“That’s up to you.” Little creases littered Mrs. Caldwell’s brow and her lips tilted downwards. “Our purpose over the last eight hundred years was to reunite you with Mitchell. He’s your true family, dear.”

“No. This can’t be real. I’m still having a nightmare.” Amelia fiddled with her hair, wrapping a long curl around her finger so tight that it throbbed from lack of circulation. For a moment she let her mind wander and she thought about just how odd that was. If she was dead, or sort of dead, why could she feel her pulse? Amelia gave her head a little shake, glared at her mother and said, “If you’re telling the truth then why don’t I remember the past?”

Mrs. Caldwell smiled. “Oh, sweetie. If you only knew how many times you’ve asked me that. Not everyone remembers their past lives. But with your gifts, you can access it if you want to. I can show you how. It will help you make the choice that is laid out for you.”

A choice? How many more choices would she have to make? The last few really hadn’t turned out so well, obviously; she was kind of, sort of, dead. Maybe, just maybe—not that she would ever tell him—Amelia was starting to think that Mitchell biting her and taking that one thing from her wasn’t such a bad thing after all. “What choice?” Amelia asked, discouraged.

“You can still go back to him, if you want.” Almost in unison, her inner voices screamed yes and no. “The spirits will give you another chance at this life. Or, if you so choose, you can wait until the next lifetime and, with your father and I, we will help you find him again.”

Amelia scooted back to get a good look at her mother because her mother’s tone clearly conveyed that it would not be a simple everyone is happy decision. “So you’re saying if I stay dead then you guys will come back? We can be a family again?” She tried hard to keep the burning hope out of her voice but she was pretty sure she hadn’t succeeded.

Mrs. Caldwell confirmed Amelia suspicions with her heartbreaking reply. “Yes, dear, but you need to understand that at some point you’ll have to let us go. We were not meant to stay on earth for an eternity. Our path was to help you discover your own.” Mrs. Caldwell held out her hands, “Take my hands. You need to ask the air spirits to show you what you have repressed.” She hesitated for just a moment and then Amelia took her mother’s hands, marveling at how firm and solid they felt. “When you’re ready, I want you to concentrate on the heat that’s pumping in your veins and say: Past lives that have gone astray, show me.”

Amelia took a few deep breaths to stop the tremors that shook her to the bone. She wasn’t sure if she really wanted to see whatever her mother had to show her, but she also knew she had to. After a moment of indecision, in a clear and strong voice she barely recognized as her own, Amelia said, “Past lives that have gone astray, show me.”

The air between them shimmered and then turned to a foggy gray. An image formed in the center, like an animated charcoal sketch, cloudy and smudged. A young girl with long curly hair scrunched under a bonnet walked with her head down and shoulders stooped. She stopped at a small door above which hung a crucifix. She hesitated for a moment and glanced back. Until that moment, Amelia hadn’t been certain of whom she was watching but she was now. Staring at her through the murky image was herself, the soul’s mark, clear as day, imprinted on her neck.

“Thou have come to the right place, child,” a voice from behind the door called and the girl from the image, turned back, opened the door and stepped in.

She closed the door behind her and sat down on a small bench style chair, arranging her dress and folding her hands in her lap. Then she looked through a small meshed area in the wall and said, “Father, I am frightened. A man came to me in my dreams.”

“When did he first come?” the priest, Amelia assumed, questioned. She could just barely make out his lips in the cloudy image.

“The night my parents passed,” the girl replied in a shaky voice.

There was a long silence, then a deep sigh. “I have feared you would be taken.” The rustling of clothing filled the air and when the priest continued, he let his voice rise to a holler. “You wear the devil’s mark and the devil hath found you.”

Suddenly, there was a commotion, crunching glass, wood snapping, and voices roaring, accusatorily chanting over and over “Witch!” The door flung open and Amelia screamed.

Then, as if someone had taken a brush, the image was wiped away to gray and another illustration started to form in the center. Smoke billowed around her face and flames licked up a post. The girl in the image was bound to the post and hundreds of spectators stood watching with fervor. The chanting was deafening: “Burn the Witch!”

Amelia watched in horror as the memories kept flashing as vivid as if she was reliving the moment. Her skin sizzled against the heat and the rancid smell of her flesh burning turned her stomach. “Make it stop,” she cried, unable to pull her eyes away. “I don’t want to see anymore.”

