A Shift in Shadows
I take a deep breath and try to steady my racing heart. This place always makes me feel like I’m on the brink of something big, something magical. The autumnal colors of the National Mall outside and the grandeur of the geodesic dome of the National Academy of Sciences overhead are breathtaking sights. I’d love to think that when Aoife summons me to meet her here, she’s appreciating the splendor of this historic building, but in actuality, it’s all about convenience: hers. The State Department building where she spends most of her time when she’s in-country is across a narrow street from here. Easy enough for her to slip next door for five minutes to “get a breath of fresh air” when she dares not have these conversations over any medium that might capture our words.
“‘To science, pilot of industry, conqueror of disease, multiplier of the harvest, explorer of the universe, revealer of nature’s laws, eternal guide to truth.’” I read the inscription on the ceiling aloud, just under my breath.
How strange.
Before it was science, it was all deemed magic. Surely not something Aoife considered when she instructed me to meet her here, but as someone who can see across time, I appreciate the collaboration of knowledge and mystery.
Sunlight filters through the geodesic dome in a kaleidoscope of color, lighting up the glass and bronze zodiac gates amid all the praise of science and the four pendentive triangles in the dome that represent earth, air, fire, and water. My neck hurting from craning so hard, I squint at the inscription in the very center of the dome.
“‘Ages and cycles of nature in ceaseless sequence moving,’” I murmur. It’s almost an incantation.
Cycles. And time. Always moving.
I press my fingertips to the medallion around my neck, its shine half-hidden inside the lace of my neckline. My medallion sparkles with bejeweled engravings representing the constellations as they will appear in the sky on the night Shelby and I first gaze into each other’s eyes.
Rubbing the back of my neck where my pearl necklace is knotted, I look down at Foucault’s Pendulum swinging under the dome, and the sun gods from different cultures on the spectroscope drum beneath it. It’s odd to see them in a place of science that feels so magical. But I know that magic is real because I am a part of it.
I stand transfixed, half-hypnotized, watching as the heavy bob of the pendulum carves a path through the air. Each swing seems to stretch into eternity, seconds bleeding into one another until time itself appears to waver and bend. The present fades, memories of past and future lives flickering through my mind’s eye like an old film reel skipping and stuttering. It’s easy to forget that some things haven’t happened yet. The mind doesn’t distinguish past from present, which is why ordinary people who favor the Law of Attraction can visualize the future and manifest it.
I’m not ordinary, however. I’ve always remembered my future, especially Shelby.
Shelby.
Just thinking of his name brings tears to my eyes. He loved this building with its science and astronomy, typical for a non-Daeganean, while I was all wrapped up in its magic and astrology. We came here two years before the pole shift, before I took control of the priesthood. We’d walked these halls together, my fingers intertwined with his.
He was a bright, shining star in the dark sky of my life—and he always will be. Everywhere I look, he is there: in the stars twinkling in the night sky, in the sunbeams streaming through the clouds. He and I together were the best thing about this incarnation, even if I haven’t met him yet.
Some people live their older years remembering that special lover from the past, long gone, but I’ve lived all my younger years remembering growing old with Shelby. Soon, very soon, I’ll be living the life I remember with the man I love.
That first time we met, I’d known he would be there, just off the main path in the Betty Ford Alpine Gardens, his back to me, skipping pebbles across a wide but shallow creek beneath a covered bridge, and yet, he’d been a total surprise. With a crow calling from the trees overhead, I just stared at him with a shit-eating grin because I knew what was coming next and I was so happy to arrive at last at that moment in my life.
I sigh aloud at the memory. I had found myself wandering the botanical gardens in Vail, Colorado, after a long chat with…someone. Who? Terre’s next mother?
Why can’t I remember? I used to remember everything, and now there are gaps in my memory, like Swiss cheese. It’s like the memories are…right there…but I can’t access them.
I’d been looking for him, knowing he would be there and not seeing him right away. I’d followed the call of an insistent crow overhead. Then, just around the bend, I’d stumbled onto Shelby on the creek bank. He had sensed me behind him, turned, and offered me a handful of small stones.
“Make a wish,” he’d said.
His warm smile brought an unexpected flutter to my heart, the sun bouncing off his dark tousle of hair like a halo. I took a step closer, reaching out to take a stone from his offered hand. The rock was smooth and cool, much like the rushing water beneath the bridge.
“I’ve never been much good at skipping stones,” I admitted sheepishly.
His chuckle was like the soothing whisper of the wind through the nearby aspen trees as he began to show me how to hold and throw the stone properly.
“Let’s see,” he’d said, guiding my hand. “It’s all in the wrist, you know. Just give it a little flick.”
“But what about my wish?” I asked, not wanting to mess up this critical part of the ritual and, at the same time, not wanting him to notice the Walking Lightning tattoo an inch from the pulse on my wrist.
“The wish?” he’d echoed, and then his laughter rang out, pure and joyous. “Well, the wish you make just before the stone leaves your hand is the last thought in your mind before the stone hits the water.”
I looked into his sparkling eyes, feeling an inexplicable connection. “And what if my wish is for this moment to never end?”
He had given me a soft, heart-melting smile. He, too, must’ve known that we were meant to be together. “Then you throw the stone in such a way that it keeps skipping, just like you and I will through life. Together.”
Even though I’d known all that was coming, I can’t pretend I understood it. Or how he was as accepting of fate as I was from that first moment together. If he possessed psychic gifts, too, he never in four decades together admitted it to me. From that day on, we did just as he’d spoken into being—skipping through life, stone after stone, wish after wish, always together.
“Veronica!”
