The Mirrors of Fate: Out of the Past, Book 1

By Cindi Lee

Adopted into a well-off Indian family when she was young, the present is high school senior Maria's only concern as she desperately plots to prevent an arranged marriage before she graduates. But when a new student enters her life on a mission of revenge, Maria is forced to revisit a past betrayal and learn of her entanglement in a dangerous cross-dimensional web of fate.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cindi Lee
• Release date: Feb 28, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458026606

Cindi Lee

AUTHOR'S NOTESTruth be told, I've been writing for as long as I can remember, and I absolutely enjoy doing it. From the days of writing short stories in class, to when I actually completed my first novel, I have loved using my mighty pen sword. But aspiring writers, whether you've been writing since you could hold a pen, or if it's something new you're trying out, should always remember to have confidence, grow and learn. I think everyone should write because they love to. You don't have to be the next Stephen King or JK Rowling. Your only competition should be yourself, and as you nurture and hone your craft, hopefully others will be inspired by and appreciate your work.AUTHOR'S BIOCindi Lee, born Cindi-Lee Bernard, was born in 1986 on the island of Jamaica. Living on and off in the United States, she attended schools in both Jamaica and the US. Cindi Lee earned a Bachelors in English at the University of the West Indies where she also studied Japanese. Her taste in books ranges widely, enjoying works by Christine Feehan, Alfred Bester, Jamaica Kincaid, Graham Greene, Charles Dickens, Judith Guest and more. She draws her inspiration from all avenues."Write because you love to write." -Cindi Lee

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THE MIRRORS OF FATE

OUT OF THE PAST: BOOK 1

by

Cindi Lee

Smashwords Edition

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The Mirrors of Fate:

Out of the Past, Book 1

Copyright 2011 by Cindi Lee

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal use only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

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Special Thanks:

To all of my loved ones who encouraged me and my editor Kelly Schaub!

You all have been invaluable.

My author website: http://www.Cindilee.com

•

You can’t always run, Maria. It got her because of you.

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PROLOGUE

That smile alone is reward enough for my inconvenient trip. When her eyes light up in unreserved delight, only then do I realize that coming here is all truly worth it.

How can you make the garden stay so beautiful? the little girl asks with a smile so ebullient it spans from ear to ear.

It’s easy, but I don’t do the magic by myself.

And instantly her eyes begin searching mine. Her smile flees cautiously. Who helps? Have I ever seen them? But I know her question really translates to, Who else has this kind of power? and How can I be just like you?

Of course I must oblige, answering her first question with, It’s you, of course, and then the second, We both make this what it is.

Her eyes widen slightly and focus on mine in that childlike way of probing for sincerity because she’s understandably tired of the fakes who try, Yes, baby, yes, and Of course that is possible, sweetie, to pacify her creative imagination.

(Maria always remembered just how creative that imagination was.)

Just so long as you believe, it’ll always stay pretty, I reassure her, and she accepts that.

I go behind her now and take the handles of her wheelchair. As we go down the paved path of glistening gray stone, we meander and admire what we have created with our minds. The garden is spectacular, believe me. Only God Himself can be responsible for such beauty, or at least for the imagination to conceive it all.

Do you know what horticulture is?

Horti-culture? The girl looks up at me. What’s that?

It’s cultivating gardens. The art of it. Would you like to do that someday?

She falls silent, her head lowering discouragingly. My stomach knots because I’m desperately hoping for an enthusiastic response from her this time, but I realize I may not get my wish as her face continues to fall.

I would like to, one day. I like flowers a lot. But that’s only if I can walk again.

Maybe I should just be thankful. It’s better than all those other unredeemable responses like I can’t and I can never that I have become so accustomed to hearing from her. Any glimmer of hope she shows now is a vast improvement I suppose.

Carefully I wheel the chair into the grass, ensuring we avoid crushing as many of the enchanted flowers as possible. We soon find a green spot that meets the girl’s approval, and I lie down on the ground after securely positioning her chair near me. She never wants to come out of that chair, here nor anywhere else, so why do you expect me to ask this time around?

(Because hope never takes breaks.)

You know, she says after we have relaxed quietly together for a time, I really hate this hospital dress.

Well, the sooner you start walking again, the sooner you’ll be in jeans and skirts. That’d be cool, don’t you think?

