“Interesting…You didn’t waste any time…” Campion observed.
“We don’t have time to waste,” said Ms. Beedinwigg, her tension not going unnoticed. “Now, I’d like you to train every night. Is that possible?”
“Absolutely. What do I learn tonight?” I started into the room.
“Starting tomorrow,” she said. Noticing that I began to protest, she cut me off. “When you’re no longer angry. Anger is a disruption in training. We need you calm and alert.”
“We do, however,” said Mr. Hamilton, “have an assignment. We’d like you to go back and review each of your lifetimes.”
I felt my forehead crease in confusion. “I’d be very impressed with myself if I could do that…”
“You can,” said Ms. Beedinwigg undaunted. “When you move your finger across the scroll over the name of the person you wish to locate on the other side, you are immediately transported to them, correct?”
“Yes,” I confirmed.
“Try doing the same thing over the scroll imprinted with
your
names. It will take you through that lifetime, specifically to each key point in it.”
Again, I was taken aback. “That works? How-How do you know that?”
Ms. Beedinwigg laughed as if I’d made a ridiculous understatement. “My family recorded everything…which we will begin sharing with you when you return tomorrow evening.”
She headed back towards the stairs but I had to inform her of something first and this was as good a time as any.
“You should know that Marco, his security team, and several students and faculty at our school are Fallen Ones.”
She looked back, appearing unflappable. “I already do. They are the reason for the hasty invitation to tonight’s dinner.”
My respect for Ms. Beedinwigg immediately doubled.
By the time we reached the foyer, I knew what I would be doing tonight. To keep my mind off Eran’s dangerous pursuits, tonight I would test her theory and visit one of my past lives.
CHAPTER NINE: Muehlhausen, Germany
We arrived home to find the windows dark. It was late and we both knew without having to say it that our housemates had gone to sleep.
Campion followed me up the stairs, alert and responsive to the sounds inside the house. A moment later, I heard my French doors open and Campion step on to the balcony, as he did most nights while guarding me.
“Enjoy your assignment.” Campion’s voice came through the dark as I slipped into my bed.
My mind was racing from all that I’d learned tonight so getting on with my assignment might take some time, I realized.
“Campion? I’m having a tough time sleeping. Would you mind?”
He turned to face me and no sooner did I finish my sentence did sleep overtake me.
The Hall of Records was just as quiet as when I’d last visited it, but I was not alone. One other person floated several stories above me, reviewing a scroll, his admiral blue robe flowing around his ankles. I left him to his reading.
My scroll was in the B section, under Billings, Montana, as scrolls were stored by last place of death.
I had to climb several stories to reach it but in the afterlife this wasn’t difficult. It lay neatly curled in its tube, opening only when I withdrew it and allowed it to unravel.
I spoke my name aloud and the scroll slipped through my fingers until my name landed between my thumbs. Giddiness overcame me then. It felt as if all my internal organs were springing up and down. Calm down, I told myself. This could be just as unpleasant as it is exciting. If Ms. Beedinwigg was even correct…
With that in mind, I reviewed the list of my past lifetimes. I figured the beginning was as good a place as any to start and took my right index finger to move it across the words:
Previously
Friedricha Schaffhausen – Died Muehlhausen, Germany June, 5, 1525
This time the hall did not disintegrate and fall away. I was not carried above other people’s heavens or versions of their afterlife.
I was yanked, much the same way I returned to earth each morning, as if I were on the end of a rubber band and that band had been pulled taut and released.
Then I was cold and hungry and my back felt as if it were lying on a bed of nails. I had no control over any of this and certainly not over my physical body. Yet, I could hear the wails coming from my mouth, rattling my eardrums, and the feeling of absolute despair.
It took me a moment to comprehend that I was encapsulated inside the body of a toddler, left in the middle of a barren field. Rain clouds gathered overhead and the wind howled through the tall grass, bitingly crossing my skin. Tears began falling down my face, which I tried to suppress, unsuccessfully.
