A Hundred Lifetimes

Five

Clara Stonewell.

That’s the name written on the lower right of the painting, just above the signed initials D. W. D.

Clara Stonewell, apparently, was the name of the person whose form I took.

“Clara. Clara,” I repeated under my breath as my eyes stayed fixated on her face. The name rolled off my tongue as if I had said it before, but the memory seemed different—as if it was mine and not hers. For more than a hundred years, I was aware that I had memories locked up in my head—a time of my life I had sealed away—and everything in the so-called Murder Mansion were trying to pull them out.

My head began to hurt as I tried to make sense of it. It was just all too much; the familiarity of the nearly-abandoned house, the crazy, pale man who just tried to bite me, his attendants that pinned him down, this giant painting of my new face staring right at me… Without a second thought, I ran towards one of the windows on the farthest corner. Thankfully, it opened pretty easily. I climbed out and didn’t even bother to close it afterwards. I just knew I had to get away, so I ran as fast as I could—and let me tell you, Clara’s body really didn’t have the endurance for it.

It turned out that the room I had gotten out from was at the back part of the mansion, next to the garden. On a normal day, I would’ve literally stopped and smelled the flowers. I mean, even in the dark, I could tell that it was glorious; but, I ran past the hedges and the trees and the flowers and the bird fountain, until I finally spotted the wall that separated the mansion from the street, and with all my might, climbed.

Of course, it wasn’t actually that easy, especially with the body of a lady that, I could only assume, was a wealthy heiress that never found the need to raise a finger throughout her luxurious life. Oh, the wall was tall, alright, and I had to climb a damn tree just so I could get over it. Then, came the problem of how I was going to jump to the pavement from a wall that was 2 to 3 meters high up the ground. With adrenaline channeling through me, I decided to jump anyway; then one bus ride later and a few weird looks from people, I was finally able to get home.

I even hurried my walk—or to be more precise, my limp—from the bus stop to my house, because as soon as I got off the bus, I had this feeling that there was someone watching me. Of course, I craned my head every which way to make sure I wasn’t followed. I even tried to hide in an alley for a minute, just to see if Mary, Clarissa or Dorian were in sight; although I highly doubted they would be—they seemed to have their hands full with whatever craziness they were up to. But, just to be sure, I locked all my windows and doors that night.

As I laid on my bed—finally out of the wine-stained clothes—I decided to just process everything the next morning.

The next day, however, didn’t really give me a chance to do so. I was awoken by a loud knock on the front door, and someone calling “Mrs. Dorothy!” at the top of her lungs. As soon as I tried to sit up, I felt pain resonate in my right leg and shoulder—from when I jumped off the wall and badly landed on the street.

“Mrs. Dorothy!”

Groaning, I got out of bed and screamed back a “Wait a damn second, I’m coming!” From the way I could move my limbs as I limped to the door, I guessed that I didn’t have any broken bones; probably just a couple of big bruises somewhere.

“Mrs. Doro—” but before she could finish screaming, I had already opened the door. As I expected, it was the landlady—a middle-aged wife who always looked like she ate a sour candy.

“What?” I asked, hands on my hips. She didn’t seem to appreciate the sass in my tone, and I could sense it with how her eyebrow twitched.

“I have to speak to Mrs. Dorothy,” she said. When I first moved here five years ago, she had been so respectful of me even though she had a reputation of being snobby to everyone else. She had told me that I reminded her of her old, sick mother, so maybe that’s why. Now though, she seemed to be looking down on me. The audacity!

I pointed a finger at her. “Look here, missy—” I stopped short when I saw my hand—my young, soft-skinned hand—and immediately remembered that I was not Mrs. Dorothy anymore. I was no longer the sweet, old lady that rented and signed the contract for five years. “I—uh,” I didn’t know what to say.

“Where is she?” the landlady asked suspiciously, trying to take a look behind me. “I’ve been informed that a suspicious lady has been coming in and out of her place, and she hasn’t been seen since then.” Without warning, she walked past me and into the house to look around.

“Hey! You can’t just—” I held onto her by the arm, but that did very little to stop her. She brushed my hand off and started inspecting every room in the house starting with the kitchen, yelling, “Mrs. Dorothy!”

It slipped my mind that I had gotten rid of most of the old lady clothes I had, to make room for newer ones. It wasn’t until the landlady opened the dresser and demanded, “What’s this? Where are her things?” that I remembered what I had done. With wide eyes, I rushed to close the dresser, and exclaimed, “This isn’t right! You can’t just go barging into people’s houses!”

She said through gritted teeth, “Young lady, I own this place. You’re the one barging in, so tell me where Mrs. Dorothy is, or so help me god, I will call the police!” She took the phone from her pocket and began dialing. Panicked, I quickly placed my hand on hers and in a pleading voice, said, “No, don’t! Mrs. Dorothy left, okay? She left and told me to take care of the house for a while, until she gets back. I promise!”

She looked at me dubiously, but at least she didn’t continue to call the police. I added with a nervous smile, “I’m her granddaughter, you see. I can even tell you what meds she takes, when her birthday is, where she keeps everything in this house!”

“Then show me an ID,” she said, tapping a foot on the ground impatiently. Of course, I couldn’t. I had none to show her, and the look on her face said that she knew that.

