My
name is Mildreth McCann. I'm but nineteen years of age,
yet I've lived countless lifetimes. I've
been sentenced to spend my existence seeking out the Heartmark women,
descendants of my brother Colin and his wife Aleena.
You
may wonder about my purpose for seeking out the
Heartmark women?
There
is one reason and one reason only.
To
destroy their chances of finding, and holding onto, true
love.
I
am forbidden to harm the women – or the men they love --
physically. So for each lifetime where I find the Heartmark woman I must use
whatever means may be at my disposal.
Sometimes
I shock even myself with my cunning and cruelty.
Shifted
against my will from one Time to another in search
of my nieces, I've seen things, done things, which would see me condemned
to death if those in my era were to learn of them.
You
must be wondering why I must spend lifetime after
lifetime searching for these Heartmark woman?
I'll
tell you.
As
punishment for a crime I committed. Aye, I admit to my
crime, having drawn blood from my very own brother with my jealous sword-- but
I did so in a moment of fear, insecurity and loneliness.
Colin
was all the family I had left, you see. My brother was
the only one in my heart, and the one I'll likely never see again. Not that he would
wish to lay eyes upon me even if it were possible.
And
why would he? After all I've done.
I
was so afraid the love he held in his heart for Aleena
would crowd out any affection he may have held for me, the sister he'd raised
since I was five and he seven and our parents slain before our very eyes by an
enemy chieftain.
He
and I against the world, that's how it had always been…
until Aleena came into his life.
Colin's
heart, his time, his world, shifted from me, his own
flesh and blood, to her. Leaving me
lonely, so very lonely.
I
tried to tell him, I really did. But he brushed off my
words, my tears. He ignored my pleadings that he should cast her aside so we
could go back to how we were before she came along.
Now,
countless lifetimes later, I understand I did not truly
have anything to fear from his new marriage. Now, countless lifetimes later, I
understand that a man's heart, a woman's heart, can hold many different kinds
of love in them, for countless people.
If
only I'd known then what I know now….
Yet
I didn't know then and now, well, now I'm so tired.
Exhausted really, and do you know what? I'm just as afraid, insecure, and
lonely as I was that fateful day in Colin's chambers, where I struck out at my
beloved brother and set into motion this wretched life I now live.
I've
destroyed countless Heartmark women's loves. I always
leave those times feeling almost as empty as the nieces I left behind.
Regret
scorches my heart, but what am I to do? My whole
purpose in being in their lifetime is to see them fail.
There
have been even more Heartmark women and the men who
loved them who stood strong against me, halting my efforts to destroy them at
every turn. And once they utter the words I fear I myself will never be allowed
to utter, the words 'I do', I am swept away, to another day and time, to begin
my search for the Heartmark woman all over again.
Those
times when I leave, emptiness again fills my heart,
but it is compounded a hundredfold by sadness and bitter regret.
For
I'll never have the chance to find my own true love. How
can I when I have no control over where or when I will be whisked away?
But
just in case I'm wrong, just in case I may someday be
able to seek penitence for my crimes against my brother and his wife, I have fiercely
held on to my innocence.
Oh,
in many of the Times I've lived there were those who
would swear that innocence was far from me, a thing long past.
They’ve
been wrong.
Just
in case -- just in case pity should ever be shown to
me, and I can stop my relentless pursuit of the Heartmark women--at last leave
them in peace, then, aye, then I can find the person who fills my heart the way
Aleena fills Colin's.
I vow I will go to my new husband pure-- in mind and body,
and I will belong to him and him alone forever more...
If,
that is, pity should ever be shown to me.