“IF I TELL YOU what’s been happening to me, you have to swear you won’t breathe a word of this to another soul as long as you live. I mean it.” Alex took Jennifer by the shoulders and pushed her backward until they were in Alex’s room. She shut the door and pushed Jennifer down on the bed.
Jennifer looked sorry she had demanded the truth.
“You insisted on this, remember? Now do you want to know or not?” A part of Alex hoped Jennifer would change her mind and decide she was better off not knowing.
Jennifer took a deep breath. “I want to know what happened.”
Alex put her hands to her face, completely unsure of how to begin. She paced the room, trying to collect her thoughts.
“It started on the trip up here. I was in restroom in the Burger King in Eagle. When I looked in the mirror, the person looking back at me wasn’t me.” Alex did not look at Jennifer. She was sure she would see disbelief on her eyes.
When Jennifer didn’t say anything, Alex continued. “It happened again here in the guest house. Only this time, I had the urge to touch the mirror. The feeling was so strong, I couldn’t fight it.” Alex’s breath came faster as she remembered the fear of that moment. “I woke up on the banks of a pond in medieval Ireland.”
“Alex, that is insane! You must have just passed out or something…”
Alex grew angry. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me! Why do you think I didn’t want to tell you in the first place?”
“How do you expect me to believe a story like this?” Jennifer stood to leave.
“I’m not crazy. I went to Ireland and just now I was in Venice,” Alex frowned. “Or at least my spirit was.”
Jennifer turned from the door, her hand poised just short or grabbing the knob. She turned slowly and Alex could swear she heard the creaking of Jennifer’s neck.
“You were in Venice? Venice, Italy?” Jennifer wanted to run screaming from the presence of this obvious mad woman but she could not deny that Alex had been unresponsive and cold as ice.
“Yes, Venice, Italy. I was a…well, I was a, ummmm…” Alex found herself blushing.
“A what?”
“A courtesan.”
Jennifer broke out into nervous laughter. “A courtesan? Really? A souped-up whore?”
“If you’re going to laugh at me, you can just forget it.” Alex was angry and exhausted and not in the mood to be laughed at.
“Come on Alex! This is just too bizarre.” Jennifer did not know what to believe.
“How do you think I feel?” Alex flopped down on the bed, wishing she had kept her mouth shut.
Jennifer took a deep breath. “I’ll try to keep an open mind here. I do know something strange happened to you. Okay…” She paced the room. “Why are you traveling through the mirror?” She tried to keep a straight face when she asked that last question.
Alex let out her breath in a rush. “At first I didn’t know. But after this last trip, I think maybe I am supposed to set history back to the way it’s supposed to be. When I was in Ireland, a young man gave me the Book of Kells…” She paused at the blank look on Jennifer’s face and rolled her eyes. “Google it later. Anyway, he told me to hide it from the Viking invaders. I remembered that it wasn’t known how the book survived the raids and when the Book was found, it was missing the cover and found buried.” She spoke faster and faster, eager to finally share this strange adventure with someone.
“I ripped the cover off the Book, replaced it with the binding from a different book, then buried it next to the farm.”
“And what happened in Venice?” Jennifer asked, feeling her skin prickle with goose pimples.
“I was a courtesan who was friends with Veronica Franco. She was arrested by the Inquisition, accused of practicing witchcraft.
“Only, the timing was all wrong! She was supposed to be arrested after the plague hit Venice. She and others were arrested because it was thought they had brought the plague to the city because of their ‘profession’,” Alex said.
“When I was there, the plague hadn’t yet arrived so I knew something was wrong. I don’t know how to explain it.” Alex felt exasperated that she sounded like such a fool.
“Anyway, I went to Domenico Venier, who was one of the men responsible for getting the charges dropped, and told him about her arrest. He had a little chat with the High Inquisitor, who had been a patron of Miss Franco’s, and he let her go.”
“Sounds like you saved the day again,” Jennifer said.
Alex waved off her praise. “There was a man at the trial. He said he provided evidence that she was indeed a witch. I don’t know who he is but I knew he was bad. I just don’t know how it all fits in.”
“I wished I knew what to tell you,” Jennifer said.
“Yeah, me too.”
“So how do you know when it’s time to leave? Enter the mirror, whatever you call it.” Jennifer waved her hands about.
“I don’t know. When the mirror shifts and I see the other girl, I know something is about to happen. When the actual transport takes place, I can’t control it. It’s like something knows that it’s time and forces me to touch the mirror. It hurts.”
“What does it feel like?”
Alex shrugged. “I don’t know...like my soul is being ripped out and transported to some other person.” She was frustrated. At hearing the full story actually spoken aloud, she realized how mental she sounded.
“Do the other girls look like you?”
“No…” Alex paused. “Well, they resemble me in some ways, but we don’t look identical. Like sisters, only more than that,” Alex paced again, trying to find the words to explain. “The only thing that is me is the eyes. There is something about them, even though they are different colors and different shapes. Their eyes are mine.”
Alex threw her hands up. “I almost know what the word is that explains about this whole mess but every time I think too hard, it’s just gone.”
Alex noticed that Jennifer was sitting rigid, her eyes wide. “Alex, where is your computer?”
“On the dining room table.”
Jennifer jumped up and Alex followed her into the dining room. Jennifer sat and began banging away at the keys, an excited look in her eyes.
“Jennifer, what…” Alex began but just then, Jennifer turned the laptop computer around so that Alex could see what was on the screen.
“Could that really be what’s happening?” She stared at the word, knowing that it just barely covered the tip of the iceberg, but it was a start.
Reincarnation.