“I think that I heard your mother and you talking, but I might have been dreaming. I had many strange dreams.”
“What did you hear?”
He would have preferred to wait with that, but perhaps it was better to find out for sure whether everything he’d experienced while unconscious had been real or imagined.
“I heard your mother telling you about her experience with someone who she thought was me in one of my previous incarnations. She called me Gudbrand.”
Sari’s body tensed against his. “It wasn’t you. We both need to remember that. Thousands of years have passed since that incident, and you probably reincarnated dozens of times since. You are not the same man. You are not Gudbrand. You are David.”
So it had all been real.
He let out a breath. More than the revelations about his past life, David was glad that his brother had really been there, talking to him and promising that they would meet again.
“I know that.”
“Good. I don’t want you to feel guilty for something that you didn’t do.”
“I dreamt about being Gudbrand. He was obsessed with her.”
Sari lifted her head and looked into his eyes. “Did he love her?”
“Gudbrand loved himself. What he felt for her had nothing to do with love.”
“Is that how you felt in the dream?”
“I got to know him pretty well during those dreams. Gudbrand was a selfish man with an overblown ego, and he blamed her for his obsession instead of taking personal responsibility for his actions. He suspected Ania of enchanting him to forsake everything and everyone to be with her, so she could suck all the vitality out of him. When he saw her skin glow, his suspicions were confirmed, and he lost it.”
“Did he really intend to kill her?”
David nodded. “I’m glad that she stopped him, and I don’t hold it against her.”
“Annani still feels incredibly guilty about it. She is not sure whether Gudbrand would have actually done it. She thinks that he might have been bluffing to get his brother to stand down.”
“Gudbrand was crazed, and he wanted to end her. She did the right thing by defending herself in the only way she could. Losing him only affected his family, but losing Annani would have impacted all of humanity. Imagine what would have happened to the world without her influence. The Dark Ages would have gone on forever, and Navuh would have ruled supreme over a miserable, enslaved earth population.”
Sari shivered. “I can’t even conceive of a world controlled by Doomers.”
“I can. North Korea would seem like a paradise compared to what Navuh would have done.”
56
Sari
They were both tiptoeing around the big elephant in the room, and even though Sari would have preferred not to bring it up, it was better to get it out into the open instead of obsessing over it and letting it grow into mammoth proportions.
“I have to admit that it weirds me out knowing my mother was Gudbrand’s lover, and that a tiny part of him still lives inside of you. But I’ll get over it.”
Surprisingly, David turned to her with a bright smile illuminating his handsome face. “The part of Gudbrand that still lives in me is much smaller than you think.”
That was a healthy way to look at it, but he seemed way too happy over something that should have made him feel awkward. Perhaps he was joking?
She could play along. “It’s barely there.” Sari brought her thumb and forefinger together, leaving only hair-width space between them. “It’s so small that it can be ignored.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Still grinning, he cupped her cheek and looked into her eyes. “I am not the reincarnation of Gudbrand. I’m the reincarnation of Olek, Gudbrand’s brother. I’ve never been Annani’s lover.”
Sari felt like a tremendous weight had been lifted off her chest, but the relief only lasted a couple of seconds.
“I don’t understand how that’s possible. You dreamt about Gudbrand’s life, not his brother’s.”
“I also dreamt about Olek’s. I was married to a woman whom I loved dearly, but she died during childbirth. Astrid had asthma, and it got worse because of the pregnancy. She went into premature labor and died.”
The sense of relief returned, along with deep sorrow for Olek’s tragic life.
“My mother told me about that. I’m so sorry for you. That must have been a terrible experience to live through twice.”
David sighed. “Dreaming about Gudbrand’s life was much easier than dreaming about Olek’s. The poor guy was dealt one blow after another, and it took him many lifetimes to heal his soul. Thankfully, whoever is in charge of giving me a window into that past life did it in a merciful way. In the dream, I was an outside observer of Olek’s life. I didn’t live it. It was still difficult to watch, but the impact wasn’t as devastating.”
Sari hated to ask, but she had to know. “Did the baby survive?”
“Olek’s son survived birth, but he was tiny and weak, and he died a day later. Those were primitive times. Many mothers and babies perished in childbirth. Not that it was any consolation to Olek. He was crushed, and then on top of that, he also carried the guilt for killing his older brother. Frankly, I would have preferred to have been Gudbrand despite his lousy character. At least he didn’t have to drag such a heavy burden into his subsequent lives.”
Sari moved her hand on David’s stomach in small, soothing circles. “I can empathize, but I’m so incredibly relieved that you were never my mother’s lover in any shape or form. Does that make me a bad person?”
“No, my love. It makes you human.” He chuckled. “Not that you are, but you get what I mean. It’s natural to feel that way.”
“Why did you dream of Annani, though? Was Olek obsessed with her as well?”
“I need to backtrack a little to explain that.” David leaned back, reached for his cup of coffee, and took a few sips. “I skipped over the most important revelation I had during my coma. My twin brother Jonah came to talk to me. After he died, I wished for a sign from him that he was still out there in some form, but this was the first time he was allowed to do so. I think that the Fates or some other higher power wanted to set the record straight and relieve Annani from the guilt she’s carried for all those years. Or maybe they wanted our union to be free of the uncomfortable cloud that Annani’s history with Gudbrand was casting over it. That’s why Jonah was allowed to tell me the real story.”
“How is Jonah connected to all of that?”
David smiled. “Jonah was Gudbrand, and I was Olek. Jonah told me that we reincarnated many times as brothers, or best friends, or as father and son. But this time around we were twins, which made our connection much stronger. Apparently, we shared each other’s dreams. Jonah dreamt about Annani, and I gave his dreams the Ayesha spin. My dreams were colored by the book and the sorceress who shared many of Annani’s attributes, especially as seen through Gudbrand’s filter.”
“That actually makes sense. He thought of her as an evil seductress who was out to suck the life out of him, and that reminded you of Ayesha.”