The image became more intense, and the face of her past self contorted with detestation. The view shifted to show what she was looking at: Mitchell. He stood motionless, tears smudging down his cheeks. The view shifted again to show herself, flames licking up her neck, touching at her chin. A chain emerged from her heart and Amelia followed the line. The spectators were gone, smudged away, and the chanting had decreased to a whisper. On the other end of the chain was Mitchell. He buckled, and as if the life was sucked of out of him, crumpled to his knees. He let out a cry, snarled and distorted, excruciating and filled with anguish. He watched, powerlessly, as she was consumed by the inferno.

The image blurred and faded. The air shimmered and slowly her mother’s grief-stricken face came into focus. “This was the turning point for you. It was in this lifetime that you put up the wall to shield yourself from your past. It wasn’t until you were so anguished by our deaths that Mitchell was able to break through.” Her mother laughed cheerlessly. “You need to understand, sweetie, our deaths, your father and I… it needed to happen to bring you and Mitchell together.”

“I don’t believe that,” Amelia whispered. “I need you, Mommy.”

Mrs. Caldwell smoothed away the shiny trail of tears spilling down Amelia’s face. “You’ve been given not only one, but two miracles. You can do so much good with these gifts. The witch who cast the soulmate curse had never anticipated that one of her own would be implicated. She acted in haste, not thinking of all the possibilities. But you’re not powerless to him. You’re stronger than you think. You, my sweet child, are his equal. Together you can help others. With your magic and his clout in the vampire world, you can stop all the pain and suffering. You can change the curse to a glorious gift for all those who it has befallen. You can right the wrongs of our ancestors.”

“Work together?” Amelia shook her head, and a new sting came to her eyes. “Mom… he hates me. He doesn’t want me.”

“Oh, Amelia,” Mrs. Caldwell said and made a tsk sound. “You know that’s not true.”

Amelia almost giggled. Even in death, her mother knew when she was lying. She racked her brain for something, anything to say that would sound believable. “Well, he wants to hate me and he doesn’t want to be with me anyways. He said he was going to kill himself so he wouldn’t have to be with me.”

Mrs. Caldwell raised her eyebrow and crossed her arms over her chest. “He said that, did he?”

Amelia huffed. “No. He thinks I don’t want him.” She would never understand how her mother always knew what she was really feeling. She guessed it was another thing in life that could be chalked up as magic. That thought shocked her though, because just yesterday she would have chalked it up to a mother’s intuition, but today magic seemed right on the mark.

“I see.” A small smile appeared on Mrs. Caldwell’s lips and her eyes sparkled. “I know this has been hard for you. But you need to ask yourself, do you love him?”

“More than anything, but Mom…” Passion rushed through her veins and Amelia jumped up, pacing back and forth. She clenched her fists into little white balls. “We fight. We fight like crazy. We can’t even be in the same room without wanting to kill each other.”

Mrs. Caldwell laughed. “That doesn’t surprise me. You’re both very stubborn. Let me guess, he keeps making all the decisions for you and you don’t like that.”

“Exactly…” Amelia said under her breath. “He’s just so… so… infuriating!” She loosened her hands and plopped back down into her mother’s lap. “He thinks he knows best. He acts like he’s some kind of king or something.” Mrs. Caldwell laughed again. “Stop it, Mom. This is serious.”

“True love is never easy and if my memories serve me correctly, he was a king in his human life. Come to think of it, I believe he still is a king of sorts amongst his kind. Mitchell has been on this earth for a very long time.” She brushed her fingers under Amelia’s chin and tilted her head up to meet her eyes. “Don’t you think it’s possible that he really does know what’s best for you? He just may not always say it in the best way. You need to be patient with him, dear. After he watched you die, it changed him. Imagine what he must have felt. All the strength of a vampire and he could do nothing to help you. And it’s been a long time since he’s had to deal with someone so young. You know that feeling you get when he’s around?”

A rush of emotion filled Amelia as she tried to find the words to explain how it felt. Her heart fluttered and a pleasant light-headedness swallowed her up, the way it always did at the thought of Mitchell. “Yeah, like I’m being pulled to him. It’s like there is no one else in the world when he’s there.” She knew that was right, it wasn’t even an approximation of her true feelings, but the words escaped her. Her love was ineffable.