Page 68 of Solivagant

“And… I was here too? Somehow?”

He hesitated, but then nodded again.

I exhaled shakily. I weren’t sure how that was possible, but it felt true.

“We…” My head hurt. My chest ached. My vision blurred. The question on my lips was one that I feared but I needed a definite answer to if I was going to unravel all this. “We were in love. Weren’t we?”

A soft whine left him and he held me tighter. He nodded.

That’s why I was different, why he killed all others who climbed that wall, but not me. It was why I tried to get to him in my sleep despite any obstacles in my way. It was why this place was familiar. We’d been lovers once.

The dreams were memories. They were all real.

My nose was wet. I tasted blood.

My vision faded, and strong hands caught me.

My body ached. Too hot and too cold at the same time.

My eyes opened to big, concerned ones looking back at me. Tusks had his arms wrapped around me, cradling me by the fire like I were small and easy to hold. To him I was.

No one had ever held me like this before, at least in this lifetime. I never knew I wanted to be held like this before. But if I let myself be honest and open, which were the only way I’d figure any of this out, then I did want this.

It didn’t explain what had happened to me, though.

Was I sick?

Maybe there’d been something in the creek water I’d been drinking that was making me ill. If I had my phone, I’d look up my symptoms, but that didn’t feel like the right answer. This, along with the dreams, the sleepwalking, and him, it was all other.

I doubted there was a medicine to help with remembering past lives, as that seemed to be what was happening. Maybe… I wasn’t meant to be here. The fact that I was could have been the entire problem.

Surely more people would talk about it if this were common or even just rare. I’d heard the theories of reincarnation, same as anyone else, along with all the other theories of what happened to us after death. But if people experienced this like I was, surely we’d all have heard about it more.

With every answer I found more questions.

“I’m alright,” I assured him.

He didn’t seem to believe me. His face was still filled with concern as his arms held me even tighter. I wasn’t sure I believed me either.

The ache in my head remained, but I did feel better. I still didn’t tell him to let me go.

He wasn’t a stranger. He wasn’t a beast either, like I’d thought he was. He was so much more. I didn’t know him, not the way I once had, but I still recognized him.

Maybe he was a god. Maybe he’d brought me back.

He’d been able to talk to me once. If he could talk to me again, I knew he’d have answers for me.

I didn’t know what had happened to him, or me, all those years ago. But I knew I was going to find out. I would do what I had to in order to make sense of all this, to figure out what was wrong with me, and how to help him too.

I was going to remember.

35

JOSIAH

The throbbing in my head eased, as did the weakness in my limbs, as whatever was happening to me seemed to pass for now.

Tusks was still concerned. He hovered around me as I unwrapped another expired granola bar to snack on. Then he watched with his brow furrowed and a disapproving stare as I strapped the knife, axe, and hunting rifle to my body. I had no idea if it would still shoot. All seemed to be in order when I examined it, though, and there was no time like the present to find out.