A History of Lies
Three more knocks. Loud. Urgent.
The High Council? The welfare worker?
Can I sneak Veronica out one of the other doors or a window and flee to safety?
For three years, we’ve lived here in quiet. No more trouble than the occasional nosey neighbor lecturing me to relax as a mother instead of being so anxious and overprotective. Now, in the span of less than two days, literally since the only moment I’ve taken my eyes off Veronica, everything has changed, and it will never be as it was before.
Is this how our lives will be from now on? Constant fear? And from so many directions?
Another three knocks, harder than before.
“Maeve!” Mr. Casey’s voice. “Open up! It’s just me!”
Relief washes over me. I don’t have many people I can trust, but he’s one of them. I’ll miss him if we have to go on the run.
I quickly unlatch the door and find Mr. Casey standing there, hanging onto the handrail for dear life.
“I came to. . .warn you.” He wheezes, trying to catch his breath. ”I came to warn you,” he chokes out. “Don’t let. . .Veronica. . .play outside. Jack and Betty across the street. . .spotted wolves in the. . .in the neighborhood. I’ll call . . .the Animal Control Officer in the. . .morning.”
Wolves. The word sends a shiver down my spine, a chilling reminder of Veronica’s newfound connection to these wild creatures. I nod, waiting to speak so he can hear me over his own loud gulps of air.
“Thank you, Mr. Casey. I’ll make sure she stays inside.
“You, too, Maeve. You stay inside, too.”
“I’ll be careful. I promise.” Normally, I might invite Mr. Casey in for cake, but it would be hard to explain the dirty dishes on the table—an obvious sign of recent company. “You didn’t have to run all the way over here. You could’ve called.”
“Your. . .your line was busy. I figured you were talking to Baby Girl’s papa or something, so I thought it would be faster. . .to come straight over.”
My line was busy? No one’s been on the phone. Certainly not Veronica—the phone’s been within sight of the kitchen. But maybe it’s off the hook.
He shifts uncomfortably, looking past me through the door towards the hallway to Veronica’s bedroom. His breathing evens out. “And, uh, Linda heard some gossip at the grocery store this morning,” he continues in a hushed tone. “Baby Girl was right, not just about that doctor but— That nurse from the hospital, her husband. . .with her sister. Can you believe that?”
My eyes widen at the news, but it feels so trivial compared to the supernatural drama unfolding in my own life. So everything Veronica has remembered so far has come true?
“Shush, Mr. Casey, not so loud,” I urge him, glancing back to ensure Veronica hasn’t overheard. Her shadow in the edge of the hallway doesn’t move, but I know she’s there.
He nods, understanding my concern. “Sorry. Just thought you should know she made some really good guesses. That or she was repeating things she heard from hospital staff who don’t think a child is smart enough to understand. Uh, listen, I’ll call Animal Control in the morning before I leave for the office. Once it’s safe, maybe Veronica and Ronan can play on our new trampoline I’m setting up this weekend.” Still red-cheeked, he offers a small smile, trying to bring some normalcy to a conversation that’s anything but normal.
I return his smile, appreciating his effort to lighten the mood, even if just for a moment. “That sounds wonderful, Mr. Casey. Thanks again.”
As I close the door, an unnerving, crackling energy fills the air, causing the hairs on my neck to stand on end. The lights flicker wildly, casting eerie shadows that seem to dance like the inside of one of those new disco clubs I’ve read about in magazines.
Before I can react, Spencer von Windlach appears out of nowhere. Just. . .walks out of thin air.
This time, he wears all black—black suit, black shirt, black tie. The two small sticks raised over his head, he collapses into the kitchen chair where’d he sat only minutes ago. He pulls his flowing blond hair—longer now—into a topknot and secures it with the two sticks. Such a simple act seems to take his remaining energy as he looks up, exhausted and weak.
“Spencer!” I exclaim, rushing to his side. “Where did you come from? And where have you been?”
A shadow moves in the edge of the hallway. Before Spencer can summon the energy to answer me, Veronica quietly steps into the kitchen. “Somewhere safe,” she says softly. “He comes from somewhere safe.”
Spencer stares at her as if he’s trying to memorize her face. I can’t read the symphony of emotions in his eyes.
“Hello, Veronica. Do you know who I am?”
She shakes her head. “No. This is the only time we met.”
His brow furrows. Admiration? Curiosity? He blinks furiously, like he might, at any second, burst into tears.
“Good God! I forgot about this. Veronica, you already have the gift of omnipresence. Already, you can see your entire future. Well, what you can remember of it. But how? You’ve never been Initiated into the Order of Daegan.”
“I have. Just not yet in this lifetime,” she replies, her tiny voice steady and wise beyond her years. Hard to believe that Veronica is only three years old. “I accepted the gift of forward-memory in my last incarnation,” she adds.
