CHAPTER TWO
To: Macy Lockhart <ihartmacy@mercury.net>
From: Jessa Gray <twinsdoitbetter@trueblue.com>
Subject: Advice for the day
Stop Obsessing. Seriously- I mean it. Jenn said to tell you that if we survive, we’ll stop back by your house to check on you after our yearly torture session (aka Getting dragged to the Gray Family Reunion kicking and screaming).
Love ya!
Jess (aka The hotter Gray sister)
I rolled my eyes. Jess was made of drama…everything she said or did was usually blown way out of proportion.
She and her sister, Jenn were identical- from the tips of their delicate noses to their size 6.5 feet. Very few people could tell them apart so they were definitely on an equal ‘hotness’ plane, although Jess always insisted that she was the beauty queen in the family. It made me laugh.
Suddenly, though, an image flashed through my mind that instantly stilled my smile. Green street signs, 34th and Elm, were being pelted with rain. My knees turned weak as I saw a black SUV barreling toward the intersection. And Jenn. She turned, her face frozen with surprise and fear. She scrambled backward, slipping in the rain and fell to the street- directly into the path of the SUV. I squeezed my eyes closed. And the vision stopped.
Oh my God. Jenn. Did I just have a premonition? What the hell was happening to me? I wasn’t even touching the stupid pendant and my thoughts were being invaded by…strangeness.
Something was definitely wrong with me. And every ounce of my being told me that it had something to do with the anonymous gift left on my porch. My heart was still pounding as I started clicking my mouse and within seconds, I was faced with hundreds of web pages devoted to bloodstones.
I clicked on one.
Bloodstone makes one more knowledgeable in ways of the world.
Hmm. As in seeing strange visions of the future? I kept reading.
Bloodstone is a hero’s stone and instills courage. Bloodstone enables one to see the benefits and patterns of change and to recognize the ‘turmoil prior to perfection’. Ancient Middle Eastern civilizations believed that wearing bloodstone could promote wisdom, protect from evil spirits and undo what had already been done. Bloodstone can help the wearer find what is lost.
I sat back in my chair. Interesting. It was quite a piece of jewelry. Too bad it was all superstition and ancient mystical folklore. But still.
Prior to the bloodstone’s entrance into my life, I had never had even one crazy vision. Now, it was like a floodgate had opened- I couldn’t stop them. And I couldn’t help but remember how the veins in the stone had throbbed wildly last night, glowing as if blood actually pulsed through them. It gave me shivers just thinking about it.
A bloodstone. Even the name sounded…ominous.
I glanced into the corner of my bedroom. It was still there, lying right where I had tossed it last night. It seemed perfectly harmless- there was no glowing, no throbbing veins. I sighed a long sigh and got up. There was no way I was going to be able to leave this be. I was just that compulsive.
Hunching over it, I poked it with my finger. Nothing happened. No strange visions, no throbbing stone. I chewed on my lip then took a big breath- and picked it up. Almost instantly, white-hot heat rushed into my fingertips from the stone itself, racing up my arm and spreading throughout my entire body, radiating from my shoulder. I couldn’t even breathe as vivid images assailed me.
A woman crying, dark eyes, swords, soldiers, blood…. the images broke apart and swirled together. I closed my eyes as the sensations became almost too much to bear, overwhelmed with waves of emotion too great to comprehend. I almost couldn’t stand it.
I forced my stiff fingers open and I dropped the bloodstone to the floor once again. It nestled quietly between my feet on the carpet as though it was a perfectly normal necklace. But it wasn’t. I didn’t know what exactly it was, but normal it was not.
My breathing came in ragged gasps and I tried to calm myself by taking cleansing breaths. Cleansing breath in, cleansing breath out. It didn’t work. Panic still overwhelmed me. What the hell was that? Apparently, it needed to be in contact with my skin in order to… do what it did, whatever that was. So, I carefully picked it up using a pair of clean underwear and hid it in my underwear drawer next to my cotton-candy colored bra.
