Chapter 52

52

Farryn

Pain struck my skull as I groaned and turned away from the light filtering in through the curtains. Even my eyeballs ached, so badly, I wished I could’ve popped them out for a quick massage.

Turning over in bed, I found a shadowed figure in the corner of the room, and on a sharp inhale, I jolted upright and kicked myself back toward the headboard, which sent a jagged pain up into my nose. I flinched and moaned at the agonizing ache pulsing in my sinuses.

The figure leaned forward into the faint light streaming through the curtain, illuminating clasped hands as he rested his elbows on his thighs, and finally, the light hit his face.

My shoulders eased only a little at the realization it was him. “Mister Van Croix. What are you doing in my room?”

Instead of answering, he stared back at me, the intensity of his expression prompting me to think back to the night before.

Flashes of memory created a humiliating montage inside my head. One set to the tune of absolute mortification. Vague as it was, a grainy recollection of me asking him to massage my foot while I proceeded to place said foot against his crotch and wriggle my toes sent bullets of horror through me. Not even a hole in the center of the earth would be far enough for me to crawl away. Cheeks burning hot, I sank against the pillows. “Oh, God. I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Are you hungry?”

“No. I can’t eat anything right now.” Eyes clamped shut to avoid his gaze, I forced myself to ask the question chewing at my conscience. “Listen … did I …. I mean … we--”

“No.”

“Great.” The quickness of his response left me wondering if he was relieved about that, himself. “Good to know.”

“Were you able to retrieve the information you were looking for?”

“Pardon?”

“From the singer at the Harvest Ball.”

The singer. Alicia. Of course, I remembered talking to her, but as if the sound had been stripped from my thoughts, I couldn’t recall our conversation to save my life. “I don’t remember much?”

“Perhaps it’ll come back to you.”

“Right.” An ache throbbed at the side of my skull, and I rubbed my palm into it. Ache. Head. A visual of a head sliding off shoulders onto the floor slipped behind my eyes, for reasons I couldn’t imagine. “Hey, funny question …. Did you … kill someone?”

“I don’t remember much of last night, either.” As usual, he stared back at me, but something in his eye seemed less scrutinizing. More curious. “Tell me, what is the mark on your arm?”

Instinct had me lowering my arm to shield it away. “A birthmark.”

“Strange that it bears a striking resemblance to the Pentacrux symbol that you’ve prattled on about for weeks now.”

“And?”

The way he studied me from where he sat across the room had me feeling vulnerable for some reason. Exposed. The austerity in his gaze reminded me of a rabbit staring into the eyes, or eye, of a panther. “Such an oddity, it seems you’d have shown it to me. Perhaps it would’ve lent some insight into why you were inquiring about the Pentacrux.”

“Yeah, well. I guess I didn’t think you’d take it seriously.”

“You told me a while back that you felt a sense of familiarity around me.”

“At times.”

“Are you aware of the symbology cloaked within that mark?”

“What? The mark itself? I know it’s Pentacrux.” Duh.

Eye on me, he pushed up from his chair, his palm outstretched toward me, and the way he flicked his fingers had my internal alarms going off.

Hesitant, I rested my arm in his awaiting palm. As he ran his finger over the birthmark, something on my skin glowed, revealing tiny, silver symbols, like the tattoos on his chest. What the …. On a choked breath, I recoiled my arm and shook it, as if the glowy things would fall off. “What was that? What did you just do to me?”

“I didn’t just do anything.”

“Then, what was that on my arm?”

“A sigil. Mine, to be exact.”

“Yours? What does that mean?”

“The book you’ve been reading,” he went on, the deep rich sound of his voice a distraction to my thoughts. “You’ve mentioned similarities to your own life.”

“Yes. Oddly enough.”

Clasping his hands behind his back, he paced at the end of the bed. “Do you remember me telling you about the es’ra?”

“Things here that echo those from my life?”

“Yes.” He came to a stop, gaze on mine. “The similarities you’re experiencing are echoes of past life.”

“Oh, yeah? What are you, a fortune teller in your spare time?”

His face remained humorless. Annoyingly unreadable. “What does an educated person like yourself think of reincarnation?”

An ungracious snort escaped me. “Considering I jumped off a building and landed in an alternate realm, I guess I’d have to be pretty open to anything.”

With an agreeable nod, he resumed his pacing. “And so, what if I told you that the reason you bear a striking resemblance to Lustina is because you are Lustina.”

He didn’t smile.

Didn’t flinch, or choke on his own words, as I would’ve expected. Absolutely no indication that he was joking.

