Chapter Twenty #3
“I suppose the situation does have some resemblance to Aladdin’s tale.
However, no rubbing is involved, and I cannot grant wishes.
I can only be compelled to use my spectral powers as the holder directs.
If you knew you could control spectral powers, wouldn’t you make every attempt to find the means?
Especially if you thought that could help you give comfort to someone you loved? ”
“Probably.” Grace nodded, returning to Luc’s side. “So essentially, he wants to control a ghost.”
“I avoid that term because ghosts result from death. I never died. In fact, I think the curse prevents it.” He plucked at the bed sheets. That topic had always made him uncomfortable.
“I remember. That woman said, ‘I give you curses and damnation for as long as my curses shall endure’.”
He leaned away from Grace; his eyes wide. “How could you possibly remember that? You weren’t there, and I never wrote that in the log book.”
“I was there, however.”
“No,” Luc breathed. He frowned, and confusion, mixed with doubt flowed through him.
Is this how Grace felt when I first told her I was cursed?
“Let me explain,” she whispered.
“Please.” He reached for her.
“Perhaps I’d better sit farther away,” she stated then gave him a view of her cloth covered backside moving across the bed. With each inch the cloth rose higher.
By the time she settled across the bed he was as near to madness as a man could be.
***
“I’ve been studying reincarnation for the past month,” she spoke with studied casualness.
He stared, as if she’d gone mad.
“Are you surprised?” she asked.
Luc shook his head. “No, I suppose not really. Stunned, I would say. For a moment, no more.”
“I was astonished when the idea first occurred to me,” Grace confessed.
She twisted a corner of the crimson counterpane.
“That’s why I did the research, and why I haven’t called for you.
I phoned a friend and had every source on reincarnation with any smidgen of credibility sent to me at Sweet Dreams.”
“You haven’t said precisely when you thought of this, or what idea occurred to you.” He drew patterns on the coverlet with a finger. He wouldn’t look at her.
“After you kissed me.”
“You weren’t thinking, then. You were frightened. So much so, you insisted I take you home.” His tone was acrid.
“I know. I’m sorry. Thank you for giving me time to accept the truth.
However, it was that kiss that forced me to consider your curse might be possible.
It was all too familiar. I knew—how I don’t know—but I knew you had kissed me like that before.
That alone was enough to scare me. When I broke the kiss, I stared at you.
I did not just see you as you are now. I also saw you as you were when you kissed me—Grainne rather— beneath that rowan tree. ”
Luc’s head whipped up, and his long dark hair scattered over his broad shoulders. When their gazes met, his eyes went wide. “How could you possibly know about that kiss?”
“I think I may have dreamt it, but when I first thought about it, the incident felt more like a memory.”
“Yet ’tis a memory of something you could not have experienced,” he breathed.
“Precisely, that’s when reincarnation occurred to me,” Grace said, with complete reason. She felt so alone, abandoned this far from Luc, but she’d not finish if she moved closer, touched Luc.
“So, you researched that for nearly a whole month” his tone incredulous. “What conclusion did you draw?”
“I learned that every culture has some belief in reincarnation. The native Americans, the Africans who were forced to come here and those who didn’t. Medieval Christians, the Asian cultures, the ancients.”
“An interesting list, I’m sure, but what did it tell you?” he urged, folding his arms across his splendid chest.
“Possibly, I’m not the only person to experience reincarnation.
Most of the belief systems that include reincarnation, hold that the rebirth is an essential part of the soul working its way back to some universal oneness.
Each life teaches lessons necessary to reaching that goal, and the soul will be reborn as many times as necessary to learn the lessons.
A few systems believe that reincarnation is a means for righting wrongs. ”
“Mambo Ayezan said, ‘An evil tide pursues her, until a great wrong is corrected, and the time is right once more.’ She meant you.” Disbelief choked Luc’s voice.
“So, you were the person she was talking to when I couldn’t see anyone else.”
He nodded.
“I wondered for a while, then I forgot the incident, until I did my research and started putting pieces together. I think, if we could ask her, the mambo would say I am Grainne, or at the very least had lived her life.”
Luc paled, and the apple of his throat bobbed once, then again as he swallowed twice. “That is impossible to prove.”
“Impossible by any scientific means.” Grace nodded.
“Then how can you think your conclusions are correct?” He frowned.
“I don’t think it. I know it,” she insisted, placing a hand over her heart.
“Think, know, that’s all irrelevant, semantic nonsense. Why? That is important. Especially since you agree no science exists to prove it,” Luc slashed a hand across the air in impatient denial.
“Once I accepted that you could be cursed, believing myself to be reincarnated wasn’t so difficult. As I said, our first kiss drove me to do the research.”
“Yet you had only that one kiss as a basis for the idea.”
“No, I had dreams as well.”
“Dreams?” Both his eyebrows shot high. “I’ve had dreams about you and Grainne, since shortly after I arrived at Sweet Dreams.”
“Tell me about them,” Luc said, almost pleading.
She had to resist the urge to touch and soothe him. “The first dream came my second night at Sweet Dreams. I dreamt about you meeting Grainne near her croft. She was washing clothes. You gave her a music box. I recognized the box and the tune it played.”
Luc nodded. “I had that box custom made for her. Early One Morning was her favorite song. I saw a box exactly like it in your room once.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. That music box has been handed down in my family for generations. When Aunt Sarah gave it to me, she told me one of my ancestors was Irish. That ancestor’s surname was….”
“Tirlán,” he finished for her. “You’re descended from Grainne’s family.”
“Yes. My research suggests that family connections increase the chances of reincarnation.” Grace smiled.
