All over Again Read online

  All Over Again

  About the Author

  ALL OVER AGAIN

  LYNETTE FERREIRA

  This edition published in May 2012

  Copyright © Lynette Ferreira

  The right of Lynette Ferreira to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  A Read with Lynette Ferreira Digital Edition

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental

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  Cover Created and Designed by Tahné Dobson

  The following is what remained from the initial draft of My Recycled Soul.In the first draft, Elizabeth met up with Devlin again, when she regressed back across the years. However, when it was time for Elizabeth to come back to the present day, Devlin kept following her.

  This would have turned My Recycled Soul into a paranormal romance. She would have broken up with Jared because she could always feel Devlin with her, and this could have made her relationship with Jared awkward.

  The problem was how to get rid of Devlin again, without losing the heart of my story.

  I wanted My Recycled Soul to be a simple love story - a story of discovery that even through many lifetimes, many mistakes and many different choices, we always end up where we are always supposed to be…

  ALL OVER AGAIN

  I look back at the road, so very happy, about to retaliate, and it is with shock that I see a big silver car speeding towards us and in a flash of a second I look to make sure Jared is wearing his safety belt.

  >>><<<

  The sun is bright and shimmering through the trees, rays of sunbeams dance over me. The forest is vast; the trees seem to go on forever, the darkness getting deeper and deeper.

  I look around taking in the tall trees, the green undergrowth and the shadows deeper within.

  Distracted I wipe my hand over the fallen tree trunk that I am sitting on. I feel faint indentations, and looking down I see a heart carved there. I softly follow the outlines, smiling. Devlin and I carved it here, it seems a long time ago.

  After the longest while, I take a deep breath and stand up, following the pathway out of the forest.

  I am almost out of the forest, seeing the glimmer of green rolling hills through the many tree trunks, when I hear someone call my name and turn.

  Devlin!

  My heart jumps to my throat when I see him and I call to him joyously, “I thought you weren’t coming today. I have been waiting for ages?”

  “Would I miss spending a day with you – never.” He laughs, surprise lighting up his face.

  “I was just going to go and look for you,” I say as I skip back to him.

  I smile, as I get closer. I see his dark hair falling over his forehead and down so that the tips just brush his shoulders, his full lips match the color of his rosy cheeks perfectly, he is sunburned, his jaw strong. He has the features of an angel. I look into his violet blue eyes and sigh softly.

  He grabs me, laughing exuberantly and he swings me around, my long dark hair waving out into the wind. I lean my head back, enjoying the wind on my face, my laughter weaving through the trees, bouncing back to my ears.

  He puts me down, looking at me intently and I run my hands over his muscular arms.

  “You are so silly,” I laugh.

  “A silly little thing called love,” he agrees, his eyes laughing.

  I smile. “So, what shall we do today, silly little thing?”

  “Let’s go horse riding,” he suggests.

  “That sounds like an excellent idea,” I agree.

  He takes my hand, and leading me along the narrow path, we walk into the sunshine.

  Letting him go, standing on top of the hill, the whole valley stretched out before me, rolling hills disappearing over the horizon into the hazy distance, and while Devlin walks on, I open my arms wide and look up at the sky, letting the sun shine on my face.

  “Hey sun-goddess,” he calls from where he stopped, waiting for me.

  I laugh and run to him, into his arms.

  He holds me tight and kisses me on the forehead.

  “Come.” He pulls me by the hand down the hill.

  “You are always so impatient,” I reprimand him.

  “And you always want to stop to smell the roses. The same sun as yesterday, the same grass, everything is the same.”

  “No, it is not the same, everyday is different and special, never to be taken for granted.”

  He looks at me puzzled. “Where did that come from?”

  I laugh. “I don’t know.”

  We walk to his house, a wooden structure with a grass roof. Behind the house, there are two horses grazing.

  The horse, I usually ride, when I sneak away from home, is chocolate brown, while Devlin likes to ride on the statuesque white stallion.

  Devlin saddles the horses, while I lean against the shoddy fencing and I stare at him pensively.

  It feels as if I have not seen him in the longest time, yet I know I met him yesterday in our usual place – the fallen tree trunk where we have spend endless hours talking softly.

  When he hands me the stirrups, I gracefully mount my horse and then I lean forward to bury my face in her mane. I take a deep breath and pat her on her neck taking the reins in my hands.

  As soon as Devlin is on his horse, he nudges him and lurches forward. Galloping away, he yells, “Come slow one, see if you can catch me today.”

  He laughs and I nudge my mare, she is obviously not as fast, but we manage to keep up.

  We ride far, never meeting another person and when Devlin stops he slides off his horse and waits for me, while smiling and pretending to be impatient.

  I reach him and dismount, jumping down onto my feet.

  We leave the horses to graze and sit in the grass besides them, the daisy scattered grass swaying in the gentle breeze.

