Chapter 5

• Setting the door alarm, Nova ran across the floor to the table in the center of the room. Grabbing the lip of it, she squeezed the release under it and opened the hatch in the floor. She went down the ladder quickly and hit the lever to lock the hatch back in place. As soon as she stepped away from the ladder the lights came on.
• Her heart was still racing faster than could be healthy. Hurrying down the short hall, she entered the main area of her home and closed the door, then checked the alarm was set.
• Dropping her purse on the table, Nova tossed the sunglasses beside it. She knew she should have followed her gut and not gone out, but she needed to go place the order for new contact lenses. Without those, she would be trapped in here for the rest of her life. Well, not trapped, it was by choice, but being around others without the light filtering lenses was a nightmare.
• She slid down the wall and pulled her knees up. He’d found her. Not only that, but he’d also saved her from being flattened on the street. He hadn’t changed at all. She bit her lip, and he’d seen her. Seen the body this soul was now in.
• Tapping her head back against the wall lightly, she allowed herself to wallow in the reality that things were going to change now. He was relentless, she knew this. She didn’t know it personally, but the soul inside her knew him and from the records kept in the journals, him chasing the body it was in had been going on a long, long time.
• Getting up, she went into the kitchen and turned on the kettle. What to do? Did she stay or go to one of the places written in that red book? She’d never had to move before. Wasn’t it bad enough that she could see a soul in another body and knew when they were going to die? The body, not the soul. Nova knew without the slightest doubt that souls moved on infinitely into new fleshy cases.
• Grabbing a cup, she pulled out the jar of herbs and tea strainer. The bodies with the black souls, she didn’t know what the hell those were, but a chill went down her spine whenever she saw them and always made sure she got somewhere else as fast as possible. Tonight, they’d been tracking her. Why? What could they possibly want with her? Did they know she could see those living their last moments?
• The nameless man that had found her, what was he? To not age over the last century, she grimaced, okay, two centuries at least, if the records were right. What did that make him?
• The records. Leaning back against the counter, she stared at the faded flooring. The first time her ‘memories’ had brought her to this place, she’d found the case of dusty journals. It was like she’d been dropped into some fiction sci-fi movie. Souls that remember and memories in her head that she had never lived. It was craziness.
• At twenty all of it had been a bit much to grasp. She laughed out loud, seven years later she wasn’t coping much better with all of it. Her sanity had been better off during her teen years when she’d thought she just had a fantastic imagination and was probably meant to be a fantasy writer.
• The whistle of the kettle startled her back into her obscured reality. Pouring the water, she picked up the cup and wandered down the hall to the library. It always felt surreal when she came in here. The books on the shelves spanned so many years. She was likely sitting on a fortune with the original antique, first editions on these shelves. Of course, the red book that sat on top of the journals in the small leather trunk, the instruction book, Nova liked to think of it as—the first thing it stated was the belongings in this hidden home were not her property, but that of the soul that inhabited her body.
• Nova remembered thinking when she read that the first time that some insane person had written it. The memories of this address, how to get inside and down to here, the instructions in her head that had led her here to begin with had made sure she read beyond the strangeness of that opening sentence to find out more.
• After that, the red book listed properties, investments, accounts, and essentially the accumulative wealth of many lifetimes. That part made sense, if they, ‘the soul bodies’, were to live hidden most of the time, they’d need funds to live on.
• She looked up at the ceiling, wondering which body had built this hidden space inside the building with the fake home above it? The soul, to her knowledge, had always been held by a female, so one of them had been an architectural genius and probably in a time that was frowned upon for women to think, never mind build.
• Setting the tea down, she opened the case and set aside the red book. She’d updated all account numbers and any other details that had changed since she was the keeper of the soul. Making sure everything was up to date ‘just in case’ you passed on while you were out, had felt creepy at first, but now she understood the reason why.
• Tapping her hand on the top journal, she brushed off the name and looked at it for a moment. There was no record of that person in any database. She reached in and pulled the pile out so she could write in the one that was ‘hers’. On the cover, like the others before her was her name neatly printed in black marker. Nova Gaines and her date of birth was underneath it.
• Opening it, she flipped through the pages of her handwriting. She paused, what happens if the next soul shell doesn’t read English? Had that ever happened? She didn’t think so. She’d read the other journals many, many times and all of them were in English.
• With care, she wrote the events of tonight. Something that no one had written about was being able to see souls passing on—or the black souls. Why her? She thought each time she recorded another event where she had seen a black souled person.
• Nova paused and looked at the page. There was a sketch in one of these, of that man who had saved her. Pushing her journal aside, she grabbed the next one and flipped through it.
• Three journals later, she found it and set the book down, leaning over it to study it. The image on paper had to be him. His hair was longer in it, but the expression on his face—it could only be him.
• Flipping the page back, she skimmed her finger down the heavily inked page. This was written long before a clicking ballpoint pen was invented if the smudges were any indication.
• I saw him today. The one from memories. He is a very fetching man. His likeness has not changed from the time he was first recorded in these volumes.
• My heart sped up so fast I thought for certain my life would end that very moment.
• If you read this in the future, avoid him until such a time it is understood why he exists and how he keeps finding our soul.
• Closing the journal, she stared at it. Our soul. “Our soul is getting tired of being stalked.” The next time he appears out of nowhere, I needed to find out more. At least, I think I do. Centuries was a long ass time to have questions and wonder about things. She quickly finished her entry and put the journals away.
• Getting up, she went over to the laptop and opened it. Now for some dry reading. She’d been borrowing textbooks through a library loan program and trying to find some other instance of others seeing souls. Of course, all the reading material was in the mental health category, but if there was any mention of her affliction out there—she didn’t care where the source of it came from. Unable to hold a job or have any other purpose, aside from keeping a soul safe, she had decided about five years ago her goal in this life was to find answers and put them in her journal so in the next life the soul would understand.