Chapter 5
Five
Ifling the door open, the knob slamming into the wall. Instead of Death smirking at me in a new form, Sebastian stands there, wide eyed, chest heaving. “Vivian?”
I flinch and swallow the name, grating against another reminder of how little he knows, how little I can share. “What are you doing here? How did you know where I live?”
My tone’s sharper than I want it to be, but I can’t seem to keep anything under control right now.
“You were so upset . . . I just wanted to make sure you got home safe.”
Even as I’m pushing him away, he’s here, steady.
I’m falling to pieces and being mean to him, and he’s still standing here, concerned.
I wish I could tell him my secret. Not just because I trust him, but because I know he’d get it—he’d see the story in it, the history, the wonder.
I think he’d see the beauty in it—the meaning others would miss.
But even the thought is an impossibility.
“I appreciate you coming, but I really need to be alone.”
“Are you sure? Of course, you don’t owe me an explanation . . .” He approaches cautiously; his face is crestfallen and confused. “But I can’t shake the feeling that something happened. One minute you were inviting me here for dinner. The next—well, I’m not sure. For what it’s worth, I’m here.”
Guilt bubbles up inside me, and I can’t push him away.
“It’s just my past,” I say, trying to hold back the emotions. “And there’s nothing you can do about that.”
He studies me, unflinching. “Can I help? The past is sort of my specialty.”
“I just met you yesterday.” A hot tear streaks down my face, landing on my collarbone. He reaches, wiping it away with the pad of his thumb, still managing to make me smile despite the overwhelming pull of my past and my present.
“Your birthmark—so unusual and beautiful. Just like you.” His fingers gently trace the heart-shaped mark.
I want to lean in, but our touch sends sparks, and I snap out of the reverie. “This isn’t your problem. You can’t help me with it. No one can. You should go.”
“Are you sure? I’ll go if that’s what you truly want, but every part of me is saying that I shouldn’t. That I can’t just let you disappear.”
“That’s what I’m best at.” I clutch the door, trusting it to keep me upright—the emotion of everything running through me. I don’t want to disappear. I want to let him in. I want to understand how it’s still possible to feel this way after all these years, all these lifetimes.
I turn to go, stepping into my foyer, but he reaches for me again, like he did at the gallery, brushing my curls from my eyes, his touch soft and sweet.
The ease of it disarms me. Tears erupt from deep inside.
In a swift motion, he cradles me in his arms. Any sane man would run, but he stays, stroking my back as the tears come endlessly.
The seconds turn to minutes until I’m empty and wrung out.
“I don’t know where to begin,” I say finally.
“Perhaps we can start from the beginning.”
I shake my head, unable to even fathom how I’d explain it all.
“Vivian, I said you could trust me.” I gaze up at him, his arms still wrapped around me.
Deep in my core, I know I can. I’m not sure that he should trust me, though.
I think of Diego. Sebastian will only end up hurt in the end.
Or worse. I study his face, wishing it could all be different. “I’ll understand.”
His promise lingers as I leave his warm grasp. A new resolve fills my heart. I start to walk toward the kitchen, then turn back. “You coming?”
A half smile tucks into the corner of his mouth.
I fill the kettle and make us both a cup of tea.
He carries the tray into the living room.
It is a strange feeling that he seems so at home.
He examines each wall painting, remarking on my pieces; then he turns to the shelves to run his fingers across the spines of my books.
“You’ve amassed a collection of quite rare books.
I thought my library was impressive, but this is .
. .” He fills the charged silence with praise as he soaks in the details of my world.
He pauses by the open trunk, glancing at me for permission. I wait as he peruses the objects, gently handling the albums of photos. Photos of every version of me. He flips through. “Are these your ancestors?” He flashes one at me.
“No, they’re me.” The words feel distant, but now that they’re out, I can’t take them back. They’re me. They’re me. It’s one of the first true things I’ve said to him since the moment we met.
I watch him marvel, his passion for history bubbling up inside his chest, before a wrinkle of confusion mars his brow. “Period-costume parties? Is that your thing, Vivian? Is that what you were too afraid to tell me?” He chuckles nervously.
