Once Again (15 page)

“It’s just names and stories that I jotted
down after talking with my grandparents.”

“These are amazing,” I marveled, looking from
page to page at the things she’d written. Even without a system of
order, what Gwen had were priceless treasures of her family
history.

“Flip to the back,” Luke said. “There’s sort
of a family tree back there.”

On the inside of the back cover, Gwen had
written names and years of her family tree. I took out my notes
from the courthouse and Lucas and I compared.

There were no common names, in the near past,
between Gwen’s records and our notes. We looked closely, being
careful to look through everything from the courthouse before
moving on. Gwen’s parents, Richard and Barbara Conner did not
appear in our research. Neither did any of her grandparents’
names.

However, Gwen’s great-great-grandfather was
Frank Cutler, and, according to what she had learned, Frank had an
older sister named Amelia.

Amelia Cutler.

“The only other information I have on her is
that she married a man by the name of Frederick Light,” Gwen said.
“Apparently, they moved out of the area, and my grandmother – ” she
pointed toward the name Carrie Cutler Conner – “never really knew
her great-aunt Amelia.”

“So, what we know is that Amelia Cutler Light
was Arthur Emerson’s niece.” Lucas leaned close, placing his arm
around the back of my chair and resting his hand on my shoulder.
“And at some point, Arthur owned the Emerson house that you and I
have seen in our dreams.”

Gwen peered over my shoulder at my courthouse
notes. “And Arthur got the house from his father, George
Emerson.”

“Yes,” I said. “But neither Lucas or I have
seen anything in our dreams that indicates the two people we’ve
envisioned had children. We think if he’s connected to the man in
the dreams, it can’t be as a direct descendant.”

“So we need to find the common link between
these people and the man in the visions,” Luke added. “Which would
be easier if we knew who he was.”

“Have you asked them to show you?” Gwen
questioned.

“Asked who?” Luke and I said in unison.

“The people in your dreams. The ones who’ve
reincarnated through the two of you.”

I took a second to appreciate the fact that
Luke and I were having a conversation with his mother about
reincarnations and dreams and visions as if it were as normal as
taking out the garbage.

“How would we ask them?” Luke asked, his hand
rubbing light circles on my upper arm. “I mean, it’s not like we
can call them on the phone.”

“No,” Gwen said. “But clearly these people or
their spirits are aware of you, since they’re speaking to you
through the dreams and visions. Perhaps now that you know they’re
trying to reveal something to you, you could speak to them.”

“Out loud?” It seemed crazy, but I figured it
wasn’t any crazier than the rest of this, so why not. “Do you think
they can hear us?”

“It’s been some time since I did any reading
on reincarnation,” Gwen said. “I suppose since Lucas first told me
about what he was experiencing. But it seems I remember that many
people discussed talking with the spirits, or rather
to
them. Some people described finding a quiet place to express
themselves verbally or even just through their thoughts.”

“I guess it might be worth a try,” Luke
replied. “Maybe if we can get a bit of information about who it is
we’re seeing, we can figure out how we’re connected.”

“But we still have to know what happened on
the other side of those rocks.” I shuddered at the thought of it.
In my heart I knew. They’d killed him on the beach that rainy
night. I just didn’t know who
they
were, or why they’d
killed him. “And why they hated us so much.”

“Knowing who we were is the first step in
that.” Luke pulled me close, pressing a kiss to the top of my head.
“But it’s getting late, and I should get you home.”

It occurred to me that we’d shifted the way
we referred to the people in the dreams. Instead of calling them
he, she
or
them,
we’d begun calling them
us
and
we
. It felt strange, but also right, as if we’d finally
started down the right path to end this.

Luke took Gwen’s notebook back to the living
room, and from the kitchen I could hear keys jingling as he
retrieved them from his coat pocket.

Gwen stood from the table and gave me a
fierce hug. “You’ve dealt with all this like a true champion,
Layla. I can’t begin to guess how difficult it is.”

