Page 92 of Unhinged Magic
Tears sprang to my eyes, and I slid them shut, letting the feeling engulf me completely.Drowningin it.
He showed me things I would share with no other, his hands sliding my dress off my shoulders, his lips capturing mine longingly. I felt him everywhere as if it were real, like this was once us.
I believed him then, that this man was once my lover. I had heard of past lives of course. It was something I would never discard as false until proven otherwise. But how this had occurred, I wasn’t one hundred percent sure.
Flickers of sadness tore at my insides as if I were feeling his emotions as my own. Maybe I was.
“We lived the fullest of lives, happy and content,” he mused, staring down at me with longing. “You were my everything until suddenly you were not. To not have my entire world beside me for the rest of my life was something I could not get past.”
I didn’t know what to say. But it seemed he didn’t need my words at this point.
“When you passed away, I was profoundly lost. This house was never the same. The light dimmed, even in daylight, the nights overwhelmingly quiet. I could not stand it.”
“That’s sad, but beautiful,” I whispered, as his head hung low.
“I think I’m the reason you speak of, why your new fated bond is not as it should be.”
I nodded in agreement, sadness pooling inside me. “I think so too.”
His hands found my forearms then, but not in a way that scared me. “I’m sorry I could not move on.” His apologetic gaze found mine, and he held onto it for dear life. “I thought that, ifyou looked at me the way you looked at him, I would feel whole again.”
Earth shattered eyes stared back at me from underneath a wave of brown hair. His apology, it seemed, was not over yet.
“I was born with the gift to walk in another’s skin. Jump souls you might say. But it seems I have taken it too far, taking over another spirit's form. This has caused you displeasure. I know this now.”
I opened my mouth to speak when a 'coo' sounded from nearby, our heads turning to the window where, outside, on a low-hanging branch, sat a dove. It repeated its coo again.
I had never seen a dove in person, and moved toward the window to inspect it closer.
Edward’s presence followed behind. “That dove, you liked to feed it, treated it like our pet.”
The pigeon blinked slowly, its mystic depths of onyx staring back at me. Wind ruffled its light-gray plumage, lifting it just enough to expose an even lighter underlayer.
What a truly beautiful creature.
Edward continued. “We always said in another life we would find each other again. We wanted to come back as doves.”
Doves.
Did my love of doves stem from my previous life?
The fact Wesley and I both had them tattooed on our skin seemed too coincidental. That all this really was connected.
My empathy for this ghost drowned my insides with guilt for what needed to happen next.
I let out an unsteady breath. “I think, in some strange way, we did.”
Edward turned to me, confusion rippling his forehead.
Unbuttoning my jacket, I lifted the fabric of my top slightly, tugging down the waist of my tights until it exposed the dove beneath.
He followed the movement, lingering on the tattoo that now meant so much more to me than I could have ever imagined. “Wesley has one too.”
His stare glistened with hope before he forced himself to look away.
I covered myself back up, my thoughts swimming with theories and answers to this.
“Maybe this isn’t the end. Maybe Iris’s soul somehow found mine, and that’s how this is supposed to work,” I offered lightly, moving closer to him. I don’t know what came over me, the urge to touch him suddenly stronger than before, taking me by surprise. I took his hand in mine, and he jumped at my touch, a stretch of agonizing pain distorting his features. “I think maybe your soul is lost, that when you move on, you will find your rightful resting place.”
