Alter Ego

La Vie Antérieure

Like pieces of a broken memory

Our love crumbles

So I will let the wreckage bury me

Until...

"Ugh, it's no use," I grumble to myself, fighting with the grainy image on my laptop screen. I yank my glasses off the bridge of my nose and close my eyes. It's been hours and hours of trying to make out the tiniest bits of readable Old French from this god-awful scan my advisor sent me from Brittany.

I only have three and a quarter lines and half of the title translated. I honestly don't know what I'll tell him when he arrives back on campus from his trip and I can't provide him with a useful transcription of these tattered and worn pages. We don't even know the identity of the author to cross-compare the work to.

"Be a medievalist, I said... It'll be fun, I said," I whisper mockingly to myself before massaging my neck exposed by my side ponytail. The muscles and nerves are wound tight from craning myself in front of my screen. I wish I could do this from the comfort of my own home, but wifi is too expensive for my poor PhD-student budget, so the public library it is...

I sigh and replace my frames over my eyes, deciding to turn in for the night. I pack up the rat's nest on the worn wooden table I've claimed today and zip my frayed backpack before getting up and slinging it over my shoulder.

The library is empty at this time of night, save for a few older patrons and I walk leisurely among the timeless shelves towards the exit. I continue along the dimly lit Mythology section and my eyes scan the spines of the lovingly worn books on the shelves. Ah, to read for fun. I wonder what that's like?

A tiny mystical book wedged between the huge collections of folk tales catches my eye and I pause before the shelf. The title printed in calligraphic gold on the spine calls to me: "La Vie Antérieure" or "The Past Life". I'm not used to seeing French books outside of the foreign language section at this library - and I would know, I've frequented this place for the past four years of my program.

My stomach groans and I know I should continue on my way, but I can't. I'm transfixed, an invisible net of fate pulling me closer and closer to this ornate little book. I lift up a hand to reach for it-

"Come this way, honorable scholar."

I blink, disrupting the trance I was in, and look behind me to identify the owner of the chilling, reverberating voice. My eyes meet only what I can believe is a figment of my imagination - a hooded, nearly transparent figure, akin to the many robed figures I had seen immortalized in medieval tapestries.

"E-Excuse me?" I choke out, my hand frozen in front of the book.

"Come this way..." His baritone voice repeats without regard to my question. The ethereal form hovers for a moment before drifting off through the aisles towards the back of the library. "Come..." He continues to repeat like a ghastly broken-record.

I break my stare away from him to look at the curious little book in front of me. Clearly, eye strain and sleep deprivation are starting to take their toll on my exhausted mind. Sighing, I yank it out of the bookshelf, tracing the ornate stitched lettering and curved insignia on the cover.

I expect to feel nothing, so I can convince myself this is all a very strange dream and I likely fell asleep for the one-hundredth time at that vast wooden desk. But I can feel the elegant gold stitching vibrating under my fingers - almost as if it's alive and recognizes my touch.

"Come..." I hear the most annoying ghost monk continue to call back at me.

I clutch the book and grit my teeth. "Don't get your robe in a bundle..." I mutter to myself and follow him through the dim aisles to the back of the library. When I reach the back of the library, facing a wall of books, I roll my eyes. I should have just left-

The robed sleeve grabs my backpack strap and pulls me forward with a force I haven't felt since the day I hurled on the last roller coaster I rode on. I'm convinced that I'll face plant and break my glasses on the sturdy, leather-bound books in front of me, so I close my eyes and brace for impact.

That never comes.

My heart still racing, I venture to peek one eye open, finding I'm in the most majestic study that I've only ever seen in fantasy movies. Surrounded by globes with locations scrawled in a language I've never seen and dust-covered scrolls littering the shelves, I half expect a bubbling cauldron with green goo in a corner. The monk is seated at a massive, intricately carved throne, a feather-thin curved disc floating above his palm.

"Uh..." I breathe out, not sure what to do next. "I came?" An uneasy laugh escapes my lips.

"You did," the monk responds. I'm starting to think he has the same logic as a Magic-8 Ball - he probably only has a set amount of pre-specified responses. The disc in his palm bobs slightly.

"So what now?" I ask, my thumb absentmindedly brushing against the pages of the book I'm still clutching. "And what is that disc-thing?"

My questions are met with a long silence and I'm convinced he didn't hear what I said. Maybe I didn't speak loud enough?

He rises from his throne, descending steadily until he stops an arm's length away from me. "The key to you, my queen; past, present, and future." His robed arm raises the disc to my eye-level.

"My queen?" I spit out in disbelief, backing into the shelf behind me with my backpack. "You just called me a scholar."

"You are both," he replies effortlessly. "You shall see."

Rolling my eyes, I reach for the disc - not expecting the blinding flash that overtakes my vision.

Scenes flash across my eyes for the faintest of instances. A noblewoman scrawling on parchment in the forest. A shadowy stolen kiss under a stone bridge. The less ghostly at the time, but still concealed monk holding out that damn disc in front of her trembling grasp.

I don't recognize those scenes - they aren't me. But I recognize a few phrases on the parchment, which prevents me from paying attention to anything else the monk is trying to show me. It's the passage I'm trying to translate.

Thrust out of the blurred memory reel, I pull my hand away from the disc and put my head between my knees, trying to calm the supernaturally-induced nausea from that trip. "What was that?" I manage to pant out.

The monk hovers closer to me, pulling back his hood and when I look up, my eyes grow wide in recollection. His haunting, but defined features and piercing eyes are enough to make me catch my breath. The rest of the passage I was fighting to translate tumbles from my trembling lips:

"Like pieces of a broken memory

Our love crumbles

So I will let the wreckage bury me

Until we can love without confines"

"Mathilde," he whispers in fondness, the first emotion I perceive cracking through his handsome stonewall expression. "My queen... How I've missed you." He raises a hand to brush past my cheek and I stand frozen.

"Thomas," his name flows from my lips in a voice foreign to myself. "Life itself cannot keep me from you." My hands grasp his, the warmth and feeling starting to drain from my fingertips.

Wait! My translation!

I try to will the words to my lips, which tighten into a smug grin.

"Don't worry, dear scholar," Thomas assures, with a squeeze to my hands. "We'll finish your work during your slumber."

Slumber?!

"Close your eyes." I hear the voice that I assume belongs to Mathilde command in a hypnotic tone.

No! I struggle to fight against the growing darkness in my field of vision.

"You can't fight it. This is destiny."

And those are the last words I hear for a hundred years.