“Lucas makes it easier,” I whispered in her
ear as I hugged her tightly.

She chuckled. “He has a way about him. But
don’t sell yourself short. You make this easier for him, too.”

***

It seemed a bit too bizarre to talk out loud
to the woman from my dreams. Even though I was willing to try most
anything to get answers, when the moment presented itself, I
couldn’t bring myself to say it all out loud.

My parents were long asleep, and I knew they
thought I was too. After Lucas dropped me off at home, I’d headed
for my bedroom under the pretense of literature homework. In truth,
it wasn’t homework, but rather a desire for a mental break from
everything spinning through my head. I popped my headphones into my
ears and set my iPod to play some wordless Mendelssohn
instrumentals, and pulled out the small volume of Robert Burns
poetry Lucas and I had tested over earlier in the week.

It was lyrical and relaxing, and though I was
getting better at reading the Gaelic dialect, the English words
scribbled in the margins made the words all the more melodic as I
read.

I didn’t stop until after midnight. My mind
felt peaceful. Not empty, but calm. The house was silent. The wind
outside a gentle, serene breeze.

Now was the time.

My mouth refused to work, to allow me to
voice my questions aloud. As if that would somehow evoke more than
I wanted or needed at this point. Whatever the reason, be it my own
fear or something more karmic, I decided not to fight it.

My dream self and I would have this exchange
– if there was to be one – via my thoughts.

I imagined I looked like a teenage, wannabe
fortuneteller sitting there on my bed, legs crossed Indian-style,
eyes closed and breathing deeply. Perhaps the only thing missing
was the precise Lotus-meditation pose and some rumbling “ohms”
coming from my throat.

But I persisted, refusing to dwell on how
ridiculous I must look. After all, no one else was here to see me.
In my mind, I pictured the woman from my visions. I chose to
remember her as she was in the first dream, happy and smiling, as
she waited for her husband to come home to her. I focused on the
feelings I’d felt – elation, contentment, harmony. In my mind I
called out to her, seeking to somehow link my mind to hers.

I let the questions run through my
consciousness.
Who are you? What happened to you? Who hurt you?
What do you want us to do?

As the questions roamed inside me, images
from the other dreams flashed behind my eyelids. The despair of
watching Lucas leave in order to protect me. The fear as I ran down
the beach, hearing him being beaten. The cold, numb, resignation I
felt as I was carried off the beach by the same people who’d hurt
him.

Strangely, I didn’t feel afraid or sad. I
felt empowered by the fact that for the first time I was being
proactive, and not just waiting for another vision to cut my legs
from under me.

I wasn’t sure how long I sat there, thinking
all the things I wanted to know, but at some point whatever
trance-like state I’d entered waned, and I slowly opened my
eyes.

Exhaustion came then, and I took the iPod
from my ears and laid it aside. My pillow felt softer than usual,
and my bed seemed to welcome me like a beloved relative.

The sleep that claimed me was sound and
complete, and for a long time I rested dreamlessly. Even from my
unconscious state, I was thankful for that.

When the dream began, I knew immediately it
was different. Instead of seeing a scenario played out like a
movie, there was only sound. Narration. Storytelling.

The voice rang in my ears, a lower, more
mature version of my own. And when she spoke, though she spoke of
terrible events, her voice soothed me.

In the autumn of that year, they came for
him. They said he was a murderer, and accused him of vile and
repulsive things. The townsfolk were made to believe that he had
done those unspeakable things to her. But he could not have done
that. It was not in his nature. He was good and kind and
charitable. But no one would believe us. His innocence was doubted
by all. The one who sought to destroy him convinced everyone that
he was a danger to the town, and assembled a band of vigilantes.
When they killed him, they believed they were justified. The other
people of the town thought he ran away out of guilt, out of fear of
being caught and punished. But I knew the truth. I had heard it
all. And they used it to destroy me too.

Cryptic words that only aroused more
questions in my mind. But at least I had an idea of what had
happened. He was accused of a murder he did not commit. But for
what reason? And why did someone seek
to destroy
him
,
as she’d said?