“I—it’s not with me right now,” I said, trying to think of an excuse. She raised an eyebrow. “It’s in—I’m about to have the rest of my things delivered. I left all my IDs there! I was in a hurry when Mrs—when grandma called me, so I could only pack a few clothes with me.”

Please buy it, please but it, I thought repeatedly. I even crossed my toes just for luck.

Thankfully, the landlady seemed to consider this, but with her nose still high up in the air, she said, “Express deliveries take less than a day, so show me an ID by tomorrow morning and have Mrs. Dorothy call me.” She raised her phone and threateningly added, “Or I’ll call the police. You have until 8 am tomorrow.” With that, she cast one last look at me and the room, and went on her way.

Shit. s**t in a bucket. s**t.

As soon as the landlady slammed the door on her way out, I grabbed my phone and hit the speed dial.

“Pick up, pick up,” I pleaded. I put the phone on speaker and took the duffle bag out of the cabinet.

“The number you’re calling is not—” the computer operator began to say, but before it could finish, I hung up and clicked redial. As it rang, I zipped open the bag and started packing.

Living as long as I have, there had been quite a few instances when I had to make a run for it; especially when I had just gotten a hang of the shapeshifting. I used to deliberately shift into young, good-looking bodies, just so I could live a life of thrill and adventure, but a little more than three decades ago, I made a conscious decision to live a simple and quiet life. This was supposed to be a simple and quiet life. If it weren’t for seeing Ms. Clara Stonewell’s photograph and inadvertently shapeshifting into her, I wouldn’t be in this situation. I would’ve been more prepared for the shift, and not all bruised up from escaping a crazy trio from a murder mansion.

So, remembering the drill I used to have, I began to pack my valuables first. There weren’t much to begin with, so it wasn’t a big deal. Aside from money and bank accounts, I only had a small, padlocked, waterproof box of old IDs and photos from my previous lives. I opened it and picked up the necklace. It had a simple silver chain and prongs, with two stones as a pendant. I had once gone to a gemologist and found out that they were green and purple jade stones, although he couldn’t make out the intricate engravings.

“The number you’re calling is—” I hung up again and clicked redial, then placed the necklace back into the box, before inserting the box safely into the bag. After that, I just stuffed the newly-bought clothes over the box.

I picked up my phone. “Bastard,” I cursed as it only kept ringing. Looks like I’d have to go there myself, I thought, grabbing my wallet and a coat. I opened the door and was about to step out, when a person’s leg suddenly blocked the doorway. The surprise literally made me jump backward.

Mary put her foot back down and stepped into the house uninvited in her branded stilettos. She looked at me from head to toe, then glanced at the duffle bag in the corner. “Going somewhere in a hurry?” she asked dryly, leaning against the door.

I took a step back. “What do you want from me? Are you here to—to kill me? To torture me?” I asked. “I’ll have you know that killing me would be futile. I’m—I’m tougher than you think!” To be honest, I didn’t think that I was physically tougher than Mary. Seeing her pin the wild Dorian—who, by the way, was a solid one and a half feet taller than her—onto the ground only meant that she could take me down without breaking a sweat. I also wasn’t scared of her because I was scared of dying. What I was most scared of was the pain of getting my ass whooped. Have you ever had your bones broken or have you ever bled out until you died? Yeah, not fun. Not to mention, the entire process of shapeshifting was tedious.

What I said, however serious my tone was, still made Mary laugh. “No one’s trying to kill you, Clara,” she said, then immediately added, “or Shay. Whatever name you want to go with today.”

“My name is Shay,” I said a bit angrily, but Mary only shrugged, obviously unthreatened.

“Alright, then, Shay. I’ll cut to the chase. Come back to the mansion.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. “Ha!” I looked at her like she was crazy. “Are you kidding me? You think I’m coming with you after you lied to me, and tried to attack me? Do you think I’m that dumb?”

“Okay, I know how bad last night must’ve looked,” Mary said, “but, Clara—”

“I’m not Clara!” I screamed, effectively shutting her up. I could feel my face start to heat up. She looked at me thoughtfully for a few seconds, then nodded once. “Okay,” she simply said, “Shay,” looking a bit taken aback.

“Look, we honestly mean no harm,” she said in a softer voice. “Think about it. I could’ve tried something by now. I know where you live, and I could’ve easily hunted you down last night. If you clearly remember what happened last night, Clarissa and I were helping you. And about Mr. D,” she sighed, looking really done with everything. “He’s a special guy. He’s sick and harmless, really. He just had one of his episodes last night, so he acted a bit…”

“Crazy?” I supplied.

Mary scoffed. “Yeah, crazy. But, Clarissa and I made him drink his medicine and he’s all better now. That’s why he sent me here to invite you back, so he can apologize in person for any… distress he might have caused you. What do you say?”

Mary watched me as I mulled things over. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, she did make sense. If they really meant to hurt me or capture me, they could’ve done so in the middle of the night. She didn’t have to show up on my front door and try to convince me like this. She also called me Clara before, proving that she really did approach me with intent, but what exactly, I had yet to figure out. The bunch of what Dorian said last night also didn’t make much sense, and seeing an old, large painting of Clara in a room definitely didn’t help. The mansion was calling to me, and I had a feeling that it held answers—if only I could ask the right questions.

With my mind made up, I stood up straight. “Fine,” I said. “But no one touches me, or I’m calling the police.”

“Cool with me,” Mary confidently answered, then she stepped aside and opened the door wide for me.