“Here! Over here!” a voice cried out. Though the words were in German, I understood them as clear as if they’d been in English.
The crunching of the dry grass stopped suddenly and I opened my eyes to find a woman kneeling over me. A man appeared next to her, pulling his hat down against the wind. My immediate reaction was one of calm reassurance. Somehow, I knew these faces. An intuition deep inside me confirmed that I had chosen them as my parents before I had fallen.
“Who could have left this poor thing out here in the cold?” she asked, her hand over her chest in astonishment.
“I’ll carry her,” the man stated, picking me up and supporting me against him.
I was yanked yet again, pulling me down a tunnel, away from the man and woman. When it stopped, the field was gone. It was night and I was sneaking out the door of a small house, glancing back at the face of the man and woman I’d just seen as they slept in front of the hearth. They were older now with sprouts of gray hairs and wrinkles. I found myself inundated with love for them and for the other girls and boys sleeping around the fire. Vaguely, it registered in me that this was my family.
Why am I running away? I desperately wondered. Stay, I tried to tell myself. Stay…
My thoughts and desires did nothing to stop my body from moving out into the night and drawing the hood over my head against the chill in the air.
The gravel crunched beneath my feet and then quieted when I met the dirt road leading to a city illuminated in the distance.
“Stop,” a voice commanded. Despite the German translation, it was a voice I knew, one that I would know anywhere, even in another lifetime.
My body turned to find Eran moving swiftly towards me. I felt a swell of fear and I knew that this body – my body in this lifetime – did not recognize Eran.
My hand reached inside the edge of my cloak to firmly grip the handle of my sword and my arm withdrew it just as Eran reached me.
I watched, helpless, as this body of mine fought feverishly against him, advancing on him as I would my worst enemy. He met my attacks with equal grace, thankfully, his sword connecting with mine using the same force and vigor.
Then he slipped, a puddle of mud causing his foot to twist beneath him, and my weapon came dangerously close to his neck.
He jolted back, swung around in to a crouch, and attacked.
My back hit a tree and Eran’s hands came around my own, squeezing until my sword fell. Using his free hand, he shoved back the hood of my cloak.
The surprise washing across his face was evident.
“You’re-You’re a girl,” he said in German, though I still understood him.
I noticed then, the intrigued excitement building in my body, the burning sensation coursing through my torso. Apparently, I had an instant attraction to him, even then, at our very first meeting.
“I thought,” he backed away, releasing my hands, and laughing to himself. “I thought you were a boy up to no good.” He evaluated me from afar. “But…you are certainly no boy.”
“No,” my voice declared in German. “I am not.” I pulled my cloak tighter around me. “What were you doing attacking me? I could have killed you, you know.”
Eran broke in to laughter, the force of it causing him to bend over and brace himself against his knees. “I strongly disagree.”
“I truly don’t care,” I retorted, heading back into the road.
He followed, coming up beside me as if I’d invited him on a stroll. I hadn’t and as a result I felt myself being torn. Part of me wanted to send him away and part of me wanted him to walk just a little closer. “What are you doing out this late at night? A girl like you shouldn’t be alone.”
I chuckled confidently. “I can take care of myself.”
“Hmm, yes…yes…I could see that…” he muttered and yet continued to walk with me in silence for a few paces. “Just in case…” He leaned forward so that he came into my view. “I’m going to escort you.”
“I don’t need an escort.”
“May I walk with you then? You might find me to be of some assistance…”
I felt a mixture of annoyance and thrill but didn’t show either in my response. “Do as you wish.”
“Thank you,” he replied in mock appreciation. “So…where are we going?”
“To deliver messages,” I replied hastily. I could feel in myself that the rush of words was meant to cloak the fact that I actually enjoyed him coming along but didn’t want him to know it.
I sensed him staring at me. “It’s settled then…you’ll deliver your messages and I’ll guard you along the way. And I won’t even charge you for acting as your guardian.”
My response was a haughty snicker.
I never heard his reply. The yank returned and I was shot into another part of my life.
