate
with you publicly.” He stopped walking to lean against the trunk of
a large Birch tree. “I’ve been that way on purpose, I realize I
should give you an explanation.”

I leaned against a neighboring tree, the
branches casting spidery shadows on the ground.

His words had completely lost me.

“Explanation?” I asked.

“It’s not that I’m having second thoughts
about you, and it’s certainly not that I’m embarrassed to be with
you.” He crossed his arms and eyed me from head to toe. “But this
situation we’re in is so not typical.”

Confused, I looked at him. I had no idea
where he was going, nor had I been upset with him for not engaging
in public displays of affection.

“The dreams and visions are so clear and
vivid now,” he said. “Much, much more than they’ve ever been. Not
just the pictures I see, but the emotions I feel. I know it’s the
same for you – that you can feel what she felt. And this man, he
was so afraid, so worried. And it wasn’t for himself. It was for
her
. He was scared for her. He knew they were in danger and
he wanted to save her from it. He wanted to spare her somehow.”

I knew this of course, but I hadn’t really
stopped to think about how the emotions would affect Lucas
differently than me. I may have only been sixteen, but I’d seen
enough to know that men – good men, I amended – wanted to protect
the people they cared about. Last weekend, on the beach, Lucas
mentioned feeling helpless in the dream, afraid that whatever had
happened to him would happen to me next. And he’d been completely
powerless.

“Lucas, it wasn’t real,” I whispered. “I know
it was scary, but it was a dream.”

“I know that in here,” he said, tapping his
index finger to his temple. He placed his hand on his chest, over
his heart. “But in here I know that it did happen. Maybe not to us
in the present, but at some point, however long ago, it happened to
those people who are channeling into us now.”

He was right. I had no doubt that what I’d
seen and felt in that dream did indeed occur.

“And I can’t help but wonder if history might
repeat itself,” he said, hands now shoved in his pockets. “I mean
maybe not in that exact way, but Layla, if the man and woman we’ve
seen in our visions have been reincarnated through us, who’s to say
that the bad people, the people who hurt us, haven’t also been
reincarnated?”

I opened my mouth to argue, then closed it
abruptly. It seemed preposterous at first, but once it began to
sink in I had to admit it was worth considering. It was crazy
enough that Luke and I were now conduits for these people from the
past. Why was it any crazier to believe the villains of the story
might be channeling into someone else?

I shivered from the thought of it.

“I know I’m probably overreacting, but not
being able to protect you in that dream was horrible enough. If
something happened in the now and I was helpless to protect you – ”
he broke off. “That would devastate me.”

“It would kill me to not be able to help you,
too,” I said, moving to stand directly in front of him. “But please
tell me what this has to do with you not being openly affectionate
with me in public. Which, by the way, I haven’t noticed and it
doesn’t bother me.”

Still leaned against the tree, he rested his
hands lightly on my shoulders. “I look back on things now, little
things that maybe wouldn’t seem significant otherwise, and I can’t
help but wonder if they’re connected to all this somehow.”

“What things?”

“The incident with Miller the first day of
school, for one,” he said.

“He did apologize later.”

“Yeah, and I’m glad, but even that worries
me. What was his motivation for apologizing? Was it genuine?”

“You weren’t kidding about worrying.”

“Nope,” he said. “And there’s more. All these
guys asking you out, all for the first football game.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. Luke hadn’t seemed
like the jealous type before. Although, I had to admit, thinking he
might be a little jealous was kind of exhilarating.

“Not that it’s weird that they’d want to date
you,” he said quickly, reaching out to take my hand. “I mean look
at you. And I’m not going to pretend I wasn’t a little
jealous.”

Um... wow.

“You don’t have to be,” I whispered.

“I take nothing for granted, including your
feelings.” He smiled. “But it’s the timing. Three guys, all in the
same week and after we’d started spending time together at school,
all for the same event, which just happened to be the day that we
had the first disturbing visions. And the fact that Lance asked,
too.”

“Lance? I thought you guys were friends.”

“We are, sort of,” he answered. “But Lance,
well, he’s always trying to
one-up
me. Whatever I can do
he’s done it already or can do it bigger and better. It’s annoying,
but I just ignore him.”

“You think he asked me out just because it
seemed like you and I were getting closer?”

“That sounds so insulting, like I think he
wouldn’t want to date you for any other reason. And I don’t mean it
like that.” He pushed away from the tree trunk and paced. “But it’s
almost like the universe was conspiring to keep you away from me.
To convince you to choose someone else.”

“The universe can forget it.” About this I
was firm.

He laughed, and the sound of it slid into my
ears and under my skin.

Then he turned serious. “Maybe we ought to
let the universe think it’s winning. Or at least that it’s stalled
us.”

My heart dropped. It must’ve showed on my
face, because he hurried to explain.

“My concern is if I make a claim on you, I
mean like a real claim, that you’re mine and everyone else better
back off, if there is someone out there who’s the embodiment of the
people who hurt us in that dream – ” he stopped and looked right
into my eyes. “That it might set them off, aggravate them, spur
them into some kind of action.”

I didn’t like the thought of that. Whatever
had happened on the other side of that rock outcropping had been
bad enough in my dream, and I’d only
heard
it. I couldn’t
image experiencing it in real life. The only option was to prevent
it from happening.

Our relationship, whatever it was, hadn’t
been exactly public so far, and I’d been fine with that. So why did
the idea of keeping it mostly between the two of us bother me?

“We can’t run scared, Luke,” I said, taking
him by the hand. “As much as I’d like to. I think we have to see it
through, find out what happened to the people in the visions.”

“You’re right, I know. But I think we’ve got
to be careful.” He squeezed my hand. “And I just wanted to make
sure you understood about the hand-holding and kissing, or lack
thereof, at school and around the other kids.”

I nodded. “Honestly, Lucas, I’d barely
noticed, and wasn’t bothered by it at all. I mean, some people are
just private about those sorts of things. And I don’t mind keeping
some things just between us.”

I told myself it was foolish to read more
into his suggestion of privacy than what he’d just said. It was
precaution, pure and simple.

“That’s a relief.” He kissed the top of my
head. “Now when are we going searching at the courthouse?”

It
came to me that night. The insecurity and fear. The stupid, weak,
teenage-girl lack of confidence I’d always despised.

It found me as I relaxed in my bed, house
quiet, trying to sleep, my iPod ringing last year’s playlist. The
music reminded me of my last school year in Nashville, and, of
course, Adrienne. Or, more specifically, of Adrienne’s boyfriend
Chase, who had loved her so much he told her it was imperative
their relationship remain a secret. He’s said no one but them
should know the true extent of their feelings. She’d believed him,
of course, thinking his desire for secrecy some great romantic
gesture. When all the while it had only been a phobia of commitment
that had him requesting her silence.