My closed eyes need not open to tell that she is staring strangely at me as I lie there comfortably, forestalling sleep. I know her gestures by now. I’ve heard over and over again how I say things like that too casually, as if defying the doctor’s predictions she will never regain the slightest feeling in her legs, let alone be able to walk again, was the easiest feat in the world. I should, I know I should look at her now and carry on with conversation because it’s respectful to a cripple—no, someone in her condition—but instead I succumb to my urge to yawn.

(No matter how many times Maria remembered, it was always,

"I couldn’t have known any better.")

I can’t wait to be out of the hospital, she says. I really don’t like being there, Maria. I like playing pretend with you better here. Do you know what the other children said today?

My head nods absently to everything she says, and I let out a breathy sigh and inhale the pleasant aroma of all the competing floral scents in the air. I haven’t quite figured out yet how to resist the sight of the peaceful flowers trying to draw my mind away. The garden goes on for miles. I remember once she called it an alluring valley of a multi-colored sea of flora...and I remember laughing at her choice of words.

Every flower in the world, or at least every one we have ever seen from books or real life, has found itself in this wide expanse of garden, if even just one of a kind; but all types are here. The new flowers she created herself, jovial things with yellow gumdrop eyes, little brown ears and black licorice lines for mouths, are just as special as the natural ones. Roses are our favorites, so they are the only ones in complete abundance here. Red. Pink. White. Yellow. Silver ones and gold roses too. If you shake the gold ones, glitter falls on your hand.

As usual, the forever sun that has never met night continues to shine here, without a drop of induced sweat to punish for the infinite morning we created. The breeze here is endless as well, always moving over the luscious green land as if an angel from the west forever orchestrates its natural dance with blessed holy hands. And faithfully, with warmly paintbrushed streaks of orange and red, and soothing strokes of sultry pink and violet, the sky remains that magnificent blue expanse above full white plush clouds of cotton. Sometimes I look at everything together and wonder how this place is even possible, but then I relax and just breathe to stop myself from ruining the magic.

Weaving through the center of the garden is a path designed for her to be able to wheel her chair along. Tears flooded her face when she first saw the gray paved path appear before her eyes, inch by magical inch. That and other magic tricks are my specialty. Do I really deserve such credit? Well, I can do anything merely because—

(She was that poor girl’s everything!)

I only wonder why I can never get her to imagine herself out of that chair.

Maria! I have an idea! Do some magic again! Please? I wanna see you change the clouds again and make the flowers dance! Can you make animals appear? We’ve never had animals appear in the secret garden before!

So you want another magic trick, do you? Okay, see if you can handle this.

I wave a hand absently into the air and gesture toward the clouds. The little girl’s face beams as the cloud formations take different shapes. I instruct them casually with my hand, showing off now to prove manipulating this world is easy for me. The clouds respond obediently by moving about, forming bunnies, hearts and unicorns. Birds soon begin performing in the sky, creating their own splendid formations like some type of magical show designed for us, the audience below.

I didn’t do the bird trick. She did.

The final bout of magic has to be special. I hold up my finger and write her name in the sky, separating the white material of the clouds so they form letters. When I have finished the final letter she squeals in delight and begins clapping eagerly.

That was so nice, thank you Maria!

My head gives a quick nod and I close my eyes again. What time is it?

Can you do more?

The bus might be here by now.

Please? More Maria?

Enough for now, sweeting. Because I want to switch gears. I have some things I want to talk to you about.

She becomes quiet suddenly and starts fidgeting nervously with her hair. Talk to me about what? But she knows what. She knows the promise she made to me on my last visit. "Oh...about that," she murmurs without me having to say anything.

A promise is a promise, I say, sitting up. You remember, don’t you?

Yes, I remember. But her face darkens.

I won’t force you. You’re a smart girl, and you know what makes you comfortable from what doesn’t, don’t you sweeting?

She blushes like I knew she would. Calling her "sweeting" is just one of my weapons to butter her up. I’ve even devised ways to calm her, but they’re not bad. All it takes is gentle persistence, holding her shaking hands if in fact they do shake, and giving her understanding eyes. I know what I’m doing may be wrong, but making her speak about how her family died seven months ago is the only way for her to get one step closer to recovery. I know I have no authority to do it. Who am I to act as a psychiatrist or a therapist? But I do it anyway. Anyone would too. I’m not selfish.

(How many times had she sung that in her mind?

Then and now?)

I was sleeping...so I don’t remember much about the wreck. I never woke up until the car was spinning.

Ah, success!

There was a really loud sound, like a bird screeching or a loud train whistle blowing. I think it was the metal being crushed and twisted. The car was upside down and spinning on the back like a top. I was crying a lot. I was...screaming.

