Magdalene

By Marissa Dike

Some people live only once. Others have The Gift.

All over the world, there are people who live, die, then come back and live again. They have no memory of their past lives, only the slightest feeling that maybe - just maybe -they've done it all before.

One of The Gifted has made it his mission in his current

• Language: English
• Publisher: Marissa Dike
• Release date: Sep 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781088123300

Book preview

PROLOGUE

I’ll take it black, please.

She didn’t react at all to my request, just continued staring blankly at me. No, not at me. Through me. She was searching for something inside of me, something that she desperately needed but couldn’t find. I wasn’t put off by it. Many people have looked at me this way. It’s been happening for as long as I can remember. I’ve learned that I can practically hypnotize people merely by making eye contact.

The waitress shook her head slightly, willing herself out of her temporary trance. Sorry. What was that you said?

My coffee. I’ll take it black.

Sure thing. Be right back. She scurried off to the kitchen while I made myself as comfortable as possible in the booth with the too-short table and sticky vinyl upholstery. It wasn’t the worst diner in the world—nothing fancy, but a good place to stop and rest for a bit before I continued on my journey. I reached down to massage each of my ankles carefully, knowing it would do very little to dissuade the throbbing pain that started in my toes and shot up all the way to my hamstrings. My faithful combat boots, once sturdy and thick-soled, had been worn down to almost nothing from the hundreds of miles I had walked in them, but I highly doubted that I would be able to find a store around here that would provide me with any sort of suitable replacement. This was one of thousands of those sleepy little towns all over the country, a town that still had working pay phones and residents that all drove twenty-year-old cars. One of those places that just sort of stayed locked in place, a fixed point of Americana heritage. I half-expected the town sheriff to walk in, sit down at the bar, and order his usual, followed by the local salon owner in bedazzled jeans and a low cut top sitting next to him to flirt. Sleepy towns. They really do exist. I’ve visited hundreds in my lifetime and they are all the same.

The waitress came back and placed a steaming mug filled to the brim in front of me. Some of its contents had already dripped down the side, leaving brown slug-like trails behind on the white ceramic. Can I get you anything else? she asked. She had calmed down a bit, but I could tell that I was still making her uneasy. I smiled gently. I wanted her to know that I was a friend. I’m perfectly fine, thank you, I answered. She moved like she was going to turn and walk away, but she stopped at the last moment. I’m sorry, she said. This is going to sound crazy, but you look… sort of…

Familiar? I finished. She nodded. That’s another way people tend to react when they meet me: they feel a strange sense of familiarity. Yeah. I get that a lot. I have one of those faces, I guess. I stared into her eyes a bit more intensely, doing my best to figure her out. Of course, there was a very good chance that she had seen my face somewhere at some point. Many people have. When—and how—she had seen my face would determine how the rest of our interaction would play out. 

What’s your name? she asked as she reached up and tucked a stray frizzy hair strand behind her ear. It was brown, with just a hint of gray peaking through. I assumed her to be in her late forties, or perhaps even early fifties, based on the hint of crow’s feet around her eyes and protruding veins on her hands. 

Thomas, I lied quickly and easily. And you?

She pointed to the faded but still legible name tag pinned above her right breast. Meredith. She was still uncertain about me, even guarded perhaps, but no walls that she placed around herself could hide that look of desperation in her eyes. It was a look I had seen a thousand times in the eyes of a thousand different people. I decided to test her. Meredith, I said after a sip of coffee, what would you say if I told you that I could change your life? Every problem gone, every heartbreak fixed, every single moment of sadness replaced with pure joy. What would you say to that?

Meredith frowned and slapped a check down on the table. I’d say that, unless you’re Jesus Christ, you can get the hell out of my diner, she answered without hesitating. 

I sighed. In my hastiness—and utter exhaustion—I had miscalculated. She wasn’t what I was looking for. Normally my judgment is spot-on, but occasionally I do make mistakes. I’m sorry, Meredith. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, I said with sincerity. She was still scowling, but she wasn’t leaving. So, this is your diner? I continued. You own it?

She flinched ever so slightly. I had struck a nerve. My husband and I opened it fifteen years ago, she answered. She offered no more information than that, and after noticing the lack of wedding ring on her finger, I decided not to pry. Well, it’s a great little place you’ve got here, I responded. Great coffee, too. I wasn’t lying about that. Smooth, strong, and balanced—definitely the best coffee I had ever tasted from a roadside diner’s ceramic mug. 

