Eternally Yours 1 Read Online Free
guess.”
“Do not fear.” Serenity ran a loving hand over Jodie’s hair. “Remember I am with you. Close your eyes.”
When she complied, colors streaked like fireworks across her mind. Within the blink of an eye, the vivid hues sharpened, forming the shape of a dark-haired woman with snapping blue eyes.
Goodwife Greta Hamburg lived with her husband, Erick, in New Amsterdam in the New World. Jodie knew everything about Greta. Because centuries ago, Jodie was Greta. And now, as she watched Greta’s life unfold, the memories flooded through her. How Greta had always considered her married life happy and peaceful. Until the Salem hysteria crept into their peaceful village, clawing for more victims.
Eventually, Greta would go to the stake, declaring her innocence. And while the flames ate painfully through her flesh, the last sight her dying eyes would behold was her beloved husband. Erick, silent and accusatory, stood beside the black-frocked minister, Proctor Verhoeven, who’d convinced the villagers of her guilt in practicing the Black Arts.
As Greta, every inch of Jodie’s singed flesh sizzled in an endless suffering tattoo until her heart could no longer stand the pain and she gave herself over to the numbness of death. Once Greta perished, the screen grew fuzzy.
When the blur once again cleared to crisp edges, she saw a red-faced babe, squalling in a woman’s arms, and knew the child was Christine Anne Grainger. The squalid, overheated room in an eighteenth-century cabin came to life.
Jodie Devlin no longer sat in the chair, a spectator. Jodie Devlin no longer existed. She was Christine Anne Grainger. Born June 3, 1761.
In 1 778, barely two months after Christine had received word of her intended’s death at the hands of the British, a house fire erupted suddenly in the middle of the night. The flames devoured her parents and physically scarred the lovely young Christine. Watching Christine die alone and penniless ten years later hollowed Jodie, as if carving her heart from her chest.
And then came her most recent life. Once again, she was the young Jodie, naïve and sheltered, bouncing from strange country to strange country with her UNESCO parents. Every incident, still emblazoned on her mind from current memory, roared to the surface of her consciousness. She relived that horrible day in the little village of Castelan, outside San Salvador. The oppressive jungle heat drew sweat from her pores. A helicopter’s blades thwopp-thwopped overhead. And then…chaos.
H er mother’s voice echoed from her memory. Hurry, Jack, hurry!
She saw her father struggle to start the sputtering Jeep and felt relief when the engine coughed and turned over. A lurch later, her bottom jostled over rutted roads as they hurried to escape the violence breaking out around them. Soldiers streamed from the jungle, their eyes black and their expressions soulless.
Screams echoed in her head, and the young Jodie covered her eyes with her hands. Sparks blazed from the dense foliage, glowing between the spaces in her fingers. At the same time, rickety-rickety sounds erupted. Gunfire! Before she could scream a warning, her parents’ bullet-riddled bodies jerked and danced on the impact of the semi-automatic artillery. The Jeep’s engine, punctured in a dozen places, hissed like a time bomb before exploding. Shrapnel rained on her with the sting of ten thousand bees.
T eenaged Jodie Devlin woke in a third world hospital, alone and in excruciating pain. Survival came from a dozen agonizing skin grafts the doctors inflicted to repair the second and third-degree burns marring her arms and legs.
Her heart bled when the consulate representative informed her of her parents’ deaths. Breath left her lungs when she relived her harried flight to New York, a place she’d never known except from photographs. She spent time with all the foster families again: from the kind old doctor friend of Daddy’s and his much younger, possessive wife,
“Do not fear.” Serenity ran a loving hand over Jodie’s hair. “Remember I am with you. Close your eyes.”
When she complied, colors streaked like fireworks across her mind. Within the blink of an eye, the vivid hues sharpened, forming the shape of a dark-haired woman with snapping blue eyes.
Goodwife Greta Hamburg lived with her husband, Erick, in New Amsterdam in the New World. Jodie knew everything about Greta. Because centuries ago, Jodie was Greta. And now, as she watched Greta’s life unfold, the memories flooded through her. How Greta had always considered her married life happy and peaceful. Until the Salem hysteria crept into their peaceful village, clawing for more victims.
Eventually, Greta would go to the stake, declaring her innocence. And while the flames ate painfully through her flesh, the last sight her dying eyes would behold was her beloved husband. Erick, silent and accusatory, stood beside the black-frocked minister, Proctor Verhoeven, who’d convinced the villagers of her guilt in practicing the Black Arts.
As Greta, every inch of Jodie’s singed flesh sizzled in an endless suffering tattoo until her heart could no longer stand the pain and she gave herself over to the numbness of death. Once Greta perished, the screen grew fuzzy.
When the blur once again cleared to crisp edges, she saw a red-faced babe, squalling in a woman’s arms, and knew the child was Christine Anne Grainger. The squalid, overheated room in an eighteenth-century cabin came to life.
Jodie Devlin no longer sat in the chair, a spectator. Jodie Devlin no longer existed. She was Christine Anne Grainger. Born June 3, 1761.
In 1 778, barely two months after Christine had received word of her intended’s death at the hands of the British, a house fire erupted suddenly in the middle of the night. The flames devoured her parents and physically scarred the lovely young Christine. Watching Christine die alone and penniless ten years later hollowed Jodie, as if carving her heart from her chest.
And then came her most recent life. Once again, she was the young Jodie, naïve and sheltered, bouncing from strange country to strange country with her UNESCO parents. Every incident, still emblazoned on her mind from current memory, roared to the surface of her consciousness. She relived that horrible day in the little village of Castelan, outside San Salvador. The oppressive jungle heat drew sweat from her pores. A helicopter’s blades thwopp-thwopped overhead. And then…chaos.
H er mother’s voice echoed from her memory. Hurry, Jack, hurry!
She saw her father struggle to start the sputtering Jeep and felt relief when the engine coughed and turned over. A lurch later, her bottom jostled over rutted roads as they hurried to escape the violence breaking out around them. Soldiers streamed from the jungle, their eyes black and their expressions soulless.
Screams echoed in her head, and the young Jodie covered her eyes with her hands. Sparks blazed from the dense foliage, glowing between the spaces in her fingers. At the same time, rickety-rickety sounds erupted. Gunfire! Before she could scream a warning, her parents’ bullet-riddled bodies jerked and danced on the impact of the semi-automatic artillery. The Jeep’s engine, punctured in a dozen places, hissed like a time bomb before exploding. Shrapnel rained on her with the sting of ten thousand bees.
T eenaged Jodie Devlin woke in a third world hospital, alone and in excruciating pain. Survival came from a dozen agonizing skin grafts the doctors inflicted to repair the second and third-degree burns marring her arms and legs.
Her heart bled when the consulate representative informed her of her parents’ deaths. Breath left her lungs when she relived her harried flight to New York, a place she’d never known except from photographs. She spent time with all the foster families again: from the kind old doctor friend of Daddy’s and his much younger, possessive wife,
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