‘I don’t know. Maybe. I think there’s a lot of stuff out there that we don’t understand – that maybe at some point science will shed light on things we haven’t even got close to figuring out. Like the near-death experiences people claim to have, and people who swear they can feel the energy of a ghost in their house. Maybe there’s an explanation for all of that. I mean, people used to believe the world is flat, right? So maybe there will be a time in the future where everyone’s like, oh my God, I can’t believe they didn’t believe in ghosts back then, when there is all this evidence.’ He glances at her. ‘Or past lives, I suppose.’
She nods, pursing her lips. Now it’s his gaze that drops to her mouth, just briefly. She feels the echo of a tingle in her lips.
‘Why?’ he asks.
She hesitates. ‘No reason.’ She doesn’t want him to think she’stotallyinsane, after all, not when she might just be getting away with the endearing side of crazy for now.
‘Hmm,’ he says, making that familiar noise in the back of his throat.
‘What?’
‘Well, that’s the kind of “no reason” that definitely doesn’t mean no reason.’
She laughs, lifts one hand to brush her hair away from her face. ‘I just …’
‘You think you had a past life?’
‘Maybe,’ she hedges.Or several. And something bad happened in all of them.
She can still feel it, the impact of the car in her dream last night. Can still taste the blood, see his broken body lying on the tarmac, too far away for her to reach.
‘Lissa?’ She blinks Ash’s face back into focus. ‘You okay?’
She smiles. ‘Sorry. Yes, I’m okay.’
She feels colder than she did a second ago, though, even as she tries to shake it off. She always knew she must have died before – because how would she have past lives if not? But last night she woke up crying and was unable to stop. It had happened on the anniversary of her sister’s death. She’d died on that day. Which might mean there was something in her punishment theory after all.
‘The swimming thing,’ Ash says.
‘Huh?’
‘Earlier, when you said you didn’t swim.’ Right. And she’d been careful – using the worddon’trather thancan’t. ‘Is that because of your sister? Because she drowned?’
She hesitates, then sighs. ‘Astute, aren’t you?’ Because she can hardly tell him that no, she doesn’t think it is – she thinks it’s becauseshedrowned once. It’s too easy to go back there, to feel the water flooding her lungs. Can still feel a hand grasping hers, trying to pull her to safety. Only the water didn’t want to let her go.
So he didn’t pull her to safety, did he? Instead, he drowned too.
‘Nah,’ Ash says with a smile. ‘I just pay attention.’
She glances sideways at him. ‘Anyone ever tell you that’s slightly annoying?’
He laughs, just as a head-shaped shadow falls over his face. Lissa glances up, then jumps to her feet. ‘Dad!’ She didn’t realise he was lurking there.
‘Just came to see if you guys need a top-up,’ he says with a smile.
‘I’ll come with you,’ Ash offers, standing up.
Lissa sits back down, watching him strike up an easy conversation with her dad as they head to the kitchen – he really is good at that, isn’t he? Almost immediately, Elsie takes the spot on the step next to her. ‘So is that your boyfriend?’ she asks, without preamble.
Lissa laughs. ‘No.’ Does she want him to be, though?
‘Huh. Jess and I had a bet he was.’
‘I’m not sure that’s how bets work,’ Lissa says drily.
‘Whatever. Anyway, Jess had to go and now I’m bored.’
‘Ah.’
