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My mother was waiting for me in my room when I arrived. She waved me over and I took up the spot next to her on my bed. After a couple of false starts on my part, she told me to just ask.
“How long have you known I was her?” I asked.
“Since you were a baby. For the first year of your life, your name, as it was written on the birth certificate, was “Undecided Adams.” She laughed and my jaw dropped. “I insisted you be named Aleksandra, to honor my dead sister. But your father had lost his mother to vampires only a week before your birth and he had hoped to honor her by giving you her name. So to settle it once and for all, we asked you. Whenever we said “Aleksandra,” no matter what you were doing, you would stop and look at us. It was as if you knew it was your name. You weren’t as fond of Anastasia.”
“Now, Lexy had told me about her being reincarnated, about Tristan and the lives they’d led. I would come here and lay in her bed and she would tell me stories so romantic and wonderful that sometimes I went to sleep dreaming that I was the one doing all those things she’d spoken about. But I never believed them to be the truth until she let me meet him—”
“You met Tristan as a kid?”
She let out a soft laugh and nodded. “I did, and he was all the things she had described. Even at thirteen, I could see they were in love. I watched the way he would look at her, the ease with which she smiled when they conversed. I knew it had to be real, all of it. But I also saw how she suffered when he was gone, how her responsibilities as an heir kept her prisoner here, when she wanted nothing more than to run away with him. I would hear her crying from across the hall and go to lay with her so she wouldn’t feel lonely. When she died, it hurt me in a way that before or since has never hurt me, not even when your father died. But Tristan would come and visit, and we’d talk about her and that helped. He assured me that she would come back, and that when she did, he would bring her to me, even if I was a hundred years old.”
“I kept my own eye out, but I never suspected my own daughter until that day when you responded to her name. I had you tested for being a conjurer in secret, and when the result was positive, I knew in my heart that it was you come back to life. As I’ve told you, being a conjurer was Lexy’s secret as well. I told your father about the results and he agreed to run away from Brighton with me to keep you safe. Lexy had almost been discovered a number of times and we decided we couldn’t risk it. Unfortunately, we had both been raised in Brighton, so we didn’t know the first thing about surviving outside of it. They came upon us at a campground in Virginia, your father died buying us time to escape.”
That information shocked me. “You’ve never told me how he passed.”
“I guess it’s always been too painful, but immediately afterwards, I had your named changed to Anastasia. It was also when I decided that I needed to take our survival more seriously. I poured all of my efforts into ensuring our safety, learning as I went. Being on the other side of it now, I can see that I was too rough with you sometimes. But I was determined that your father’s sacrifice not be in vain, and determined not to be the reason your series of lives ended. If you grew up and decided that you wanted to be with Tristan, then I wanted you to have that opportunity. If not, then I wanted you to be educated enough to support yourself, with the skills to survive in a world filled with vampires.”
“Then you’re really okay with all of it? Tristan being a vampire? Me running away from being an heir? Giving birth to your sister? I mean that weirds me out, and I’m her.”
She gave me an awkward grin, and scratched the side of her neck uncomfortably. “To be honest, there have been times when it’s all felt incredibly strange, and thank goodness I had no idea while I was having you, that would have totally freaked me out. Then, you really only look like her. Your personalities are totally different. She had to be the life of the party while you’ve always been very shy. She had a quick temper, while you tend to hold things inside for as long as you can. You are the eternal optimist— you inherited that from your father. Maybe you will change some when you get the memories back, though Lexy didn’t seem to, but for now, you are still the Ana I raised. As for Tristan and your running away; if you feel the things for him my sister did, and I suspect you do, then I am perfectly okay with it. “One,” because I know he would do anything to make you happy; and “two,” because I know that he could protect you out there. There’s really nothing more a mother could want for her child than to be happy and safe.”
I reached over and gave her a hug. Part of me wanted to tell her about our fight last night, but I didn’t want to ruin her image of Tristan. She didn’t need to know the subject of that terrible memory either. I needed to protect her image of both of them, for both our sakes. The thought of him still made my heart beat faster, and I needed her to be okay with me being gone if by some miracle we were able to work things out. I didn’t know what reason she’d been given for my spending the night, but I was grateful to find damage control unnecessary.
Still, the message Dr. Robert’s mother-in-law gave me about Tristan’s secret, and how he’d supposedly shown me what it was, weighed heavily on my mind. Knowing my mother approved of him had strengthened my resolve to make us work. This terrible secret and this supposed “path” were the only things standing in our way. So, the moment she left to continue the prep work for the party, I was out the front door, rounding the opposite side of the mansion on my way to that cabin.
The sun was bright overhead by the time I reached the lake. After struggling for a time, and acquiring a nasty splinter in the process, I was able to get the boat into the water. It took even longer to get the hang of rowing, and I came to appreciate fully Tristan’s strength, when I found myself thoroughly exhausted after only making it half way across the lake. I pushed on despite the pain in my arms.
