His answer took me by surprise. “Did you ever get involved with someone else?”
He kept his back to me. “No.”
I couldn’t believe he wouldn’t date. “No?”
He turned and met my eyes directly. “I’m your Protector. Once you emerge, I’m here solely for you. I can’t let myself be distracted. If I don’t focus, you’ll be killed. My purpose is to protect the vessel. That’s the only reason I exist.”
His sudden intensity made my heart hammer in my ears. “That sucks.”
“Not at all.” He sat next to me on the sofa and smiled.
I returned his smile and leaned a little closer. “What do we do now?”
His gaze fell to my lips then returned to my eyes. He reached over, and for a moment, I thought he was going to pull me to him. Instead, he brushed my hair behind my shoulder. “I’ll teach you how to help the Hindered.”
“I don’t want to do that. It’s disturbing.”
“It’s not disturbing. It’s natural.”
“Natural?” I got up and began pacing. “What do you mean it’s natural? You’re like this minion who follows me around so that ghosts can’t shove my soul out of my body. You have no free will. You have to subject yourself to my
mood
? That’s what you said, isn’t it? That’s not natural.”
He looked so comfortable and confident, arms draped across the back of the sofa. “I have an inordinate amount of free will. I
choose
to be your Protector. I choose to let you lead. I choose to let you decide how to handle each particular lifetime.”
I stared at him openmouthed from across the coffee table. “How can a guy who can kick a bogeyman’s butt be such a wimp?”
“I’m anything but a wimp.” He leaned forward. “Let me show you. Let me in again, so that you can understand me better.”
“It hurts.”
He got up and crossed to me, taking my hands. “Lots of things hurt. You get used to the pain of accommodating another soul. Sometimes pain is good. It lets you know you’re alive. And the cool part? I can show you my memories.”
Maybe seeing his memories would trigger mine. “Why don’t I remember, Alden?”
He dropped my hands and shoved them in his pockets. “I don’t know.” He stared at the floor. “It’s probably related to your absence. Maybe being gone longer affects memory.” He met my gaze. “Please, Lenzi. Let me in again.”
I gnawed on my bottom lip, considering. “Can you show me things from past lives? Can you show me . . .
me
?”
“Absolutely.”
NINE
I
couldn’t believe I’d actually agreed to let Alden put his soul in my body again, but I was too curious to pass up the chance to see myself in another life. I sat on the sofa and nervously gestured him over.
He lowered himself next to me, close but not touching. “If you just relax and trust me, it won’t hurt too much.”
“I bet you say that to all the girls,” I joked in a feeble attempt to mask my fear. He blushed and looked away.
“Oh, my gosh, Alden. Did I embarrass you?” His blush darkened, and I laughed. “I did! I embarrassed you!”
He glanced at me, then stared at the arm of the sofa. “I’m just surprised, that’s all. I don’t expect you to find double entendres in everything. You’re funny. It’s new.”
New? It was hard to accept the fact that he had known me in other lifetimes.
“What? Was I some boring loser or something?”
“No. Oh, no. Never boring, just intense. You took your job very seriously. You took the rules seriously. You were the best Speaker on the planet. No one could beat your record. Very few Malevolent made it through you unresolved.”
“What does that mean?”
“Heaven and Hell really exist, Lenzi. As long as the soul is Earth-bound, it isn’t too late for redemption. There’s hope until the last second.”
My insides churned like they were being dissolved and sucked down a drain. “Don’t tell me I was in charge of saving souls. That’s
way
out of my league.”
Alden took my hand, and the calming thing began immediately. “No, no. You were the best at pointing souls in the right direction, that’s all. You were amazing.”
I pulled my hand away. Amazing. I had been amazing. And now I was just . . . funny.
“Show me. Show me what I was like.”
He stood and faced me. “I obey my master Speaker, to whom I am subordinate, because I have no will of my own under the natural law of subjugation and oppression.” He bowed low, chuckling.
“Okay. I’m the one who’s supposed to be funny. Cut that out. What do we do to accomplish this with as little pain as possible? Laughter is good. Pain isn’t.”
“Both are good,” he said. “You should stand up and put your arms around me.”
“You’re only making that up.”
He smiled. “Sort of. Contact really does help. Here, just take my hands.”
Maybe it wouldn’t be as bad this time because I knew what to expect. I placed my trembling hands in his. He squeezed my fingers, transmitting warmth through the contact.
“It’ll be okay. You get used to it.”
I closed my eyes. “Let’s get this over with.”
He enveloped both of my hands in his and pressed them to his chest. I could feel his heart beating.
Come on. Do it before I chicken out.
“Out,” he whispered.
I didn’t open my eyes; I was too frightened. But this time I didn’t scream as his soul poured into my body like scalding water. I controlled myself to the point that I only squeaked.
In a matter of seconds, the pain stopped. His heart still beat under my palms.
What happened? Why didn’t it work?
I opened my lids and stared up at his empty, hollow, silver-gray eyes.
“Alden?”
Right here.
I flinched. The voice was in my head.
Are you okay?
“Um. Yeah. It’s weird. It’s like I’m thinking in
your
voice.” My hands remained over his heart, the rhythm of life still beating in his chest. I dropped my hands, backed up several steps, and pointed at his body. “Alden, if you’re not there, are you dead?”
No. The autonomic nervous system still operates. Everything is intact. Only part of the soul is missing.
“Part of the soul?”
