Endless (26 page)

“So you think this … Nikolai was also with you in a past life?”

She nodded, wondering if it would really be that easy.

“How is it possible that we were all reincarnated to end up in the same time and place?”

She braced herself for what she had to say next. “We weren’t. Not all of us.”

Questions clouded Ben’s eyes. “I don’t get it.”

She chewed her lip, trying to find a way to make it seem less crazy. “Nikolai told me the story of the Romanov assassination, not as an event in history, but as it
was
. In that life, he tried to warn me. Tried to save me. But I wouldn’t listen, and I was killed.”

“And he, what, remembers this?” Ben asked.

“Not exactly.”

“Then, what?”

She chewed her lower lip. This was going to be harder than she thought. “He was there when it happened, and when I … ” She shook her head, correcting herself. “When
we
were killed, he tried to stop it, but they shot him, too, and left him to die.”

Ben looked at her without saying anything. She continued.

“He didn’t die, Ben. Someone saved him. Some kind of … witch or mystic. She nursed him back to health, and then she sent him here.”

“What do you mean? Sent him here how?”

Jenny looked down, running one finger over the flowers on her comforter. “Have you ever heard of ley lines?”

“Sure. Places on the planet with some kind of special energy.”

She nodded. “Did you know some people believe ley lines allow access to wormholes? That people can use them to travel through time?”

“Only in science fiction novels.”

There was a question in his voice she didn’t know how to begin answering.

“What if it wasn’t only in science fiction novels?” she said, meeting his eyes. He didn’t answer and she crossed the room to her desk. “Come here. I want to show you something.”

He stood beside her while she opened her laptop and inserted the flash drive she’d used to save the pictures from Photoshop. While everything loaded, she pulled the stool over from her easel. She gave Ben the desk chair. When the folder appeared on her desktop, she clicked it, opening all of the pictures and lining them up across the screen so Ben could see them in order.

“You have to look at them in order to get what I’m thinking.” She pointed to the picture of the monks sitting in a circle. “This one’s the first one, I think.”

She walked him through all the others in sequence, explaining as she went. When she got to the last panel, she recapped. “It’s like they’re doing something with the magic book and then … well, I think they’re traveling through time because the next thing you know, here they are. And this,” she pointed to the stone building in one of the panels, “is definitely the monastery.”

Ben rubbed his chin, studying the pictures. Reaching toward her laptop, he zoomed in on the book. The cover was magnified, the familiar words “of Time” now visible on the cover.

Jenny reached for the picture of her mom and Morgan, handing it to Ben. “Notice anything unusual?”

He studied the picture, before shaking his head.

She pointed to the book in her mother’s arms. “I think it’s the same book.”

He peered more closely at the photograph. “It’s hard to be sure,” he finally said.

She nodded. Then she told him about the trip to Marist, proof that Morgan had lied to her and that Jenny’s mother had had secrets of her own.

“So what are you saying?” he asked. “Just … tell it to me straight.”

“Nikolai came forward in time using one of the ley lines in the book. I think the retreat center is actually headquarters for the Order, an organization that’s supposed to keep people in the right time and everything. And I think my mom might have been one of them.”

He ran a hand through his hair. The floppy front piece fell right back into his eyes. “A month ago, I might have blown this all off. But now … ”

She caught something in his voice. An unspoken question.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Now what?”

He stood, pacing her room and looking again at the paintings lining the floors of her room. “Well, I haven’t been visited by anyone from another time, but I’ve been having dreams—weird ones—ever since that whole music box thing.”

She turned to face him. “Wait a minute. Are you saying you’re still having the dream we shared in the attic?”

“Not that one. Not exactly. You’re not in these ones. Just me and some other people that I know in the dream but don’t know once I wake up.”

“Tell me.” Jenny’s voice was barely above a whisper.

He played with the ring on his lip for a minute before speaking. “Sometimes I’m in the same palace, but I’m in a uniform. Other times, I’m outside, in the woods. There are others like me, and we’re all guarding something, or … maybe it’s someone. I have a hard time remembering.”

“Are you wearing the same jacket you were wearing in the vision we shared?” she asked softly, seeing him at the piano, his jacket open, a cigarette dangling from his full lips.

He nodded. “Except things feel … tenser. My jacket’s buttoned and I’m taking orders.”

“Taking orders from who?”

“People I don’t know well who seem to be in charge. And there’s another man. I … I think he’s my father.”

“Your father here or your father there?”

“My father there,” Ben said. “He’s unhappy with me a lot. We’re always fighting. Even in the dream, I feel his disappointment. But that’s not what has me waking up in a cold sweat every night.”

She was surprised by the revelation. Ben seemed bulletproof, even now that she knew him better. “What does?”

“The fear. In my dreams, I’m afraid.”

The terror in his eyes made the bottom fall out of her stomach.

“Of what?” she asked. “In the dream, I mean. What are you afraid of in the dream?”

He turned his blue eyes on her. “Death. I’m afraid of death, because in the dreams, there’s no doubt in my mind that someone’s going to die.”

Jenny put the last of the dishes into the dishwasher. Her dad had invited Ben to stay for dinner, but he’d had to pick up his mom from Books, so it had just been Jenny and her father.

She’d been tense as they ate the take-out Chinese her dad had picked up on the way home. When he asked what was wrong, she’d said that she was just tired.

But that wasn’t it. She wanted to know about her mother. The questions loomed even larger in Jenny’s mind since her visit to Marist. She couldn’t help wondering if Morgan wasn’t the only one hiding something. Was her dad really as clueless about her mom’s past as he seemed? Did he really think being a complex, moody artist was reason enough for all her mother’s strange behavior?