  Devlin puts out his arm and gently he pushes me backwards, until I am lying on my back. He lies down next to me, and stares at the blue sky for the longest time.

  He suddenly asks seriously, “Have you ever tried to find the words to say something, but no matter what you think of saying, you know it might come out wrong?”

  “No.” I laugh.

  “I am trying to be serious here.”

  A quick frown flashes between his eyes. I try to stop laughing, but I cannot get rid of the grin on my face.

  He sighs. “Okay, fine, I am just going to say it.”

  He sighs again deeply, yet he says nothing and just continues staring up at the sky. I turn onto my side facing him and start tracing circles on his arm with my fingertips, looking down into his eyes.

  He looks at me and then looking back at the sky he says, “Don’t look at me that way, I have waited too long for you and today it was as if you never left.”

  He faces me again, looking sad. “If I kiss you now, take you in my arms, I will be selfish and not tell you what I need to tell you. Then one day in the distant future you might stumble across something that would yank your memory back and then you will hate me forever, for not telling you the truth from the start.”

  I have no idea what he is talking about, because I was waiting for him today and he saw me only ye
sterday, how could he have waited for me too long?

  He takes my chin between his thumb and index finger, slowly pulling my face towards him, while his face reaches up.

  I forget to breathe and close my eyes. Just as I feel the soft touch of his lips on my own, he draws back and it is as if it never was.

  He settles his head on the ground again and sighs. “How can I tell you the truth when this is the miracle I have waited for? I know all about hope, but can I really wait to first meet you again in another lifetime?” He asks himself, more than me.

  He sits up abruptly and stares over the rolling hills. I now get worried; he was confusing me with words of lifetimes and waiting.

  He turns towards me and I can see fear and despair in his eyes. “Did you know Eilish is the Gaelic interpretation for Elizabeth?”

  “Yes, Devlin I do, I can speak Gaelic quite fluently and you know this?” I look at him frowning.

  “No, Eilish, you ARE Elizabeth,” he says, sadness clouding his eyes. “Eilish and Elizabeth is the same person”

  I look at him confused, sitting back from him.

  “What are you saying, Devlin? I am not Elizabeth, have you lost your mind?” I ask panicked.

  Softly he tells me, “You are Elizabeth, you returned to me today after centuries of waiting.”

  He smiles and looks away across the distant hills. “When you came stumbling into the forest almost a year ago now, just after you moved back, I recognized your soul immediately. Physically you looked different, but your eyes were the same. You were so sad that day, and as I sat there with you, I noticed calmness come over you. I was glad to make you happy, even if you could not hear my voice. I could always be there next to you, always make you feel safe, always make you believe that everything will be okay.” He turns towards me again, searching my eyes. “You cannot imagine my joy, when today as any other day when you come into the forest, I called your name – and you responded!” He reaches towards me when he sees the shock on my face. “I am sorry. I did not want to scare you.”

  I pull away from him.

  Pain etched across his face, he looks into the distance and starts explaining, “The last time I saw you as Eilish, was when your father chased me off his land, after finding us together.”

  I gasp as this sinks in, and he continues hastily, “I decided to go to Dublin, and I walked there, took me all of six weeks. All the while, I berated myself for not staying and fighting for you, we never had the opportunity to say goodbye. I knew that I could never live the rest of my life without you, because I lost my heart to you that first moment I saw you. The day after arriving in Dublin, I decided that I was going to go back for you, start my journey the following day and steal you away in the middle of the night. The two of us could make our own life somewhere else, but unbeknown to me, in 1355 an illness had come to the streets of Dublin. That night I started with a fever so grave it rendered me unmovable, and then later swellings grew in my groin. The swellings grew as large as eggs and they started spreading across my body, turning black and purple. I had no choice during those days but to live on the streets, and …” He looks at me, tears running down his cheeks. “I died there Eilish, wishing that I could see you only once more, convince you of my love. I did not even realize that I was dead at first. I came back to our forest, our meeting place, but you never returned until now.”

  This is too much for me to understand. I tentatively reach out and touch his cheek, to console him and more to convince myself that he was real. His skin under my hand feels warm, so he must be here and not a ghost.

  “How can you be dead, if I can touch you?”

  He puts his hand over my hand on his cheek and smiles sadly. “You moved on, Eilish. You are now Elizabeth and as Elizabeth you were in an accident and this is only a dream for you.”

  I gasp. “But it feels as if I have always been here. I even remember yesterday.”

  “I can’t explain how it works. I can still barely believe that you are here with me.”

  I whisper, “I don’t care if you say I am now Elizabeth, someone with a different life apart from you. I still love you and I never want to be without you, something brought me back here to you.”

