Adam's Journey (The Aliomenti Saga - Book 8) Read online

  “And all who made the request would have had valid reasons to do so, and that would be a problem.” Adam nodded. “Will would want to go and ensure that Eva made it through. You, Hope, would have wanted to go for the chance to see your mother again, if even for a short time. Gena would want to make sure I didn’t do anything stupid…”

  “He’s not wrong,” Gena murmured, and everyone laughed.

  “And suddenly we’re full and then the possibility of bringing Genevieve to the present is no longer an option.” He grimaced. “The secrecy wasn’t enjoyable—it’s tough to do around so many powerful telepaths and empaths—but in the end, I felt I had no choice.”

  “We always have a choice,” Will murmured. “We just fear the expected consequences that come from our choices, and use that as an excuse not to act.” His eyes took on a distant look as he finished speaking, and Hope’s eyes narrowed. His eyes refocused and he smiled faintly at Hope before returning his attention to Adam. “It does explain a few mysteries I always found odd, but never put the time into considering in depth. For example… when I first met Hope, and found she’d already developed Energy, she explained that a man who was traveling—Eva’s brother—had returned briefly and told her the secret. Yet in casual conversation, no one ever remembered seeing him return. They only knew that he’d been gone a very long time and they didn’t know when he’d be back. That included Eva, his supposed sister, and Arthur. She didn’t say she’d been stolen from her bed in the middle of the night; rather, she said he’d taken her to the Schola after paying his fee to Arthur, just like so many others. Someone other than Hope should have seen him, and they should have remembered given the drama around his departure.” He shrugged. “Now I know what really happened.”

  “You thought I was confused because it happened when I was so young.” Hope’s voice managed to mix both humor and danger in its tone, and low key chuckles met her words.

  “Touché’,” Will replied, eyes twinkling. “And I was wrong about that as well.”

  Hope nodded. “I suspect my mind combined the events of that day with all of the conversations about Adam, and I just accepted that it really was Adam coming back to help me.” She winked at Will. “See? I thought I was wrong, but I was right. Adam did come to help me.”

  Will laughed.

  “That’s not the only memory that got modified into our history over time,” Angel murmured. Her eyes monitored the twins, Charlie and Eva, who had uncovered a stack of old coloring books and crayons, and were competing to see who could create the best artwork. “Eva’s story about half the village leaving in protest over Elizabeth’s treatment wasn’t true.”

  “No,” Adam replied. “It never made much sense, but we had no other source we could ask or trust. When she told Will, he could have asked some of the older villagers about it, but he had the sense to realize they weren’t going to talk about the event at all. Little did he know that it was because most of them had forgotten about it by then.”

  “And nobody believed the idea that Adam and Eva were siblings, at least not in the original village,” Fil added. “But by the time your father returned, Eva had left, and the original villagers were all dead, except for Arthur. Once more, Dad managed to spread a rumor that wasn’t true.” He winked at his father, who rolled his eyes.

  “Timing conspired against the truth,” Adam murmured. “As it so often does.”

  “I would have told you the truth,” Genevieve said, directing her eyes at Will. Her modern language skills were well developed by now. “Alas, my former husband made certain that wasn’t a possibility.” She glanced up. “I’ve learned enough in my time in this era to know what he became. We saw no signs of that in those early days; Arthur was young, charming, and full of a personal energy unmatched by the others. His harsh childhood led him to a deep appreciation of the freedom he enjoyed, even the relative freedom before we escaped our bonds of slavery. It was only later that he finally snapped. Young Adam here told you the story about that.”

  Hope grimaced. “The story of him stealing the jewelry and being jailed was part of him snapping and becoming what he became. But the reality is that it happened because of me.”

  Genevieve shook her head. “No.”

  “It’s true, though.” Hope’s face fell. “He suffered a lot of humiliation and put up with a lot of abuse because of me. I thought that’s why he hated me and treated me like he did, and that it was because of that treatment, which came because I was born, that he turned evil. But that wasn’t it. It was because every time he looked at me he knew I wasn’t his.” Her head bowed, her shoulders slumped. “It all happened because of me.”

  “No, it all happened because of me, Lizzie.” Genevieve’s blue eyes pierced the haze of sadness hovering around Hope, the force commanding her daughter to raise her head. Neither woman seemed to remember that the others were still in the room, faces rapt with attention and understanding, all barely breathing. “His entire demeanor changed in two days, the day he was jailed for stealing something for me, and the day he realized I was expecting. He knew I carried another man’s child. The facade of charm left him because of those two events. He told me, even as he prepared to utter marriage vows, that he’d never again allow anyone to make a fool of him, to control him as I effectively did, forcing him to be a father and husband to one who’d already proved herself incapable of fidelity.” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Don’t let yourself suffer because of me.”

  Will coughed. “Neither of you is to blame. Arthur was a grown man, and his response to his situation was beyond despicable. The blame and responsibility for his behavior begins, and ends, with him. Let any sense of guilt you may feel—either of you—be buried with him. We need to live in the present; the past is something we no longer control.”

  Hope moved to sit by Genevieve, and let her head rest upon her mother’s shoulder. But the slumped shoulders for both women straightened. It would take time. But Will’s words seemed to strengthen them.