In the lingering dead silence between us, I shifted on the bed. “So … when I said that I was open to anything, I didn’t actually mean anything. I meant impossibly possible.”

At his unyielding stare, I cleared my throat.

“You’re trying to tell me that I’m some centuries old girl trapped in a twenty-something body?”

“Reborn.”

“Uh-huh. And you know this … because …?”

“You asked me why your memories haven’t faded here. A human’s memory only fades when their earthly life is over. Yours isn’t over.”

Mouth slack, I sat quiet.

“Come with me.” He rounded the bed, and reached out a hand for me.

Hesitant, I allowed him to help me off the bed, and when he took my hand in his, that warm vibration heated beneath my skin, just as it had the night before.

Through the hallways, he led me down an open corridor, with arched windows whose upper halves were stained glass, their lower halves open to the cool air that breezed through my gown. The Cloisters, if my memory was correct, predominantly from an earlier century, where monks would go for meditation and exercise.

The path ended at a door, which he opened with a key retrieved from his pocket. From a nearby bracket, he grabbed one of the lamps hanging there, and pressed a thumb latch to open its glass chimney. Dangling from a notch in the stone was some kind of antique brass flint striker that sent a spark across the wick, as he lit it.

So common a practice, and yet, an oddly romantic gesture. The lantern lit up the stone walls, as he held it up in front of him, the keys clanking against the bail. The stairwell curved into darkness above and below, where we stood on a landing. He took my hand once more, guiding me downward, to the bottom, where there stood a second arched, wooden door.

Keys still in hand, he unlocked it, but paused, as if hesitating to open it.

“What is it?” I asked, curious of his sudden apprehension.

“I’ve not been inside the room in a very long time. No one has.”

“What’s inside?”

The tired, old wood creaked as he pushed the door open, and when he lifted the lantern, I stared, wide-eyed, into the small circular room within.

Across from me was a window overlooking the sea, and the stretch of room between was filled with easels and pallets, and paintings of all sizes.

All of them of a girl with dark hair, pale skin, and flecks of color in her eyes.

As if looking at portraits of myself.

Perhaps the creepiest thing I’d ever seen in my life.

Standing in the middle of the room, I gasped and turned to find hundreds of portraits, decorated in cobwebs and dust. Some held a sensual nature--paintings of curves and breasts, their shape not unlike my own. Others were very dark, with morbid undertones of death and decay--a woman submerged in what appeared to be the deep of the ocean, her white dress flowing around her.

“You asked how I knew Lustina was reborn.” He lifted a portrait from the floor that showed her arm with the same marking as the one on my arm. “She’d been branded by the same mark. By the hatred of those who feared her.”

As he held the painting, I ran my finger over the symbol, where the thick strokes of the brush had dried in rough texture.

“This is Lustina?”

“Yes.”

“And you are the baron in the story?”

Unpatched eye watching me, he ignored my question. “I understand how this may be inconceivable to you.”

A nervous chuckle escaped me, and I shook my head. “This is beyond inconceivable, Mister Van Croix. This is in the realm of padded rooms and straitjackets.” Another scan of the room solidified that thought. The obsession was clear and terrifying. “Why are you only showing this now? Surely, you would’ve recognized the resemblance when I first arrived.”

“It’s a long story.”

“I’ve got time.”

His cheek twitched as if to smile, while he lowered the portrait back to the floor. ?“I knew the moment you came into being. Everything around me shook with a thunderous power, and there was an intense and indescribable ache in my chest. Not of pain, but longing. I was trapped here, for as long as it took to earn my redemption for the retaliation I took against the Pentacrux. I drowned my sorrow in these paintings, desperate to remember every detail of your face. Yet, I was determined to return to you. I sought out Virgil. The one I intended to kill last night.”

Head still in a fog, I couldn’t recall him talking about Virgil, but I did vaguely recall the conversation of murdering someone.

Very vaguely.

“I feared the Pentacrux would find you and take you away from me again. So, I made a deal with the Fallen to send me back.”

“And so, what was this deal?” I asked.

“A Faustian bargain. I would join the Fallen in their cause upon my return to Nightshade.”

“You didn’t return.”

“I couldn’t.” Jaw shifting, his gaze trailed over me, a wistful longing burning in his eye. “Not when I saw you. Heard your voice. Recognized your scent. I knew you’d returned to me. I watched you relentlessly. Waiting for the day you were old enough to steal away.”

The punch of his words struck me in the chest, and I let out a small cough of shock. “You planned to kidnap me? From my parents?”