A bloodcurdling scream from the accident, tearing, slicing, pierces my ear. My shoulders jerk compulsively. My fingers check my ears for blood, but as soon as relief hits that the blood isn’t real, I start to see the accident all from her words—blinding yellow sparks flying—someone on foot dodging their oncoming car—the car overturning and its metal scraping the ground. I can’t grip the grass hard enough to calm my own dizzying head.

It was quiet. Mummy wasn’t speaking. She...Her head was snapped back. Daddy looked all crumpled, and his hair was red from the blood. I couldn’t move, but I tried hard, though. It wouldn’t work.

A shudder goes through me as the slightly restrained but still frighteningly real feelings of the snapped bone, dying arteries and crushed muscles in her legs make their way into my own. So real. Why does she have to make it so real?

(Because that was how she was.)

Calm your thoughts down, sweetie.

I take a moment, then breathe, and try to speak again softly. But the words won’t come. Why did someone so young have to go through such a terrible ordeal? And then slowly, very slowly, my own near-death experience starts to scratch at the surface of my mind, reminding me that I know her pain. But I barely remember that incident, and the memory can only fade away into nothingness. Unlike her, I was fortunate enough to have my accident happen now as a teen. Only seven and she is so brave, so different from anyone at school I called friend now. Her spirit in a way...completes what’s missing from my own.

Inevitably, her tears pour over her eyelids, and I quickly embrace her, allowing her face to nuzzle in my chest and her tears to soak my long curly hair already frizzing at that first sign of moisture.

I'm sorry. I shouldn’t have made you talk about it.

No, you’re my friend so I should share it. I just get sad sometimes.

But it isn’t sadness that starts to suddenly morph the little girl’s expression now. Her pupils narrow as if she’s just glimpsed the face of evil, and even when I smile and ask her what’s wrong, her strange expression goes unchanging.

Maria...I don’t want what got Mommy and Daddy to get me too.

Sweeting, nothing’s going to get you. Why do you even think such a thing?

Because someone hated us.

My heart stops in my chest. What in the world had she gotten into her head? That they might have had enemies? Been...intentionally murdered somehow? No. No. This is only a child’s ways of making up stories.

I don’t want to hear any more.

But I have a secret plan, she mentions now with eyes decisively serious. "Whatever got them won’t trouble me. I know if I stay happy, nothing will get me—and I’m happy with you Maria. Please don’t ever leave me. Can we pinkie swear? Do you want to pinkie swear so we can be sure?"

But I just give her a smile that does not reach my eyes and simply embrace the girl again. Why am I the one trembling?

(Because those words were so—)

I know my brother will take care of me too. Wherever he is.

Brother? She failed to mention a living brother. Her nurses said she had no more immediate family. They all died late last year November, including her only brother. But ah, I realize such wishing is simply from a child’s mind. If she wanted him or all of her family to be alive, I wouldn’t have minded. Hell, she and I were in this place, weren’t we? Just by thinking, I could bring her family into the secret garden, so long as she told me what they looked like. But I wouldn’t dare. That would be interfering too much in the mental state of this precious girl, if this place doesn’t already do that.

That big man saved him, you know? she goes on, picking at a newly formed scab with the apparent intent to see the wound bleed. Her voice trails off, Saved my brother...

A big man?

Mm-hmm. Big.

Well, sweeting, I think you—

"No one believes me, but I saw him. But he wouldn’t help me. He wouldn’t save me. Her eyes redden when the scab comes off in her fingers with blood. He never helped me at all even though I was crying! He took him into his arms and he looked right past me as if I was invisible! He told me I had no chance! Why didn’t he help me too?! I am important just like he is!"

I can say nothing despite how my chills remind me that talking about the dead in present tense is dangerous in any culture I’ve read about. And things only worsen when I see her reach into her pocket and pull out a folded up photo. It is old and tattered, evidence she has handled the picture a great deal.

I don’t have any more pictures of Mommy and Daddy, but I have one of him, she says.

I hesitate to take hold of it, afraid to be overwhelmed with sadness, but when I finally do I realize the person is—was indeed her brother in the photo. The family resemblance is apparent straight away. But instead of giving it back quickly, as I expect to feel the urge to do, I hold the photo firmly between my fingers, compelled to stare into the young man’s face.

A high school graduation picture. He looked older and more mature than most. He was probably around nineteen when the photo was taken. Through black hair and handsome dark brown eyes, I see their relation and where beauty translates as handsomeness in her family. His secretive, small, Asian eyes tell of what particular charm he must have had. Maybe, just maybe, his friendly countenance meant he was sweet and considerate toward his little sister. I find myself questioning what he was like when he was alive, and I smile to myself, barely realizing I am doing so.

