Page 27 of We Were Eternal Once

We see the light of the Pharos of Alexandria first. It blinks on the horizon, a beacon the ship crawls toward. I am ready to get off this boat. I am sick of the stale blood collected before our voyage, of the ceaseless rocking of the ship, of not sleeping in the ground. Even without drowning, I would still hate travel by sea.

And yet, to see the Pharos this way is worth the journey.

Beyond it, the harbor is alive with ships, and beyond that is Alexandria.

The ship docks well into the night, just as you’d planned. You don’t tell me how you knew to find a ship that would get us here in under two weeks and land in the dark. After that night, you didn’t speak of our trip again, and I feared bringing it up and seeming too eager.

Then you announced it was time to leave, and we did that evening.

Our home in Rome was cleaned of evidence of our nocturnal hunts, our grave filled in and covered with ornate tile. It was to be rented out until we returned, but not until all our neighbors were dead.

I thought that would be enough time to find what I was looking for.

Then I walked the streets of Alexandria.

The stone buildings dwarfed what I’d seen in Rome. In comparison, Rome was dirty, feral, uncivilized. Alexandria breathed a life of sophistication and knowledge. No two people looked alike—they spoke different languages and worshiped different gods. The streets teemed with Greek, Latin, and Egyptian.

Rome fell flat before Alexandria.

I could not have hidden my awe if I’d tried. My wide eyes could not focus on one thing, my ears followed the accents and words that reminded me of Greece. We moved through wide streets and passed palaces, gardens, theatres.

You found us a place to rent in the Βρουχείον, the Royal Quarter. We had a home with a courtyard and a garden. Did you write ahead? Was it yours from before? I tried to pick around this, to find the seam and unravel your history this way.

“The Egyptians were here first, the Greeks here second,” you said, as though that answered any questions. I wondered how many homes you kept, amassing fortunes in lands I’d never know. What antiquities did you possess? If the scholars of Alexandria knew of your existence, they’d hound you to the ends of the Earth.

But I am getting ahead of myself, aren’t I?

Alexandria was a breath of fresh air after the monotony of Rome. Every evening, we explored a new facet—a neighborhood filled with Egyptians, who worshiped Isis in their temples. Alexandria was technically of the Roman Empire, but the Romans stuck to their military bases. How did I once think them scholars? They were nothing to the Jewish people of the Delta Quarter. The Roman customs paled next to the Nubians, the Syrians, the Arabs.

And there, just a stone’s throw away in our Royal Quarter, was the library.

Naming it so singularly did not do it justice. There was the Mouseion library, normally hidden from the common people. At night the scholars bent over their papyrus, their fingers smudged with ink. They rarely noticed me as I moved through the eaves, tracing the words and sections with my finger. I read and spoke Greek and Latin, but I learned Egyptian for completeness.

The Serapeum library was southwest of us, near the Egyptian Quarter. This is where I started my search, before I realized what I needed was not there. It was public; anyone could browse through the files.

At first, it seemed like the best place to start my search. Public knowledge, warnings to the humans of a predator in their midst. Would this not be where anyone could find it?

Or was our kind clandestine? Known to no one but ourselves?

Early evening we would hunt in the agora, weaving between the merchants of perfumes, ivory and gold. Sometimes you’d purchase an item for me—an ivory rose, a gold bangle, an alabaster earring. I saw a lion up close for the first time there. It crouched in a cage too small for it, lashing out with a giant paw when anyone came too near, muzzled. His master laughed.

“Humans are cruel,” I said. I’d been in a box like that before, cast into the sea. Left to drown, had it not been for you.

You hummed your agreement, already on to the next stall. But I lingered.

“A deal for you,” said his master in Greek.

“Perhaps a deal for you,” I countered.

He was easy to lure and even easier to kill. I didn’t drink from him, I had a suspicion it would taste foul. I freed the lion as far south as I could take him.

He didn’t spare me a glance as he disappeared into the night.

We attended plays and fights and theatre just like we did in Rome. Unlike Rome, it did not grow old. How could it? Every quarter a different culture, every theater a different story.

For years, I forgot why I insisted we come. My nightly pilgrimage to the library became every other night, then once a week, then once a month. The scrolls told me nothing, and the city beyond the walls of the library were too much of a draw to ignore.

I’d lay on my back in our garden, staring up at the moon, my fingers tracing the petals of a flower. You’d sit in your chair, your gaze faraway, your fingers tapping along the armrest.