Jenny didn’t have the answers, but her resentment was building to a crescendo. She shouldn’t have to beg for answers about her own mother.

Finished with the dishes, Jenny walked toward her dad’s office and paused at the door. He was leaning back in his desk chair, staring at the computer with single-minded concentration. He looked lost, his loneliness a dark cloak hanging off his shoulders. Jenny wondered if he was lonely. If maybe their quiet little life—a life with no questions but no answers, either— wasn’t enough for him.

Go in
, she urged herself.
Ask him your questions. All eleven years of them.

He looked up at her, sensing her presence. “Hey, you.” His eyes were tired behind his smile. “What’s up?”

She couldn’t get the words out. Inwardly, she urged herself to get a grip. He was her dad. He’d tell her what he knew if she asked. She knew he would.

But then she would have to know. She would have to know, for better or worse, who her mother really was—or how little her dad had really known about her.

“Honey?” Her dad’s voice got her attention. “You okay?”

She nodded, trying to make her smile genuine. “Yeah. Like I said, I’m just beat. I think I’m going to read for a bit and go to bed early.”

He nodded. “I might do the same. This deadline’s stressing me out.”

“Okay, get some sleep,” she said. “Good night.”

“Night, honey.”

She’d almost cleared the doorframe when she turned back. “I love you, Dad.”

He smiled, surprise mixed with pleasure. “I love you, too, Jenny.”

She made excuses all the way to her room.
It wasn’t the right time. He was busy. Talking about her mom would make him sad.

They were all lies.

The truth was simple. She was afraid. Learning about her mother would mean learning about herself, too. And once she knew the truth, there would be no going back.

*

Jenny woke up knowing what she had to do. She wanted to know the truth about her mother, but more than that, she wanted to know what Morgan knew about the Book of Time.

Because if she and Nikolai didn’t find it by tonight, he could be gone by tomorrow.

And that was something Jenny couldn’t live with.

She was surprised by the anger simmering underneath her skin. She didn’t get angry often. Frustrated, sad, even depressed. All of those things. But she wasn’t an angry person by nature.

Now fury backed up behind her eyes when she thought about Morgan. She must think Jenny was an idiot. How long did Morgan expect her to swallow the lies without realizing that there were so many missing pieces?

She slipped behind the wheel of the Honda, making her way down the driveway and turning down the main road. Crossing town, she headed for the far side of Stony Creek where Morgan rented a cottage from old Mrs. Van Kueren. Questions moved through Jenny’s mind like a whirlwind, but when she stopped to think about it, there were only two that really mattered.

Had her mother had been a part of the Order? And if so, what had happened to the book she’d been holding in the picture?

Morgan’s house was at the edge of a field that had grown wheat before Mr. Van Kueren became too old to farm it. Jenny had always felt at peace there, but now, she had to calm the butterflies in her stomach as she turned down the tiny gravel driveway.

She pulled around to the side of the house, her heart sinking when she saw the empty space in front of the old garage. Morgan’s gas-efficient hybrid wasn’t there.

Jenny pulled up next to it, putting it into park and letting the engine idle. She could wait for Morgan to come home … or not.

She looked down at the keys, swinging in the ignition. Then she cut the engine and stepped out of the car.

Sticking to the rear of the house, she grabbed the blue-capped key on her ring and climbed the stairs to the back deck. Morgan had given Jenny the extra key so she could water the plants when Morgan was away on one of her research trips. Morgan had told her to use it anytime, but Jenny was pretty sure this wasn’t what Morgan had in mind.

Jenny didn’t care. Now that she’d shrugged off the apathy of the past few years, she was determined to get answers. She was going to get them, one way or another.

She put the key into the lock on one of the glass doors that opened onto the deck. The lock disengaged, and Jenny stepped inside the house.

It felt different without Morgan there. The faint smell of cold coffee scented the air, mixing with something spicier that Jenny recognized as residual odor from the incense Morgan burned almost constantly when she was home.

It took Jenny a minute to decide where to start looking. There was no guarantee that Morgan had the book. In fact, the odds were probably against it. But Morgan had been her mother’s best friend. Jenny was certain of that much. Whatever lies Morgan had told, there had to be some kind of information about Jenny’s mother hidden in Morgan’s house. That and even a remote possibility that Morgan had the book meant that she had to look. Had to try.

She started with Morgan’s office, opening the filing cabinets and riffling through the rows of folders.

The files on the right contained work stuff—research on the runes, printouts of online articles pertaining to them, and photographs. At first glance, Jenny thought the cabinet to the left of the desk was more personal. But a half an hour later, she’d gone through every scrap of paper only to find copies of old bills, tax returns, automobile service receipts, and medical bills. Continuing with the office, she went through its one closet and looked behind all the books on ancient languages and markings before giving up on the room.

Morgan’s house wasn’t very big. Other than the office, there was a bedroom, a bathroom, and the joint kitchen/dining/living room. Jenny could have been wrong, but she didn’t really see Morgan as the hide-important-stuff-in-a-coffee-can type.

She moved to the bedroom.

She started with the nightstands, pulling open their drawers, even removing them to make sure nothing was taped underneath or behind them. As time passed, Jenny became more nervous, her searching less methodical. She looked under the bed and quickly moved to search the closet. It wasn’t fear of discovery that drove her but fear of not knowing. Fear of a continuation of the lie she’d already been living. Fear of losing Nikolai.

She started with the top of the closet, pulling down boxes and clear plastic bins, searching them through and through, no longer caring if Morgan knew she’d been snooping. She had nothing to hide. Nothing to be ashamed of. Morgan was the one who should be ashamed.