Reaching the other side, I tied the boat to the pole as I had seen Tristan do, and set off through the shallow wood to Tristan’s cabin.
“Does anyone in this town actually go to school,” came Aiden’s raspy voice. I couldn’t help but compare it to the rock and roll ballads my mother use to listen to years ago. But looking over at that smile that never truly reassured you of your safety, I felt pretty confident I wouldn’t be hearing any ballads from him anytime soon. “London’s cutting today, too,” he said. “Gotta help Ana with something…” he followed in an irritated mocking of London’s voice.
I wondered if she was working on fixing whatever “bad thing” was keeping us apart too. Tristan had said something to her, something about not failing me too. A streak of fear shot through me. Could they be working together somehow? To keep me in the dark about whatever Tristan was trying to do?
“Oh, I was just checking to see if Tristan was here,” I lied.
“He’s not,” Aiden replied, putting his weight against a tree. “If he was, London and I would be outta here by now. Her mother’s getting suspicious, I think.”
“Oh, well thank you for bringing me back,” I said. It was the only possible explanation.
He shrugged.
I decided just to go for it. “Hey, um, you wouldn’t happen to know what Tristan’s not telling me, would you? I know London saw it in his mind—“
“No offense, but I haven’t cared enough to ask. I like you, what you’ve done for him, and the example it’s been for us, but I think you two are deluding yourselves. All that crap about souls and heaven is for the birds. If I were him, I would just turn you and be done with it.” He flashed me that grin again. “If hell exists, at least you won’t be lonely.”
“We’ve tried that,” I said in a small voice. That option terrified me and I couldn’t imagine how I’d been brave enough to force him to try. “It didn’t work.”
He shrugged again. “So try again. It’s not like yo
u ever stay dead.”
“Is that what you’re going to do to London?” I asked, suddenly very much afraid for her.
“We’ve talked about it. Nothing set in stone. Either way, we’re leaving tonight. Tristan or no Tristan. Knowing no one’s here protecting you will definitely bring him back.” There was a smug look on his face as he said that.
“Well, can I look around inside the cabin before he comes back?”
His eyes became suspicious. “Why?”
I sighed. “You know why.”
He laughed. “Yeah I do. But I wanna hear you say it.”
“Fine, I’m trying to figure out what he’s keeping from me. I know it’s something big.”
“No, no. Say, ‘I, a member of the most sickeningly perfect couple in the history of the freaking world, am today deciding to sneak behind Tristan’s back.’”
I groaned and said the words. He gave me a satisfied smile and led me up to the cabin. He pushed open the door and then lit the lanterns. Because of the lack of windows, the inside looked the same in the day as it had at night. I stared up at the previous versions of myself. Sometimes I had been really pretty, others, not so much. Not that Tristan had cared. That thought melted some of the frost around my heart.
Still, I had no idea what I was looking for. Aiden took up a seat on the floor and followed me around with his eyes. After an hour of looking, memorizing the locations of each photograph, I wasn’t any closer to figuring this thing out. I looked for patterns, discreet images in the backgrounds, messages written on the back. No luck.
I sat down next to Aiden and slammed my fist into the floor in frustration.
He laughed. “Don’t hurt yourself.”
“I just don’t understand what I could be missing,” I said.
He shrugged yet again. If he weren’t capable of killing me without any real effort, I might have hit him too.
“Is that your answer for everything?”
Another shrug.
He stood up and took a closer look. “What I don’t understand,” he started, “is if he’s so terribly in love with you, then why doesn’t he have any pictures of you when you’re older? Most girls are still attractive in their thirties and forties. Definitely, this one.”
I jumped to my feet. Aiden was on to something. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was nothing superficial about Tristan’s feelings for me. His great desire was that I see heaven for goodness sakes. So why weren’t there any pictures of me as an older woman? I was always just a teenager. I thought back to what he’d told me. Okay, so I knew I died of some heart thing at seventeen, the first time we met. After that, who knows how I died. I presumed I’d made it to old age, so why no photos?
Unless I was presuming too much. What if…I didn’t? What if I never did? Fear swelled up inside of me. Was I going to die young? Is that why we always ran off, because we didn’t have time to wait? Why the time was spent in such a grand fashion? Were we trying to fit a lifetime of thrills into a few months? It made perfect sense. In the first dream, Tristan asked me if it was worth it to have forever. He was asking if being together forever was worth it if we could only have it a few months at a time. And it would explain why I would be so happy to go home to my family in the second memory. It was about more than just me missing them. I wanted to be in their company when the time came. Oh…God.
The thought seemed to strike Aiden at the same time. “Ana, I don’t think—
I ran. I didn’t need or want to hear the rest.