Glad you like it, Meredith said.

Do you make a good living here? Working this place?

I get by alright.

She still hadn’t moved from my side, and now I was beginning to lose patience. She needed me—I could sense it. Every fiber of her being was screaming at me, begging me for help. But I couldn’t help her. She didn’t have The Gift. It was time for me to move on. Placing twice the amount of money I owed on the table, I stood, told her to keep the change, and wished her farewell. She looked frantic now. She didn’t want me to leave. Her voice shook ever so slightly when she said Goodbye, Thomas with a wave of her hand. I walked out of the diner and didn’t look back. 

ONE

How many people do you suppose there are in the world?

I’m not just talking about alive people. I’m talking about every person who has ever lived—every corpse, every urn, every fragment of bone buried at the bottom of the ocean or underneath an avalanche. 

How many people have ever existed? 

Billions, certainly. Tens of billions. Hundreds of billions, even. There’s no way to possibly know. Entire civilizations could be buried beneath the earth’s crust and we would have no idea. 

Have you ever wondered what happens to all of them? All the bodies? I wonder that all the time. The earth is a finite place. Someday, we will run out of places to put them. Then what?

That’s ridiculous, you must be thinking. The world will end long before that happens. And you’re probably right. But hypothetically, how long would it take, do you think? How many billions or trillions of years would it take before the earth became nothing more than a sphere of bones and ashes swirling around in space?

If my interests seem morbid, I apologize. The only reason I’m intrigued by the concept is because I myself don’t die. Or… no, that’s not exactly right. My body dies. But it always comes back. It dies, and then it’s immediately conceived again, and I am reborn, over and over and over. 

Reincarnation, you are probably thinking now. Reincarnation is hardly a new concept. Hundreds of millions of people believe in it. But that’s not what happens to me. I’m not reincarnated into a new person or even an animal. I’m the same, always the same. 

And do you know what the most amazing part is?

I’m not the only one like me.

Doppelgängers. You’ve seen them. Of course you have. You’ll scroll through the internet mindlessly until you somehow stumble upon a picture of the inventor of the shoehorn, and you can’t help but notice a striking resemblance between him and your Uncle Roland. Coincidence, you say, and you brush it off, never thinking about it again. But I’ve lived enough lifetimes to know that coincidences don’t exist. Just because you can’t see the connections doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Sometimes, the threads that connect things to one another are hundreds or even thousands of years long. The very fact that you are here on planet earth is predicated by trillions of cosmic micro-events that have nothing to do with you. For all you know, there was a young woman who died in childbirth along with her newborn son three hundred years ago, and her husband was overcome with grief so he attempted to hang himself, but the rope wasn’t strong enough to hold him. He attempted again, and again, and again, and every time the rope snapped. Years went by, and he was still living, a shell of his former self, until he met another beautiful young woman who was herself grieving a lost marriage. They fell in love. She gave birth to a son, and this time, both mother and child survived. That son grew to have children of his own, and those children had children, and on and on the line continued, until you were born generations later, a bluish-purple thing covered in blood and crying your lungs out.

See? Your very existence depends on one man’s unthinkable tragedy and a rope that was too weak to kill him. Could you have looked him in the eye those three hundred years ago and told him, everything happens for a reason? It wouldn’t have mattered to him then, just like it never matters to grieving people now. But the tapestry of existence is woven tightly. Pull one string, and it all unravels completely. 

Ah, now I’m getting sidetracked. The important thing for you to know is that there are others like me, and there have always been others like me. I don’t know how many, not exactly. Not everyone who has The Gift knows that they have it. They’ve lived hundreds of lifetimes and have no recollection of any of them. The rest of us who do remember have only a few vague, colorless memories—more like feelings, really. We have an idea of where we’ve come from, and we might have a passing dream here and there of who we’ve been before. But there’s nothing solid to grab on to—no names, no locations, no time periods. All we really have is the weariness of living a thousand lives and dying a thousand deaths.

Then I met Mills.

I’ve made it my life’s goal—in this lifetime, at least—to find as many people as possible who have The Gift so that I can teach them what it is and how it can be used for the good of mankind. Some are grateful for the knowledge. Some are not. Ignorance is bliss, as the saying goes. But ultimately, it doesn’t matter. They are who they are, no matter what I say. 

Mills, though. Mills was different.

