Page 9 of The Immortalists

“Coward.” Klara grins crookedly, closing her eyes.

“I couldn’t tell you if I wanted to,” says Daniel. “It was years ago—it was a decade ago. Do you honestly think I committed it to memory?”

“I did,” says Varya. “January 21st, 2044. So there.”

She takes a swig of her drink, then another, and puts the empty teacup on the ground. Klara looks at her sister with surprise. Then she grabs the bottle of bourbon by the neck with one hand and refills Varya’s cup before her own.

“What’s that?” asks Simon. “Eighty-eight years old?”

Varya nods.

“Congratulations.” Klara closes her eyes. “She told me I’d die at thirty-one.”

Daniel clears his throat. “Well, that’s bullshit.”

Klara raises her glass. “Here’s hoping.”

“Fine.” Daniel drains his own. “November 24th, 2006. You beat me, V.”

“Forty-eight,” Klara says. “You worried?”

“Not at all. I’m sure that hag said the first thing that came to mind. I’d be a fool to put any stock in it.” He puts his cup down; it rattles on the wood plank. “What about you, Sy?”

Simon is on his seventh cigarette. He takes a drag and exhales the smoke, keeping his eyes on the wall. “Young.”

“How young?” Klara asks.

“My business.”

“Oh, come on,” says Varya. “This is ridiculous. She only has power over us if we give it to her—and it’s obvious she was a fraud. Eighty-eight? Please. With a prophecy like that, I’ll probably be hit by a truck when I’m forty.”

“Then how come all the rest of ours were so bad?” asks Simon.

“I don’t know. Variety? She can’t tell everyone the same thing.” Varya’s face is flushed. “I’m sorry we ever went to see her. The only thing she did was lodge the idea in our heads.”

“It’s Daniel’s fault,” says Klara. “He made us go.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” hisses Daniel. “Besides, you were the first to agree.”

Fury blooms in Simon’s chest. For a moment, he resents them all: Varya, rational and distant, a lifetime ahead; Daniel, who staked his claim to medicine years ago, forcing Simon to carry Gold’s; Klara, abandoning him now. He hates that they get to escape.

“Guys!” he says. “Stop it! Just shut up, okay? Dad is dead. So can you fucking shut up?”

He’s surprised by the authority in his voice. Even Daniel seems to shrink.

“Simon says,” says Daniel.

• • •

Varya and Daniel go downstairs to sleep in their beds, but Klara and Simon climb up to the roof. They bring pillows and blankets and fall asleep on the concrete beneath the glow of the smog-veiled moon. They’re shaken awake before dawn. At first, they think it’s Gertie, but then Varya’s thin, drawn face comes into focus.

“We’re leaving,” she whispers. “The taxi’s downstairs.”

Daniel looms behind her, his eyes distant behind glasses. The skin below them has a silver-blue, piscine tinge, and the past week has carved deep parentheses around his mouth—or have they always been there?

Klara throws an arm over her face. “No.”

Varya lifts it, smooths Klara’s hair. “Say goodbye.”