The Memory Painter

An hour later, Linz and Bryan had both skimmed the majority of the books and the bottle of wine was gone. Reading about Origenes’ life, Bryan had grown angry—at what history had gotten wrong, at what had been left out, at the memories he was stuck with forever. After a while he had stopped reading, only pretending to by turning the pages.

“He believed in reincarnation,” Linz noted as she scanned the text. “A doctrine the Church struck down in 553 AD, three hundred years after his death.” She looked up at Bryan with surprise. “So reincarnation was once a Christian belief?”