I reach into my back pocket and pull out the photo from Piccadilly Circus. “Were you following us, then?” I ask, holding it out to him. My hand is shaking, and I know he sees it too.
Griffon smiles like he’s been caught. “No,” he says. “Not really. I was wondering if you’d see me in the picture. We just happened to be crossing the street there that day. Owen and I do that sometimes—get into the background of other people’s tourist shots. Kind of like a real life Where’s Waldo. We must be in hundreds of slide shows all over the world.” He touches my image in the photo. “You made an impression, though. Sometimes you can sense when a person nearby is Akhet. So when you showed up at the Tower, I wasn’t all that surprised.”
“That’s a pretty huge coincidence,” I say skeptically.
“Coincidence,” he repeats, then shakes his head. “I don’t think of things that way anymore. Even the word is meaningless. It’s not about coincidence. It’s about leaving yourself open to possibility. Not letting your conscious mind get in the way.”
I rub my eyes with the palms of my hands until colors shoot through the darkness. This is nuts. Akhet? Past lives? Who believes this stuff? I shake my hands out to get rid of some of the nervous energy that’s building up inside of me. “I need to get out of here,” I say, and turn back toward the path. The sun has started to set over the trees while we’ve been in the park, and most of the kids have been called away by their parents.
Even more disturbing than thinking he’s lying to me is the fact that it all makes so much sense. His explanation feels so right. Like something I’ve been searching for is suddenly right there in front of me. But I can’t let myself believe him. His closeness, the scent of him in the warm evening air, is turning my brain to mush.
“Just take it all in slowly,” he says. “It took me years to even get where you are now.”
“And where exactly is that?”
“The place where you can get some answers.”
“Answers? I can’t even figure out the right questions.” I’m not religious or anything, but let’s say for a second that he’s telling the truth. Where does that leave the whole God issue? What about heaven and angels and all that? Who’s in charge of how you come back and when? I think about that day at the Tower and the vision I had. Of the visions I’ve continued to have. “So how did you know that I’m … remembering things?” The rough wood of the platform and the smell of the damp grass linger in the shadows of my mind. For everything that’s unexplained, I still can’t imagine that I’m anyone other than who I’ve always been. It’s impossible.
“When I touched you,” he says. “After you fell, I reached out to help you up, and I could feel it.” He sighs. “When you touch another Akhet, it sends out a unique vibration. But I could tell from your reaction that you didn’t know.”
I walk, thinking about the things I’d like to know if all this were really true. How does it happen? Where are the others? Do you ever remember everything about your past? “When did you first find out about … all of this?” I finally ask, feeling ridiculous even as the words come out of my mouth. I look behind us to make sure that nobody is close enough to overhear. Maybe I can figure out what’s going on if I pretend to believe him.
Griffon blows out a loud breath and runs his hand through his hair. “It’s been a long time since I transitioned. I haven’t thought about that for a while,” he says. He goes quiet for a moment. “It happened for me pretty much like it’s happening for you—in pieces. I was living in Italy at the time,” he says. “I was an older man—back then, forty was considered ancient—and I began to understand what had been happening to me my whole life. I met a woman who knew about it, and she helped me. She was an Iawi Akhet even then.” He glances at me. “Sorry. ‘Iawi’ are Ahket who have had their memories for many lifetimes.”
“When was that?” I ask, understanding that whether or not all this is true, it’s at least true for Griffon.
He looks at me as if he’s deciding something. “The early sixteen hundreds. Hard to say exactly.”
“How old are you now?”
“Seventeen.”
“So you’ve been seventeen for over four hundred years?” Even he must realize how ridiculous that sounds.
He smiles sadly. “No. It’s not like I’m a vampire or some kind of immortal. I’ve been seventeen since February. I’ve just been seventeen many times before.” He stops and looks around. “Everyone has,” he says. “It’s just that some of us carry the knowledge with us. We remember what other people forget. Most of the time it’s a good thing.” He pauses. “Most of the time.”
“So what happened to her?”
He looks confused. “Who?”
“The woman. The one who helped you back then.”
“She died right after we met.” A shadow passes across his face, and I can tell that he’s thinking about something painful. I sense there’s more, so I don’t say anything.
“She was killed, actually,” he goes on. “For being a sorceress. Back then, you didn’t speak of these things in public.” He looks around as we emerge from the tunnel back onto the busy street. “And if you want to stay out of serious therapy, it’s better not to talk about it now either.”
We cross the intersection and start up the street, each of us lost in our own thoughts. I hear pounding as a bus rolls by us, and looking up, I see Rayne in the window, pointing to the bus stop on the corner.
Griffon sees her too. “Your friend?”
I nod. “The one I was waiting for.” We walk to the corner and wait while Rayne pushes through the standing crowd and jumps the last two steps to the sidewalk.
“Hey!” she says, giving me a big hug. “I’ve been texting you all afternoon.”
I feel the outline of my phone in my pocket. I must have forgotten to turn it back on after Veronique’s lesson. “I missed it,” I say.
“Well, I’m here. I was trying to tell you that I can meet you for the movie after all.” She looks pointedly at Griffon, who is standing a few feet away with his hands in his pockets.
“Oh, um, Rayne, this is Griffon. Griffon, this is my friend Rayne.”
“Best friend,” she corrects, and gives him a little wave.
After the introductions, Rayne turns her back on him for just a second to mouth the word “wow” to me, before turning back to face him with a smile. “So, are you coming with us?”
Griffon glances at me, a look of uncertainty on his face. “I don’t know,” he says. “Am I?”
Rayne grabs his hand in her right hand and takes mine with her left, practically bouncing as she walks. “I think you are. Is anyone hungry? I could use something serious to eat before we go in.” Despite my confusion with Griffon and his games, I glance down to where their skin touches and feel a pang of jealousy. This entire afternoon, Griffon made a point of not touching me. He’s been avoiding any contact like I’m contagious.
I usually love the slices at the pizza place next door to the theater, but I can barely choke down one bite as I think about everything Griffon said. As Rayne grills him about his life, he keeps glancing over at me with a worried look on his face. The movie isn’t much better. I’ve always wanted to see Harold and Maude, but as much as I try to concentrate, my mind keeps wandering back to the conversation we’d had just an hour before. That, and the fact that Griffon is sitting on my right side, his eyes not moving from the flickering screen in front of us, seemingly oblivious to the fact that we’re so close it’s difficult to keep my hand from accidentally brushing his on the armrest. He looks like a normal seventeen-year-old guy—okay, an insanely attractive seventeen-year-old guy—sitting in a revival movie theater, which makes it even harder to believe what he’s been saying.