Close to Destiny (A Magical Love Story)

Chapter 42

May 14, late

I couldn't stop coughing. The cloud of dust choked me as I ran up the narrow wooden spiral staircase into a room that I had never before dared to enter. I jiggled the latch until it sprung open, and I nearly fell into the attic. It was a jumbled little space filled with traveling trunks, stacks of correspondence and a few old chairs that hadn't found their place in the living rooms. Here, the dust was thicker. It mixed with the tears that spilled from my eyes. I advanced clumsily, tripping over the heavy skirt that fell to the ground in thick, voluptuous folds.

I clenched the silky material, finding my pocket, feeling for the hard, pointed object I had stolen from the kitchen. My heart had been pounding double time as I searched recklessly in the place that wasn't my domain.

At once, the sound of voices downstairs startled me. I could no longer hesitate. It was over. The pain, my mistakes. I had to set him free. He would suffer at first, but he would be better off without me in the end.

Knife slitting through fragile skin. Heart pounding, knees shaking.

Darkness. Silence. What seemed like a second turned into eternity.

Blinding light. Voices.

Jonathan's voice.

"No! No, no, no!" I could hear his anguish.

Madness. Silence.

That was it. The finale to the nightmares that had been haunting me these past several weeks. My hands shook as I wrote the details in my journal. The details that matched Destiny's story. I had seen it through my very own eyes and felt it within my very own heart.

Some would have said Destiny had such a power over me that she had provoked a series of outlandish nightmares. Maybe I would have said this myself a month or two ago. But what I had experienced wasn't simply a dream. It was a memory of the past. There, I had admitted it. Admitted what I had been afraid to affirm for so long. Accepted what seemed unacceptable, illogical.

Well, maybe life was more than logic and scientific explanations. I thought of Will and how I had felt when I first saw him—the déjà vu, the dreams. Then there was Destiny's analysis of my suicidal tendencies. A carryover from a past life? It sounded preposterous at first, but it was beginning to make a bit of sense.

A feeling of elation washed over me. Finally, a reason. A real reason for my pain. I wasn't crazy. I had never been crazy. My sadness had always been for a good reason, buried deep inside. So hidden, that even I couldn't find it.

All Destiny had said was true.

If you enjoyed this chapter, please vote – thank you!