Transcendence Read Online Free PDF Page B

knows the awkward girl who talks about ghosts and falls into total strangers, and suddenly I wanted to keep it that way. “You know, the usual stuff,” I finally say. “Buckingham Palace, the Tate Gallery, museums.”
    “How about the Eye?” He nods his head across the river toward the towering Ferris wheel.
    Right. The only way I’d get into a small glass box suspended hundreds of feet in the air for half an hour is at gunpoint. And maybe not even then. “Um, no. Not yet.”
    “I usually hate tourist things like that, but it has the best view in the city.”
    “Maybe tomorrow,” I say, knowing it’ll never happen. “It feels like we don’t have enough time to do it all, but it’s been great so far. I’ve always been fascinated by this city. By all of England.”
    “Tell me you didn’t get up in the middle of the night to watch the royal wedding.”
    “I didn’t,” I answer honestly. Kat had recorded it. “It’s just that I love history, and I really wanted to see the places I’ve read about.” I’m tempted to tell him about the vision, about the girl on the scaffold. Something about the way he looks at me makes me feel safe and grounded. Like I can say anything and he’ll believe me. “In some ways, London feels like home. It’s almost like everything is familiar. Except it’s not.”
    Griffon’s eyes scan my face intently. “Like déjà vu?”
    “Exactly,” I say. “It’s weird. I’ll be walking by a house and allof a sudden I’ll feel homesick. Or I’ll know exactly what the next street looks like even though I’ve never been on it.”
    He nods, listening to me intently. “It’s weird feeling that you’ve been someplace before, or seen something before.” Griffon looks thoughtful. “But that doesn’t seem to cover it most of the time.”
    “It doesn’t,” I agree. “It’s more than that. It’s not like I’ve just seen it already. It’s like I’ve…” I suddenly realize that I’m sitting here spilling my guts to a total stranger. A total stranger who feels really familiar.
    “Like you’ve lived it before?” Griffon finishes for me.
    “Right,” I say. I’m surprisingly calm. “Like I’m seeing things that already happened through the eyes of the people they happened to. Things that happened a long time ago. I don’t know if it’s spirits, or some kind of supernatural energy.” I pause, and it’s as if the thread that momentarily connected us has snapped. “Or if I’m going crazy.”
    Griffon smiles. “You’re not crazy,” he says. “Far from it.”
    “So if I’m not slowly going insane, what is it, then?”
    He hesitates, and I can see indecision play across his face. “I guess people sometimes try to bury the things that they most need to see.”
    “And for some reason I need to see these glimpses of other people’s lives? That makes no sense.”
    “Maybe it will someday,” he says cryptically.
    I look at our hands on the wooden table. Our fingers are only inches apart, and I have a sudden urge to reach out and touch him. I want the feel of his skin on mine, a physical connection, even if it’s only for a second. As if he can read my mind, Griffon pulls hishands from the table and sits back in his chair. I feel as embarrassed as if I had actually reached for him.
    Griffon looks out toward the Green, where the other tourists are wandering around. “So what do you think of the new marker for the scaffold site?” he asks, nodding toward the Chapel.
    I follow his gaze, thrown by the rapid change in topic. “That glass thing? It’s interesting.”
    Griffon’s face clouds over a little. His emotions seem to be just under the surface, and I can already see the dislike in his expression. “I think it’s awful. Like a big glass coffee table right in the middle of the square.”
    I smile. “I kind of thought the same thing.”
    “The worst part is that they didn’t even put it in the right spot,” he says.
    “They didn’t? I thought