But I couldn’t shake the dark eyes so easily. They were still haunting me from my dream. Deep and dark- almost black, they were the color of melted dark chocolate, surrounded by a fringe of thick lashes. The expression in them had been familiar, loving. I knew him. Who the heck was it? I rushed through every memory that I’ve ever had and came up empty.
And then a realization emerged out of nowhere, firmly planted front and center in my mind as if it was dropped there. I had dreamed about that stare before, off and on for years. The dark eyes of a stranger that I apparently knew, but couldn’t remember. Intriguing. And frustrating.
My sense of wonder was rudely interrupted by a loud buzz on my dresser. I got up to find a text message waiting for me- an annoying text message from a pale, blonde cheater.
Please, Macy. Can we go have coffee? I need to explain.
Oh My God. What did he not understand? I never wanted to see him again- except for school when I absolutely had to. He had thrown away two good years for an orange colored tramp. And she definitely was a tramp. She had the stamp on her back to prove it. I saw it on her back in gym one day when her shirt slid up.
Tramp stamp, fake boobs, overly-tanned skin…that whole mess was his to own- I was so done with it. Besides, I had other things to worry about now—like a pair of dark, brooding eyes and an insane necklace.
I typed back Leave me alone and resisted the urge to throw my phone at the wall.
What was it about relationships that made you feel so vulnerable? Oh, right. A relationship. In any relationship, you put yourself out there. You exposed all of your sensitive nerve endings and your heart and you just had to hope that you trusted the right person. Stupid me, I didn’t. But I wouldn’t make that same mistake twice.
I wasn’t going to dwell on that now, however, despite my own obsessive nature. I had a much bigger problem than Derek hidden in my underwear drawer. It was a mystery that wasn’t going to solve itself. But before I could think about it for one second longer, I needed sustenance. My stomach was loudly reminding me that I hadn’t eaten yet today.
After yanking a hairbrush through my long hair, I pulled it into a low ponytail and threw some clothes on. There was a tiny deli just a few minutes away and I could hear a toasted portabella sandwich calling my name. Grabbing my keys, I ducked out to the garage.
And froze.
A man with a shaved head and long black robes stared at me. His dark face was damp with sweat and thick black eye makeup lined his eyes. A subtle musky scent permeated the air like incense. He didn’t even look startled to see me- he just stared at me calmly, as though he had been waiting for me.
“All was lost, Charmian.”
His grave voice was stark, slicing through the garage with hissing precision. Just as I collected myself enough to scream, he was gone.
As in…disappeared. He didn’t walk past me to get into the house and there was no way that he exited through the garage door because it was still closed. I quickly walked a circle around my car. He was just gone.
Holy Mary Mother of God. Had I gone crazy ? Had this whole mess with Derek stressed me out so much that I had lost my mind?
I sat down on the step with a whoosh.
Should I call the police? And tell them what? That some man wearing makeup and strange long robes was in my house and then disappeared into thin air? And if I added the fact that some strange necklace was giving me visions, they would strap me to a gurney and send me to a place where lunch consisted of small orange pills.
What to do, what to do. I picked up my phone with shaking hands and dialed… but it went straight to Jessa’s voicemail. The Gray family reunion….I forgot. There was no use calling Jenn, then. She was there, too. I didn’t want to call my mother- she would rush home from running errands and then promptly call one of her psychiatrist friends.
As I was debating with myself, something rustled behind me, a strange whisper-like sound and I spun around.
Nothing.
The oddly dressed man wasn’t standing there, which was good…but there was also nothing else to explain the sound. And I knew, beyond any doubt, that it had been real. I scrambled up and looked behind every nook and cranny in the garage, kitchen and family room. Nothing.
It was official. I was crazy.
And about to get crazier.
I suddenly felt an inexplicable pull- the need to begin walking, as though I was being pulled by an invisible cord. I was suddenly overwhelmed with the same sensations that I had experienced when I held the bloodstone. I couldn’t resist it. I felt like some sort of freakish robot as my feet began moving on their own accord, one after the other; through the kitchen, up the stairs and finally stopping in front of my closed bedroom door.
As I stared at the wood grain, I knew beyond any doubt that I hadn’t left it closed. So, the burning question was…who had closed it?
My heart started pounding and I pushed the door open.
