Buried Read online

  “I am in a room with a large fireplace, benches, tapestries on the walls. It feels like home. I am dirty and tired, but happy. A woman kisses me. She is tall, blond, beautiful―I say her name, Guinevere. I give her a bundle wrapped in coarse cloth. When she opens it, there is a folded pile of golden-yellow fabric, embroidered at the edge with tiny white flowers. Guinevere is very happy, she promises to make a dress for Lúnasa.” Alejandro stumbles on the word, as if it is foreign on his tongue. He opens his eyes and looks at me with a mute question.

  “I always wondered where she had received that dress,” I say with wonder. “She said it was a gift from a dragon, then laughed.”

  “I bought it from a peddler we met on the road to Gwent, after a skirmish in Ergyng,” Alejandro says with easy assurance, as if it is a sentence he often says. Then his eyes widen.

  My breath comes faster and faster. Fifteen centuries I’ve waited, never finding what I’ve searched for. Can Arthur truly have returned? Why now?

  “Wait, you said you remember different times and places,” I say with urgency. “Who else do you remember being?”

  “Men named Alexios, Abelin, Axel,” Alejandro says with confidence. “Without knowing more history, or dreaming more, I couldn’t give you dates. Abelin may have been from World War Two.”

  I’m hyperventilating now. Arthur, Arthur has been by my side for all these years, and I’ve never known. He’s come back, again and again, just as he said he would. My life’s purpose, as frail and hopeless and ridiculous as it may have seemed, has been answered.

  “You, you―” My words choke me, and I start babbling in Brythonic, my native tongue. “It’s you, it’s always been you. You said you would come, you did, and you were right. How could I not have seen it? How could I have been so blind?”

  Alejandro looks at me with narrowed eyes and a tilted head.

  “I understand some of the words, but I don’t know what language you’re speaking. But, Merlo, tell me, is it true?”

  I grip my hair, unable to control my breathing.

  “I don’t understand how, but yes, somehow, yes.”

  We stare at each other for a long moment. Alejandro’s brown eyes look at me out of a very different face from Arthur’s, and yet the expression is one I recognize, and I fancy I can see Arthur looking out of Alejandro’s eyes. Alejandro’s lauvan swirl in slow circles, confused yet hopeful. They are a dark, forest green, unlike Arthur’s vibrant spring green. And yet, as I think back to the men whose names Alejandro mentioned, all of them had green lauvan, in progressively darker shades through the ages. It’s one more piece of evidence that he is really Arthur.

  I spread my arms and encircle Alejandro in a fierce hug. I don’t know if he can feel all the years of loss and hope in the action, but his returning embrace is firm and unwavering.

  A knock at the door breaks the moment. I turn moist eyes to the hallway where Jen stands with an unsure expression.

  “Is this a bad time? I can come back,” she says to me.

  “No, no, it’s…” My voice trails off as I stare at Jen’s golden lauvan. If they were paler, they would be the color of wheat. Long ago, I knew a woman with strands like that.

  “Your strange dreams—when did they start?” I ask in a strangled voice. I point at the grail on the coffee table. “Did you ever touch the grail?”

  Jen looks taken aback.

  “How did you―yes, I was going to mention it when things settled down. I had a look at it when you brought it back from the boat, before you buried it and it was stolen.”

  “Did you have a strange reaction?”

  “I guess so,” she says, her eyes gazing at me in confusion. “I felt tingly, and I came over faint. I might have blacked out for a moment. Then I was fine, and I didn’t notice anything else, otherwise I would have said something. But that night, the dreams started.”

  “Merlo,” says Alejandro with wide eyes. “Who do you think she is?”

  I keep my eyes on Jen.

  “Have you been dreaming that you’re Guinevere?”

  Jen visibly starts, her eyes round.

  “Yes,” she whispers. “What does it mean?”

  I look at Alejandro, who gazes at Jen with a look of angst and awe.

  “Jen.” I swallow, then compose myself. “Do you believe in reincarnation?”

  CHAPTER XXIX

  Jen stares at me, her eyes as round as Alejandro’s.