“Yes.” His words were as unapologetic and cold as the thought he’d just planted in my head.

“And at what age did you consider me old enough?”

“I’ll be honest, Lustina. Age was inconsequential to me. I did not intend to corrupt you as a child, but when you were old enough to desire a man, I would have surely obliged.”

Jesus. The age I desired a man? That was probably fourteen years old, and I couldn’t have imagined myself in the bed of this one at such a young age. That would’ve been like a lion ravaging a kitten. “Farryn.” At his confused expression, I said, “You called me Lustina.”

“You are the same person, regardless of name.”

“We’re not, though. I grew up in a different time, different circumstances.” Running a hand through my hair, I urged my brain to attempt to make sense of everything he’d said. It refused. “I’m trying not to look at you as a complete nutjob, but you’re making that harder, the more you talk. I don’t honestly believe what you’re telling me.”

“In time, you will.”

“No. There is no in time. I’ve heard what happens to those who stay here too long. I can’t stay here, Jericho. I have to return.”

“That’s not possible. I have crossed the endless void of time and space, over the centuries I’ve waited, with a yearning to see your face once more. If you think that I could just let you go now, when fate has gifted me the impossible, then you’ve not yet met the depths of my obsession. It has no bounds where you’re concerned, Farryn. I would fight all the evils of hell for you, but I do not possess the strength to set you free. I won’t.”

No escape?

No escape?

Adrenaline and panic coursed through my veins, and as subtly as I could muster, I glanced toward the door beyond him, wondering if I could possibly outrun him.

“You can’t,” he said, tipping his head. “Hunting you would be no more a challenge than plucking an already-captured fly from a spider’s web. And I don’t particularly want to resort to locking you away.”

“Then, you’ll let me go.”

“I didn’t say that.” The corner of his lips curved upward, as he slid a hand into his pocket and pulled out the coin I’d seen him toy with on a few occasions. “I’d like to make a wager with you.”

“I don’t like wagers.”

“You came here for a reason. Searching for your father. I’ll set Cicatrix out to search for him. If he’s here, the birds will find him. In the meantime, you will stay.”

“A flock of birds to look for my father?”

He gave an insouciant shrug. “They’re exceptional.”

“And if I don’t stay?”

“That’s not a choice.”

An uneasy feeling gurgled in my stomach, but I’d watched enough crime shows with Aunt Nelle to know better than to show my fear. “You never answered my question about why you didn’t recognize me.”

“You’re very astute. No, I didn’t finish the story, did I? When Virgil discovered who it was that had occupied my time, he sought you out.”

“You came for me.”

“Always. I was prepared to destroy anything that got in my way. So Virgil came for you himself. Convinced your own father to drown you, in order to punish me. I nearly killed your father.”

“What stopped you?”

“I couldn’t risk the Sentinels finding me. I used to hear them frequently as a child, but the night I took revenge on the Pentacrux, they silenced and banished me to Nightshade. When I saw your father holding you beneath the water, I could have torn him apart as easily as paper shredding in my hands. Perhaps it was the mere thought which condemned me, because they showed up, anyway. They offered me a choice: to watch you die, or to forget you eternally.”

“You …. You were there that day?” Cold tendrils of disbelief crawled over the back of my neck. “No. I don’t know how you know about that day, but I don’t believe any of this.”

“The moment I made my choice, the world set into motion again, and the arrow Virgil had intended for you struck my eye instead. When I awoke, I had returned to Nightshade as Virgil’s prisoner. My memories of you had faded to nothing but dreams.”

Hand to my stomach, I felt the cold nausea of shock stirring in my gut. “I don’t feel so good right now.”

Still, he kept on, in spite of the distress that had to have been written all over my face. “The mark on your arm is embedded with a sigil I placed there long ago, so that, should I ever see you again, I would know you. I would remember. My soul would recognize yours. I noticed it last night when I brought you home. And I remembered everything. Every moment. As if they’d been perfectly preserved.”

“You remembered Lustina. Not me.”

Arms crossed, he rested his shoulder against the doorframe, and for a moment, he quietly watched me, expression swirling with contemplation. “I remembered the days it would rain, and you would sit under your father’s desk and read. You enjoyed the fairytales with happy endings most. I remembered the night your mother died. You wrote her a letter that you placed into a bottle and threw out to sea in hopes she’d find it.”

“You …. How could you know that?”

“I watched every moment of your life, up until my banishment,” he answered shamelessly. “And when I couldn’t watch you any longer, Cicatrix did. For a number of years, he relayed his observations back to me.” The smile on his face faded for something more sobering. “Unfortunately, I no longer remembered you. And after a while, he stopped sharing his stories of you with me.”

