Read Online Reborn by Aiden James, Lisa Collicutt - Free Book Online

ridiculous that sounded.
    “You what?” The sharpness of her tone broke the hold the sign had on me.
    We drove past the oak-lined drive leading to Solomon Brandt Estates, where Excalibur and I had escaped. Wooden structures, decorated with yellow caution tape, sealed off the front entrance to the property.
    Excalibur hadn’t had any wounds. The only blood he wore was what had dripped onto him from me.
    “I remember,” I said.
    Although she sat side on, I could see her eyes widen.
    “What do you remember?”
    “I burst through the ground. Right there.” I turned and looked at the new patch of pavement, now behind us.
    “Like literally out of the ground? Like you were inside the earth and burst out?”
    “Yes. Me and Excalibur.”
    “Okay, if you say so.”
    Melba’s voice had taken on a skeptic’s tone. She humored me.
    Down the road, on the far end of the south side of the estate yard, she pulled into a graveled driveway with a small parking space at the end. She turned off the car and sat there. Scaffolding covered one end of the building. Below the metal poles, white paint chips lay scattered across the lawn.
    “All those windows need a good cleaning to get ready for the grand opening. That’s why I brought you with me today, to help with the windows.”
    Looked like an easy job, although there were many windows.
    But instead of getting out of the car, Melba sat there, looking at the place.
    “Aren’t we getting out?” I asked.
    “We wait for Wally, the groundskeeper.” She looked at me above her sunglasses. “I never go inside that place alone.”
    “Why, what’s inside?” For some reason, looking at the enormous house made me edgy.
    “Bad mojo.”
    Although I didn’t know what that meant, it didn’t sound good. A couple minutes after we arrived, another car pulled in behind us.
    “He’s here,” Melba said. She turned in my direction before getting out. “Are you sure you’re all right? You look pale.”
    I decided then, the flashback I’d had seemed too crazy to have really happened. Maybe the new memory had been a dream before I had woken up in front of the construction workers.
    “Yes. I’m fine. Driving here gave me unpleasant flashbacks. And that noise you call music has given me a pain in my head.” I rubbed my temples, and turned my attention back to the estate house, and to Wally, who gave me a strange look, and then tipped his hat to Melba before heading toward the back yard.
    “Isn’t he coming in?”
    “Eventually, but as long as I know he’s around, I don’t feel so… alone. So,” she said changing the subject, “you don’t like my music.” She laughed. “I wonder what kind of music you do like.”
    “I should think, none.”
    She eyed me with one corner of her mouth pursed. “You probably listened to country before your amnesia.”
    Melba’s laughter lightened the sudden dark mood I found myself in. But I barely heard it, because when the soles of my sneakers hit the gravel, a noticeable chill shot through my feet, into my veins, then rushed through my body. A heavy weight settled upon me like a giant boulder. The nightmare I’d had on my first night in the apartment flashed through my mind, filling my heart with the misery of the innocent. Pain throbbed at my temples, but I didn’t say anything to Melba. As I neared the mansion, the foreboding worsened to the point where I felt like someone else walked for me, breathed in my breath, saw from my eyes.
    “Here we are,” Melba said turning the key in the door handle. Her voice sounded like she spoke from somewhere else in the yard.
    She moved aside, motioning for me to go in ahead of her. The scent of fresh paint assaulted me when I first stepped inside. I stood in a large kitchen from another time period, everything as it once was. The small table had even been set for a slave’s dinner. As I gazed, wide-eyed, over the room, an image of the slaves came into view. Outside the windows, they toiled in the yard.