Spencer leans forward, intrigued, some of his energy returning. “How is that possible? No one carries the gift from one life to the next. Not fully. Death is the palette cleanser.”
“But I didn’t die in my last life. I simply left before my body died,” Veronica explains. “Like astral projection. I never went back.”
“But that’s not how soul transitions work.”
She shrugs. “That you know of.”
She’s right about that. I spent most of my high school years reading books written by Daeganean scribes in libraries maintained by the priesthood and, if anything like this has ever happened before, it hasn’t been recorded.
“She says she was a queen,” I tell Spencer. “That she remembers her life ahead of her but also the one behind her. There’s been plenty written about her, if you’ve ever been in a Daeganean library.”
Spencer nods, his expression serious. “Yes, I’ve been many times.” He glances from me to Veronica and back, almost as if he’s forgotten she’s Jaryx behind those child’s eyes and directs his attention to me, adult to adult. “It’s not at all uncommon for small children to have past-life bleed-through. Even ones with no ties to the priesthood. They have memories of being with their current family in other circumstances or memories of dying in the past. Maybe their mother was their sister in the last life or their father fought in a war beside them. The bleed-through of memories doesn’t last long, and then they’re completely gone.”
I’m suddenly aware of Veronica’s deep frown. Not speaking directly to her about her feels disrespectful even if it’s normal to hold conversations with a mother about a small child. Or maybe there’s something else troubling her?
Spencer inhales deeply, taking in the scent of freshly-frosted cake. He takes a bite of the half-eaten slice in front of him. Although he doesn’t seem to notice Veronica’s distress—something that perhaps only a mother might discern—his voice drops as he thinks through the situation out loud.
“Her memories of the past will fade—it’s too much of a burden to hold the memories of an entire past lifetime. To hold the past and the future, you have to let something go. It would be too painful to cling to her past life and what was done to her. She has an impactful future ahead of her, and she needs to focus on what lies ahead, not what lies behind. Everything depends on her. Everything, Maeve. You’ll never know how much it depends on her.”
“You’ll never know.” Meaning what?
“You mean I’ll forget.” A statement from Veronica. Not a question.
“Yes. Soon, too. It will probably be a blessing, considering how you died. Or, um, why you left your body and never returned.”
Veronica sways as if some otherworldly force is slamming into her again and again. I motion for her to take a seat at the table, but she shakes her head.
“Don’t dwell on your past life.” I try to be cheerful because I can’t stand to hear her sobbing in her nightmares and she’s so close now to tears. “If you do forget, there are a gazillion stories about the Queen of Wolves in the Daeganean libraries. How many of us get to read stories about our own previous incarnations?”
Her expression darkens. “They say that history is written by the victors. It’s true. Imagine if everything everyone knows about you comes from your worst enemies? Ones who call you evil and take your actions out of context. What if you go down in history, infamous, but the only thing history says about you is what your enemies wrote. It doesn’t matter what you accomplished or who you loved or what you created: the lie is the only thing anyone knows of your last time on earth. It’s not truth that’s believed about you, but fiction. And there’s no way you can argue that you’ve been maligned.”
“Tell me what they did to you.” Spencer sets down his fork, his fists clenching in rage.
“But Spencer—” I barely touch the back of his hand but feel the jolt of his energy. “Don’t you remember? You have the gift, too.”
His hand seems to respond to my touch. His fists relax. “Just that it was bad. I recall her telling me—here, now—but over time, I pushed it from my memory.”
Veronica sinks into a chair opposite me, but she’s barely tall enough to see over the table. Frustrated, she stands again, but this time, leans against the paneled wall. Her gaze searches the far corners of the kitchen ceiling as she tries to figure out how to sum up her last life.
“It’s okay,” I whisper. “Take your time.”
“I—” Her eyes fill with both memories and tears. “I was Jaryx, Ranking High Priestess of the Order of Daegan. They called me the Wolf Queen, or the Queen of Wolves. The animals were my pets, but also protective of me.”
I hold my breath. I’ve read the stories of how she fed her enemies to her pets. Many, many stories.
Veronica accepts a tissue but doesn’t wipe her tears. They trail freely down her cheeks.
“When I was Initiated in the priesthood, I accepted the gift of remembering my future,” she continues, “but my last memory of that lifetime was of standing at the edge of the earth and leaving my body behind to discover who my enemies were. Their henchmen had killed my lover and forced me to the edge, but I couldn’t discover for certain who gave the orders.”
“Why did you leave your body instead of fighting?” I ask.
