She cracked it open, expecting to have to decode some stiff academic table of contents or dig through an index at the back before she'd find anything even remotely related to Daniel.
She never got beyond the title page.
Pasted inside the front cover of the book was a sepia-toned photograph. It was a very old carte de visite-style picture, printed on yellowing albumen paper. Someone had scrawled in ink at the bottom: Helston, 1854.
Heat flashed across her skin. She yanked her black sweater over her head but still felt hot in her tank top.
The memory of Daniel's voice sounded hollow in her mind. I get to live forever, he'd said. You come along every seventeen years. You fall in love with me, and I with you. And it kills you.
Her head throbbed.
You're my love, Lucinda. For me, you're all there is.
She fingered the outline of the picture glued inside the book. Luce's dad, the aspiring photography guru, would have marveled over how well-preserved the image was, how valuable it must be.
Luce, on the other hand, was hung up on the people in the image. Because, unless every word out of Daniel's mouth had been true, it made no sense at all.
A young man, with light cropped hair and lighter eyes, posed elegantly in a trim black coat. His raised chin and well-defined cheekbones made his fine attire look even more distinguished, but it was his lips that gave Luce such a start. The exact shape of his smile, combined with the look in those eyes… it added up to an expression that Luce had seen in every one of her dreams these last few weeks. And, over the last couple of days, in person.
This man was the spitting image of Daniel. The Daniel who had just told her that he loved her—and that she had been reincarnated dozens of times. The Daniel who had said so many other things Luce didn't want to hear that she had run away. The Daniel whom she'd abandoned under the peach trees in the cemetery.
It could have been just a remarkable likeness. Some distant relative, the author of the book maybe, who'd funneled each one of his genes straight down the family tree right to Daniel.
Except that the young man in the picture was posed next to a young woman who also looked alarmingly familiar.
Luce held the book inches from her face and pored over the woman's image. She wore a ruffled black silk ball gown that hugged her body to her waist before billowing out in wide black tiers. Black lace-up wristlets encased her hands, leaving her white fingers bare. Her small teeth showed between her lips, which were parted in an easy smile. She had clear skin a few tones lighter than the man's. Deep-set eyes bordered by thick eyelashes. A black flood of hair that fell in thick waves to her waist.
It took a moment for Luce to remember how to breathe, and even then, she still couldn't tear her strained eyes away from the book. The woman in the photograph?
It was her.
Either Luce had been right, and her memory of Daniel had come from a forgotten trip to a Savannah mall, where they'd posed for cheesy dress-up shots at Ye Old Photo Booth that she also couldn't remember—or Daniel had been telling the truth.
Luce and Daniel did know one another.
From an altogether different time.
She could not catch her breath. Her whole life tossed in the roiling sea of her mind, everything came into question—the itchy dark shadows that haunted her, the gruesome death of Trevor, the dreams…
She had to find Penn. If anyone could come up with an explanation for such an impossible occurrence, it would be Penn. With the inscrutable old book tucked under her arm, Luce left her room and raced toward the library.
The library was warm and empty, but something about the high ceilings and endless rows of books made Luce nervous. She walked quickly past the new call desk, which still looked sterile and unlived in. She passed the formidable unused card catalog and the endless reference section until she had reached the long tables in the group study section.
Instead of Penn, Luce found Arriane, playing a game of chess with Roland. She had her feet up on the table and was wearing a striped conductor's cap. Her hair was tucked under the hat, and Luce noticed again, for the first time since the morning she'd cut Arriane's hair, the glossy, marbled scar along her neck.
Arriane was fixated on the game. A chocolate cigar bobbed between her lips as she contemplated her next move. Roland had twisted his dreads into two meaty knots on the crown of his head. He was giving Arriane the hawk eye, tapping one of his pawns with his pinky.
"Checkmate, bitch," Arriane said triumphantly, knocking over Roland's king, just as Luce thudded to a stop in front of their table. "Lululucinda," she sang, looking up. "You've been hiding from me."
"No."
"I've been hearing things about you," Arriane said, causing Roland to tilt his head attentively. "Nudge nudge, wink wink. That means sit down and spill. Right now."
Luce hugged the book to her chest. She didn't want to sit down. She wanted to scour the library for Penn. She couldn't make small talk with Arriane—especially not in front of Roland, who was clearing his things off the seat next to him.
"Join us," Roland said.
Luce lowered herself reluctantly onto the edge of the seat. She'd just stay a few minutes. It was true that she hadn't seen Arriane in a few days, and under normal circumstances, she would really have missed the girl's bizarre ways.
But these were far from normal circumstances, and Luce could think of nothing other than that photograph.
"Since I just wiped the chessboard with Roland's ass, let's play a new game. How about 'who saw an incriminating photo of Luce the other day?'" Arriane said, crossing her arms on the table.
"What?" Luce jumped back. She pressed her hand down firmly on the cover of the book, feeling certain that her tense expression was giving everything away. She should never have brought it here.
"I'll give you three guesses," Arriane said, rolling her eyes. "Molly snapped a picture of you ducking into a big black car yesterday after class."
"Oh." Luce sighed.
"She was going to turn you in to Randy," Arriane continued. "Until I gave her what for. Mmm-hmm." She snapped her fingers. "Now, to show your gratitude, tell me—are they sneaking you away to see an off-campus shrink?" She lowered her voice to a whisper and tapped her fingernails on the table. "Or have you taken a lover?"
Luce glanced at Roland, who was giving her a fixed stare.
"Neither," she said. "I just left for a little while to have a talk with Cam. It didn't go exactly—"
"Bam! Pay up, Arri," Roland said, grinning. "You owe me ten bucks."
Luce's jaw dropped.
Arriane patted her hand. "No big deal, we just made a little wager to keep things interesting. I assumed it was Daniel you'd gone off with. Roland here picked Cam. You're breaking my bank, Luce. I don't like it."
"I was with Daniel," Luce said, not really knowing why she felt the need to correct them. Didn't they have anything better to do with their lives than sit around wondering what she did on her own time?
"Oh," Roland said, sounding disappointed. "The plot thickens."
"Roland." Luce turned to him. "I need to ask you something."
"Talk to me." He pulled a notepad and a pen out of his black-and-white pinstriped blazer. He held the pen poised over the paper, like a waiter taking an order. "What do you want? Coffee? Booze? I only get the hard stuff on Fridays. Dirty magazines?"
"Thigars?" Arriane offered, lisping through the chocolate one in her mouth.
"No." Luce shook her head. "None of that."
"Okay, special order. I left the catalog up in the room." Roland shrugged. "You can come by later—"