A Thousand Lives of Longing

1. Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

MAVEN

Lately, my dreams have started to remember me.

They sneak back night after night, circling like vultures that recognize the scent of something dying in my soul.

The settings change—sometimes a forest with trees that stretch beyond sight, other times a beach where the sand threatens to char my skin—but the feeling remains the same.

A presence lurks just beyond my perception. Watching.

I never see him clearly. He’s cloaked in static; a silhouette of white noise that shifts and buzzes in a way that reminds me of reception on an old television.

But I know he’s there. And I know he’s observing me.

Sometimes I swear I hear my name, whispered in a deep cadence that crawls up my spine—not from fear, but recognition.

My body knows the voice behind the blurry curtain.

It should terrify me…I should be running to a doctor, demanding tests for early-onset something or brain tumors.

Or perhaps my therapist was right, and I belong deep inside an institution of her choice.

Instead, I wake each morning with a hollow ache in my chest, as if something vital was extracted while I slept.

Or placed there. Is it strange I cannot discern which it is?

Then there’s the flower.

Each morning, without fail, a new one waits on my nightstand.

Dried and pressed flat. Always a flower that’s been dead longer than it was alive.

Today’s is a black dahlia, its edges curling inward.

The petals are brittle—paper thin—promising to crumble at the slightest touch and live through its second death.

Veins trace delicate paths across its surface, holding the structure together through sheer stubborn will.

I don’t know how they get there. My apartment is on the top floor, six stories high, and I keep my door triple-locked.

The windows too. Each flower simply appears, perhaps manifested from the same foggy noise as my dreams. It’s like magic.

What other explanation would there be? Because unless I have a stalker who takes their time to release the myriad of locks on my door, just to leave me a decaying flower and re-fasten those same locks, then magic is the only answer.

I scoff at the stupid thought.

It unnerved me when they began materializing weeks ago. I dug through every corner of my apartment searching for hidden cameras, for signs of forced entry, yet I found nothing. And after the fifth morning, I stopped looking.

Some things aren’t worth the energy of caring.

Textured surfaces scratched my skin when I lifted today’s offering between my thumb and forefinger, carefully as though handling a butterfly’s wing.

The glass jar on my dresser is nearly half full now, a collection of death preserved.

The previous tenant left it behind—one of those oversized mason jars with a metal clasp lid.

I dropped the dahlia inside with the others; dried roses with edges yellowed by time, lavender sprigs gone gray, and flowers I don’t even have names for.

They feel too precious to throw away. It’s a peculiar thrill to know that whoever leaves them understands exactly what I prefer: not the garish quality of fresh blooms but the quiet dignity of things that have already lived their purpose.

“Excuse me, is this seat taken?”

The brittle voice yanks me from my thoughts, and the subway car comes back into focus.

Fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, the rumble of wheels on warped tracks, bodies pressed together in quiet morning resignation.

A man gestures to the empty space beside me, his face a perfect mask of casual politeness.

“No,” I say, tugging my bag closer. “It’s free.”

He nods his thanks and sits, immediately pulling out his phone as a waft of cigarette graces my nose, becoming just another stranger determined to pretend he’s alone in a crowded train.

The perfect seat companion, if it weren’t for the smell.

My attention drifts to the window, examining the darkness of the tunnel, occasionally broken by the harsh lights of passing stations. Montréal marks my ninth city in eight years. Nine attempts to find a place where the ground doesn’t feel like it’s actively rejecting my footsteps.

My last foster home spat me out at eighteen, tossing out my small collection of possessions in a trash bag, further evidence they couldn’t wait to be rid of me.

I don’t blame them, though. No one ever kept me long; my file was thick with transfers, each family’s excuse more creative than the last. Too quiet.

Too distant. Impossible to connect with.

Too suicidal. The problem was always me, never them.

I tried staying put after aging out. Rented a room in a house with four other girls who talked about parties and boys and futures bright with possibility.

At first, they invited me to dinner and cringe-filled shopping trips.

