Total pages in book: 185
Estimated words: 180510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 903(@200wpm)___ 722(@250wpm)___ 602(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 180510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 903(@200wpm)___ 722(@250wpm)___ 602(@300wpm)
“Awful things can be interesting. Why do you think they make us study wars in history?”
“Because they’re interesting?”
I took his binder and grinned. “No. Nice try. We study bad things, so we don’t repeat history. You don’t listen in class, do you?”
Colten frowned. “History is boring. Nobody listens.”
I listened, but I didn’t have time to explain my school habits. I had a report to write so Colten could go to the park with me. There wasn’t much I wouldn’t do for the boy next door.
CHAPTER THREE
My future of marital bliss is off to a great start. I lied to Colten. He thinks I’m meeting with a specialist at the university. A specialist in reincarnation. If he were here to see the run-down strip mall in front of me, he’d lose his shit.
The door reads: Psychic. Walk-ins welcome. Estimated wait time is eternity.
I pull on the handle, but it’s locked.
“Come in.”
I glance up at a camera mounted in the corner just as the lock to the door clicks and buzzes.
Oof …
The pungent smell of incense just about knocks me over.
“Welcome, Josephine.” An older woman with witchy silver hair takes a bow. When she stands erect, her lips part into a slight smile. They’re dry lips sticking to brown-stained teeth. Her cough isn’t that of a smoker’s. It’s more of a death rattle.
“Thanks.” I glance around the room. There’s a black ceiling dotted in stars and moons hanging from fishing lines. Two round velvet pillows reside in the middle of the wood-floored room. White painted clouds cover the baby blue walls.
“I am Athelinda. Please remove your socks and shoes.”
I glance down at my feet then at her feet. Calloused heels, bunions, crooked toes, and thick yellow nails.
“I encourage you, if it’s in your zone of comfort, to remove all of your clothes and slip on a loose gown like mine.” She nods to the hooks on the wall and the sheer white gowns hanging from them. “We don’t want anything restricting your energy.”
I can see basically everything through her gown, but I nod once anyway, shuffle my feet to the wall, and remove my clothes. Coworkers have seen me naked in the locker room at work. I’m not modest.
After I pull the gown over my head, I meet her in the middle of the room and sit on the pillow opposite her, both of us in lotus pose.
“Let’s close our eyes, take a few deep breaths … in through your nose for four seconds and out through your nose for four seconds. Keep your eyes closed as we go through a few questions.”
I close my eyes, and when I do, I see the girls with the shaved heads. The hair hanging from the tree. The cemetery.
In for four … out for four.
I repeat this until she speaks.
“How long were you under the water?”
My eyes pop open.
“Close your eyes.”
Her eyes are closed. How does she know mine are open?
“How do you know about the water?”
“Your date of birth. You were born on a Friday in October. An autumn child born on a Friday will resurrect previous lives if submerged during their final breath.”
This is weird, dare I say crazy? I can see how people would bolt out of here with her logic, but I’m here because I’m struggling with my own brand of crazy.
“I don’t know how long I was submerged.”
“What did you see?”
“Long hair tied to tree branches in a churchyard. Then I saw girls with shaved heads being buried in existing graves.”
“Who buried them? What did that person look like?”
“I don’t know. I never see that person.”
When I hear her wrestling around with something, I open my eyes. Her shaky twig fingers retrieve a big book from beneath her pillow as she leans to the side. It’s weathered and mottled in shades of brown and says “I AM …” The binding whines in protest as she opens it.
“I see a lot of people with gifts. They don’t feel like gifts at the time, but they are powerful privileges that come with a second chance at life.” She flips through the delicate pages that look as fragile as an onion peel. “You, however, have not been granted a gift or any sort of privilege, I fear.”
I frown. This was not a good idea.
She stops on a page and moves her finger beneath the lines of script, mumbling to herself.
“I know what it means. I just need help getting rid of the memories.”
Athelinda glances up at me, yellow eyes narrowed into tiny slips. “What do you think it means?”
“I was one of the girls buried in the cemetery.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because I remember the feeling of fear and my head being shaved. I know where the bodies were buried.”
“Was all the hair hanging from the same tree?”
I shake my head. “But all the trees were in churchyards in Tennessee.”