"Oh," Lainie said, for lack of anything better.
"Ever since you got to camp, de stone has been hot on my skin. And I have .. . known t'ings."
"Like what?"
"Like ... you were coming."
Lainie sighed. "But not going."
"Who knows what will happen, Alaina? God is mysterious in His ways."
"That's for sure. He slings my butt back in time one hundred years, and for what? Because I have a soul mate who is pining away for me? Whose undying love called me back through time?" She snorted. "Yeah, right."
Viloula didn't flinch at the derision in Lainie's voice. "T'ink of it, Alaina. Imagine it. A love dat noting, not even death or time, can kill."
157
Lainie shook her head. "I'm too old to believe in fairy tales, Viloula. I just want to get back to Kelly."
"You are never too old to believe in love, Alaina. Look at me. I have only been in love once in my whole life?and wit' a bear of a man who lost his arm and t'ought I couldn't love him anymore. Dere was never anyone else for me. But I keep believing dere will be."
"Sounds like Alzheimer's to me," Lainie muttered, but even as she spoke the bitter words, she felt something strange happen inside her. It was as if the words she tried so hard to discount had landed, taken root in that cold, forgotten corner of her heart.
What if.
To Lainie, they'd always been magical words, a writer's lifeblood. The beginning of every story. What if. ..
"What if is right," Viloula whispered. "What if Killian once loved you so much dat you remembered it one hundred years later, t'rough another woman's heart? What if you loved him so much, you came back t'rough time to find him again?"
Lainie squeezed her eyes shut tighter, refusing to let herself be drawn into another useless, pointless fantasy. She'd engaged in this kind of wishful thinking a million times in her life. It didn't work. "And I thought I was the romance writer."
"Just t'ink about it. Dat's all I'm saying."
"I don't want to think about it." Despite her best efforts, her voice sounded weak and unsure, a throwback to the frightened, lonely child she'd once been.
"Yes, you do. Dat's why you are here. Your heart remembers. . . . Somewhere inside you, your heart remembers."
Lainie sighed tiredly, fighting the allure of the old woman's words. It was just a theory, a wish and a prayer by a woman who believed in both to a woman
158
who believed in neither. It didn't matter that once, years ago?a lifetime?Lainie had believed intensely in white knights and soul mates and everlasting love, that she'd spent night upon night waiting to be rescued by someone who loved her, someone who cared. She'd come a long way since then. She wasn't the little girl at the barred window anymore, waiting for someone to change her life. Now she was a woman full grown who made her own way.
"I don't remember Killian, Viloula. I don't know him and I don't love him and we aren't soul mates, and even if we are, I don't care."
There was a long pause before Viloula answered, and in the silence, Lainie felt a tightening in her spine, a growing sense of apprehension. Don't say any more, she thought desperately. Don't make me want to believe again....
"Kelly," Viloula said at last. "She is your daughter, right? De only person you have ever loved?"
Lainie frowned, confused by the sudden change in topic, but she breathed a sigh of relief nonetheless. Anything was better than talking about soul mates. "Yeah."
Viloula gave her a sharp, knowing look. "De name is very close to Killian."
The implication was so powerful, so unexpected, that for a second, Lainie couldn't breathe. She sat perfectly still, her mouth parted on a quiet gasp. "Oh, my God ..."
Viloula nodded slowly, her expression earnest. "De heart remembers what de mind cannot."
Lainie sputtered. "E-Even if that were true, you can't love someone again just because you loved him in another life. We're different people, with different experiences; it can't?"