It was the summer of 2023 when I first met her at a bus stop one night in Washington—the nation’s capital, not the state. We were among half a dozen or so other people, but she stood out to me for several reasons. The first was that she was the only person I had ever seen whose hair, skin, and eyes were all the exact same shade of brown. It was as though a child with only one color of marker had drawn her. The second was her clothing. It was July, and even in the evening it was too warm to need a jacket. And yet, she was covered from head to toe in fabric: a navy blue wool beanie on her head, an absurdly large sweater underneath a cheap trench coat, sagging pants, clunky boots. None of it matched. It was as though she defied the world to care.

The third and final thing was the feeling I had when I saw her. I know The Gift when I see it most of the time. I do occasionally get it wrong. Sometimes I sense it so faintly in people that I wonder if I’m just imagining it. But that wasn’t the case with Mills. I had never been so certain of The Gift before. I remember the excitement that coursed through my body as I stood near her, waiting for the right moment. I knew it would come. Remember, there are no such things as coincidences.

It happened as the bus turned onto our street. A gust of wind interrupted the otherwise calm night air and blew the hat off of her head and right at my feet. I stooped down to pick it up and turned to her with a smile. She stared at me a bit wide-eyed, apparently falling under that mesmerizing spell that my face has on people. I’ve been told that I have a handsome face. I don’t know what that means. My skin is smooth. My jawline is prominent. My features are symmetrical. I have no scars, blemishes, or birth marks. Through absolutely no effort or choice on my part, I am what most people consider handsome. It makes no difference to me, except for the advantage it gives me when I meet new people.

This yours? I asked, casually holding out the hat. She nodded as she carefully took it from my hand. Her hair was thick and greasy and lifelessly grazed the top of her shoulders. She put the hat back on to cover up most of it. Thanks, she murmured. 

The bus screeched to a stop in front of us. It was crowded enough that I could take the seat right next to Mills without my motives seeming too obvious. After the doors closed and the bus lurched forward, I began the conversation.

Are you from around here? Or just visiting? I asked. She turned and blinked her remarkable light brown eyes at me a few times, considering her answer. Have you seen a little orange tent set up on Seventh, near Chinatown? she finally replied.

I’m afraid not, no.

Well, that’s me. 

Even with my strong belief in fate, I couldn’t help but be blown away by the perfection of it all. She was homeless. Desperate. Alone. It was going to be easier than I had previously thought.

I’m so sorry to hear that, I responded.

Don’t be. I’ve got a place to sleep every night. That’s enough for me.

Impulsively, I placed my hand gently on her arm. I don’t know how to say that without sounding predatory. All I can say is I felt an inexplicable connection to the stranger sitting next to me, and as soon as we touched that connection was amplified like an electrical current passing between the two of us. It was as though we were long-lost siblings meeting for the first time, and perhaps that very well was the case. The Gift works in mysterious ways.

She placed her hand on top of where mine was resting, never breaking eye contact with me. What, um, what’s your name? she asked.

Jonathan, I answered. I never gave anyone my real name. How about you? What’s your name?

She hesitated ever so slightly. It’s… Alicia, she said. She wasn’t nearly as good at lying as I was. I continued to smile and make eye contact until she turned her head and pulled away in shame. Is that your real name? I asked gently. She pulled her knees up and hugged them to her chest in the bus seat. She was short enough to do it comfortably. No, she muttered. I don’t know why I lied to you.

You don’t have to tell me your name if you don’t want to.

No. It’s okay. She turned her head to look at me again. I’m Mills. I mean—Millicent, that’s my real name, but I don’t like it. I tell everyone to call me Mills.

Strong worker, I replied.

What?

The name Millicent means ‘strong worker’. It’s a good name. I like it. The bus stopped. People got off, people got on. I didn’t move, and neither did she. But Mills is a good name too, I assured her as the bus started moving again. She brightened a bit. Really?

Yeah. It suits you.

Those were our last words for a few more stops. Eventually she broke the silence with So, where are you headed?

You know, I’m actually not sure yet, I answered honestly. I like to visit different places, see different sights. I thought I’d take a ride around the city for a bit before getting a hotel room for the night.

Oh. That’s cool. She began chewing at loose skin around one of her fingernails. I winced a bit. That was a habit we would have to break.

The bus came to a stop once more, and Mills stood. This is my stop, she said. It was nice meeting you, Jonathan.

Wait. I stood up along with her. Let me get you a room for the night.

Oh! No, really, you don’t have to—

I insist. Please. Have a shower. Sleep in a bed. Watch TV.