  Will turned to Adam. “So you blocked your father’s memory of being Elizabeth’s father, and then later unblocked the memory?”

  Adam nodded. “His grief and guilt over leaving her and Genevieve to fend for themselves would have killed him; otherwise, it enabled him to live, to fulfill his destiny, to do all the things history said he must do.” He grimaced. “Even the ones he’d later feel such overwhelming shame for, and rightly so.”

  “It does explain why he stopped pestering me about where Hope and Eva had gone,” Will murmured. When he realized others had turned to look at him, he continued. “Soon after his return, he started asking me where his sister had gone, and Lizzie as well. He wanted to understand from them the circumstances of their apparent deaths, and couldn’t understand why Eva wouldn’t tell him—via their telepathic conversations—where they were. After all, as he told me, she talked to him, told him she understood why he’d razed the village and its occupants… so that wasn’t the reason. And then suddenly, one day, it was as though a switch turned on, and he understood, and he never again asked me. I thought that was odd. Now I understand what happened to prompt that change.”

  Adam nodded. “Once he remembered, he fully understood and agreed with Eva’s actions. He’d proved to her that he’d run rather than fight to protect his child, and in Eva’s mind that meant he should be kept away, lest she come to trust him and rely on him until a time of stress and conflict, only to see him betray her again. It’s unlikely he would have done so after that time, but the damage had already been done. And in the end, he didn’t run away… he jumped in front of a death blow meant for his daughter. Mom’s grief at his loss was almost offset by her pride in his sacrifice.”

  Fil looked at Genevieve. “I’m personally impressed at how quickly you adapted to modern life. I can’t imagine that was easy.”

  Genevieve smiled, and little Cato cooed, drawing oohs and ahhs from those gathered. “I’m a quick learner. The technology made it difficult to fail. Adam helped me act w
ith confidence, as if I belonged, when I was out in public. He encouraged me to learn to live independently, to try and learn from everything, because he knew he could not be with me much in those first two months.”

  “Why did you take on a new identity and leave?” Gena asked.

  “For you,” Genevieve replied. “We were seen in that town together, and it would not be wrong for the people there to assume a relationship. I set up a new identity and accounts because I wanted people to understand we were not a couple. I told those who asked that we were cousins of some sort, and that I was new to this country and he was helping me to, what is the phrase? Get established?” She shrugged. “He talked of you often, and I could see that his heart was moving him to marriage. I did not want any rumors to make you doubt his fidelity.”

  “Thank you,” Gena said.

  “When the Energy left, when I was certain it meant that your war had gone badly and that my Lizzie and Adam and many of you were probably dead, it meant to me that I would have to develop my own new life.” Genevieve’s eyes went distant. “And so I figured out how to go back to the land of my birth. I found what you call museums attempting to show the people of today how people of my day lived, and though they got a lot right, they also got so much wrong. I told them of the errors, and then pretended I had what you call advanced degrees in various fields of history. I went back to the computer systems Adam showed me, the ones that all of you used to create your fake identities and life stories. I changed mine to show degrees from universities that had closed a few years before so nobody could check the accuracy. Since I spoke with authority, no one doubted me. The museum hired me. I had a job and made friends, even went on what you call dates.”

  Hope smiled and put her arm around her mother’s shoulder. “I’m proud of you, Mom.”

  Genevieve beamed. “I had forgotten about the email account he set up for me. When I finally checked it again I saw his messages. I realized that those I cared about had survived the war. I didn’t know what to do, though. I think I convinced myself that if I responded, Adam would show up and whisk me back to this country, and I was enjoying myself enough that I didn’t want to leave. I had gone on several dates with a man and it seemed that if I started communicating with another man he might get the wrong idea. So, I signed out of that account and never read it again. I promised myself that I would figure out how to find you, Lizzie. But I became very busy, and…”

  Hope squeezed her mother. “You developed your life here.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t know how to find people. I did not know what name you would be using. And the person who might have known… I had given up my only means of contacting him.” Genevieve sighed. “But then people started talking of a resurgence of something called social media, and I searched, based on what I knew, what I remembered about your life in this time. It took quite some time. But I found you. And I found Adam and Will and Gena and my grandchildren and… it was nice watching the interactions. And then I saw that many of you had accepted invitations to the event here. And I knew I had to at least come here and try to see all of you in person, at least once.”

  Angel glanced at Adam. “In your story, you said you found Genevieve and followed her life via technology. How?”

  “I found and followed her on social media, figuring that if she said anything about missing family, I would contact her. I did send her an email at one point, something about going on one of her tours and that it was like I was the only one in the room with her, that her stories made me think she’d been taken from that time and brought to this one, and various other vague ways of telling her who I was.” He smiled ruefully and glanced at Genevieve. “I could have been more direct, but I figured somebody with your employer would also read the email and wonder if someone was stalking you. I hoped the email I’d sent would seem like that of someone who’d really enjoyed the museum tour to someone who might pre-read it and they’d let it through, and that you’d realize it was me and reply. I guess it was a bit too vague.”

