Rebirth ...Finale ...Burying the Past

Evil is unspectacular and always human,
and shares our bed and eats at our own table.
— W. H. Auden

The Cliff—Rattlesnake Point

I thought the past year filled with heartbreak and anguish was almost unendurable until I met Marin—she restored my faith in life and enabled me to recover some of my joy for living.

I was looking forward to spending a quiet Thanksgiving weekend with her and my family at our farm on the Niagara Escarpment, but all that changed in an instant.

Now, I was caught up in another nightare. I couldn't believe the scene unfolding before my eyes—the ambulance and RCMP officers again putting up yellow caution tape around the same place marred by a past tragedy.

We were out on the windswept Ridge where Reagan perished and now facing another horror—Charly was gone—swept over the cliff’e edge the same way Ragan died.

But this tragedy was different, far darker and more incomprehensible than even Regan’s death—Charly had tried to murder Marin, apparently because she was jealous of my relatioship with her.

I just couldn’t wrap my mind around what happened—it seemed so surreal, especially Mar’s explanation of how Charly transformed into Regan as if she resurrected her spirit from the grave

I was still dumbfounded and trying to put together the pieces of what I witnessed and the fagmented details Mar was able to tell me.

I looked at Mar in confusion. “I don't undrstand what you were telling me. How did Charly become Regan? It doesn't make any sense."

Mar's eyes were wild with terror as she tried to recall what happened.

“Charly bagan acting weird, she was rambling on about twin souls—and then said something really crazy, Jess—she said, 'it’s true, you know—you can become someone else, but then, you have to take over their life.' And then she turned on me.”

“I don’t get it, Mar—what does that all mean?”

Mar buried her face in her hands. “She killed her Jess—it was no accident. Charly pushed Regan off that cliff so she could become her—take over her life.”

I felt my insides turn to ice water. I was trembling so much my teeth were chattering, but I had to hear her out.

Mar closed her eyes as she recounted what happened and I could tell she was replaying the scene in her head.

“She thought she would at last be able to be with you, Jess, especially when you invited her to Thanksgiving dinner, but then you showed up with me. She said couldn’t bear to go through it again so she lured me up there to have another ‘accident’ so she could be with you.”

I put my arms aroung Mar and held her close.

“Well, it’s all over now, Love—she’s gone.”

Mar shook her head at my words and insisted I listen.

“But Jess—you don’t understand. She didn’t just act like Regan—she really did become her. Her face physically changed right before my eyes. Her voice got husky and even her gestures were different.”

The policewoman looked at me and shrugged as if to say Mar was deluded, but I knew different. Regan’s voice was deeper than Charly’s and her gestures more graceful.

I don’t know how it happened but I do believe that somehow Charly became another soul.

I stayed at the hospital while the doctor gave Mar a sedative and waited until she was comfortably asleep.

There’d be no sense trying to explain the details of Mar’s version to my family or Charly’s uncle—they wouldn’t be able to understand—jealousy yes, but transmigration of souls?

“Mar wasn’t making sense”, the policewoman told me. “She was in shock. As for that business about Charly turning into Regan, well, that was a form of temporary insanity. And after what that poor girl went through up there, who could blame her?”

I didn’t argue with her—Mar certainly went through a horrific experience on the ridge.

And maybe we should leave it at that—say Charly was emotionally distraught and suicidal after returning to the place where her best friend died.

Perhaps it will be easier for others to see Charly as a deeply grieving friend, but Mar and I know what really happened up on that ridge.

For us, grief has become a place and a person…and now it’s a memory we both share.

To be continued...

© 2026, John J Geddes. All rights reserved

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