Page 71 of Bedeviled

“I don’t care. Fate be damned, Selene, you can choose your own path.”

I draw in a deep breath. “Mom, I remember everything. Not just this lifetime, but a whole other one I did in fact live. “

“Do you hear yourself, Selene? This sounds absurd.”

“Pes dosa I’bnud wirpuburpus, Ama,” I say in Sarmatian.

I’m not making this up, Mom.

“Te amo. Quaeso audi me,” I say in Latin.

I love you. Please listen to me.

“Should I say something in Demotic? Aramaic? I know a little Hebrew as well⁠—”

“Don’t get smart with me, Selene.”

“This is the true reason why I could read and write Latin. It is why I had magically induced amnesia. And why I can now remember our tire swing in the backyard, and baking ginger cookies with you. I remember Aunt Giselle and how, before I came into my magic, I used to be messy and very, very disorganized. And I remember how upset I used to get when you read me fairytales about princesses because I’d insist they wore trousers and fought on horseback.”

As I speak, a tear rolls down her cheek. Aww, damn.

I reach out and wipe it away. “Mom, I know this is unbelievable, but it’s true. There really was a curse behind the amnesia, one Memnon lifted several weeks ago—I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about it when it happened. I wasn’t trying to hurt your feelings.

“But when my memories returned to me, with them came memories from a life I lived two thousand years ago, and in that life, I loved that man in our den with my entire heart—so much so that I died to save him.

“I know none of this makes sense to you and Dad, and I understand it will take a long time for you to accept any of this, but you can at least trust me when I say that Memnon is my heart’s deepest friend, and I have loved him with every fiber of my being for as long as I can remember.”

My mother is still looking at me like I’ve completely lost it. After a long moment she takes a deep breath, then a long draw of her wine.

Lowering her glass, she finally speaks. “I don’t like it.” She shakes her head. “I never would’ve wished this for you.”

I part my lips to speak, but what am I supposed to say?

“Do you at least believe me when I say that I have memories of a past life?”

She looks absolutely miserable when she says, “I don’t know. Damnit, I don’t know what to think.”

“Mom.” I switch back to Sarmatian. “Vak danus mi’rtis vutpuw wanagu vurnuvakvup di’nugapa? Tapgus situ gesavak vakapinaguva guvakawnutvu susgub iwnusavusapsa ubwad detubpa? Bima mupissa itsuvu witwad, pi’nlunvu invusapvu benmupguva ki’tasavaksa vekgap⁠—”⁠1

“Fine—fine,” she concedes. Again, her eyes water up.

“You should know that I loved this man once.”

She gives me a penetrating look. “Do you love him now?”

I take a long drink from my own glass and nod.

“You don’t have to be with him, you know,” she says, studying me.

“I know.”

“Tell me you’ve at least thought this through.”

“I’m mostly working with vibes.”

She lets out a deep sigh and brings her glass to her lips again.

“He is a billionaire.”