“You did not know which Tirlán ancestor first passed the box?” he asked.
“According to Aunt Sarah, that name had been lost to history.” She continued twisting the coverlet.
“Did you ever try to find out?” He clasped his hands together, his knuckles whitened.
“No. I was too focused on my future, on learning everything I could about old things. The music box and my aunt’s stories about Sweet Dreams inspired my interest.” Surprising hope echoed in her voice. She loved Luc, so how could she not have hope?
“That interest became a career.”
She nodded. “A career destined to lead me here. To you. To knowing I am or was Grainne.”
“Does it bother you?” Luc frowned again.
“As I said, I was frightened out of my wits when I first began to think it possible.” The realization that she loved Luc, truly loved him scared her even more. “What would happen to me? If she is me, and I am her, who am I really? Who would I be if I let myself believe?”
“You’re not frightened now?” His eyes went wide again.
She wouldn’t confess to loving him enough that she feared losing him. Not yet. “Not in the same way. What I feel is more like anticipation, like the thrill of riding The Giant Dip at Riverside Park.”
Luc squeezed his eyes shut and reopened them. “I beg your pardon. What is a ‘giant dip,’ and where is this park?”
Grace covered her mouth and laughed. “It’s hard to remember sometimes that your experience of life in this day and age is limited.”
“I’m sorry if I disappoint you.” He sniffed, before leaning back against the bedpost once more.
Grace inhaled deeply. Whatever had him so tense earlier was gone.
“Oh, I mean no offense and I apologize. You don’t disappoint me.” She blew him a kiss. “You couldn’t.”
“Nice to know, thank you,” he said, his tone wry. “But this ‘dip’ thing is…?”
“Some people call them Russian Mountains, because they imitate the ice slides found in that country. Most people call them roller coasters, because the cars or carriages people ride coast on wheels down a raised wooden track. As for Riverside Park, it has had a number of names over the years, but that’s what it was called while I was growing up.
The Park is located in Agawam, Massachusetts, near Springfield. ”
“Did you go there often and ride this Giant Dip?” He inclined his head.
“I visited Agawam frequently while I was younger. The last time I went was during the trial. I needed an escape.”
“Did it work?” Luc rubbed his hands against his thighs.
Oh, to be one of those palms for just a little while. Grace shook the thought away.
“For a while. Then I had to go home to attend court the following day.”
“Please, tell me if I understand what you’ve said correctly. You’ve come to believe you are both Grainne Tirlán and Grace Thibodaux. The idea once frightened you but now you eagerly anticipate some change that you believe will occur as a result of your, shall we say, dual nature.”
“That pretty much sums it up.” She smiled.
“What do you think is going to happen?” He sipped some wine.
“I think I will eventually be either Grainne or Grace. That one of me will vanish.”
“Into the past?” His brows rose, as they had moments before.
“If I end up as Grainne. The future, if I end up as Grace.” She tossed back the last of her own drink.
Luc cocked his head to one side. “What do you think will make the difference?”
“I couldn’t say, but we need to be prepared for it whatever it is.”
He nodded. “If we don’t know what to prepare for, how is that possible?”
“I’m not certain…” she hesitated. “Can you tell me what happened to Grainne the night you were cursed?”
“Didn’t you dream that too?” His brows met.
She shook her head. “When I dreamt, I woke up as the actual curse was spoken. I learned that Grainne had disappeared because that’s what you wrote in the log book.”
“Disappeared is correct, so I can’t answer your question about Grainne, because I really don’t know.”
“You were there, how is it possible you did not see Grainne leave?” She frowned.
“We’ve spoken of so very many impossibilities in the past hours…”
“Witnessed a good number, too,” Grace added. A month ago, she would have thought loving Luc impossible.
“I looked for her. After the curse, I was weak. I had to return to my bed. I let Cal and the others deal with Mawu’s body and everything else. Grainne was not in the bed when I laid down in my weakened state.”
“So, Grainne vanished while you spoke with Mawu, while she cursed you?”
“Yes.” Luc said.
“I wonder what happened.” She crossed the bed once more, needing to sit beside him.
“Think you are safe sitting so close?” He waggled his eyebrows.
She batted her lashes in return. “I’ll be safer when we can get much closer, but we aren’t finished talking yet, are we?”
“No,” he acknowledged. “If you are both Grace and Grainne, do you think you might try to remember? Whatever happened to her, Grainne lived it, so she would remember it.” Luc placed an arm around her shoulders.
Grace leaned into him. “I’m not certain how to do that, if I even can.”
“A problem for another day then. Come rest with me, now. We have a number of complex matters to deal with. We will be much more effective when we are well rested.” He dropped a kiss on her forehead.
“I should probably get home. It must be close to dawn, and the dogs will need attention.”
“I’ll wake you before then.”
“Before dawn or before the dogs need me?” Grace snuggled into his arms.
“Whichever. My body tells me the position of the moon, and the dogs are in the hold, so we’ll both hear them.”
“Right. They’ve been so quiet, I nearly forgot. How is it you feel the moon phases?”
Luc smiled. “The curse gave the moon power over my existence. I told you how painful it was to exist in two worlds at one time?”
“Yes, I remember that.” She yawned.
“That pain, like the rest of me, is linked to the moon. It ebbs and flows like the tide, but it is always present. Because the tide is different from one location to another, the moon’s pull becomes more stressful the farther I am from the Only Love.”
“Fascinating.” Grace gave another yawn.
“Sleep now. I’ll make sure all three of you are home by morning.”
“Only if you’ll kiss me first.”