Maria?

I look up at her anxious face and laugh a little. Sorry, I say and hand the picture back to her slowly.

Suddenly a horn blares. Finally time to go. Wonderful news for me.

We need to get out of here now, sweeting. My bus has arrived.

Without argument she obediently agrees. Within seconds we find ourselves back in the white hospital room, as quickly as we had traveled to the beautiful garden of our dreams. All is blurry to me before I can focus on the all-white furniture and walls. I breathe deeply and check to see if she has returned safely as well. Once or twice she had gotten stuck there before.

Sweeting? I check.

She weakly sits up in her hospital bed. Thank you, Maria. You always make that place so magical and pretty.

I grin amid listening for someone to call me. Knowing that she enjoys our game of make-believe always does something to me that I can’t explain. I'm the only person in her life who can bring her this level of joy, and my God, who wouldn’t be thankful for that? To pay a visit to such a wonderful girl is a blessing.

But at the end of the day, I’m still a high school student, and I can’t run my life around community service cases even if I wanted to. Her regular tests involve physical therapy; mine involve equations and essays. Her homework is to keep hoping to walk again; mine is to keep hoping I have a reason to hope for. We’re both living our lives....I am not selfish.

("I was never selfish to her!")

A rapping comes at the door and it opens a few seconds later. Nurse Nancy, or Old Nurse Saggings as we sometimes call her, walks in. She is one of the fakes who do not know about imagination.

It’s time for you to go home. The rest of your little friends have already gone on the school bus.

After I gather my things and go the door, sweeting calls to me with a hopeful, See you next week!

I hesitate and rightfully so. She doesn’t realize this is temporary charity work, only compulsory for grades six to nine. How can I keep coming and entertaining her with imaginary places? Ninth grade is almost over. I shouldn’t have any commitments like this. I cannot guarantee if I will be back any at all. But I will try.

All right, sweetie, I eventually say with a smile of reassurance. I’ll see you later. That’s a promise.

(But she knew her back was turning for good.)

I close the hospital door, watching the corners of her mouth fall.

This is the last time I know I’ll see her.

(And the last time Maria ever wanted to remember her betrayal to Emma.)

* * * * *

CHAPTER ONE

Two years later...

He was nineteen. His wind-combed, slightly tousled blonde hair sat on his head with uneven bits falling in loose disarray down his face and barely hanging over the sexy, merciless full line of his mouth.

And oh God, what a mouth he had! Rightfully his lips should have been declared a national treasure. Without premeditation, he would shyly lick those gems of his and draw attention to his succulent mouth through the tastiest of invitations.

His smile was utterly captivating. Innocent charmer or deliberate seducer? A flicker of a grin made you blush, but a fully dedicated smile sent white-hot sensations coursing through you.

And his complexion! It should have been praised! Thankfully he wasn’t pale or overcooked like the other sorry excuses for men at the school. Every square centimeter of skin was kissed perfectly by the sun’s golden rays, a miracle considering where he hailed from.

And as for his eyes, those beautiful emeralds were not only attractive, they were downright hypnotizing. If you did not shudder under that kind of penetrating gaze, then there was only one rational explanation: you had no pulse.

Not one senior girl or even guy, for envy rather than admiration, in the entire Halimond Academy wasn’t talking about the new student who had arrived two days ago when school recommenced after the unpredicted long weekend and freak storm. The only person not hyperventilating over him was Maria who had missed the two days of school and the frenzy.

Succulent mouth? Maria grimaced distastefully at her friend’s choice of words. God, he’s not a stuffed pig with an apple shoved in its mouth.

No, no, no! Yet again you are underestimating what I’m trying to tell you, Maria’s overly-excited friend stressed. When Gina’s blood got boiling, one had to watch out. Her shallowness always came packaged with a barrage of nonsensical comments. "This guy is gorgeous! You should’ve been here when he first arrived. He is foiiiine. And I don’t mean like a ‘Hey, that guy is pretty cute over there’ kind of fine, I’m talking about a ‘Wow, that guy is sooo hot he makes my teeth sweat’ type of guy."

Maria tightened her smile to a disinterested, cynical one as she continued filling her bag with books from her locker.

I spoke to him a bunch of times, Gina went on. "He said he’s from...What was it? Iceland? No, hold on, wait. I think it was Finland. Something-Land! I don’t know