Any Kiss Would Do
2018, Menorca, Spain
Greg would follow Neva anywhere—but hells bells, it was hot out here.
Sweat rolled down his back in itchy torrents. He lowered the mattock—so similar to his pickaxe—and pulled a handkerchief out of his back pocket. Wiping his sweaty brow, he surveyed the camp with a critical eye.
Archeological digs were cleaner than mining, but he missed the cool, dry mines and the brotherhood built with each stroke of the pick. At the dig, there was no whistling while one worked, and it seemed every man was out for himself. Except him. He wasn’t here for the glory of making the next big find.
He was here for Neva. Another name that meant Snow.
He would follow her anywhere, through all of their lifetimes—until she realized he was her one true love.
Damn, that sounded stalkerish, even to him. But it wasn’t like that. He’d loved her for eternity—and he knew in his miner’s heart that she loved him. So why couldn’t they be together?
And why couldn’t she ever seem to find a job that didn’t leave calluses on his hands? He wished she would find a better vocation, because he seemed doomed for eternity to dig in the dirt for his living.
An hour later the noon bell rang.
Greg joined Neva in the lunch tent. She was quivering with excitement. Even the pixie ends of her black hair seemed to vibrate. “Discover anything new in the crypt?” he asked.
Neva’s eyes were dancing, and she put a finger to her red lips. “I’m not supposed to tell.” She leaned in close, her lips brushing his cheek, then whispered in his ear. “I found a hidden room. We’re going to wait for the inspection this afternoon to explore it.”
Greg’s heart sank. The inspection. The financier of the dig would be arriving—and with him, Greg’s last hope of winning Neva. “Marry me,” he begged.
She sobered. “You know I can’t.”
And with those words, she’d doomed them to another lifetime of friendship.
2241, Meekatharra, Australia
Another mining town. This time it was the bite of a brown snake that laid her low.
Mud on his boots and dirt ground into the seams of his hands, Greg had rushed to the hospital after the ambulance. He’d arrived too late, finding Livvy awake—groggy, yes—but awake and laughing quietly with the doctor about how close she had come to dying.
“Greg—” With apologies in her voice and in her eyes, she reached out to him.
But he’d seen the triumphant look on the doctor’s face.
A doctor. How did the prince always come out smelling like a rose, time after time, life after life? How did he always manage to show up at the exact right moment?
Greg turned on his heel and left, driving back to Meekatharra and quitting the mines. It was the first time he’d spent the remainder of his life without her.
2561, Edinburgh, Scotland
As soon as he realized who he was, and who she was, he’d quit his job in the newly re-opened Upper Hirst mines and moved to the city. Robots did the digging these days, but one couldn’t escape the dust anywhere near the quarry. Never again would he dirty his hands in pursuit of her.
But that didn’t mean he didn’t love her—and wouldn’t keep trying. Only his tactics were changing.
Enter technology. And college. What were a few years of his time in the given scheme of things? As a librarian at the National Library, he had access to a thousand databases. For a small fee he had real-time alerts on a number of subjects delivered directly to his implant, guaranteed to inform him whenever there was a change in her status.
This was stalking, and he knew it was wrong. But I love her! he’d tell himself when he was feeling particularly defensive, when his conscience really bothered him. And I know she loves me. It never sat right with him, but he couldn’t face the possibility of unrequited love again.
When the flood occurred, she shouldn’t have been in the mines—it wasn’t her job—but he knew she was somehow involved. The curse again: Tragedy followed her, of course.
He was at the corner transfer pad before he could whistle hi-ho. [kah1] Nearly three hundred miles traveled in the blink of an eye, but he still wasn’t fast enough.
Even the prince had been thwarted, this time.
It was the eighty-six-year-old retired doctor in town who’d re-awakened her, brought her back to life with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Greg knew for certain then what he’d long suspected: Any kiss would have awakened her. Any. Kiss.
True love’s kiss? They should have called it for what it was: true love’s curse.
He was glad he hadn’t stuck around.
2736, Baltimore, United States
Greg lit the candle in the tiny shoebox alcove of his habitat on Bond Street and said a quick prayer to the flame goddess that he would be successful this time. Candles were not allowed in the tiny one room shelter he called home, but it seemed blasphemous—even in this day and age—to offer up a flickering, digital flame at the end of a mock taper. The gods still expected sacrifice, and there was no sacrifice in the flick of a switch.
The idea seemed ludicrous. Who believed in gods anymore?
But he had suffered through a dozen reincarnated lives in the last thousand years or so. Lifetime after lifetime after lifetime. Except for the curse, magic didn’t exist anymore, so the only explanation he could find for his and Snow’s continued existence was the capricious will of the gods. Perhaps this god in particular, a goddess of reincarnation.
Tatarama—born in fire, forged in flame. Ancient icons show her sitting in the midst of a furnace, a cyclical inferno spiraling behind and around her, flames roiling in her outstretched hands. More gentle portrayals showed her seated in the heart of an aged, evergreen oak, with its many, many branches of life forming a canopy around her.