  “Are you saying,” she stammers. “You think―I was Guinevere in a past life? The Guinevere you knew?”

  I let out a strangled cry and bury my face in my hands. This is too much. How is this possible? I don’t know how to bear such hope, such pain, such happiness, such regret. It’s too much.

  Jen waits for an answer, so I lift my head out of my hands.

  “I think, yes. Somehow.” I stand and raise my hand to her cheek. She gazes at me, and I speak to her in slow Saxon. “Guinevere, my dear, do you remember me?”

  It takes a moment, then recognition flickers in Jen’s eyes and she inhales sharply. Then she replies in halting Saxon, and it brings me a painful delight so strong I can barely breathe.

  “I’m starting to, Merlin. I don’t know how, but I do.”

  I wrap her in a crushing embrace and squeeze my eyes shut tightly. I am overcome.

  When I finally let go, Jen’s eyes are wet, and she dashes them away with the back of her fingers with a moist chuckle.

  “I lived a quiet life before you, Merry,” she says in English. “Since I met you, I’ve had more changes to my world philosophy than anyone should. Magic, immortality, spirits, and now―” She swallows with a half-fearful, half-laughing look. “Past lives? And of one of the most famous women of legend? I don’t even know what to think.”

  “I don’t know, either,” I say. I’m still breathing too fast. “Everything is just―” I exhale. “I need some air. Give me a minute.”

  I slide open the balcony door and lean over the railing. A stiff breeze passes through my hair in a welcome ruffle and I close my eyes to simply feel. My brain turns off, and I let emotions flush and fade through my body.

  Alejandro’s quiet voice drifts through the open door. He’s clearly trying to avoid my hearing him, but I have keen ears.

  “Jen? I want to say I’m sorry. For what I said to you the other day.”

  “Are we going to ignore the whole past-lives elephant in the room?” Jen’s voice is hard, tinged with exasperation.

  “Just for a minute. I took what you said, and my mind twisted it into something that you didn’t mean. Just because I was grieving my uncle, doesn’t mean I could lash out at you.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Jen says, then she sighs. “Thanks, Alejandro. Apology accepted.”

  There is a long pause.

  “Where does that leave us?” Alejandro says finally. “These dreams, our past. Are we destined to be together?”

  “I don’t care what was in my past,” Jen says. “I have to live the life I have now. You hurt me, we broke up, and now I’m dating Cecil. Whatever might have happened a thousand years ago, this is our reality now.”

  That sounds final. I doubt Alejandro has much to say in response, so I turn and walk inside. They sit on either end of the couch. Outwardly, they look ill-at-ease, but the lauvan that join them together are still strong. The deep gold and dark green entwined together are like a shadowed echo of their bond so many centuries ago. How could I have not seen it? How would I have known to look?

  “Why, Merry?” says Jen. “Do you know how, why this happened? Does everyone have a past life, or is it just us? What―” She grinds the heels of her hands against her temples as if a migraine builds there.

  “I don’t know.” I spread my hands and shrug. “I truly know nothing. This is the first time in fifteen hundred years―” I choke when I think of the centuries of loneliness that never really were. “That I’ve had even the slightest inkling of this.”

  My stomach asserts itself, and I’m reminde
d how hungry I am and how empty my fridge is. Even during insane, life-altering revelations, the body has needs.

  “We have more to speak of, but I need fuel. I’ll grab something from the café downstairs.”

  “I’ll come with you,” says Alejandro, clearly not ready to be alone again with his former girlfriend. Wife? Even I’m confused.

  “I’ll make some coffee here,” Jen says quickly. Her hands tremble, and I wonder if coffee is really the beverage she needs right now. It gives her something concrete to do and concentrate on, though, so I nod. Alejandro follows me out the door.

  We’re quiet in the elevator down, each of us too lost in our own thoughts to say much to the other. There is so much I want to say to Arthur, to Alexios, to Abelin, but Alejandro is not these men, not entirely. His essence is the same, but their lives are only memories to him. Perhaps that will change with time. Perhaps, as Alejandro remembers more and more, he will meld with the others to become an amalgam of all the friends I’ve had before. I hope so. I look forward to it.

