She returns her gaze to the page. Her finger traces along the shape of his name, letter by letter, her lips forming silent sounds.
He leans closer. She catches the scent of ginger and gin, lavender and apples. She looks up from her words. She can’t tell if the shine in his eyes is a trick of the firelight or something else. “What?”
“You are trouble, Beatrix Lancourt.” He whispers the words, a secret he doesn’t dare speak too loudly. They wrap around her heart like a serpent,squeeze it so tightly she swears it stops beating. She jerks away, his notes forgotten.
Oliver sits up, confusion etched across his brow. “What’s wrong?”
She shivers, despite the heat of the fire. She hugs her arms tightly around herself, as if it will hold her in the here and now. “Sometimes it’s like I’ve already lived a moment and then I live it again.”
“You mean déjà vu?” Oliver asks.
“Déjà vu?”
“It means ‘already seen,’?” he says. “A French philosopher coins the term, and it sticks, even in English. Lots of people experience it.”
Beatrix shakes her head. “You know the strangest things.”
Oliver grimaces. “Philosophy trivia courtesy of Luke. He’s a friend of mine.”
But Beatrix can’t shake the feeling. “Do you think your whole life can become déjà vu, if you live long enough? Your entire life, already seen?”
“Déjà vu is just a coincidence,” he says gently.
Beatrix scrutinizes him. “You said I was trouble.”
He gives her a wry smile. “I’m sure lots of people have told you that.”
She doesn’t laugh. “If I’m trouble, what does that make you?”
“I don’t know.” Oliver shrugs. “What does that make me?”
Beatrix shakes her head and waits for a proper reply, waits for him to tell her he is doomed. To find out if she is.
Oliver studies her face. “A fool.” He says it as if it has only just occurred to him.
His words break the spell, ease the tension in her chest.
“Every day is different, Bea. Even if you’ve seen a lot of them.” He reaches for her. Tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “You’ve never danced on the Thames before, have you? Or watched an elephant cross it?”
“Never.”
“You won’t believe how much the world changes,” he says. “I don’t think even you could do it all.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.” She has started over so many times, has lived so many different lives. Surely it will all blur together until even the déjà vu becomes unremarkable. An “already seen” that is seen again and again and again.
Oliver jumps to his feet and offers her his hand. She takes it, and hedrags her to the window beside the bed. The panes are edged with frost, but she can still make out the darkened London street below them, the faintest graying at the horizon. Oliver points up. “What do you see?”
“The sky,” Beatrix says. “A few stars. The moon.”
Oliver grins. “Hypothetically speaking, what would you say if I told you we’d be up there someday?”
Beatrix laughs. “Hypothetically speaking, I would say you’re mad.”
He leans close. “July twentieth, 1969,” he says, his voice low in her ear. “Man walks on the moon.”
She doesn’t pull away. “Hypothetically?”
Oliver shudders, as if he’s caught a sudden chill. He steps away from her, frowning.