By month three, they stopped with the half-hearted invitations.

After month six, they avoided eye contact in the hallway.

And by month eight? I was packing again, moving to the next city, where I could pretend for a moment that I wasn’t carrying the same invisible disease my foster families hated.

Montréal is different, I told myself as I signed the lease on a tiny apartment in Old Montréal.

The city has ghosts of its own, centuries of history buried beneath its many streets.

Maybe a place that old recognizes kindred spirits—things that don’t quite belong to the present moment.

The building itself must be at least a hundred years old, the radiators clanking in protest whenever they kick on, the wooden floors worn smooth in paths traveled by countless former tenants.

And then there’s the RéSO, the underground city—twenty miles of tunnels connecting metro stations, shopping centers, and office buildings.

A warren of passages where winter can’t sink its grimy claws into you.

Where you can move through crowds and never feel the sting of cold or the burn of sunlight.

A liminal space, neither fully indoors nor outdoors, existing somewhere between.

The train slows as it approaches my stop, and I wince as the wheels screech against overworked rails.

I stand before it fully halts, not wanting to be caught in the push of bodies.

Three walkways and I’ll be at work. Where my new job at an accounting firm awaits—a bland, predictable thing, requiring minimal human interaction. Exactly what I need.

I step onto the platform, adjusting my scarf against the underground chill. The tunnels of the RéSO connect directly to the metro, allowing me to make the entire commute by barely stepping into the January air. Small mercies.

The crowd moves in practiced sync, everyone following the invisible choreography of urban life. I blend in, matching my pace to theirs, becoming just another occupied space in the flow.

This early in my residency, I’m still a novelty. People don’t feel the weight of my presence yet. That subtle drain I seem to have on others, like a black hole that consumes light without meaning to.

The remaining walk passes in a blur of artificial light and recycled air.

I veer toward my destination, joining the stream of suits and sensible shoes aiming for the business district.

My building connects directly to the underground network, but requires a key card for entry.

Fishing mine from my bag, it swipes against the reader with a satisfying beep.

The glass doors part, welcoming me into the sterile embrace of corporate architecture. Oh, joyous day.

The lobby stretches wide, all marble and glass, clearly desperate to appear important. Security guards nod at familiar faces, and I offer my ID badge for inspection more out of habit than necessity. They’ll pretend to forget I work here by next month.

They always do.

“Good morning!” A woman from HR—Danielle? Denise?—waves as she passes. “Hope you had a good weekend!”

I muster what I hope passes for a smile. “It was fine, thanks.”

This is the honeymoon phase of any new job.

People smile. They ask questions about where I’m from and what I like to do.

They make efforts to include me in lunch plans and after-work drinks.

It never lasts. Within weeks, the offers fade away while conversations die mid-sentence when I approach.

Eventually, they develop the uncanny ability to look through me entirely, as if the space I occupy is empty air.

I don’t mind, not really, preferring a quiet life to forced pleasantries. Human interaction requires an energy I rarely possess, and a performance I have no talent for. I’m here for the paycheck, nothing more. Just enough to fund my collection.

The elevator carries me to the fourteenth floor, where rows of cubicles stretch under evenly spaced lights.

Mine sits in a corner, as far from the break room as possible—a small victory won by arriving early on my first day and claiming territory before anyone could suggest I belonged elsewhere.

I had a feeling they wanted to move me, but they quickly realized that more than a few minutes in my presence was draining their life force.

The chair creaks as I settle in, boot up the computer, and prepare for eight hours of spreadsheets and client emails.

I work in accounts receivable, tracking payments, sending reminders for overdue invoices, and reconciling bank statements. The work is tedious, but it requires focus—enough to quiet the static in my head, to push away thoughts of flowers and dying and the sensation of being watched.

“Hey, Maven.”

Chris from the neighboring cubicle leans against my partition, a polite smile on his round face.

Early thirties, with a wedding ring and pictures of two children taped to his computer monitor.

He brings homemade lunches in containers his wife packs for him and talks about weekend projects around their house.