4th Time Lucky

Again

Before her was an ornate door. White oak, hand carved, heavy. The gleaming gold handle beckoned her to turn it and enter. Heaven, she thought, she had finally made it.

In her third and most recent life, she had checked all of the boxes to please her ancestors: she had married a man who can run the estate, and she had a child by him. At least, she thought she did. The birth was painful and messy and ultimately what killed her - but assuming the baby survived she still did everything that was asked. Her family's estate would be passed to the next generation.

She was done.

Katharine Vanheer, previously Katherine Brookheim, née Katherine Sachar, was going to finally - finally! - be allowed to die.

The handle was warm under her hand. She turned the knob and saw an elegant tea room. There were a half dozen empty tables, and one occupied by an old woman. The woman was as stately as the furniture, and with better posture. Her grey hair was coiffed in a way that said she was both matronly and a stickler for order. She delicately sipped her tea, with more in the pot beside her, next to a tray of teapot-shaped cookies on a delicate bone china plate.

"Grandmother," Katherine choked out. This wasn't heaven, this was a trap.

The old woman's eyes slid toward the doorway, which promptly disappeared, trapping Katherine inside. Propelled against her will, she robotically moved across the room and sat across from her grandmother.

"I see you've returned, once again failing in your familial duty," the Baroness said. With a gloved hand, she deftly turned over Katherine's cup and poured the perfect cup of tea, not a stray drop to be seen.

Katherine stared at the reddish liquid, remembering the gush of bloodied water that preceded her most recent demise, and felt ill.

"I had a baby. I was married. I did what you told me to do." She tore her gaze away from the cup to stare at the old woman. Steel met steel in their eyes, each other perfect mirrors of their family trait. "Let me go."

Her grandmother did not sugar coat anything. "The babe did not survive. Do it again."

Kathrine thought she was going to throw up. Was it possible to throw up in the realm somewhere between life and death? Her hand moved to her belly - flat, like it had been a year ago. "I'm done. You can't make me go back. I was perfectly content running our family business. Since you've made me go back and get married it's been nothing but torture!" Her voice rose, bordering on hysteria. "You can't make me, you can't!"

Baroness Eloise Tremaine merely raised an eyebrow as if to say you'd never live this down if we were truly out in Society, you're lucky you're dead.

"If you don't want to go back, then I suggest you stop making bad choices. In your first life the vineyard may have thrived, but you died too young. Poison, was it? Your uncle got tired of waiting for you to die so he took it.

"The second life you picked the easy way out, selecting the man who was obsessed with you. You thought he loved you and were crushed by him.

"The next man you chose for his business sense. Avoid the civil war by supporting its leadership? Our fortune was spent in droves to support the cause. And what did you do? Nothing - you cowered when he hit you and let it fall to ruin. At least that time around you married before your uncle got wind of it.

"Stop making bad choices."

The baroness set her teacup down so forcefully it rattled the rest of the dishes on the table.

Katherine picked at the lacy edge of the tablecloth in her lap. She knew she was smart enough to handle everything at the estate - she did it all in her first life. But finding the right person to live with was too difficult. How could she hope to choose anyone decent? How could she even attempt to make that choice with the specter of her previous lives haunting her so?

"You'll go back," Baroness Tremaine said. "You'll do it right. Protect the family legacy, or you don't get to go on."

Katherine trembled. Maybe she had moved on, she thought as it all faded to black. She truly was dead, and living it over and over again was her personal hell.