My mouth is dry, so I take a gulp of tea. “That’s the thing, Sebastian . . . you should know my name’s not Vivian.”
He rubs the ridge of his brow, confused. “So, you’re not Vivian Edwards? Esteemed journalist and writer?”
“I do go by Vivian, and I wrote all those articles. So, it’s not about that.” I swallow hard, the truth on the tip of my tongue. “It’s just that . . . Vivian’s not my original name.”
“So, what is it? A pen name? What do you mean?”
My heart hammers like a bird is trapped in my chest. Once I do this, there isn’t any going back. Despite the cost, I only want to go forward.
“I mean that the answer to your question . . . none of it is going to make sense.”
“I’m a historian. I can puzzle together a lot.” His eyes widen with deep trust.
“My name is Nella May Carter, and I was born in February of 1760.”
Sebastian paces around my coffee table. He’s on his fifteenth lap. Hands pressed against his head, soft mumbles under his breath. “This is a prank, right? Is it because I’m new to the history department? Is this some kind of . . . initiation?” He glances at me again, searching for the gotcha.
“It’s not.” I fuss with my dress, the nervous energy in my hands looking for an out. “It’s one of the first true things I’ve ever told you. Ever told anyone this decade.”
I wait for him to run. A normal person would run or, at the very least, search for the number for the nearest psychiatric unit, but he stays put, staring down at me, his brain, no doubt, trying to reason it all out. “Let me explain.” I shift on the couch to make space for him.
He eases beside me like getting in a too-hot bath, wary, a little fearful. “But . . . how?”
I’ve forgotten where to begin. It’s been so long since I’ve uttered it out loud. “Have you ever read Faust?”
His eyes bug out. “You made a deal with the devil?”
“Not the devil.” I shake my head. “Death. There’s a difference.” It’s subtle, but I understand his thinking. I haven’t met the devil in all my life, but I’ve seen enough evil to believe there is one.
“Okay . . . so you made a deal with Death for . . . immortality?” He rubs his temples and doesn’t touch his tea.
“I was dying of typhoid, and I asked Death to save me,” I say matter-of-factly, knowing how implausible it sounds.
“Typhoid?” He makes a face. “What is this, The Oregon Trail?”
“Hey!” I say, wagging a finger at him. “It was pretty common back then. You should all be more grateful for clean drinking water and antibiotics.”
“Okay, okay.” He holds up his hands. “I apologize. Typhoid is a perfectly reasonable and respectable way to die.”
We laugh and the tension breaks. Not quite belief, but a tendril of faith stretches between us.
“So, Death saves you from . . . death—I’m still wrapping my head around that—and wants what?”
“I told him I could show him the beauty of humanity. I’d find evidence that humans are worth saving.”
“So, all of your writing was to please Death—and allow you to live?” I sense him wrestling with the reality of my story, lingering on the cusp of belief.
“Me, yes, but also you. Everyone.”
“I’m going to need a little more than that.”
“He wants to end the world. He will if I don’t continue to win our argument.”
“And how long will this go on?”
“Until I can’t do it anymore.”
He cocks his head, examining me. “And this is not a joke? I’m not on some show getting punked? Do people still do that?” He sounds more inquisitive than repelled.
I shake my head as the emotion of the truth floods me. He can finally see it.
“You’ve been alive . . . all this time?”
I grab the photo album from the trunk with shaky fingers. He helps me open it between us. “See for yourself.”
He flips through it again, his jaw dropping with each turn as his brain makes sense of what he’s seeing. I edge closer, experiencing the album through his eyes.
The past smiles up at us. Kerchiefs and hats give way to a 1920s flapper bob, 1940s Hollywood waves, and a picked-out Afro from the height of the 1970s.
Though my hairstyle and clothes change, my face and the heart-shaped birthmark on my collarbone remain the same.
The woman in the photos is, unquestionably, me.
“These images are from their period. Ambrotype, tintype, celluloid, Polaroid. And it is you,” he breathes, flipping faster.
“It’s all you.” He points to one from 1973.
“Your birthmark.” The album remains open in his hands.