  “What does this mean?” Alejandro asks as we walk to the café. “For me, for us, for our lives going forward?”

  “I have no idea.” I look at him and give a half-smile. “Shall we find out together?”

  His returning grin is infectious.

  ***

  We return to my floor of the apartment building laden with sandwiches and pastries. Jen meets us at the door. Her eyes are wide, and she holds her clenched fist over her mouth.

  “Merry, Minnie came back, she forgot her phone. Then she touched the grail.”

  Jen’s eyes are full of unshed tears, and my heart plummets to my stomach.

  “What happened? Is she all right?” I push past Jen with fear in my heart.

  “No, no, she’s fine, its―”

  Jen doesn’t finish her sentence. I burst into the living room and stop. Minnie sits on the end of the couch. My sketchbook is on her lap, open to a central page with a tempera painting of Zanetta, my twelfth wife I met in Venice. Minnie glances at me briefly with a welcoming smile then looks back to the picture.

  “I can’t believe you drew me in this terrible dress. I hated red―I only wore it when my stepmother visited, since she had given me the fabric as a wedding present.” Minnie chuckles and flips a few pages to Isabella of eleventh century Spain, my sixth wife. “Oh, yes, al-Andalus. Do you remember buying almonds in the market and eating them on the banks of the river? We used to share them with that urchin child who lived nearby. You gave her your coat once, I recall.”

  I can only stare at Minnie’s face, which is content and tranquil. I am anything but. My mind has ground to a halt. I can’t think, can’t breathe, can’t see anything but Minnie flipping the pages of my memories.

  There is no way she could know what she says. No way unless―the grail. She touched the grail. Could―could she―my mind can’t take these revelations, and my breathing starts again in heaving gasps. Minnie turns back to the first page. Arthur, Guinevere, Elian, Gawaine, Gareth are all there, in the blocky artistry of the fifth century. Minnie’s fingers brush over the larger figure of Nimue on the bottom right. Then she looks at me with a smile sweeter than the clearest honey.

  “Merlin, my love,” she whispers in Brythonic, the language of my birth. “You should have known I would never leave you.”

  I choke on the rising sob in my throat. I’m on my knees without any recollection of dropping. I’m weighed down, pressed by a force far greater than gravity, by the knowledge of so many wasted years, so much regret and sorrow and loss, when all along I’ve never been left. My eyes close, and sobs wrack my body. Nimue. It’s always been Nimue. The only thought that keeps me from sinking to the floor entirely is that I am reunited with Nimue once more, my only love. Every love I’ve found through all my long years has been me reacquainting myself with her. I weep for the years of grief, of endless sorrows that have piled up on me over the centuries. Every time I lost a love to the ravages of time that I never feel myself, I thought she was gone forever. Every time I found someone new, I had to banish the lingering guilt of moving on.

  So much emotion, entirely needless. And now, too much emotion overwhelms me.

  My eyes are closed, but I can feel Minnie kneel before me. Dimly, I hear the front door close. Alejandro and Jen must have left to give us this moment alone. Minnie’s gentle hands cup my head and caress my neck. I rest my head on her shoulder and let my tears soak her shirt.

  When my sobs dwindle to shuddering breaths, I raise my head. Minnie’s hand moves from the back of my head to my cheek. She wipes the wetness away with tender fingers. Her clear blue eyes meet mine.

  “It’s always been you,” I whisper. She nods.

  “Always. I couldn’t let you do this on your own.”

  “You came back, on purpose? You chose this?”

  She frowns in thought.

  “No, I don’t know how this works, nor why I keep coming back to you. But I know that if I could have chosen, I would have done the same thing.”

  I lean into her hand on my cheek.

  “I would like to know how it all works,” she says. Her eyes crinkle in a smile. “Shall we find out together?”

  “Yes,” I whisper. “Together. Always.”

