Page 33 of We Were Eternal Once

We spent the evening at the theatre, watching some new tragedy by a minor Alexandrian poet. I hated the tragedies, but you loved them. From the corner of my eye, I’d watch you wring your hands and press them to your heart. It was the only way I could get through them.

We leave the theatre and slip down a side street, on the hunt for a meal, when a figure steps in our path. He is short, with his hair held loose and curly like many Egyptian men did at that time. His eyes are an ice-blue, so light they’re almost silver, and they glow in the evening light.

“Excuse us,” you say, shooting him an offended glare.

“Forgive me, Mother of Silence,” he says.

You stiffen, your red eyes liquid with anger. I think for a moment you mean to rip his head off right there in the street. Or perhaps you will punch through his chest and take out his heart? I wait on bated breath for what you will do.

“You must have the wrong person,” I say.

“She is no person,” he says, his smile revealing his white, pointed teeth. “Just as I am not.”

“Κατάρατος,” you growl at him. Accursed one. I flinch at the heavy insult. I’d never heard you say anything so angry before, even when we drowned. Even when you nursed me back to health, you never said one ill word.

He just smiles broader. “There were tales of two red-eyed women in Alexandria. It is my luck I found you both, and at the same time.”

“Who are you?” I ask.

“Essemteu,” he says, pleased by my question. “You are Aletheia, Elder, Mother of Silence. But who are you?” He directs the last part to me. I am able to feign my surprise at the last moment. I’d lived with your secret for long enough that it had become a steady fact to me. Of course you were an Elder, the Mother of Silence.

“You do not know who I am,” you say. You grab my wrist and begin to pull, your grip strong enough to crush my bones. I wince and allow myself to be dragged. When I look over my shoulder, Essemteu stands where we left him, his head tilted, his smile still pleasant.

We don’t stop until we reach our home.

“It’s been weeks since you last went to the library. I trust you’ve grown bored of this city?” You move about our home, pressing your fingers against things, opening cabinets and drawers.

You’re packing.

You mean for us to leave. I will go with you anywhere. I should pack and not question your direction. This is where I should show my loyalty to you. You asked me not to question. If I swallowed this, would it die? Or would it fester even more, now that I am just out of reach of answers?

“Aletheia,” I say softly. “What did he mean?”

You pause, your back to me. Your fingers are curled around the edges of the cabinet, your nails digging into the wood surface. It splinters slowly as your grip grows tighter and tighter.

“Please. I just want to know you as you know me.” It is my most selfish truth. You know everything of me—every intimate ravine of my life. I remember little about my life before you. Every first experience, every new pleasure I’ve learned with you.

But you remain a mystery to me, even after all these centuries.

“You know what is important,” you say, and I know I’ve lost. It is time to admit defeat, to cede to the inevitable. I will never know these parts of you because I am still not worthy. I must work harder in my love for you, and that includes letting these questions die.

So I begin to pack.

“I am an Elder, one of the first of our kind,” you say. I didn’t hear you enter our room, I was too consumed with sorting through our things. I turn to you. You stand in the doorway, your bottom lip red and swollen from gnawing on it. I’d only seen it like that twice before—once when you made me, and again when I’d burned in the sun.

I don’t speak. If I do, I will give away that I knew this. So I will myself to stand still and not speak unless asked to.

“I was called Mother of Silence. Our red eyes make us recognizable, we are the only two with them.”

Only me. I am the only one you have made. I am the only one you have gifted life to. I try not to smile, but the corner of my mouth twitches.

“This amuses you?” you ask, angry.

“I am happy you are telling me this,” I say, because I know how the truth sounds. I will not continue to be worthy of you by being jealous and petty. If you don’t believe me, you say nothing.

“It is a long story, most of which is not worth retelling. As such, I do not wish to be confronted with the truths of it.”

She was infamous.