Timeless (19 page)

Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the
agony

Of death and birth.

T. S. Eliot, “East Coker”

January is the longest month of the year. I
looked out of my window at the drizzle and sighed. Two more months
to go. The wait seemed interminable.

Christmas passed by quietly. In past years,
Ben had come over for dinner or I’d gone over to see his folks.
Since we weren’t together anymore, Aunt Jo and I had spent a lonely
day watching several old home movies with my mother in them. Aunt
Jo even had a really old one of my father playing with me as a
toddler on a swing set in our backyard in Colorado. I think she
wanted to cheer me, but it just made me more depressed, reminding
me of other loved ones no longer with me.

I couldn’t wait to try my spell in March. The
vision I’d had under hypnosis seemed very far away, and even though
I still dreamed of Damien’s face, the dreams weren’t as frequent or
as real to me. I began to have doubts again that this would work,
but the more skeptical I was, the more I knew that I needed it to
work.

It didn’t help that Ben had tried calling me
several times since that last day in the parking lot. Despite what
I’d told him, he’d seen me wearing his ring, and I knew that meant
more than any words. He still went out with Angela—Annie gave me
regular updates—but I felt fairly sure that he wanted to get back
together with me.

I didn’t know what I would do if I couldn’t
bring Damien to the present. Try again? Give up? Seek a more
powerful witch, perhaps one of those who’d already done it before?
It was frustrating at best, maddening at worst.

Could I live without him? I heard a
resounding no to that question. But I’d lived without him all my
life, I argued to myself.

No, you didn’t, I reasoned. He’s always been
with you, not just in this life but throughout time.

As much as I still cared for Ben, I didn’t
think I could go back to him even if I wasn’t strong enough to pull
Damien to the present. Maybe I could find some happiness with him,
just as Ramona had predicted, but that wasn’t fair to him. And I
knew I’d never love him the way I did Damien.

Annie had tried asking me several times about
how I felt about Ben, but I put her off as best I could. I knew
that she didn’t believe Damien was real, and who could blame her?
He had yet to appear, and I hadn’t told anyone but Ramona about
what I was doing in March. Instead, I just explained to anyone who
asked me that I met him on a vacation last summer. I told Annie
that I must have dreamed about him as a knight, dismissing the
whole notion of a past life. I knew how crazy I sounded. Maybe I
was crazy. It felt like it some days.

I sighed, getting my books together for
school. Annie was picking me up today. I didn’t want to be in the
parking lot alone again and run into Ben. I heard her honking the
horn, and I ran outside, climbing in the passenger’s side.

“So, how was your weekend?” she began.
“Oh, you know, the usual,” I replied, glad for once that she didn’t
bring up Ben and Angela.

“When are you going to come out with us
again, Emily? I know it’s awkward with Zack and Ben and everything,
but I miss you,” she said, sounding a little hurt.

“Annie, you know I can’t. It would feel too
weird, you know, with them.”

I wished I could escape them for one day.

“We should do something. And I think Zack
misses you too. We all do,” she finished quietly.

“I know,” I said, not looking at her.

I felt guilty. I’d avoided everyone because
of Ben.

“Well, let’s go somewhere on Friday, okay?”
she asked.

I still hesitated.

“It can just be us, a girl’s night out,” she
offered.

“Okay,” I agreed reluctantly, though I did
miss Annie. And I knew there was no way she’d invite Angela.

We arrived at school, and I saw Ben holding
Angela’s hand. They were sitting outside on the picnic tables—right
in the spot where I usually ate lunch now.

I saw them before they saw me. Angela turned
around, shooting me a nasty look.

I looked away, hoping Ben wouldn’t look up.
If he did, he didn’t call out my name. I’d still have to see him in
English class, anyway, so what did it matter?

By now, we sat almost an entire classroom
away from each other in every period. He’d moved closer to Angela
in every class we had together, and I’d seen him kissing her
several times in the parking lot. I thought about what Annie had
told me about Angela the day Ben had given me the ring, but I
stopped before I could let that thought progress. There were limits
even to my tolerance for self-inflicted pain.

Even though it still hurt to see Ben with
someone new, it had definitely gotten better, the pain lessening
every day as I drew closer to finding Damien. I was, by this time,
so focused on what I had to do in two months that I really didn’t
think about them all that often. And I had indirectly set them up,
after all. I couldn’t expect Ben to stay miserable, and if he was
happy, I was grateful to Angela. But that didn’t mean I had to like
her or want to see them together.

I arrived to English before Ben. For once,
everyone pored over their books. We had begun studying poetry. Ms.
May required us to memorize a love poem and recite it in front of
the class that day. I had chosen Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116, thinking
of Damien when I read it. I had to believe that nothing could ever
stand in our way.

When class began, I volunteered first,
wanting to get the recital over as soon as possible. Careful not to
look in Ben’s direction, I focused instead on Damien’s face, which
gave me courage. I closed my eyes, clearing my voice and trying to
force out the trembling before I started. I could feel myself
blushing, but couldn’t help it. I took a deep breath and began.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never
shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be
taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and
cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and
weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of
doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

I thought of Damien as I said those lines.
Yes, I thought our love would bear out all things, and we had
already faced the edge of doom. A feeling of intense happiness
filled me. I smiled, feeling the blush creep into my face for a
different reason as I considered the possibility that I would see
him again in person.

“Thank you, Emily,” Ms. May said, snapping me
out of my daydream. I realized I was still standing in front of
everyone with my eyes closed.