Honestly, I can’t. That’s too much.

It isn’t. I promise.

For the briefest of moments, Mills looked like she was going to cry, but she brushed it off. Th-thank you, she stammered. I don’t know what else to say.

‘Thank you’ is more than enough. I sat back down and motioned for her to do the same. We’ll get off at the next stop and find a place.

TWO

I woke up the next morning with light streaming into my room through thin hotel curtains. I turned onto my side and saw Mills still asleep in the other bed. Most of the hotels in the city were completely booked, and the one we eventually settled on only had one vacant room with two beds. I had sheepishly asked Mills if she wouldn’t mind sharing. She had simply nodded. It was late, and she just wanted sleep. 

I quickly dressed and left the room, careful not to wake Mills. There was a drug store nearby. I bought a comb, toothbrush, deodorant—just a few random things that I thought she might need. When I got back to the room she had just begun to stir. I hope  I didn’t wake you, I said as I set the plastic bag at the foot of her bed. I got you a few things.

She sat up and yawned, eyeing the bag. Um, thanks. Her hair was sticking out in every possible direction. 

Despite both of us being fairly exhausted, neither of us had wanted to fall asleep right away the night before. Mills was eager to tell me all about herself. She was nineteen years old. Born in Potomac. Raised in a variety of foster homes around Maryland. Kicked out by her most recent foster family the year before when she was caught with cocaine—But I swear it wasn’t mine, she had said. I could tell, of course, that she was lying. The rent prices in D.C. were astronomical, and with no one else to turn to, she had found community on the streets of the city. She made money under the table by sweeping hair off the floor of a local salon. Her favorite book was To Kill A Mockingbird and her most prized possession was a first edition copy that a beloved English teacher had gifted to her years earlier. Her favorite indulgence was the falafel truck on Liberty Boulevard. She was a remarkable blend of ordinary and extraordinary, a person whose presence was equal parts comforting and overwhelming. I had no doubt that together we were going to change the world.

I glanced over at the blinking digital clock on the nightstand between the two beds. Checkout is in half an hour, I mused. If you wanted one last shower before we leave, now’s the time.

I’m good, she said. She slid her feet into her boots, and I mentally chastised myself for not thinking to get her some new, clean socks. She pulled her hair back into a messy clump behind her head and put her beanie back on. I, um, I wanted to thank you again for all this, she said, her voice barely above a whisper. I slept better than I have since I got kicked out of my old place. I forgot how nice beds are.

It was my pleasure. I smiled and offered her my hand. She stared at it skeptically before cautiously shaking it, and once again I felt that strange energy flowing between us. I pulled her onto her feet and into the hallway, shutting the door behind us. 

Both the lobby and the sidewalk outside of the hotel were enormously crowded. There had been a baseball game the night before, Mills informed me as we navigated our way through the throngs of people, which at least partially explained the lack of hotel vacancies. I asked her if she liked baseball. No, not really, she answered. But one of my old foster moms used to take me to games sometimes. She bought me a little stuffed bear with the Nationals logo on it. She was the nicest one, the nicest mom, I mean. But she only took care of little kids, so I had to leave when I turned eleven, and at my next house one of the boys stole my bear and pissed all over it—he was mad at me for something but I don’t remember what—and I cried a lot. He never even got in trouble for it… She suddenly looked up at me with shame in her eyes. I had been listening intently the entire time. Sorry for talking so much, she mumbled nervously.

I enjoy listening, I assured her. We came to a stop at the corner. A coffee shop sat to our left. Shall we get some breakfast? I asked. And before she could protest, I added, It’s my treat. She smiled at that and followed me inside.

Minutes later we were sitting across from one another: me sipping my extra hot americano, her shredding pieces of her croissant and nervously rolling them back and forth between her fingers. Okay, then, I finally broke the silence. Ask what you want to ask.

I had confused her. Huh? A few crumbs sprinkled onto the table from her lips when she uttered the syllable.

Surely you have questions. I leaned back in my metal chair. I had selflessly offered her the booth side of the table, but now I was regretting it as a thin bar dug its way into my lower back. A strange man appears, I continued. You’ve known him less than twenty-four hours, yet somehow you feel closer to him than you feel to almost anyone else. He offers you a place to sleep, food to eat, a listening ear, and for what? What’s the catch? I leaned forward, elbows on the table, and whispered, What could possibly be my motive, Mills?

And then, in response, she displayed one of her most remarkable qualities.