So I asked. In my mind, I forced the thought.
Why did someone want to destroy him?

Her answer was swift and succinct. And it was
the last she would say to me tonight.

Because he wanted me.

The
dream didn’t wake me, I realized when my alarm went off. And I
wasn’t emotionally ragged as I usually was after one of the dreams.
Perhaps I felt better because last night hadn’t been a “show and
tell”, but rather a conversation of sorts.

I should call Lucas. I reached for my cell
phone, but didn’t dial just yet. Instead, I grabbed my backpack
from beside my bed and pulled out the tablet containing my
courthouse notes. I remembered her words almost verbatim, so while
they were still fresh in my mind I wrote them down. I also jotted
the questions I still had. Who wanted to destroy him? Who had been
murdered? And what had happened to her after her husband had been
killed?

I reached for my phone, but it vibrated
before I could push the first button.

“Tell me about your dream,” Luke said when I
answered.

“She talked to me,” I answered. “I didn’t see
her. I didn’t see anything. I just heard her voice.”

“He talked to me,” Luke added. “Same thing.
No pictures, just words. What did she say to you?”

“I wrote it down, hang on.” I re-opened the
notebook and read it back to him.

“Almost exactly what he said to me, except
from his point of view.”

“It wasn’t scary,” I said. “And it didn’t
wake me up.”

“Me either.”

I could hear him breathing deeply, and I knew
he was considering what to do next. Generally, after a dream, he
didn’t like to run in the morning, since the possibility of another
vision was so great. It was always comforting to arrive a bit early
at school after a dream, just to have a moment together. It gave
each of us some peace of mind to be in each other’s presence
afterward. But today was Friday, and he had a meet this afternoon.
He needed the running time.

And besides, neither of us had been disturbed
by this dream.

“You should run this morning,” I finally
said. I knew the need he felt to protect me, and he would do it
even at cost to him. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure,” he whispered. “I’m sure I’ll
be fine this afternoon, even if I don’t run this morning.”

“Luke, you can’t put your real life on hold
all the time.” I closed the notebook and returned it to my
backpack. “And this dream wasn’t frightening. It was informative.
So take your morning run. We should probably both take some time to
think about it all before we start trying to pick it apart.”

“I hate not being with you after one of these
episodes.”

I smiled at his attempt to talk himself out
of running. It was sweet and very, very indicative of who he was.
But it also reminded me of the questions I harbored concerning
Luke’s true motivations, and I wondered once again if the strength
of the feelings he seemed to have for me stemmed only from the
memories he had from our past life. Did it even work that way? Did
he have the man’s memories? I knew I’d experienced the woman’s
feelings in my dreams, but I didn’t have any memories other than
the one’s she showed me. And outside of the visions, I didn’t
feel
like her. But Luke had been having these visions for a
long time. Could the love he felt for his wife long ago have
somehow carried over, making him believe he felt something for me
when it wasn’t actually there?

And if his feelings were some kind of
carry-over, did that make them less real or more real? Thinking
about it was fast giving me a headache, so I forced myself to
stop.

“Go run, Luke,” I said.

“If you’re sure.” The sound of his gentle
laughter made me smile.

“I’m sure. I’ll see you in literature.”

“Counting the minutes,” he replied. “Be
safe.”

My heart twisted and lurched as I hung up the
phone. It was absolutely impossible not to be in love with Lucas
Ellis. No way could I stop the runaway train I was on, not even
with the fears and concerns I had concerning the true source of his
feelings.

It was both a miserable and ecstatic place to
be. I decided the most prudent thing I could do was to enjoy each
moment with Lucas, and not wonder which one would be the last.

Yeah, like I wasn’t going to worry.

***

I sloshed through the puddles of water in the
parking lot, thankful that at least the rain had let up enough for
me to walk into the building without getting soaked. In my back
pocket, my phone vibrated just as I pushed open the front door.