did. He asked me to explain what I could and try to keep you away from Shrewsbury.”
“He took me to Shrewsbury, himself. Why do I have to stay away now?”
The old man appeared troubled. “He did not explain everything, but it seems that something happened there some centuries ago that is causing problems in this one. He is trying to work it out.”
“Does the sex have something to do with time travel?” Victoria leaned over and took a notepad and a pen from the drawer in her nightstand. Mr. Magnus sat up straighter and assumed the demeanor of a professor. “Tell me,” she said, pen poised.
“Yes and no. The sex is how he is able to connect with you between the planes of existence. Once connected, he can use that tether to your reality for time travel or shape-shifting or any other thing he needs in this world of physical forms.”
Victoria wrote that down. “And the shape-shifting?”
Mr. Magnus nodded. “That has to do with how you perceive him, not so much what he actually looks like. If he appeared here now,” they both looked around the room as if he might, “you might see him as the Roman soldier, and I might see him as the red demon with the ram’s horns.”
“No kidding,” she murmured as her pen scratched the paper. “So which one is really him?”
“They are all him. The forms are like clothing you choose to wear based on your mood and the occasion. He selects a form based on any of his previous lives or places where he has lived. Including Hell.”
“Previous lives,” she wrote, “Like reincarnation?”
“Right. Though it appears he is selecting forms from lives he once shared with you, rather than others. Probably so you will recognize him.”
The pen stopped. Victoria looked up. “With me.”
“Right.”
“Recognize him.” She remembered his exasperation with her and how he was constantly asking if she remembered. “Shit.”
Mr. Magnus blushed again. “Right.”
“Am I just so stupid?” She shook her head. “I am not usually so dense.”
He nodded. “Not stupid, Victoria, but something is keeping you from remembering and apparently it is important that you do.” He looked sad. “Was important,” he amended.
“Why did he stop coming?”
“That’s just it. He tried and tried, but you did not see him. You made progress. He stopped seeming like a monster or a fairy-tale demon to you and started to look like a man. You allowed him to begin speaking to you. Until you saw him as a human being he could not communicate except through sex.”
“And then he stopped,” she reminded him.
Mr. Magnus moved to sit beside her on the bed. He took her hand. “You are not to think you have failed, Victoria. This is hard for anyone, and doubly hard for someone who has no background in the occult.”
She let him stroke her hand, but frowned at the tone of his voice. He sounded just like the preacher did when he talked to her mother after her father died. “What do you mean,” she asked slowly.
Mr. Magnus sighed. “He was trying to reach you from across that great chasm between life and death. This is possible, but both lovers must extend their hands. You would not give him your hand. He stopped trying. Or he was stopped.”
She took her hand back. “Lovers.”
“Yes. He was your lover. Is. Had been. Many times.” Mr. Magnus smiled kindly. “Always. Forever.” Then his smile faded. “But no more. He failed to help you remember, and now you are lost to him. Forever.”
Victoria felt a twinge of sadness and wondered at it. “He told you tell me this?”
“No. He told me to tell you to stay away from Shrewsbury. I told you what I know about him from his touch, to help you understand.”
“I wonder what is in Shrewsbury.” She took her hand back and rubbed them together for they had become chilled. She thought about the man, the Roman, the Norseman and the blacksmith. She wondered how many more forms and histories and lives there were. “I liked them. They were handsome and interesting. If they had asked me out now I would date them. But I don’t remember loving them.”
“That is the whole issue, here, Victoria. You don’t remember loving them. Him.”
“How can I? Do I need to be hypnotized?”
Mr. Magnus appeared startled. “No. Don’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“You become susceptible to suggestions from the beliefs of the hypnotist and it may lead you farther away rather than closer.”
“I see. Then what should I do?”
“Nothing. It