Greg preferred the flames. They were closer to his miner’s heart and more like the passion burning in his breast.
It had taken him more than a hundred years in this lifetime to learn Tatarama’s name. Once he did, things began to make sense. But he was so weary of living without Snow.
He remembered the curse—any kiss would awaken his love and doom them to an eternity of life. The truest love, his love, would end the curse, once and for all. He’d awaken her, and they’d spend the rest of their days—their final days—together at last.
This time, he would get it right by the tools of his current trade or by the will of his god. Perhaps both.
He would earn his rest, but not until after a single lifetime with her. Snow—though she was going by Gwen these days. A different name in every lifetime, all meaning the same thing: white as snow.
He’d once thought being a librarian would enable him to reach her before the prince did, but data mining was better. There was a vast difference between standing on the shore, waiting for the information to arrive and being a part of the stream itself. He could find Gwen’s whereabouts, and then he could hide her from the prince until he could arrive and awaken her.
The news was barely a blip on his implant about the accident in Sparrows Point, Baltimore. A woman, said the report, was struck and thrown by a swinging crane at Bethlehem Steel—the mill revived from the long-cold ashes of the old company. It seemed fitting somehow. He and Snow were back to coal—if not mining, at least smelting.
She was lucky she hadn’t been dragged into the steel rollers or there would have been nothing left of her to revive. Medical ‘bots on the scene lacked the ability to kiss. He was in luck.
As soon as the notification flew across his implants, Greg began monitoring hospitals. Once found, it was easy to hack in and change her name and room number. The prince would have a hard time finding her this time.
Greg was in her room within minutes of her arrival.
She lay on the hospital bed, her face whiter than the sheets.
He bent and kissed her.
Her eyes fluttered open. “I love you, Snow.”
“Oh, my grumpy love, I knew it was only a matter of time. You’ve finally done it.”
A single tear rolled down her face. Then another. She was crying, but it didn’t look like tears of joy.
His heart thudded in his chest. “We can be together now.”
She smiled sadly, her words were a whisper. “We’ve always been together. Time after time after time.”
“Together, yes, but always apart.”
“Apart, because I love you, too.” She gasped. Her face began to grow sallow, it wrinkled and grayed. Her skin was shrinking, pulling tight across her bones, wrinkling elsewhere. Greg reached for her hand, clasping it firmly in his own. It felt dry and papery to his touch. He felt an echoing pain in his chest, as if his heart were giving out. Then, his face burned, the skin tight as though he’d stepped too close to a fire—Tatarama’s?
“Snow!” He bent, touching his forehead to hers. “What’s happening, Snow?”
“True love’s kiss.” She gasped again and patted the bed beside her with her free hand. “Join me here.” She made room, turning onto her side, tugging him toward her.
Greg joined her in bed, his chest to her back, their knees and feet entwined. It was the closest he’d ever been to her. He wrapped his arms around her, breathing softly into the dark hair at her nape, and pulled her closer. The pain was growing worse. He’d never been so happy. “I have loved you since the day we met. And I know you love me, too, Snow. Of course it was True Love’s Kiss.” Pain clutched his waist, his knees, his ankles—and he couldn’t move them anymore. “What’s happening?” he asked again.
She wriggled closer, then stiffened against him. “One lifetime was never ever enough for me.”
She was hard to his touch now, like stone, wherever they touched. Her body felt cool. She was dying.
One lifetime was never enough? Greg thought about all the miserable lifetimes he’d spent waiting to get the jump on the prince. He and Snow had held hands, they’d embraced a few times, and then shared only an abiding friendship while he sat by and watched her current love win her over again and again and again.
Had Snow been as miserable as he? Had she sacrificed herself lifetime after lifetime, so they could have these stolen moments through time, never voicing their deepest feelings for one another? Had she fostered a deep abiding friendship—so they could have it for eternity?
He’d always thought his love had been the stronger one. “Oh, gods—what have I done?”
“You have loved me,” she whispered, as her heart stopped beating, “as I have loved you.”
“I do,” Greg said, breathing his last.
And then Eternity—held at bay by True Love’s Curse—swept across their clasped bodies like a maelstrom. Shriveling, drying, peeling, wearing—until only their bones remained. Then those crumbled into dust.
Kelly A. Harmon
Kelly A. Harmon used to write truthful, honest stories about authors and thespians, senators and statesmen, movie stars and murderers. Now she writes lies, which is infinitely more satisfying, but lacks the convenience of doorstep delivery.
She is an award-winning journalist and author, and a member of Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America. A Baltimore native, she writes the Charm City Darkness series. The fourth book in the series, In the Eye of the Beholder, is now available.
Ms. Harmon is a former newspaper reporter and editor, and now edits for Pole to Pole Publishing, a small Baltimore publisher. She is co-editor of Hides the Dark Tower and In a Cat’s Eye along with Vonnie Winslow Crist. For more information, visit her blog at http://kellyaharmon.com, or, find her on Facebook and Twitter: http://facebook.com/Kelly-A-Harmon1, https://twitter.com/kellyaharmon.