Persephone's Orchard (The Chrysomelia Stories) by Molly Ringle Page B

exercise. You can really live in the memory, and if you go to bed thinking, ‘I’m going to control what I see,’ you can skim backward and forward much faster.”
    “How long will that take?” she asked. “Before I get to whatever-it-was B.C.?”
    “My best guess is 1700 B.C. We’re talking something like seventy-five lifetimes between then and now, so even if you get skilled at skipping backward through the lives, it’ll probably still take you several nights.”
    She leaned back against a branch, looking stunned. “Thirty-seven hundred years?”
    “Hard to wrap your mind around, yeah.” Adrian picked a fern frond and brushed it back and forth against his hand. “Honestly, I’m not sure of the exact figure. I’ve tried to work it out—how long each of my lives was, how long I spent in the Underworld between them—but I just can’t be sure, especially in the earliest lives. Back in the old days, people often lost track of exactly how old they were. So that’s my rough estimate. The year itself doesn’t matter much, anyway. We don’t need to punch a date into a time machine.”
    “But…” She frowned. “If we were gods, how could we have died?”
    A chill shivered through Adrian. How he wished he could spare her that memory. “That, I shouldn’t explain. You’ll trust the memories better if they come from your own head.”
    “Oh, fine.”
    “You’ll know soon. Really. So…” He dropped the fern and laced together his fingers, taking on a humble expression. “You forgive me for the pomegranate stunt?”
    “I’m going to need more time for that,” she grumbled. But the flicker of teasing in her tone gave him hope. She sighed, and pulled out her phone to glance at the screen. “I need to get back soon, if you’re not going to tell me anything else.”
    “All right. I’ve given you enough to think about today.” He clambered down the tree’s trunk, and held up his arms to her.
    She sat at the edge of a branch, swinging her legs down. “Do I jump?”
    “Sure. I can catch you.”
    Still frowning, she sprang out of the tree. Adrian caught her around the middle, her arms colliding with his shoulders and head, her breasts in his face for one pleasantly distracting second. He lowered her to her feet, and they dusted bits of moss off their clothes.
    “Did you used to be in a wheelchair?” she asked abruptly.
    Caught off guard, he felt the old defensiveness lock across his face like a shield. “How’d you find that out?”
    “The Internet. There was an article from a while back, about you and Kiri, and other assistance dogs.”
    “But how? I mean, I never told you my last name or what city I was from or anything.”
    “I saw your name and address on Kiri’s dog tags, in your bathroom. In the Underworld.”
    Realizing he’d left those in plain sight, he spread his palm over his face. “I am so bloody stupid.”
    “So when you got your superpowers…that made you able to walk?”
    Ugh. This was a can of worms he did not feel like reopening. “Yeah,” he said, dropping his hand and looking off at the horizon.
    “Sorry. Maybe it’s none of my business.”
    It was kind of her to apologize, when she was under no obligation to do so. He pushed a smile to the surface. “I think I did nothing but run for about two weeks when I got cured. Must’ve run a thousand kilometers in all. Gave Kiri a nice workout.”
    She smiled down at the dog. “I can imagine.”
    “Come on, let’s take you back.” He reached out and clasped her hand, not even thinking what he was doing until he felt her fingers tense in his grasp. Rather than pull his hand away, though, he lingered to see what she’d do. And in a moment she relaxed, and allowed him to hold her hand as they walked back to the stake with the orange flagging.
    When they reached it, she gasped and dropped his hand, staring at him.
    “What?” he asked, alarmed.
    “I slept with you!”
    “Oh. Which time are you thinking of?”
    “As Grete