Page 36 of Monsters in the Museum

Nora jumped and spun around. Adam stood propped against the doorframe, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans, eyebrows raised. His glasses sat crookedly on his face in a way that made her itch to straighten them out.

Nora shifted her weight from foot to foot. He had just caught her snooping in the Sanctuary for the second time.

“I was just looking for the library,” she explained, although she was sure he could tell she was quite aware that this was not the library.

“And your search for the library led you to my bedroom?” Nora was relieved that his tone was teasing instead of angry, but then the content of what he said struck her.

“This is your bedroom?”

“Well, it was when I was younger.” Adam pushed off the doorframe and took a few steps towards her. “And I still come and stay here occasionally, although I mostly live in an apartment in Lincoln Park now.”

A fresh surge of embarrassment took Nora as she processed that it was Adam’s things she had been poking through. She cursed her inner historian who encouraged her to sort through people’s things to put together what their life must look like. Another part of her perked up though, even more curious than before. This felt like her first real glance at the man underneath the façade of the professor—the 2600-year-old sorcerer she knew lived beneath.

Avoiding looking into Adam’s twinkling eyes, she gestured to the room at large. “You have rather interesting taste.”

“I suppose I do. Mostly, this is just a collection of things that I haven’t been able to part with from my various lives.”

“Various lives?” Nora probed.

“I’ve done a lot of different things through my centuries on this earth.” Adam stepped up next to her, and Nora found herself shuffling closer. “Every thirty years or so, when people start to realize I’m not aging, I pick up and move to a different place, changing my name and starting over again. Although I end up being a teacher or librarian more often than not.”

“So, Adam isn’t your real name?” Nora wondered how many other names Adam had answered to in his life.

“It currently is my legal name, but no, that’s not the name I was given when I was born.”

When Nora asked what his first name had been, he hesitated for a long moment before murmuring, “Xander. My name is Xander, although nobody has called me that since… nobody has called me that in a long time.”

“Xander,” Nora repeated. The name suited him. “Is it weird not to have people call you by your real name?”

“It doesn’t bother me.” Adam raised one shoulder in a lopsided shrug. “It’s who I am right now. Adam Scott, English professor, wearer of argyle sweaters, lover of chai tea and the color green. It doesn’t feel like a fake name when people use it.”

Nora glanced at him sidelong. His statement was in exact contrast to how she had found herself imagining him: An immortal sorcerer who simply wore a civilian’s identity for show.

“So you actually create a new life every time? You don’t just make up an identity for show?”

“Of course I do,” Adam said, sounding wounded. “I don’t lie about everything. And I like having a job. For one, my apartment doesn’t just pay for itself, and second, it makes eternity feel like it has a bit more purpose.”

A small tendril of warmth sleeping in her gut reemerged. Perhaps the connection she had imagined to Dr. Adam Scott had not been completely fabricated. Still, Nora stayed silent, trying to put herself in Adam’s shoes and finding it incredibly lonely.

Adam continued softly, as if he could read her mind. “It hasn’t been all that bad. I’ve met a lot of great people and had a lot of great experiences. I even had a drink with J.R.R. Tolkien once.”

Nora’s attention had been fixated on Adam’s knuckles momentarily brushing hers, but that snapped her back to reality. “Really? What was he like?”

“We didn’t talk that much. I just ran into him at a bar once when he was a professor. I had no idea the legend he was going to become at the time. I thought he was just a guy with a really weird fixation on elves.” Adam chuckled wryly, “Actually, that is how a lot of it has been. I didn’t realize when important things were happening until long after they happened.”

“But you must know so much about history,” Nora argued. “You are a walking primary source! You could solve so many disputes, unravel so many mysteries.”

Adam shook his head. “I don’t really think I could. I lived through the birth of Jesus Christ, and I missed the whole thing because I was screwing around trying to teach myself how to sail on the Mediterranean Sea. Unsuccessfully, I might add.”

Maybe that was the way of the world. Life threw important things at you when you were least expecting them.

“It doesn’t bother me, though,” Adam continued thoughtfully, “The best part of living forever is all the great people you get to meet, and most of those people don’t end up in history books.”

It was a more positive outlook than Nora would have predicted from somebody who had watched everybody they had ever cared for grow old and die. It made her wonder how close he had become to the people he had met, if he’d ever fallen in love with any of them.

Turning from that train of thought, Nora asked, “Why didn’t you just stay here at the Sanctuary like the rest of the Eteria?”

“The people who have stayed here throughout the centuries tend to get callous. I never wanted to be like that.” There was a long pause where Adam seemed to debate whether he should continue. “I suppose I was also searching for something… someone. I didn’t want to spend all my time on this earth alone.”