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k_a_webbLucille smiled at Jarek. “This is where I need to be.” She nibbled her lip, working out how to explain it to him, because it wasn’t something she entirely understood herself. “We’ve been focusing the whole time on how we can change the guards, but they aren’t the only thing we can change. The tiger, if that’s what he is, isn’t going to stop us, as he knows we’ll help him in the future.” Shrugging, she watched as another spell zoomed past her. “I really do think the next step is us taking something away from the counterfeiters.”
After a few moments Jarek nodded. “I see where you’re coming from. You might be right about that.” He nodded again. “Right now, though, I do think it would be better if you were over here, rather than other there. I don’t think anything will happen to you. I just can’t help worry that it will, because we really do need you, Lucy.”
“Nothing will happen to me. I’m not really here. You are, because you were here at the time, but I’m little more than a ghost.”
“Ghosts generally can’t touch anything.”
“True.” She shrugged. “I’m a ghost with special abilities. I’m here, because here is where I’m meant to be, and I’m not here at the same time.” To stop Jarek from worrying she crossed the room, so she was standing next to him. “I don’t know why I’m a part of this, Jarek. I don’t know why I’m the one who’s going to change things.”
He took hold of her hand. “The interesting thing about the Web is that there is no one special person who’s going to change things – there a number of you living at the same time. It’s always been that way and it will always be that way, because the Web is huge. When we first created it we had no idea what it was going to be like calling the Web home. For a while I thought the rest of the fae might have had the right idea, as there was so much to deal with, but we weren’t permitted to help those who need it due to their fear. There are races I know we’re lucky survived and races that should never have been created in the first place.” Sighing, he shook his head. “Occasionally I can’t help wishing there was another way to be able to save the fae from the fate they would have had if they stayed on Kalinia.
“Sometimes I think it might have been better if we’d stayed on Kalinia and not done this to Athare, because she deserved so much better than this. Now she’s a part of our mess. She’s done everything she can to help us, which is something I will always be grateful for, as it wasn’t something she had to do. Knowing that she cared enough about us to put that amount of effort in… she’s something special and I hope one day I do get to meet her.” He looked at Lucille. “After all this time I’ve never have a chance to meet any of the worlds and I’m sure there’s a reason for that. There’s a reason for everything they do. We just don’t know what those reasons are until they choose to tell us what they are or we find out in some way.”
“I’ll have a chat with Quiar. She’ll tell me what the reason is. Unfortunately that doesn’t mean I’ll be able to tell you what it is, but if I can I will.” She squeezed his paw. “I like you a lot, Jarek. I know I’ve only just met you and one of the things I was taught when I was studying to become a Moonjumper was to never feel that way about someone. Liking someone means you’re going to do something for them that’s probably going to end up being a mistake.” She laughed. “Have you ever heard the story of a Moonjumper called Astra?”
“I don’t think I’ve heard her name before.”
“Well, not long after natural Moonjumpers were deemed too dangerous to exist and the Council started spending their time trying to rid the world of them, there was a trained Moonjumper who chose to break a natural out of prison. She’d been friends with him before she started her studies.” Lucille smiled. “She was probably more than friends with him before that, but he didn’t tell her he was a natural Moonjumper. At the time that was a sensible thing to do. He didn’t know how she was going to react to the news, so there was a chance she would tell the Council. The last thing he could have been expecting was for her to get him out of his cell and fly him away from the Council.
“Astra, although I have no idea how she did it, enchanted a broomstick. It flew the two of them from the Council building to the nearest door and she’s lucky he managed to convince her to go with him, otherwise she would have been executed herself. I’m sure she knew that. I’m certain the thing that mattered the most was getting Drake away from the Council and I can understand that. If it had been someone I cared about in the same position I wouldn’t have been able to leave them there, knowing they were going to be executed.” One of Lucille’s greatest fears was that Carver would be caught by the Council, because if that happened she was going to do everything she could to get him free of them, even if it meant walking away from them herself. “When they stepped through the door they became another statistic. Astra was a Council trainee gone bad, and there were a lot of them at the time, while Drake was a natural escapee. There were quite a high number of them as well.”
“She sounds like you.” Jarek studied Lucille. “Do you think she might have been?”
Lucille stared at Jarek. “I don’t know.” She brushed a hand through her hair. “I suppose it’s possible any of the Moonjumpers I read about before might have been me.” That was a very strange thought. “I might have read about myself in one of those books and not known about it.”
“The strangest thing is reading something and knowing that was once you.” He smiled. “I’ve done that before and just… it’s inexplicable. You stare at this page in a book that you know is about the history of the Web and you’re in it. Every time I look at them, every time I read about myself, I find myself wondering who wrote it. Did they know me? What life are they living now? Do they remember the life they lived before or have they lost all the memories they had of who they were? Sometimes it’s amusing, because it’s obvious they had no idea who I was. They come up with these really stupid reasons for the choices I made, when it’s obvious they have no idea what was going through my head, and that’s when I know it was written by someone after it all happened.
“I love the idea of you writing about us, Lucille. Your history of the Web would be absolutely fascinating, because you’d be able to tell stories about people who have lived through history, seen different times, and become different people after they died.” He smiled. “I want you to do it more than I’ve ever wanted anything, but I know you’re a Moonjumper first. Your job will always come first, which is something I believe is the right thing, although there is a part of me that wishes things could be different.” He shrugged. “I get the feeling your job has always come first. When I look into your eyes I see someone who has a lot of knowledge, so I think you’ve lived a lot of lives as a Moonjumper.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Part of the reason is the way you want to learn everything you can about everything.” He laughed. “That makes me think you’ve always been like that, because all of the people I’ve known who have felt that way have been the same during all of the lives they lived before. You can’t have been fae, otherwise you would have remembered that, so you’re a member of the created races. It’s possible you might be a lost Weaver, but that seems unlikely. There were other races who learnt more than they should early on and it would have been easy enough for you to be one of them.”
“Do you do this with everyone you meet?”
He opened his mouth and then closed it again. “Yeah, I kinda do.” He nibbled his lip. “I can’t help it. Whenever I see someone I know they’ve lived lives before and I want to know what they were. It’s a really bad habit I have, but at least I can talk to you about what’s going through my head.”
Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.