He’s frozen that way, absorbing the impossibility of all this.
The seconds feel like an eternity. Then, all at once, he jumps to his feet, animated, pacing again.
“God, the things you must have witnessed! When were you born again? What were the conditions like? How have you managed to escape notice all this time?” He sits again, turns a page, and freezes, his eyes on one picture.
“I knew it. I knew I’d seen your face before.
” He shakes his head in disbelief. “You were Jimi Ireland? All the stuff I said in the lecture . . . that was you?” He scrutinizes me, his mouth a beautiful wry smile. “You arguing with me. It was all . . .”
I delight at his expression, like a kid’s at Christmas, or, more accurately, as if all his Christmases have come at once.
“I’m sorry, I’m just so . . . excited. You are living history.
” He gazes at me, eyes clear, no hint of repulsion, just intense curiosity.
“I must be going crazy, but it all makes sense. The languages, the travel, the history?” He laughs to himself and leans back on the couch. “My God. All you’ve truly seen . . .”
I close my eyes for a moment. Time has trickled by, adding up like grains in a sandglass, and I’ve withstood it all, faithfully recording my travels.
The album in Sebastian’s lap tells the tale—a picture of me at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair listening to a speech by Frederick Douglass, and me in the front row at the Savoy, watching Ella Fitzgerald perform .
. . dozens of images of me drifting through history.
All those people gone now, with only me left to truly remember.
“Will you tell your story one day?”
“I want to tell you.”
“And I want to hear it.”
I gaze at the window as if Death stands there watching me invite someone else into our game. The repercussions and consequences of telling Sebastian every single detail crash inside me, a storm I’m unable to escape on the horizon. It will anger him. He will come.
“I need to say the whole thing out loud one time. I need to remember it all.” I close my eyes for a brief moment.
Death has given me a gift many have dreamed of—a long life free of disease and physical pain, unchanged appearance, the gift of tongues—as long as I can please him.
But the true cost sits between Sebastian and me, thickening in the silence.
The devastating reality is that if I fall in love with him, I will lose him.
There will be nothing either of us can do about it.
Do I want to do this again? Living as long as I have, I now know it’s a curse to want to live forever.
A long life isn’t, as Sebastian thinks, about all you’ve seen.
“I believe you could understand the most.”
“I’m honored.” His face is somber and sincere. He puts his hand in mine. “So, how should we start?”
“Record it.” I steady my voice, calm but certain. “I want to hear it when all is said and done.”
“Give me one second. Don’t go anywhere.”
I’d ask where I would go, except I’ve already run out on him once.
Sebastian dashes out the door to his car.
It’s only a minute before he’s back, out of breath.
He sets the recorder on the table as quietly as possible, the steady red light staring at me.
The glare a warning beacon. A rule broken.
Unlike the words in my notebook that could be cast off as the ramblings of a lonely, unwell person.
But this old-fashioned device makes it feel real, capturing my story like Zora Neale Hurston did in Barracoon or as Ernest Gaines did for the fictional Miss Jane Pittman. Something tangible left of me when I’ve spent my life as a ghost. Something Death said I would never have.
I smooth my skirt and lick my lips, throat suddenly dry. Where will I even begin?
He senses my tension and eases it away with only the sound of his voice. “We can start wherever you like. I’m here to listen.”
The knot in my chest loosens. I think through all of it for a place to start. New Orleans. Paris. Sierra Leone. Decades of history stretching into centuries flash before my eyes.
Where to begin?
The gift box sits there waiting, calling me to start at the beginning. I open it, brushing away the tissue wrapping.
Sebastian waits, his beautiful eyes filling with a deluge of questions as he bites back the urge to ask. I will unspool the truth. I glance at him again, hesitation suddenly cropping up in my chest. If I do this, he’ll see me. The real me.
“Where do you want to start?” Sebastian teases to fill the silence between us.
I remove three figures, running my fingers over the painted tin. Might as well start with what tore the day apart. “Let’s use love.”
Sebastian’s nose crinkles. “Love?”
“Yes. The truth of this story starts in New Orleans.”