“This can’t be real. It can’t be. I’m not who you think I am. Whoever Lustina was to you … this magnificent girl you loved … I’m not her. I’m an ordinary girl with a shit ton of baggage and long stretches of really bad hair days.”

“You are anything but ordinary, Miss Ravenshaw.” The appreciation that shimmered in his eye felt foreign, like it wasn’t for me. “As you’re not feeling well, I’ll arrange to have dinner brought to your room. In the meantime, you agree. To stay.”

“Only while you search for my father.”

“You have my word.”

“And how do I know you won’t prolong the search, just to keep me here?”

“You don’t. And I am conniving enough to do just that. But at the very least, I would want you in the company of your father, who insisted that I find you, incidentally.” Lips curved to a smile, he winked. “I’m sure I’ll have his blessings.”

“For kidnapping me? I doubt it.”

“It’s all a matter of perception.” Still holding the coin from before, he rolled it over his knuckles. “This coin will offer you safe passage back to the earthly realm. Once your father is found.”

All at once, the coin became my sole focus, and I watched with pointed interest as he taunted me with it. “I thought the only way back was a fallen angel.”

“Fallen angels are untrustworthy, at best. Many offer to return human souls, only to steal them for themselves.” He held up the coin, twisting it in front of me. “This coin, though, comes with no risk of that. It offers safe passage back to your old life, as it was.”

“How?”

“The mechanics of how go beyond rules and laws. It’s what makes this coin, the opportunity, rare and hard to come by, Miss Ravenshaw. Certainly not one I’d offer up to just anyone.”

“So, what do you want in return? My soul?”

“We’ll start with a drink. This evening. You will join me in my office.”

I narrowed my eyes on him. “If you think you’re going to try to seduce me into staying, Mister Van Croix, you don’t know me, at all, I’m afraid.”

“If you think I have to try, I’m afraid you don’t know me, either, Miss Ravenshaw. My office. Eight-sharp.”

* * *

Night fell, as I paced my room, eyes on the clock. After all, what would happen if I didn’t show up? What would he do, send Anya after me?

I’d spent all afternoon desperately trying to remember the conversation that I’d had with Alicia at the party the night before, but whatever drug I’d been given had wiped out bits and pieces of the event, from the point I accepted that drink.

While conveniently leaving the most humiliating memories, of course.

At that point, it must’ve hit my system like a bullet, spreading its poison to every corner of my brain. I couldn’t remember what I’d done, how I’d gotten home, or how I’d gotten to bed. A thick, black cloud loomed inside my memories, and I hoped it’d clear before the end of the night. I hoped I’d remember whether, or not, she’d given me a name to pursue.

A knock at my door steeled my nerves, and I swung my attention in that direction. Trying to think of what excuse I could come up with, to avoid the meeting he’d demanded. It wasn’t a matter of my feelings toward Van Croix. If forced to confess it, the truth was, I found him incredibly attractive.

But I refused to be held captive against my will. And I would not be seduced by a man deranged enough to think I was his dead soulmate reincarnated.

“Miss Ravenshaw, may I come in?”

Although slightly relieved to hear Anya’s voice, I kept my guard up. She was, after all, loyal to the man.?I swung the door open, and without invitation, she entered my room, as usual. “Look, if you’ve come here to tell me to let him seduce me, you might as well leave now.”

“Of course not, dear. On the contrary. I think you should stay far away from Master Van Croix.”

Knocked silly by her words, I double blinked. “Wait. What?”

“I’ve not known him to be smitten with someone before, and quite frankly, I find this all unsettling.”

“Unsettling?”

“His behaviors are not normal. They are erratic and unstable. Master Van Croix is a very austere man, and to see him smiling is just …. Well, it’s unnatural.”

Jesus. The guy really was the moody, broody type. “What made him smile?”

“He asked me what you’ve had for breakfast each morning while you’ve been here. And how you like your coffee.” Flailing her hands, she paced. “This isn’t right. He is not one to take such interest in a woman, and I’ll admit, I’m a little worried for you.”

Had she seen the room with all the portraits, she’d have probably had a stroke. “He thinks I’m someone that I’m not.”

“The woman. From his dreams.”

“I guess. Don’t get me wrong, she sounds amazing, but I’m a college student from Chicago. The most impressive thing I’ve done is raise a cat and three plants without killing them.”

“Obsessions are dangerous, and men are not to be trusted, Miss Ravenshaw. Their affection is fleeting, at best.”

