Free Timeless by Michelle Madow Page A

the flashes first, but I stayed quiet. Chelsea was cooperating, and I didn’t want to mess that up.
    “Before I start, you have to promise you won’t repeat what I’m about to tell you to anyone,” Chelsea said seriously, without a trace of the earlier anger in her tone. “If Shannon finds out I let you in on this, she’ll be beyond angry.”
    “What does Shannon have to do with this?” I asked.
    “Promise you won’t tell anyone, and I’ll tell you,” Chelsea said.
    I wouldn’t keep what she told me from Drew, but since it wouldn’t help to point that out, I agreed to her condition. I hated knowing I would go back on my promise the minute I talked to Drew tonight, but I tried not to dwell on it.
    The small lie was worth it to save my life.
    “Sunday morning, Shannon dragged me to that Mystic Pathways store in the mall,” Chelsea said. “We went there once a few years ago. Remember?”
    “Yeah.” I nodded, remembering how we’d gone into the store as a joke. It was dark inside, and filled with herbs, crystals, and so-called magical candles. Then we saw the creepy old lady who worked there, looking like an evil character in a fairy tale. We bolted out of the store, and joked about her being a witch. I hadn’t given that day much thought since.
    “The lady who works there is Shannon’s aunt, but that’s not the point,” Chelsea said with a wave of her hand. “The point is that she convinced me she could help me get Drew back, and she took me into the back room. She did some past life regression voodoo, and that’s when it came back to me.”
    “Your past life?” I asked, gripping the armrests of the chair.
    “The first thing I saw was Drew dancing with me at a ball.” Chelsea’s eyes took on a far-off look, like she was seeing the scene in front of her as she described it. “We were happy, and having fun. I saw you there too, but after I saw you, the scene switched to one of me and Drew talking in a garden. He looked upset—really upset—but I don’t know what was wrong. All I know was that he was coming to me with his problem, and I was doing my best to help him get through whatever was troubling him. The next thing I knew, I was in a church watching myself marry Drew.”
    I didn’t want to believe it was possible, but I doubted Chelsea had made that up. “Was I there?” I asked, trying to ignore how hurt I was at the possibility that Drew had married Catherine and not told me. Or maybe he just didn’t remember. I didn’t remember much about my past, either—only the parts with Drew. If he only remembered the parts when he was with me, then he wouldn’t remember anything beyond my death. 
    “I don’t know.” Chelsea lifted a small pillow from the bed and hugged it. “It was pretty fuzzy. I saw some people in the crowd, but no, I don’t remember seeing you.”
    “Because I was dead,” I reminded her.
    “Maybe.” Her eyes darkened, like she didn’t want to believe it.
    Then I told her my side of the story. How after I saw Drew for the first time in European History, I felt like I knew him from somewhere, but couldn’t place where that was. How soon afterwards, strange things started happening to me, like the sketches I’d made of my past self in Regency England, and becoming fluent in French. How Drew came to the Halloween dance, and when we danced together, I had a flashback of us dancing at the ball we attended in the past—the same ball I assumed Chelsea saw during her “regression session” at Mystic Pathways. I told her about meeting Alistair, his role as my Memory Guide, and how he gave me objects to help me remember my past life, like the mask, the necklace, the original printing of Pride and Prejudice , and the sheet music for “Minuet.” I told her about remembering how to play piano as easily as I’d remembered how to speak French. Finally I told her about what happened the night of Shannon’s party—the flash I had of Catherine and Drew together in the