Nothing.
Not a thing was out of place. My bed was made and my room was neat, except for the shoes scattered on the floor. Most importantly, though, it was empty. I almost took a deep breath of relief.
But then the whispering began again. All around me… raspy whispering with incoherent, foreign words, getting louder and louder. The room seemed to spin and suddenly I was moving again, toward my dresser. My hand didn’t even feel attached to me as it reached out, pulling open a drawer.
The bloodstone glowed wildly from among my panties, the veins pulsating. I couldn’t help myself- I reached out my shaking fingers and wrapped them around the stone. It felt like I was holding a beating heart in my hand.
The whispering stopped.
“All will be lost, Charmian.”
I would recognize the scary man’s voice anywhere. Clutching the stone to my chest, I whirled around.
And screamed. Because that is what a normal girl does when she finds someone in her bedroom. And I’m normal. Damn it, I’m normal.
The man from my garage stood perched at the edge of my room, ominously out of place, like an overgrown vulture. His voluminous dark robes hung heavily around him and he stretched a gnarled, twisted hand toward me. As he moved, thick swirls of incense swirled around me and I froze.
Unbidden thoughts sprung into my head.
I was suddenly consumed with fear. Not for the obvious, sane reason- because a strange man was standing in my bedroom-but because it was rumored that high priests were actually cannibals.
Where did that come from? How the hell did I know that he was a high priest?
I wasn’t even in control of my own thoughts as unbidden memories that I didn’t even know I had rushed back to me, flooding my thoughts. Testing my sanity.
High priests were cannibals. They ate the flesh of those they considered wise, hoping that they would gain that wisdom through ingestion. I didn’t know how true my sudden strange thoughts were, but the second they sprung to mind, it was all I could think of.
A cannibal stood in front of me with sunken cheeks, razor thin lips and a shaved head. I shuddered and he smiled at my reaction, his thin lips stretching even thinner across his gaunt face.
His terrifying expression was startling and my heart ricocheted wildly against my chest like a drum. The thick black kohl lining his eyes was smeared, making him seem slightly deranged as it streaked in murky rivulets down his sweaty cheeks.
“Do not fear, Charmian. I am only here to help.”
Why did he keep calling me Charmian?
He reached his twisted hand out to me once again. An invitation to grasp his talon-like fingers. I took a shaky step backward. There was no way I was touching him. No. Way.
“Take it,” he insisted. “You must. You are the only one who can help.”
With a speed I wouldn’t have thought he possessed, he snatched my hand. And I dropped to my knees in front of him with the force of the visions that passed through me.
A woman was curled into a ball, weeping. With thin fingers, she frantically clutched at her chest, scratching at the skin, drawing blood. In my vision, she turned her head and stared into my eyes. Cleopatra.
I knew it just like I knew my heart was beating.
Vivid green paint swept across her eyelids and her plump lips were stained crimson. Don’t ask me how, but I knew that the stain was from henna and the green was malachite. She wore a short white shift and delicate leather sandals on her feet, the thin straps interwoven with golden strands and wrapping around her slender calves until they tied neatly behind her knees.
She rushed to me, her gleaming black hair as dark as a shadow.
“Charmian, they’re coming. I can’t bear it!”
She gestured through the open balcony doors to our left and then collapsed back into a heap, weeping inconsolably.
Gazing over the stone railing of the balcony wall, I stared into the harbor below us. Hundreds of ships were filling the glistening harbor. Rome. Rome had descended upon us.
How did I know that?
But I knew. Just as I knew that Rome had been closing in on Egypt for years, a suffocating, overwhelming presence that had creshendoed every day, a presence led by Gaius Julius Caesar. Otherwise called Octavian, with a bland smile and expressionless eyes. Perfectly polite and perfunctory, but seemingly inhuman and emotionless, the adopted son of Julius Caesar methodically worked to fell Cleopatra and acquire Egypt for his own. And suddenly, instead of asking myself how I knew any of this, all I could wonder was …How had I forgotten?
I turned from my stance at the balcony doors and caught my own image in Cleopatra’s gilded bronze mirror. I sucked in a ragged breath.
