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"No."
Lainie stiffened, felt a hairline frisson of fear against her spine. "What do you mean?"
"You created Killian, but not until after you'd met him. You re-created him."
Lainie rocked back in her chair. "What?"
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She and Killian said the word together. It bounced off the cabin's wooden walls and vibrated for a second before it was lost.
"You'd better talk fast, Vi," Killian said in a low, gravelly voice that reeked of danger.
Viloula frowned, as if searching for the right words. "De soul is life and spirit ... everyt'ing dat we are. It remembers all our lives."
Killian rolled his eyes. "Oh, for God's sake?"
"Dere are many ways to get in touch wit' a past life, many ways to call up de memories." She turned to Lainie, gave her a steady, honest look. "You have done it t'rough your writing, doan you see?"
Lainie shook her head. Cold fear radiated out from her spine. Suddenly she didn't want to hear what the old lady had to say. All she wanted was a guide home, a way back. "No, I don't see."
Viloula leaned forward. "When you write, you t'ink you are imagining. But maybe for writers it is not so simple. Maybe you are remembering instead."
"Viloula?" she pleaded, not knowing what else to say.
"It is not hard to understand. In anot'er time, you loved Killian, but somet'ing went de wrong way. It ended bad, maybe he abandon you, but in your soul? where de memories of love doan die?you remember dis man. And you write about him."
Killian frowned. "Come on, Vi. You're piling the mumbo-jumbo on pretty thick. I don't know this woman from squat."
Viloula didn't even look at Killian, she just kept staring at Lainie through those intense, unreadable black eyes. "T'ink about it. It explains why you know dis place, and Killian. You have been here, lived here, before."
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Lainie squeezed her eyes shut. "I won't believe it."
Viloula leaned forward, whispered, "You see te trut' of it, doan you? You see dat t'ings here are different dan you t'ought. In little ways, maybe, but it is not de world you created. Not exactly. You wrote Killian as you remembered him, maybe as you wanted him to be. Part of dat will be de trut', part of it will be wrong, and some will be de imagination."
A long silence fell between them.
"This is un-goddamn-believable," Killian growled. "I brought her here to prove that she's a liar, and you back up her insane story."
"You are her soul mate, Killian," Viloula said unflinchingly. "Dis is de knowledge you sought from me."
He lurched to his feet. "What in the Christ is a soul mate? No! Don't answer that. I don't want to know."
"Look at her, you old fool," Viloula hissed, her voice rising suddenly, taking on a new power. "Look. Den tell me dere is no familiarity, no sense dat you have known her before."
He turned, stared into Lainie's eyes. She felt a shiver move through her at the intensity of his gaze. She tried to look away, but couldn't. She had a sudden, unexpected reaction to the sight of him. Unaccountably, she remembered the ledge and the other times when she'd looked at him and seen more than the character she'd created. A glimmer of maybe flitted through her head, brought with it a crushing sense of fear.
"See?" Viloula's voice was hushed and seductive, and Lainie felt it draw her into the fantasy. Even as the thought of a soul mate terrified her, it romanced her. What would it mean? she wondered fleetingly. What would it feel like to be treasured, loved, cared for?
"I know you as well as anyone does, Killian," the old woman said in her hypnotic voice. "I understand dis
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world, your world. It is a place of guns and death. Now, for de first time, you must see wit' your heart."
He seemed for a second to have stopped breathing, he went so still. An unfathomable emotion darkened his eyes to black. "What makes you think it'd be the first time?"