“I was fighting! But I was trapped. They’d killed the love of my life. Threw him to his death.” Her voice cracks. “They’d killed my wolves. My only hope was to leave my body and find the ones who gave the order, merge with their bodies and overtake them. I didn’t care about living anymore. I knew it was the end. But I still tried, even if I didn’t remember anything beyond leaving my body. I. . .I couldn’t re-enter it. I couldn’t find my enemies. Something blocked me. I couldn’t find another body to incarnate into and then. . .and then I felt the call to here. To this time. Like whatever had blocked me opened again and I felt myself being sucked into the body of a dying child.”
Her eyes find mine, and I can’t move.
“And then being in your arms, Maeve. You were screaming and begging me to live.”
“A walk-in,” Spencer murmurs.
I don’t quite understand but nod to urge Veronica to continue. She studies her wrist, where there is no bind rune tattoo of our God to mark her place among us. Not yet.
“Please don’t take this as me believing the legend,” I say slowly, “but why were your enemies so against you?”
She smirks. “The usual reasons. Power. See, from the moment I accepted the gift of knowing my future, I knew that the coming end of the age wouldn’t happen in my lifetime, but others in the priesthood were not convinced. One in particular—Kyranyx—claimed that I was hiding the truth to gain power over them and displace the Last Priest, who had his own intentions for power. But I don’t know if they were behind overthrowing my reign.” Squinting at some spot on the wall, she looks a thousand years into the past. “It seemed everyone of that era thought the world would end when the millennium — as they counted time—ended. Countless wealthy families gave up their riches to the Catholic Church, thinking the end was near, only to discover that their God had not returned to carry them off to their heaven, so it wasn’t just Daeganeans who had the fever for the end of the physical world.”
“Doesn’t sound so different then as it is now.” My words are as much for Spencer as they are for Veronica. “I’ve never known the priesthood not to be filled with manipulation and power seekers. Even if some are well-intended. I just hate the politics.”
Veronica nods. “So did—” She stops herself. “In this lifetime, I’ll know him as Shelby. Then he was a warrior from the north, hurt and left behind on a raid. I remembered that he was coming, so I sent priests to find him and bring him home to me. I knew I would fall in love with him. Over time, he was accepted by most, but not all. He had no interest in priesthood politics or Initiation, but my enemies used him against me. Said I planned to make him the Last Priest and rule the new era together. That’s how my enemies gained power—lies.”
Spencer clears his throat. “Lies, and a thousand or more of the people you led, all joining to bind your soul for a thousand years.”
My heart aches for her. She no longer sounds like a powerful witch-queen with a liking for wolves, but like a broken child.
“We’ll protect you,” I assure her.
She smiles as if I’ve said something funny. “I felt myself being pulled into this body, and here I am. Tiny and uncoordinated! And the people who want to drag me away and manipulate me to give them my power are coming back tomorrow. But that’s not the worst of it. I’ll be with Shelby again. I remember exactly how we meet in this new lifetime, in the Alpine Gardens in Vail, Colorado. But Maeve, I just lost him, and now I have to wait forty-two years to be with him again. How am I supposed to get through the next forty-two years without him?”
Ignoring the tissue on the table, she grabs a dish towel on the countertop to wipe her face.
“I’m going to get you out of here, Veronica.” Spencer plucks the hairpins from his topknot and shakes his hair as it falls to his shoulders. “I promise you.”
And me? I want to ask but don’t. He doesn’t say he’s going to get me out of here, too.
“I’ve been away for five years, Maeve. My friend Terre Vanderholt and I have been perfecting weapons and making a plan for how to keep Veronica safe until it’s time for her to take over the priesthood from Siobhan’s second-born.”
“But why do we need weapons if both you and Veronica can remember the future?”
“Because,” he says, quickly gobbling down the last two bites of his cake and talking with his mouth full, “memories of the future are just as fragile as memories of the past. I remember the big things, some details, things I was told, but I can’t remember what I didn’t witness.” He washes down the cake with the still-warm hot chocolate and then stands up. “I need you to wait for me, Maeve. Get some bags packed and ready to go, then wait here. I don’t know exactly how it’ll happen. I’ll be back soon with something special for both of you.”
“I-I should tell Mr. Casey goodbye and—”
“No! Telling him anything at all could endanger him and his family when the High Council comes looking for Veronica. Plus, you won’t be able to explain to him where you’re going.”
“But where are we going?
“To somewhere the High Council won’t know to look.”
Spencer takes a step away from the table. He raises his hair sticks over his head, mumbling about how weak this makes him for the next half-hour. Slowly, he draws the hair sticks apart, wider and wider until his arms are wider than his shoulders. The air crackles around him as a window seems to open between the sticks and forms a sphere around him. The portal blinks out of existence, taking Spencer with it.
Call it habit, but I run to Veronica and hug her tightly. “You remember the future, too, right? Is he coming back tonight?”
Surprisingly, she nestles into my arms. “I don’t know. Like I told him, this is the only time we ever met.”
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