My own jade green eyes stared back at me, framed by my long, dark hair. Those things were the same, familiar. But my body was different. It was shorter, slighter, older. Exotically beautiful. Golden skin, ancient clothing. Henna tattoos delicately curled down my arms and thick ornate golden jewelry adorned my neck and wrists. My lips were plump and my skin was perfect- not a single blemish or freckle.
But it was me. I knew it as surely as I was breathing and the knowledge was dizzying.
“What is happening?” I whispered desperately.
As soon as I spoke, the visions snapped closed as though someone had slammed a book shut.
I was once again standing in front of the old priest.
Annen. His name is Annen.
“Annen,” I murmured.
He seemed pleased as he stared back, his obsidian eyes glinting.
“Ah, you remember, my lady.”
I gulped. He was right. I remembered. I knew him. I had known him centuries ago. Oh, Mary Mother of God. This couldn’t be happening. This is a dream. This is a dream. This is a dream.
But it wasn’t.
“Please,” I whispered. “Am I going crazy? How is this happening?”
“You’re not crazy,” he assured me. “Give it a moment. Trust me, you’ve been through this hundreds of times. Focus on your bloodstone. Everything will come back to you.”
He sat back patiently, his crooked fingers clasped in front of him as he waited and I clutched the cool stone in my fingers. The source of all of my recent problems somehow didn’t seem separate from me- it suddenly seemed a natural part of me. And I realized that it hadn’t just been given to me… it had just been returned to me. It had been mine all along.
Annen’s ancient face swirled together as the room began to spin around me and nausea boiled in my throat. My cheeks flushed as heat washed over me. It was almost too much sensation to bear. It literally felt as though every emotion ever felt by any other human being was coursing through me right this second. The sheer force of it threw my head back.
Fragmented images of people, places, colors and even scents assailed me and I gasped to breathe. Water, ships, horses, gold, statues, children…. So many things flew in front of my eyes in just a mere matter of minutes, puzzle pieces fitting together and then ripping apart to be replaced by new ones. It was maddening, dizzying, sickening…
And then, abruptly, it was over. I slumped limply forward, still on my knees. This couldn’t be happening. But. It. Was.
The magnitude of what I knew now was making me feel weak and shaky. But my mind was filled with knowledge…. Knowledge that hadn’t been there before. Knowledge that was irrefutable.
“You have remembered who you are?” Annen probed expectantly, his black eyes missing nothing as he crossed the room to me. His claw-like fingers were suddenly gripping my arm and I flinched, not from pain but because he made me uncomfortable. High priests had always made me uncomfortable.
I raised my head and nodded.
“Yes,” I whispered. “I know who I am.”
I lightly fingered the bird-shaped birthmark that hovered directly over my pulse-point. Why had I not wondered about it before? It marked me for being exactly what I was. I had possessed many names over the past hundreds of years; many faces, many bodies. But my soul has always stayed the same, as well as my fate.
I belonged to the ancient Order of the Moirae. As a Keeper, my sole mission in every life has been to protect and lead my charge, my Daedal, through the annals of time, gently guiding her into staying on the path laid out for her by the Fates.
Because every person in life has a predetermined destiny and unfortunately, there are those who have a more difficult journey in every life. We call them the Daedal.
A Daedal…a catalyst, a complication, a change. A Daedal changes the world in some significant way even though their very significance generally causes a tragic end to their lives. They are fated to be something great- something important, in every life. Because of that, I am what I am. A Keeper, marked as such by the phoenix birthmark.
And right now, I was Charmian; handmaiden, confidante and advisor to Queen Cleopatra VII, my Daedal.
I had been raised with the queen in ancient Alexandria, running and playing with her through the ornate halls of the stone palace as we grew up. I had served her, offered her my advice and became her closest friend. And I had died with her when we were both 39 years old. I could remember every painful detail with bone-jarring clarity, just as though it was yesterday.
I stared into the all-knowing eyes of the priest. He nodded, recognizing the realization he saw reflected in my own. The gravity of who I was settled down around me like a heavy cloak and the colors in the room started to run together.
And then I fainted.