Yeah, I split my soul. A tendril remains behind to keep my body closed. Protectors are closed vessels and can’t be possessed by another spirit as long as part of the soul remains. Unlike Speakers, Protectors’ bodies can only accommodate one soul at a time.
It still freaked me out when he talked or communicated or whatever it would be called in this situation. “That makes no sense whatsoever.”
It will.
“So, will you just stand there forever like that?”
I can only do this where my body is safe. If I know I’m going to be gone for a while, I’m particularly careful. I usually leave my body sitting or lying down so that it doesn’t get knocked over or damaged. We’ll be here next to it the whole time, so it’s okay.
I sat down and stared at his empty body. Even lifeless, he was hot.
Thank you.
“Oh, great. You can hear what I’m thinking.”
No, I can only feel your soul respond to your emotions.
“Watch it, minion, or you’ll be banished from my kingdom.”
Yes, master.
I laughed. “Okay. What’s it like? Are we really sharing my body?”
I can’t feel anything at all in a tactile sense. No physical sensation whatsoever after the pain of entering. Because my soul isn’t complete, I don’t have enough power to control your body, but I can get some of your emotions, and I hear exactly what you hear. I also see through your eyes. I can’t access any of your memories, but I can give you mine. Are you ready?
“Are you in a hurry?”
Well, sort of. I don’t like leaving my body soulless for long. There’s a risk of discovery. It would be awkward if your mom came home or something. A Protector is not allowed to let his soulless body be discovered. It’s one of the rules.
There seemed to be a lot of rules, but that one made sense. “Okay, go for it.”
The transfer of memories was like a high-def slide show in my brain. I could hear and feel Alden’s memories as if they were my own, but I was limited to the memories he showed me. I could repeat and slow them down myself. It was like the images had been downloaded onto my hard drive and I was manipulating the data. I was flooded with images of me or, rather, Rose and Alden. When the rain started, I slowed everything down. Alden hadn’t lied. These were memories from the Great Storm of 1900.
“Hurry, Rose, we need to get out before the structure fails,” the Alden from the past shouted. He was perched in a dormer window, extending his free hand to her. “Rose, please.” He was just as beautiful in the memory as the lifeless Alden standing in front of me, and he looked pretty much the same except for the shorter hair and long sideburns. He was also older in the memory.
Rose yanked off her petticoat and waded through the ankledeep water to grasp Alden’s hand. It was like watching myself in an elaborate play. Her face looked just like mine, and she appeared to be about my age—younger than the Alden in the memory. Her hair was the same dark brown and her eyes were almost black, like mine. The similarity between us was striking, but she seemed different somehow. Dignified or something.
She crawled onto the writing desk under the window and then onto the ledge.
“Stay here. I’ll find a secure place,” he shouted in her ear. With both hands, Rose clung to the window frame as Alden climbed out onto the roof.
Alden’s voice pierced through the howls of the storm. “Here, Rose! Now!”
She clambered up the slate shingles as he pulled her to where he was balanced on the apex of the window dormer. A churning brew of brown water swirled around the house at the roofline. Wooden debris, mixed with the bodies of animals and humans, passed by as all around them people clung to parts of houses and buildings floating in the water. Their faces were twisted in agony as the storm swallowed their screams.
“We must get to the other side,” Alden yelled. He wrapped an arm around Rose’s waist and pulled her with him over the top of their two-story home to the gentler slope at the back of the house. Wedging himself into the valley of the roof where the porch met the bedroom, Alden tucked Rose in against him, protecting her from the debris hurtling through the air.
That was definitely Alden, but Rose was not me. We looked alike, but she seemed so foreign—the grace in her movements, her voice.
Rose asked Alden to find her in the future if something happened. Then they kissed. Really kissed. It was a passionate, desperate embrace like I’d only seen in movies.
It was odd watching their intimate moment. Awkward and wrong. Like I shouldn’t be seeing it. But I wanted to. I wanted to put myself in her place.
I realized, as I watched them, that my heart was pounding in my chest.
The memories stopped as if someone had pulled the power plug from the projector.
“What happened?” I whispered. “Why did you stop?”
Touch the body, please. It’s time to go back.
“I want to see more.”
Not now. Please let me out. Touch the body, or my exit will be unnecessarily painful.
I stood up and put my hands on his chest. This time I did scream. I’d forgotten to brace myself. Alden’s chest heaved under my palms.
Avoiding eye contact, he picked up my phone from the coffee table and punched buttons. “I need to get home. Here’s my number if you have any questions. I’ll feel the pull of your soul if you need protection.”
I couldn’t believe it. One minute he was playful and funny, the next he was all business. I was embarrassed and angry. I wasn’t quite sure why, but I felt used. How could he kiss me like that and just blow me off?
. . . But he hadn’t really kissed me. That was just a memory from a long time ago. He had kissed someone else. He had kissed Rose.
I opened the door for him without speaking, afraid of saying something stupid.
I was jealous. The problem was that the other woman was
me
.
He paused in the doorway and handed me my phone.
I shoved it into my back pocket. “I’m not cut out for this, Alden.”
He stared into my eyes for an uncomfortably long time. “The Intercessor Council won’t take no for an answer. Stop fighting who you are, Rose.”
TEN
T
he minute Alden left, the Hindered began calling out to me. I almost ran after him to beg him to stay, but then took a breath. I was fine before he came along. I’d be fine again. I would ignore the voices and act like nothing weird was happening. At least now I knew I didn’t have Dad’s schizophrenia.