Makeshift tents surrounded us now. Hundreds of them, I guessed, as a mist obscured the entirety of them. We stood beneath a section of contorted, dead trees, watching over the camp as the sun rose on the horizon.
Eran was facing me, inches away. “Why are you smiling?” he asked tenderly in German.
I found that my cheeks were lifted and giggled quietly so that the camp didn’t wake. “I didn’t know I was…”
“You enjoy my company, don’t you?” He didn’t seem to notice he was being conceited.
I snickered, mockingly. “That…is arrogant of you.”
“Maybe, but it is true. Isn’t it?”
My head turned away, appearing disinterested, not wanting him to know the truth. When I looked back his eyes had softened, filling with passion. “I enjoy your company…” he admitted and I felt my stomach tighten in exhilaration. From the reaction in my body, I knew that I’d waited to hear those words for so long and when they came I was both comforted and thrilled. His face stiffened then. “But there is something I must tell you. It may scare you a bit. But…it’s important that you know…”
I was completely at ease. Very little ever scared me.
“I have something to tell you too…” I confessed. Then I was the one who grew nervous, jittery about how Eran might respond to the secret I’d been keeping from him.
He dipped his head at the unexpectedness of my statement. “All right. You go first.”
I drew in a breath but then found it locked in my throat. The hair on the back of my neck came alive and the rest of my body began to shake.
“Friedricha?” he asked, restrained, and in the back of my mind, opposing the pain I was now in, I registered that he was referring to me by my given name in this lifetime.
Unable to answer, I closed my eyes against the panic rising in me and when I opened them the Kohler twins were standing before us. A third one with the same bright white hair and similar facial features stood beside them. He was smaller with more defined muscles, but held the same sneer. In the back of my mind, I recognized there had once been three of them.
“Friedricha,” the larger boy acknowledged me scornfully.
My body, clearly reacting to the Fallen Ones, suddenly began to refocus. The pulsating sound of their beating hearts reached my ears. Unwashed, their stink filled my nose. My eyes moved rapidly to account for their weaponry and those items around them that they could use as weapons.
Calm now, I felt my core relax until all my muscles were pliable again and my racing heart had calmed. Then my limbs loosened and I was able to slip off the cloak I wore.
Then, as if it were merely a reflex, I felt something emerging from my back, directly between my shoulder blades. My shoulders arched forward slightly in habit, allowing them room. While my tunic had torn apart in the back, I noticed the front remained, fluttering lightly in the breeze. Purely by thought, I flapped my appendages, feeling the urge to stretch them wide, and they expanded out nearly the length of my own height and then settled into a composed position and ready for use.
“This…” I said to Eran, “is what I was going to tell you.”
He didn’t seem the least bit taken aback.
“Funny,” he replied casually. “I was going to tell you the same thing…”
Then I watched as stark white wings appeared from behind him. While he had been composed when I exposed my secret, I could feel my astonishment taking hold as he revealed his secret.
“I never knew…” I heard myself say.
Eran responded without words. His expression, always confident, changed into an arrogant smirk.
The sight of it took my breath away.
“Kohlers,” Eran turned his attention to the twins. “It’s a bold move for you to return here. Your names and faces are on everyone’s mind. They’re intent on justice.”
“And as you can see,” I said, “there are hundreds of them.”
“They are peasants…” the boy replied with disdain. “They won’t be able to touch us…and they surely won’t be able to help you.”
Eran chuckled arrogantly. “We won’t need their help.”
The Kohler twins now had their wings out and had lifted off the ground. Eran and I met them in midair, taking a few tree branches with us. Amidst the snap of wood and hideous animalistic grunts by the twins, I was able to position myself against the girl while Eran took on the two boys.
What I noticed instantly was the lightning fast speed I had in responding to her movements. It made my body on earth feel sluggish, restrained in comparison. I deflected or avoided each of her advances as if I already knew where she would be moving. Regardless, the girl was quick. Only her endurance failed her. With her wings working hard, her breathing became labored within minutes.