right. I actually spent time with my father today, and it was exactly what I needed. I hate that you don’t have that with your mother.” I stand and take her shoulders in my hands. “But you can’t change it, Mil. All of this anger and grief, which you’re entitled to, won’t change it.”
She deflates and rests her forehead on my chest. “I know.”
Her voice is small. I mourn for the little girl who just wanted her mother’s love and guidance. Millie and her sisters needed that, and they were robbed of it.
But we’re going to get justice.
I tug Millie into my arms and rub circles on her slender back. “All you can do is move forward. Defeat that piece of shit and establish a relationship with your mother from here. If that’s what you want.”
“What if it’s not?” she asks in a small voice.
“Then you don’t have to.”
She lets out a shuddering breath and then looks up at me as if she just remembered something.
“You got me out of jail.”
And here it is. I set her away from me, too vulnerable when it comes to this to have her touching me—at least for right now.
“You said that earlier,” I reply.
“Yeah.” She nods and tilts her head, watching me. “I’ve had dreams, like I told you before, most of my life. It’s like I’m remembering something from long ago but I don’t recognize anything.”
“You are remembering,” I say calmly. “Tell me what happened.”
“When I fainted today, I had a crazy dream that I was being arrested in Salem, Massachusetts. I was being tried for witchcraft and put in a cell. And you were there.”
Her eyes cloud over as she thinks back.
“You told me not to worry, but I was so worried because I was sure they’d hang me. And we had childr—”
She blushes and presses her lips together.
Yes, we had children in that life. Four. The youngest had just been born.
“Keep going.”
“I was so scared and sad. Confused because I always did everything right to make sure no one suspected that I was a witch. And then you came and opened my cell and said I was free to go. But you weren’t. You—”
Her lip trembles, and she has to sit on a chair. I cross to her and take her hand in mine.
“What happened to me?” I ask, but I already know.
“You gave yourself up for me. Exchanged your freedom for mine. And I watched you die.”
A tear falls from her brown eye, and I catch it with my knuckle. I remember seeing her face, her beautiful brown eyes until the gallows opened, and I fell in—and then everything was black.
“But it was only a dream, right?” She looks up at me and must see the truth on my face. “That’s the same look you gave me when you told me you couldn’t go home with me. In 1692, Lucien.”
“You were remembering a past life,” I reply.
“Do you remember it?” she asks.
I bring her hand up to my lips for a kiss and then sit across from her on the coffee table. I knew we’d have this conversation sooner or later.
“Yes,” I say. “But it’s more complicated than that.”
“Okay, explain it to me.”
“You’re clairvoyant,” I begin, trying to describe it to her so she can understand. Not because she’s not intelligent but because even I have problems understanding sometimes. “When your shields are down, you can read thoughts, spirits, that sort of thing. It’s your gift.”
“Yes, just like Brielle’s is being a medium, and Daphne’s is psychometry.”
“Exactly. I’m sensitive to some of those things. I can feel spirits, and I’ve always sort of known things that others don’t. I can reach out with my mind to see things. I guess you could say I’m a bit of a Jack of all trades when it comes to being psychic. But that’s not my main gift.”
She shifts in her seat. “What is?”
“I see the past, Millicent. I can remember every lifetime that you and I have spent together, down to every single detail.”
She blinks and sits back but doesn’t recoil.
“Has it always been that way?”
“Meaning in every lifetime?” I ask.
She nods.
“Yes. I’ve always had this ability.”
She licks her lips and looks over my shoulder as if gathering her thoughts.
“And have I always had the same abilities?”
I smile. “Yes. And you’ve always been a hedgewitch.”
Her lips tip up in a smile. “I like that. But I don’t know that I like that you’re able to remember every detail of our past lives,