  Genevieve smiled. “I got many emails like that, so I didn’t notice another. I’m very good at my work.”

  Everyone laughed.

  Sarah went to the kitchen and returned with a bottle of wine, and with Anna’s help they distributed glasses. “I’d like to offer a toast, to all of the new arrivals to our family. First, to little Cato.”

  “Hear, hear!” Glasses clinked, and the assembled adults each took a sip. The twins looked up, frowned and shook their heads at the odd adult behavior, and went back to coloring.

  “And to Genevieve, who has literally shown us how to live in a future we can’t imagine.” Sarah smiled. “May we all adapt to the future and the unknowns with the same skill that she’s displayed.”

  Glasses clinked again.

  Will raised his one last time. “To the future!”

  And they all took a sip, wondering about the unknown, and excited about what that unknown future might bring.

  ~~~62~~~

  2224 A.D.

  He stood before the picture window, staring out at the gray clouds floating before the illuminate moon prominently showing, the brilliant yellow-orange in sharp contrast to the jet black sky. They’d seen a modest bit of snowfall earlier, just enough to coat the grass, and the moonlight twinkled off the frozen bits of water. He clasped his hands behind his back and sighed.

  “You’re still thinking about it, aren’t you?”

  Will Stark smiled. “It’s a miracle, Hope. Your telepathic powers have returned.”

  He turned around and faced her as she chuckled, her eyes twinkling much like the moonlight outside. “When you’ve known someone as long and as well as I’ve known you, Will Stark, there’s a natural telepathy that requires no Energy.” She moved forward and took his hand. “Tell me. What idea seized your attention earlier, after we listened to Adam’s story? What is it that’s so consumed you that you can’t let it go, even now?”

  Will’s smile vanished, his face pensive. “It was something I said as all of us talked afterward, after he finished telling the tale. We asked Adam why he’d never told us what he’d planned to do, what he needed to do. Because he was right, wasn’t he? All of us would have volunteered to go and help out. Do you remember that?”

  She nodded. “I do.”

  “Do you remember what he said, and what I said after that?”

  She shook her head. “No. But there must have been something deeply profound about it, because you’ve got that look in your eye again.”

  “The moonlight is bright this evening.”

  “Funny.” She smiled, then nodded. “Tell me.”

  “He said he would have told us all about it after the war ended, but not before.” Will lowered his eyes to the floor, laced his fingers behind his back, and paced. His bare feet made whispering sounds as they touched the thick carpeting. “We offered our ideas about why that might be the case. There wouldn’t have been enough room to take all the volunteers. Practical reasons like that.” He shook his head. “But that wasn’t the core reason.” He looked up. “He was afraid. Afraid of the consequences of telling us.”

  Hope shrugged. “Of course he was. We didn’t know Eva was his mother at the time. Telling us of his plans would mean he’d need to explain why he had to make sure your efforts to save Eva’s life back then were successful, why it was so important to him personally to make certain she survived.”

  “Exactly.” Will grimaced. “He was afraid. He let fear dictate how he acted. In so doing, he made that journey far more complex and dangerous than necessary.” His face took on a look of bitterness and disappointment. “And that’s when it struck me. We’ve lived our entire lives that way, decades and centuries and millennia of living all driven by fear. It’s how we’ve lived. It’s how the Alliance operated while it was still a necessary construct in a world ruled by Arthur Lowell. We lived in fear of discovery by the Hunters, in fear that one wrong move might upset a delicate future enough to leave our present changed or wiped away
entirely.”

  Hope frowned. “But that approach was necessary, Will. It wasn’t cowardice, if that’s what you’re suggesting. What if we’d acted more… boldly? That would have drawn more attention. That would have increased the odds that something unexpected would happen, and put so much of recorded history at risk. We had to act that way we did.” She frowned. “You’re doubting everything now?”

  Will shook his head slightly. “Not everything. There weren’t many changes we could make because we did know the risks. But I think we used the fear of disrupting a scripted future and a recorded past as an excuse to not look harder to find more that we could still do. Look at what Eva did. Why didn’t more of us think about talking to Arthur, telling him—and only him—the truth? Why not let him know that success by his Hunters and Assassin could mean he’d cease existence… not just die, but vanish from the world? Why not show him that it was best to go through the motions of a feud, to avoid the risk of disruption? It was in his best interest, just like it was in ours.” He scowled. “And Eva did it, too. Once she’d realized the risk—that the Hunters or the Assassin only had to get lucky one time to ruin all of history—she was still acting on fear. She didn’t tell anyone, except her son.”

  “She did what she needed to do.” Hope frowned. “I’m still not sure what you’re saying.”

  “We, like Adam, have based our lives—centuries of living—on avoiding what we fear most, fearing to act because of a possible consequence. But how much more could we do if we ignored what we fear most and dare to act with boldness?” He smiled. “We’ve said we should be the change we want to see in the world. We’ve always had the ability to be far more than we’ve ever allowed ourselves to be in those situations. Haven’t we?”

  Hope frowned, then slowly started nodding. “You’re saying that the end of the war eliminated any great risk, and that rather than seeking to change the world in the little things… we should… aim higher?”