“You were married before?”

Her brow flickered, gaze diverting from mine. “Well, I was … I’m sure of it. But I … it’s strange. I vaguely remember.” Her expression sharpened once more as she rolled her shoulders back. “Which is my point. They don’t stay long.”

“You can’t remember him, at all?”

“No, I can’t--” Frowning, she stared off for a moment, as if deep in thought.

“Do you … remember Aurelia?”

“Aurelia? Oh, are you still angry about that? I told you, miss, there was no Aurelia.”

“As I understand, Aurelia was your daughter.”

“I never had a daughter.” Again, as before, she seemed thoughtful, concentrating.

The book.

The picture of Aurelia.

I dashed for the book still tucked beneath my pillow and opened it to the picture of Aurelia at the beginning, pointing to her for Anya.

She tipped her nose up and squinted as she stared down at the image. Her face seemed to ashen, her eyes brimming with a look of shock. “Oh, my,” she said in a worried tone.

“Do you remember now?”

Her eyes shined with tears that she blinked away. She stepped past me and sat down on the edge of the bed, her hands gathered in her lap. Fidgeting. Anya never fidgeted. “She had gotten pregnant and refused to marry the man. We would’ve been ruined. I demanded she take savin and pennyroyal. We tightened the girdle on her dresses. It effectively terminated the pregnancy.”

My thoughts drifted back to the dream I’d had where Anya and the others ravaged Aurelia. Perhaps some morbid echo of past events.

Lips pressed to a hard line, she lowered her gaze. “Had I known I’d lose her, I would’ve kept the baby.” Wearing a look of distress, she stared past me, brows flickering as more memories must’ve come to light. “We sent her away to the convent afterward, and as I understand, she had gotten tangled up with yet another man. A priest, of all things. Once again, she was pregnant. Not long after, I received word that she and another had hung themselves in the bell tower there.”

“She didn’t hang herself. She was murdered.” The words haphazardly spilled from my mouth, and I sat slack-jawed for a moment. Where had I learned that? How would I have possibly known such a thing?

Thoroughly disturbed, I flipped the pages for the dogeared one, where I’d left off. Skimming through the text, I frowned, then thumbed back through chapters I’d read.

“Are you looking for something?” she asked beside me.

“I know … I read it somewhere. I could’ve sworn.”

“Read it?”

Ignoring her, I reached the beginning of the book, then skipped forward, retracing the pages I’d already thumbed through, then past the dog-eared page, to the next chapter. The next. Beyond what I had read.

It was in chapter thirty-nine that I found what I was looking for. When Lustina had found Aurelia and Marie hanging from the bell yoke. The bell tower scene.

I’d never gotten to that part of the book. Yet, I remembered it vividly in my head. The deathly shade of their skin. The clang of the bell as Maria’s cross struck its surface. As if I’d seen it with my own eyes.

A disturbing sensation crept over me. The dream. The nuns who’d been buried in the wall.

Echoes.

“Oh, God. What if he’s right?”

“Who?”

“Anya, I need to talk to Mister Van Croix.”

“Then, you do intend to meet with him this evening?”

“I have to.”

“A word of advice, miss. Be cautious if he takes you up to that bell tower. Not only is it unsafe, particularly when there’s lightning, but there are rumors amongst the staff that it’s where he prefers to deflower his conquests.”

“Well, lucky for me, that ship has sailed.” It’d been a while since I’d lost my virginity. My freshman year, to be exact, and unfortunately, due to my school load, he was my last sexual partner. So, for all intents and purposes, I might as well have been a virgin.

Except that I had absolutely no intentions of sleeping with Van Croix. I refused to let him try to win me over with sex and charm.

The man was dangerous, if he was even a man, at all, and, from the sounds of it, exceptionally obsessive over Lustina.

I needed answers, though. Some things in my head weren’t making sense.

“When you say that you spoke to Aurelia …” Hands rubbing together, Anya seemed nervous. “Did she happen to remember me, at all?”

“Yes.” With a slight smile, I rested my hand over hers. “She did.”

“I wish I could have seen her one more time. So many things I would have said.”

“From what I gathered, she loved you very much. She hoped to return to you.”

On a wistful sigh, Anya gave a sad smile. “Bit late for that now, I’m afraid. Perhaps one day, the two of us will find redemption, and I, too, will see her again.”

“I hope so, too.”

“In the meantime, I’ll inform Master Van Croix that you’re on your way up to his office.”

I had an hour before eight. Just enough time to finish reading that book.