Cringing at the sound of my name in Aoife’s throat, I take a deep breath and let the memories evaporate. I rip my gaze away from the gently swinging pendulum, inhale heavily a second time, and whirl to face the woman who knows I’ll destroy her lifelong ambitions in a little over three years because she’ll be an utter failure at leading the Order of Daegan. It hasn’t been easy for either of us to work together when we both know where our uneasy alliance will lead. She can no more escape her future failure than I can escape my own fate to lead in her place.
“Veronica, I do not have all day,” Aoife says, her voice echoing under the dome as she walks toward me with two bodyguards.
They’re Daeganean priests in black suits with black shirts and black silk ties, and they make me nervous. Harry and Guenter, if I remember correctly. One has thick cords of black braids looped at the back of his head. The other sports a topknot of dark blond curls. Both are obviously muscular under their suits, and someone less observant might assume they’re Secret Service.
Hell, maybe they are.
But really, why does Aoife need protection at all, whether Secret Service or personal bodyguards trained in the dark arts? Aoife herself is incredibly powerful, and rumor among Daeganeans has it that she’s mastered the ability to resurrect the dead, thanks to one of the priesthood’s secret books that Terre had hidden for a while. Others say her skill comes from a supernatural talent she gained as a teen in a lightning strike, even if she had to sacrifice her best friend for her newfound power.
If Aoife can bring the dead back to life, she won’t use it in a few years when one of her other priests, Fick, kills both of the men in a bid for power and later tries to murder Raven Darbyshire as well. Neither Harry nor Guenter will survive long enough to see the pole shift and the dawn of a new era for humanity, or what’s left of it.
Aoife glares at me as if she can read my mind. She can’t. I’m shielded, but so is she.
“Heyyyyyy. What’s going on?” I ask casually, trying to mask my anxiety.
The two bodyguards don’t step back to give us privacy. Of course not. Aoife has permitted them to hear anything she says, which is why she wants her own people as bodyguards so she can speak freely about both her official duties as Secretary of State and her unofficial duties as the leader of a secret society. Granted, she’s a busy woman.
“Terre’s next incarnation.” Aoife doesn’t waste time with small talk. “Have you remembered anything yet?”
I shake my head. “No, not yet.”
Aoife’s expression reveals her anxiousness. I’ve not seen that before. Not from her. Maybe it’s her way of showing grief over losing her biological father and mentor?
Eh, maybe not.
She relies heavily on intimidation to get her way. Her tailored black dress, expensive black pumps, a triple strand of pearls hanging deep inside her buttoned black suit jacket, white-blonde hair in a fashionable updo—all reek of power without mercy. No wonder her tiny minority of haters refer to her as Madame Machiavelli. But most people outside the priesthood adore her.
Magic at its finest.
Me, I feel like a peon in my velvet skirt over scuffed boots, off-the-shoulder lace blouse, and a lace vest that screams, “Hippie!” My priestess necklace of pearls is visible at the hollow of my throat and dangling down my spine under an untidy French braid. My other necklace hides against my skin, between my breasts, beneath the folds of fabric. I wiggle my shoulders so that the medallion disappears into my cleavage.
Aoife and I couldn’t be more opposite, and I’m thankful for it. Maybe humanity will survive after all.
“Well?” she demands, obviously angry that I haven’t been more forthcoming, especially since she was expecting me to arrive with answers. Her voice, a steely alto, is so low and husky it’s almost a whisper. “When will you know?”
Ah, I think, but that’s the problem.
Usually, I know these things without a second thought. This time I don’t. Like a sudden bout of amnesia or a dizzy spell. Maybe it’s better that Aoife thinks I’m being intentionally difficult rather than knowing my talents have gone kaput in a matter of hours, leaving me uncertain of everything that’s been entrusted to me.
I shrug. “It’s not always precise. You can’t rush these things.”
Her eyes ice over. Her entire lower body doesn’t move, but she leans toward me to whisper through a tight jaw. “Veronica. It’s critical that we find out soon. Terre’s next incarnation will play a vital role in the future. When The Shift happens, it’s going to be rough, even for us chosen ones. We are going to need all the help we can get to face the challenges that are coming. Do you understand?” Her cheeks flush red.
I nod and swallow hard at the same time. Whether or not I admit it, I don’t understand what Aoife’s trying to tell me. We’re a thousand days, give or take a few, from an extinction event that will leave much of the land either under water or under ash. Terre’s next incarnation won’t even be potty-trained by then, let alone able to offer sage advice or lend Aoife his power.
Is she trying to rewrite the future?
Aoife quiets suddenly as a trio of young tourists, star-struck, stop to gawk at us. She shoots one glance in their direction. The youngest of the group raises her phone to record us but immediately fumbles. The phone hits the floor, the screen shattering. Before the girl can retrieve all the shards, the bodyguards shoo her and her companions away. The tiniest quirk of a smile plays at the corner of Aoife’s mouth.
“Veronica?” Aoife leans close again. Her perfume, a potion of sandalwood, ylang ylang, and sage, is strong enough to make my eyes water. “Listen to me: I need you to find Terre’s next incarnation before it’s too late. If you can’t, you have no worth to me whatsoever. Do you understand?”
My eyes widen as I take in Aoife’s harsh words. It’s a threat that pierces my very soul—one I’m certain I could never forget, yet here I am with no recollection of this conversation in the future I remember.
Something is wrong, really wrong.
With a snap of her fingers, she pivots and ushers her bodyguards away, leaving me alone under the dome. My breath hitches in my throat as a wave of dread washes over me.
I stare at the unmoving pendulum.
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