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Authors: M. J. Rose
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lurch, and she practiced them now. The first rule was to get to a window for fresh air. Down here that was impossible. She started on the rest of the list . . . Inhale to the count of four . . . then hold to the count of four . . . then exhale to the count of four . . . then hold to the count of four. Concentrate on each number as you count . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . then focus on where you are. Feel what is under your fingers. What you are standing on. Look at your watch. Focus. In the dim light, she stared at it and forced herself to speak.
“What do you know about this space?” she asked Serge.
If he talked and if she focused on listening, she might be able to keep herself centered on his words and stave off the attack. And she had to stave it off. She hadn’t had an episode for over a year. She’d been getting better and better at preventing them. It was crucial she not give in.
Jac rolled the scarlet cord tied around her left wrist between her fingers, the connection that kept her tethered to her own time and place during memory lurches. More than a talisman, it was her anchor to the present. Robbie had called the bracelet her lifeline when she’d told him about the weaver on the Isle of Jersey who’d made it. Jac had been collecting bits of thread and ribbon all her life, and had felt an instant kinship with the artist Eva Gaspard, who’d given the bracelet to her.
Part of a mystic kabbalist tradition, it was called a roite bindele , Eva had said, and warded off misfortune and the evil eye. Jac had felt as if she’d been looking for it all her life.
She ran her finger down its silken length now. The concept of the evil eye went back over five thousand years to ancient Babylon. Every culture had its version. What was so fascinating about studying mythology was discovering how many stories and symbols were the same through the centuries and across cultures. Since she’d been wearing the bracelet, Jac often dreamed of Moira, the goddess of fate. She saw her weaving her beautiful silks in shimmering colors—gold, silver, aqua, cobalt, purple, rose. All of the threads seemed thin—too thin—to be strong. But they were. In her dreams, Moira sat cutting those threads, weeping, singing. Jac even remembered the first line of her song: We are the keeper of the threads.
Jac tried to focus on the silken thread. On her breathing. On the present. No matter that Robbie thought she was blessed to have memory lurches. As Malachai knew, her ability to see past her own time was a curse. No one is meant to remember so many of their past lives. Each of hers was fraught with pain and sadness and the inestimable loss of a man she’d loved and watched die because of her. There was enough in the present to cope with. But to deal with all the sadness of all your lives? Of others’ lives? She could drown in their wake if she wasn’t careful.
Chapter 8
MARCH 14, 1573
BARBIZON, FRANCE
Ten days of living in one locked room. Ten days of carefully slicing pages out of the notebook that Serapino had stitched together himself. Ten days of hiding the notebook back under the stone every time I heard a creak and then removing it again. Ten days of sewing page after page of that thick vellum to the inside of my rough-hewn shirt. Of accidentally pricking my finger with the needle and being forced to wait until the blood coagulated before I could continue for fear I would stain those precious manuscript pages. Ten days of listening for the sound of footsteps to make certain I was not interrupted in my task.
Even though Brother Michael and the two other monks came at the same hour every day—before their midday high Mass—I lived in fear that one day they would come earlier and interrupt me. What would they do if they found me with Serapino’s notebook? Confiscate it and bring it to the abbot? And then surely my trial would include both thievery and heresy for the work that Serapino had undertaken.
“What do you know about this space?” she asked Serge.
If he talked and if she focused on listening, she might be able to keep herself centered on his words and stave off the attack. And she had to stave it off. She hadn’t had an episode for over a year. She’d been getting better and better at preventing them. It was crucial she not give in.
Jac rolled the scarlet cord tied around her left wrist between her fingers, the connection that kept her tethered to her own time and place during memory lurches. More than a talisman, it was her anchor to the present. Robbie had called the bracelet her lifeline when she’d told him about the weaver on the Isle of Jersey who’d made it. Jac had been collecting bits of thread and ribbon all her life, and had felt an instant kinship with the artist Eva Gaspard, who’d given the bracelet to her.
Part of a mystic kabbalist tradition, it was called a roite bindele , Eva had said, and warded off misfortune and the evil eye. Jac had felt as if she’d been looking for it all her life.
She ran her finger down its silken length now. The concept of the evil eye went back over five thousand years to ancient Babylon. Every culture had its version. What was so fascinating about studying mythology was discovering how many stories and symbols were the same through the centuries and across cultures. Since she’d been wearing the bracelet, Jac often dreamed of Moira, the goddess of fate. She saw her weaving her beautiful silks in shimmering colors—gold, silver, aqua, cobalt, purple, rose. All of the threads seemed thin—too thin—to be strong. But they were. In her dreams, Moira sat cutting those threads, weeping, singing. Jac even remembered the first line of her song: We are the keeper of the threads.
Jac tried to focus on the silken thread. On her breathing. On the present. No matter that Robbie thought she was blessed to have memory lurches. As Malachai knew, her ability to see past her own time was a curse. No one is meant to remember so many of their past lives. Each of hers was fraught with pain and sadness and the inestimable loss of a man she’d loved and watched die because of her. There was enough in the present to cope with. But to deal with all the sadness of all your lives? Of others’ lives? She could drown in their wake if she wasn’t careful.
Chapter 8
MARCH 14, 1573
BARBIZON, FRANCE
Ten days of living in one locked room. Ten days of carefully slicing pages out of the notebook that Serapino had stitched together himself. Ten days of hiding the notebook back under the stone every time I heard a creak and then removing it again. Ten days of sewing page after page of that thick vellum to the inside of my rough-hewn shirt. Of accidentally pricking my finger with the needle and being forced to wait until the blood coagulated before I could continue for fear I would stain those precious manuscript pages. Ten days of listening for the sound of footsteps to make certain I was not interrupted in my task.
Even though Brother Michael and the two other monks came at the same hour every day—before their midday high Mass—I lived in fear that one day they would come earlier and interrupt me. What would they do if they found me with Serapino’s notebook? Confiscate it and bring it to the abbot? And then surely my trial would include both thievery and heresy for the work that Serapino had undertaken.
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