Fury

Epilogue

JENNIFER DROVE SOUTH ON the New Jersey Turnpike. It was a month since the museum, and Kirk was still in pain, but she knew how desperately he wanted to get out of New York, at least for a while. She would never get him to live in New York, she thought, but so what? She wasn’t sure she wanted to, either. Not in this lifetime anyway.

It was over. Phoebe was dead. Kathy Dart was in the hospital, as was Simon. She had not killed him, after all. She was thankful for that. But poor Tom. He had been just an innocent victim, killed by Phoebe in her lust for revenge. But there was no innocent victim, Jennifer knew now. Whatever happened in life was simply the playing out of one’s destiny.

At the dawn of time Phoebe had killed her, and in another life she had avenged that act. She had once been a poor black girl in the south who had jumped to her suicide, and Phoebe had been the white man. At every incarnation their spirits had returned to seek revenge on the other.

Spontaneously, she reached out and touched Kirk, let her right hand linger on the inside of his thigh.

“Happy?” she asked.

He nodded. “I’m happy you’re with me, and I’m happy to be getting away from that place.” Without turning around, he jerked his head back toward the city.

Jennifer glanced in the rearview mirror. She could see across the marshy industrial flatlands of New Jersey and the lower west side of the city. She saw the twin towers of the World Trade Center, and Battery Park City, both cast in the deep orange glow of the setting sun. It would be dark in another hour, but by then they’d be far from New York. Safe.

She touched him again to reassure herself. “Thank you,” she said softly.

“Why?” he asked.

“You know why.” She longed to kiss him, to be in his arms, and she almost suggested that they stop, that they find a motel right off the highway, but she knew he wanted more distance between them and the city.

Jennifer took a deep breath and kept her eyes trained on the expressway, at the rush of cars and trucks on the turnpike. Newark Airport was to their right and planes were landing and taking off, gliding onto distant runways, their colored landing lights flickering in the sunset. The air was warmer than it had been, and they were headed south, away from all her tragedies. Everything would be all right again.

She glanced again into the rearview mirror of the small rental car and saw Margit sitting quietly in the backseat, enjoying the drive. She caught Jennifer’s eyes in the mirror and smiled.

“What?” Kirk asked again.

Jennifer shook her head. “Nothing. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Hey, come on, don’t give me that!”

“I love you,” she said instead, then weaved the car smoothly through the traffic.

“You don’t really believe any of that stuff, do you?” he asked her.

“Of course not, darling, it’s just a silly game, like reading your horoscope in the newspaper.”

Kirk smiled and seemed to relax.

Jennifer reached over again and gently stroked the inside of his thigh, letting her fingers enjoy the touch of him. She could not see his eyes, but she knew they were the same beautiful sweet eyes of her Egyptian prince, the same eyes as her brother Danny. It was not necessary, she realized, for her to share her new knowledge with him. She would take care of him, now that he had come back into her life.

Someday, perhaps, when they were older, she might tell him how they had been together once in Egypt, and before that in other lifetimes. In some they had been lovers, and at other times a sister and brother.

It wasn’t necessary to tell him everything now. They were together again, and soon, she knew, they would be husband and wife. Jennifer glanced around. Margit was gone from the backseat, but Jennifer knew the other woman’s spirit would never leave her. Just as Kirk had returned, Margit, her lost mother, had returned in this life and would come again in future lifetimes.

Jennifer watched the traffic and the approaching darkness and let her thoughts wander. In the close warmth of the front seat, she smiled, happy and at peace. She wondered about the other lives she might have lived. So far she had remembered lives of retaliation and revenge, yet there must have been happy lives as well. She sat up and regripped the steering wheel of the car.

Perhaps in other incarnations she had been a woman of importance, a high priestess, even a princess or queen. Someday she would remember those lives, all those glorious lifetimes when she wasn’t doing battle with the spirit of Phoebe Fisher.

At that thought, Jennifer’s heart soared with anticipation. Her life was not over, but her days of anguish were.

“Why are you smiling?” Kirk asked, watching her.

Jennifer kept watching the expressway. She shook her head and said, “I’m just happy, that’s all, and in love.” The nightmares of her primitive past were over. Phoebe’s spirit was gone from her life. Because the channeler’s death had not come at her hands, she had finally escaped Phoebe’s vengeful spirit.

Yes, Jennifer thought, she would ask Kathy Dart to help her. By making contact with her higher consciousness, with her unlimited soul, she would use the wisdom of her reincarnations to chart a long and happy life with this wonderful young man, her ancient lover.

It was all so obvious now, Jennifer thought. Her life was a perfect puzzle, and she had always been meant, from time eternal, to be on that cold highway in Minnesota so Kirk might find her. It was all God’s plan.

No, she realized. It wasn’t God. She had made the long journey herself. She had found her own way to salvation. She was, as Kathy Dart had said, her own god. They were all gods, she thought, with their own destinies. Everyone worked out his own karma.

Then Jennifer reached over and flipped on the headlights of the car. The high beams lit up the New Jersey Turnpike and cut a path of light into the dark night, and at that moment on the long dark expressway, Jennifer Winters knew she could see forever.