  CHAPTER XXX

  Dreaming

  The boat rocks slightly as Gretchen touches her hand to my cheek. We lie in the bottom of my tiny fishing vessel, our heads together and our feet at opposite ends. The lake is placid today, and fluffy white clouds drift in a lazy current through the blue above. Gretchen’s blond hair tickles my neck, and she rubs her rounded belly.

  “I think it will be a boy,” she says. “Perhaps. I don’t know how other women can tell. Can you see, Marian, with the strands?”

  “No, more’s the pity. We’ll have to wait like every other new parent.” I turn in a quest for her lips, and she rewards me with a kiss.

  “I can’t wait,” she says after our lips part. “I suppose it will be short for you, but months is a long time for me.”

  “Time stretches and shortens as it sees fit. It will be a long wait for me, too.”

  “So much time,” she muses. Her elbow props up her head, so she can look at my face. Her expression is mischievous. “You know what I would love?”

  “Are you craving liver again?”

  “No. I would love to break bread with your former wives. It would be too much fun to speak with them, hear their take on you.” She laughs in delight, and I give a playful shudder.

  “That sounds like my nightmare.”

  She strokes a lock of hair off my forehead, a smile lingering on her full-lipped mouth.

  “We all have something in common, so that’s a start. We all love you.”

  “You’re right. You do have things in common. Deep loyalty, playful whimsy, and a pure and beautiful soul shining through your eyes.” I trace my fingers around Gretchen’s right eye, pondering the similarities between Gretchen and my previous eight wives. “I suppose I can’t help but be drawn to that.”

  “Perhaps you were drawn to each of us. Perhaps it was all meant to be.”

  “I stopped believing in fate centuries ago.” I smile to soften my words, but Gretchen looks thoughtful.

  “Perhaps you simply can’t see the whole picture. If you keep walking your path, your purpose will be made clear.”

  I exhale sharply.

  “How long must I walk to understand that?”

  “No one can know their path.” She leans over to kiss my nose lightly. “Have faith.”

  CHAPTER XXXI

  It’s almost painful to leave Minnie now that I know who she really is, but she insisted on checking in at work, so I’m on my own for a few hours. I pull up my car in front of Sweet Thing. I need to find out if March is still there, what happened to the other members whose memories I didn’t mess with. I need to know they are shut down for good.

  It’s midday, so cupcake sales are in full swing. I go straight to the washroom, and
when I emerge, my shirt is the same color as the employees. When their attention is on customers, I slide behind the counter. If they spot me in their peripheral vision, they will assume I am one of them.

  The door to Potestas opens easily, and I enter. The door clicks behind me.

  The place is cleared out. No couches in the common area, no chairs in the meeting room, even the fridge is gone from the kitchen. Gone is the convivial atmosphere of this strange, cultish club, and the only things left are dust and darkness. I stride to the library, the room of reflection, the amulet acquisition room, but all are empty. In March’s office, there is nothing but a folded notecard. I pick it up with foreboding in my heart.

  Merry Lytton,

  You’ll be happy to know Potestas is disbanded, and its members gone their separate ways. I hope you are satisfied. It’s not enough for you to have almost limitless powers―I suppose it’s natural to want to be the only bully in the playground. Know that I will keep searching for the spirits, and I hope I will have the courtesy to share the wealth with others, courtesy that you have always lacked. Until we meet again,

  March Feynman

  A chill runs over me. What does she mean, courtesy that I have always lacked? She’s known me for a few weeks, at most.

  But, she touched the grail. Is March also someone from my past?

  It doesn’t matter now. She has disappeared. The more important people from my past are here and by my side. I can ignore cryptic messages, to be deciphered another day. Now, my long-lost, always found love is waiting for me. I will go find her, as I always have.

  EPILOGUE

  I feel as fragile as a moth’s wing from all the revelations of the past few days, and yet stronger than ever now that Arthur, Guinevere, and Nimue have returned to me. Why they keep coming back is a question I want an answer to, but if I never find out, perhaps I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. They are here with me, and I’m not alone anymore. Right now, that’s enough.