Zamora looked up at her, those old eyes seeing beyond the present moment, into past moments, years, and... lifetimes.
"The lifeline does not tell whether a person lives or not, but the length of one's life."
"How can you measure something you can't see?"
The old woman stared at her. "You already know the answer. You have always known it. It is only that you would not accept it." The old woman gently released her hand.
"How can you measure something when you don't know where it begins or ends?"
There was no other choice now that the path had been chosen. She must tell the girl everything, or she would be lost forever.
"My great-grandmother told the story of a man she once knew. This man had no such line on his hand. But he had the ability to recall another life in another time and place. Those who knew him said he'd always had those memories since he was a child.
The old woman watched her as she continued. "He knew this life, down to the most precise detail. He knew the names of people and places from a hundred years before—things he could not have known unless he'd seen them. These things would come to him in dreams. He spoke of leaving one life and entering another." Zamora leaned far over the table, her gaze boring into Elyse's.
"The line measures the beginning and the end of a life," she explained. "This man, I speak of, had no such line across his hand because his life had no beginning or ending."
Elyse stared at her. "What you're saying is impossible! A person is born, lives, and dies. That's all!"
"Can you deny that even now you are troubled with dreams you do not understand?" Zamora went on to tell Elyse what she already knew.
"You've had them since you were a child, and always they are the same. And there will come a time, perhaps already, when the dream is real. It is a memory of another time, another place, another life."
"It can't be," Elyse whispered.
"You may deny it with every breath, but you know it is true. I see it in your eyes."
"You know nothing about me... " Elyse pressed her fingers against her forehead as if she could wipe it away. But she couldn't.
"I am not wrong." Zamora confronted her.
Elyse refused to meet that dark gaze, afraid of what she might see.
"Are there others?"
Zamora nodded. "There is another," she answered simply.
"I have known of one other in my life."
Elyse looked up, following the line of the old Gypsy's gaze to the bed against the far wall on which Zach slept.
She looked up at the old woman. "What are you saying!"
"I am saying that there are many things in this world that neither man nor God can explain. There are those who live many lives, perhaps searching for something, or... someone. It is there in your hand. It began long ago. The truth is there, you have lived another life. This life began when the ship was cast upon the rocks."
Elyse was stunned. There wasn't any way for the woman to know these things. "You expect me to believe this?"
"I expect nothing of you. You asked me to tell you what I saw, and I have told you. Whether you choose to believe it or not is up to you. There is a reason only you can know, fate has brought you two together again. But I warn you, if you ignore what I have told you, you may never find each other again."
Zamora rose then, suddenly very weary. It was always the same when she used the gift.
"I must feed my sons. Check the bandages," she told her with a look over at the bed. "Make certain there is no bleeding. And then you have a choice. You must decide whether to accept what fate has offered you, or not.
"You have a chance at happiness that was taken from you, that only a few will ever know. But only you can decide." Then she was gone, a bowl of soup in each hand, the door slightly ajar as she made her way down the darkened stairway.
Surely the woman was mad, Elyse thought. What she suggested was unbelievable. Yet, how was it possible for the old woman to know so much about her?
She was unable to sleep after the old woman left. Everything she'd been taught and had believed told her that what Zamora told her was impossible. People didn't live one life and then simply drift into another.
