I know all the secrets. The universe tells them all to me. I know all about the gaps and the ragged tears in the fabric of our world.
A scribe scritched with a quill in the corner, faithfully recording the man’s ramblings.
Eventually, the scene faded, morphed and reformed.
Another man paced back and forth . . . a younger man, though similarly dressed. The man muttered and dragged his hands through his hair with dramatic flare.
The scene pulled back, revealing a stage and then an audience . . .
And then Jack, seated in a lavishly appointed theater box. His black evening coat and knee breeches loudly announced that this was nineteenth century Jack. He was a study in aristocratic elegance, one leg crossed over the other, a quizzing glass in one hand tapping against pursed lips as he studied the stage.
The actor’s words rang clearly through the theater. “For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a good kissing carrion—Have you a daughter?”
I blinked at the strange words. My head swung back instantly to the actor who paced the stage frantically. What play had Jack so riveted?
I watched for a moment. The younger actor, fidgety and skittish. An older actor asking questions.
Ah.
Shakespeare’sHamlet.
A play about a young prince, Hamlet, supposedly going insane due to the untimely death of his father and subsequent treacheries of his uncle and mother. The current scene featured Polonious, an adviser, quizzing the prince, trying to determine the depth of Hamlet’s madness.
Jack leaned forward, utterly engrossed. A lock of his auburn hair tumbled with the motion. My fingers itched to push it back, to sink all the way into the thick silkiness. Dimly, I noted others in the theater box with him. An older woman in jewel-toned silk with Jack’s same full lips and high cheekbones. A man who was a younger, less charismatic version of Jack, certainly his brother. The same Catharine from my earlier dream. An elderly couple and a blond young woman who stared at Jack rather than the stage.
The actors continued with their lines. The audience swayed and chuckled, clearly in thrall. Even a small bird got caught up in the performance. The sparrow darted around the actors, causing Polonious to flinch and bat at the bird as he said his famous line:
“Though this be madness, yet there is a method in’t.”
The bird chirped and continued to harass the actor, who swung his arms in a comic arc.
The crowd laughed. The actor growled and repeated his line.
Jack chuckled. The blond woman leaned closer to him, whispering something in his ear from behind her fan.
Jack’s humor moved from genuine to polite as he listened to her. He nodded, smiled and looked back at the stage.
He was so at ease, shoulders relaxed, body confident. Every line of him proclaiming that this was his world. This was where he belonged.
Part of me wondered why I kept having these dreams. They were so specific and so real, I was almost tempted to think that they weremorethan dreams. But if they were visions, how could that be? And, more importantly, to what end? How could Jack seeing a production ofHamletbe significant in any way?
That thought got lost as images swirled. Cesare in his silk coats, muttering raving mad. Jack laughing with women and men, moving through London ballrooms with elegant confidence.
I woke to the sun high in the sky and thebing-bingof my phone.
Text. Jack.
We have a problem.
TWELVE
Chiara
Idressed and went hunting for Jack. Of course, he was in his command center.
“What kind of problem?” I asked, as I strolled into the room.
Jack turned around, his blue eyes capturing mine. Everything about him was exactly the same as it had been yesterday and the day before that and the entire year before that.