  He is silent for the longest time, searching my eyes and then he says, “Eilish, I don’t have a choice but to force you to make an informed choice one way or the other. Either you can stay with me for eternity and it would forever just be you and me, or you can go back to your present life and continue what you have not yet finished.

  I reply adamantly, “I obviously choose you. There is not even a choice to be made.”

  He lifts his hand to brush my hair out of my face and fold it in behind my ear. Smiling sadly, he says softly, “You can’t imagine the loneliness, the longing. Now that I have you here with me, feeling the warmth of you next to me, I do not think that I would ever want you to leave again. I do hope that you choose to be with me, but if you decide to turn it all around, then it will be okay too. I will risk everything for your happiness.”

  He stands up then and pulls me up with him.

  We walk hand in hand towards the horses, not as exuberant as before, because sadness has replaced our happiness.

  We walk the horses back up the hill. He leads me towards a cliff and we walk down a steep pathway. We leave the horses at the top of the hill.

  Devlin holds my hand and steadies me over every boulder and as we reach the bottom, we walk out onto the white sand of the beach.

  I feel the air sucked out of me as I recognize the beach we are standing on.

  The same beach where I fell in love with Jared, where he sat so close to me, tracing butterfly soft patterns on my arm, where he said he would never let me go.

  I gasp as I remember sitting in the car next to Jared, seeing the silver car sliding at an amazing speed towards us, looking to see if he was wearing his safety belt and I remember that he was.

  I hope he was all right and I hope my mom was okay, always so over-protective wanting to know where we all were at all times, because of the suddenness of my dad’s death. One moment you are there and the next moment gone, forever.

  Devlin looks at my face. “I am so sorry,” he says. “I had no choice; I cannot risk you finding out one day, when it is too late for you to make the choice, when he might not be there where you might find him now.”

  The pain in my heart is suddenly excruciating and the tears are streaming down my face.

  Devlin looks in my eyes and sadness clouds his, when he sees the pain in mine.

  He says softly, “No matter what you choose now, it will be okay.” He takes a deep breath and then he breathes out slowly. “If you decide that this is the end, then this is the end.”

  It breaks my heart, anticipating the hurt in his eyes, but I ask, “How do I wake up?”

  He says with acceptance, “You are going to have to trust me.”

  The sun is starting to set over the ocean and he looks at me urgently now. “We have to hurry. I did not realize how late it was.”

  He grabs me by the hand and we hurry up the hill. He waits nervously for me to mount the mare, before he jumps onto the stallion. He does not race away, but keeps pace with me, looking over his shoulder at the setting sun every now and again.

  We reach the cottage, just as the last lick of light leaves the horizon and he runs me into the cottage, dragging the horses behind him and locks the door.

  He sighs with relief and walks towards me. “I’ll keep you safe, do not be afraid,” he whispers, “Just keep quiet, they will hear the horses and move on.”

  I start to ask who they were, when a gust of wind rocks the cottage. He puts his fingers over my lips, looking into my eyes urgently.

  In the wind, I can hear moaning, crying and screaming and I shiver. The wind batter the cottage, wood panels creaking and rattling.

  I look at Devlin with fear in my eyes, while Devlin continues to look into my eyes, keeping his hand over my lips and holding me tight to him.

>   The horses start to panic and whinny.

  There is a brief silence in the wind and then it starts up again, until I do not know who was making the most noise, the horses or the wind.

  Just as suddenly as it started, it ended.

  After a while, Devlin lets me go with a groan of relief.

  “What was that?” I whisper scared.

  “I think it is unhappy souls. They only appear once the last ray of sun disappears from the sky. Scared the color off my skin, the first time I saw them coming towards me. It seemed to be a thousand spirits in a cluster, whirling around, creating this huge cloud, swirling and twirling about, with faces, legs and arms everywhere. The faces in there are pulled in hideous expressions and …” He smirks, “I don’t think I would want to meet them in a dark place.”

  My eyes are wide and I am scared.

  “This of course creates a problem for me. For me to cross over I would have to travel through the shadow of the valley of death, literally a forest of lost souls and then leap off the edge at the end of the world into the light. In the process of getting there, I have to avoid this cloud of spirits, because I am sure that once you are stuck in there, there is no getting out for eternity. For you to wake up Elizabeth, all you have to do is choose to wake up, which you could do at any moment.” He hesitates for a moment and then he says, “You finally came along and broke the spell that kept me here. Now it is time to say goodbye and you can go back. I will be okay. I have avoided them this long, so I am sure that I could get to the end of the world without running into them – literally.”

  “No. I want to stay and help you,” I say sincerely.

  He smiles. “You have always been so concerned about the lost and injured, looks like time changes nothing.”

  I nudge him playfully and then seriously I ask, “Will they be back tonight?”

  “They are very unpredictable, you must be tired though.” He smiles reassuringly.

  I lay my head on his lap and he plays with my hair, twirling it through his fingers.