As I returned to my seat, I heard Ben drop
his pencil, causing me instinctively to look up. He stared at me
intently, the first time I could remember since he’d started seeing
Angela.

Ben raised his hand to volunteer next. So he
wanted to get it over with too.

As he began, I consciously avoided his gaze,
but I could feel the force of his love as he said lines that seemed
to speak directly to our past. He’d chosen Elizabeth Barrett
Browning’s Sonnet XLIII, a poem we’d read aloud together many times
before.

How do I love thee? Let me count the
ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and
height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of
sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday's

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for
Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from
Praise.

I love thee with a passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's
faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints,--I love thee with the
breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God
choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

He said the lines with such passion, and his
gaze never wavered, compelling me finally to look at him. There
could be no question that he meant me when he said those lines. I
knew what it meant to love someone after death. Did Ben feel about
me the way I felt about Damien? A terrible dread filled me. Was
there no end to this pain?

I felt the unbidden tear roll down my face.
Where would this end? Where could it? I realized that I still loved
Ben despite the inescapable drawing from the past. And yet, it
lacked something now, something I needed. Love itself had altered,
and I could not return to the young girl I had been. What was
comfortable, familiar to me could no longer satisfy my soul. The
first time I saw Damien in my dreams, I felt something beyond
myself, almost beyond the capacity for human experience, an ecstasy
of our speaking souls communicating across time. A coup de foudre,
a sudden, overwhelming love.

My love for Ben felt real but ultimately
sublunary, not a sublime force of nature. Damien had had the power
to call me from across the grave. A normal human relationship—even
as good as the one I’d had with Ben—just couldn’t compare. Damien
and I existed on some other, ethereal plane where we needed no
corporeal form to express our love. It transcended the body.

My hands shook, and I knew I would cry in
earnest in a few moments. I couldn’t help it, but others had begun
to notice, including Ben. I needed desperately to get away. I
decided to use my power, concentrating hard and finally hearing my
wish come true. The fire alarm went off.

I started to collect my books, meaning to
leave the room last, when I heard his voice.

“You don’t get your things during a fire
drill,” Ben said, standing in front of my desk.

“There’s no fire,” I said, not looking at him
to hide my tears.

“How do you know that?” he asked.

“I just do, okay?” I snapped at him, sobbing
and running out of the classroom.

I heard Ben call out to me, but I didn’t look
back. I felt the keys in my pocket, and I headed for the parking
lot. I knew I’d get detention for skipping the rest of the day, but
I didn’t care. I couldn’t take this agony anymore.

I realized when I got outside that I hadn’t
driven to school that day. I was stuck. The school was several
miles away from Aunt Jo’s house. If I left now, I’d have to walk. I
started for the road home, which ran parallel to the gym. Storm
clouds had gathered, and an ominous thunder clap threatened rain. I
didn’t have long to wait. The skies opened to a torrent of water,
pelting my face, already wet with tears.

“Emily,” I heard a voice shout behind me.

Ben had followed me, catching me by the arms
to stop me before I could escape the parking lot.

For one moment, I wanted to give in to the
temptation of running into his arms. It would be so easy, so right,
wouldn’t it?

As it was, I had little choice. I stood
there, sobbing in the rain, and I didn’t know who the tears were
for. I’d shed them every night for two months when I knew I’d lost
Damien, but I knew that I cried for Ben too.

He put his arms around me in front of the
entire school, which had come out, annoyed at having to stand
outside in the rain for what turned out to be a false alarm.

A muffled voice blared over the loudspeaker.
They were calling all of us back in, but Ben and I just stood
there, him holding me in his strong arms.

I don’t know how long we remained like
that—it could have been two minutes or two hours—but he offered to
drive me home, and I said yes. I’d worry about how I would get him
out of detention later.

When we got into his pick-up, neither of us
said anything for several minutes. Ben finally broke the
silence.

“Emily, I know you’re not coming back to me,
but I just want to know why.”

He didn’t sound angry or bitter, just
terribly, terribly sad.

I gulped. I owed him something, even if it
was a half-truth.

“You’re right. Why don’t we pull over?” I
said nervously. I didn’t want to explain this in front of Aunt
Jo.

Ben slowed down, turned off the main road,
and then shut off the engine. He looked at me expectantly.

I took a deep breath.

“I met Damien some time ago,” I started, not
knowing exactly where this was headed.

“How long ago?” he asked, clearly wanting
specifics. This was getting harder.

“When I was a small child,” I equivocated.
That was true—it was just in my past life.

“You mean, before you met me?”

“Yes.”

“In Colorado?”

“Um, no.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It was in England.”

“But you’ve never been to England…”

“Yes, actually, I have.”

“You never told me that. When was this?”

“A really long time ago.”

“How old were you?”

How old was I? I thought I remembered being
around five when my father—in my past life—had brought Damien to
the castle.
“Five.”

Ben eyed me suspiciously.

“Emily, are you lying to me?”

Yes and no.

“Ben, listen to me. It’s a strange story, and
you wouldn’t believe it anyway.”

“Try me.”

I stared at him, not wanting to answer him
but not able to look away, either. He deserved more than what I’d
given him.

Here goes, I thought, not sure yet what I was
about to tell him. I took another deep breath.

“Do you remember last fall, when I started
having those dreams?”

“Yes, I remember,” he said in a voice letting
me know that he would never forget. That was the beginning of the
end for us.