Page 74 of We Were Eternal Once

and there watch over half of my spirit.

“Ugh, how droll,” Zora interrupts, holding up her hand to stop me.

“At the time, it was gripping,” I say.

“Is that what you were taught? That during…when was it?”

“23 BCE, and then the fourth in 13 BCE.”

“…Right. Scholars act as though they can possibly know this? That it wasn’t a false acclaim penned by the author himself, and everyone else read the poems and rolled their eyes at them?”

“I suppose you’re right,” I admit. She is mostly wrong—Odes was not the sort of text everyone read and knew of. It was not made into plays, it was not sung. I learned of it only when I began my scholarly pursuits, memorizing bits of text. Odes was academic, another part of my existence so separate from the human I once was. No longer a temple mouse that couldn’t read, but someone who spoke multiple languages.

“This book is eighteen hundred years old?” Zora asks.

“No, of course not. It wasn’t until the 1450s that books were produced in such a quantity. This is perhaps…two hundred years old? The originals were papyrus.”

“You speak as though you were there. Such an old soul,” Zora mocks, and I bite my lip to keep from talking more. She laughs like it’s a joke. I laugh with her like I’m not telling the truth. It is hard to stay quiet about things I should keep to myself around her. Her interest in me is that of a friend, not of a lover or an acolyte.

“It is well known amongst scholars,” I say instead.

“You are so young for such knowledge. Tell me, how do you have room to store new facts?”

I laugh. “I often wonder if every new experience removes an older one.” Our interlude shows this, that there are pieces in time that run together, muddied with age. If not for catastrophes, I would not remember where we were at what time. The falling of empires, the rising of a new church and religion—these are moments that I cannot pick specific memories from. They are mundane.

Yet these walks and talks with Zora are also mundane, but I remember them well. I can tell you that Zora smelled of dirt and sweat, that her cheeks were hollow with hunger. I can tell you that she favored dark browns, as they were harder to see dirt and mess on them. I can tell you that after a week of our thievery, those hollows lessened, and I was happy to be part of why.

“Where did you get this?” she asks.

“A salon, one I do not wish to show my face in again.”

“You learn quickly. I hope what I teach you is not replaced in your brain too soon,” she says.

I did learn quickly. Within three weeks I could pocket things without a vendor knowing. I practiced removing my bracelet from Zora, then tried to do it when she wasn’t paying attention. Zora was good at blocking my attempts, so I began to practice elsewhere. Cafes, on the street, anywhere I could find an unsuspecting victim.

I stole pocket watches, bracelets, rings. I laid them out in my room, sorting through them with unabashed glee. I could pay for them, you and I were rich. I could compel the wearer and never risk being caught.

I didn’t want that. This was a rare thrill, something new I did not expect to have wanted. I know that what you do to secure our homes was technically theft, and I wondered if you got the same rush from it. I never asked how you found the homes we lived in, or who was displaced to live in them, or how you found them in the first place. Perhaps that is the hunt you prefer to engage in. I needed something more tactile, something I could lay out on a desk and examine and catalogue.

“Where do you keep your items?” I ask Zora one night. She had a small satchel she wore at all times, secured tightly to her person to prevent theft. It looked heavy, I suspect with stolen treasures.

“In my bag,” she says, patting it.

“Yes, but at night? Have you a home? How do you secure it?”

“Why? Are you worried someone might steal from you?” she asks. She did not evade personal questions unless they were about where she lived or slept. She would tell me all about her journey from Serbia to Paris, how she came with a group of relatives, how some of them were dead or missing. “Some people vanish and no one looks for them,” she said ominously.

But the topic of her lodging, of where she went during the day, was not something she ever answered. I understood, because I too maneuvered around her questions. It was easy to forget that she did not know I was a vampyr and let truth slip.

I consider following her, but I do not want to be stuck somewhere until the sun sets once more. I’d learned to resist the call of the sun for several hours, nearly until it sets again, but I do not trust I would be safe.

So Zora’s home remained a mystery, while she became more and more of a friend to me. I don’t recall having a friend. I’m sure I did as a human, it is a very human thing to want. Perhaps that is why it is always the very young that create cults and groups, while I stray further and further from my desire for connection as I age. What did another vampyr have to say to me that I do not already know? What experiences did they have that I did not? Short of crossing the ocean, I had been on every continent.

In the morning I return to our home, listening for you, sensing you. You are already in your grave. I have an ache for you, a hope that enough time had passed since I threw those vases that I could return to your grave. Even if it were just for a night, and we went back to our solitary existence…I miss you. Maybe I would make it up to you, bring you some of the things I’d stolen, tell you about the fun I was having. Show you my sleight of hand.

Speak to you again. Zora is a friend, but you know me as an intimate.

The door to your room is locked. I knock, waiting for you to allow me in. I know you are in there, I can feel your cold silence through the door.