But instead of answering my question, she tilts her head in Damen’s direction and says, “Damen, is it real y I who created it? Or was that you?”
Damen meets her gaze, but clamps his lips shut, refusing to speak. And when it’s clear he has no plans to address her, I nudge him with my elbow and say, “What’s she talking about? What is it you’re not tel ing me?”
He swal ows, squirms, kicks at the ground, puts it off for as long as he can before he takes a deep breath and says, “She claims to be one of the orphans. Claims I saved her from the black plague over six hundred years ago when I made her drink from the elixir.”
I balk, eyes practical y popping from their sockets as I glance at the two of them. Final y finding enough voice to say, “And? Is it true?”
Wondering why no one saw fit to mention this before. Wondering if this is what she showed him that day when I watched them share a silent communication.
Damen shrugs, swipes a hand over his brow and gazes al around. “No. No way. It’s impossible. She’s making it up,” he says, obviously more flustered than he lets on. Pausing for a moment, long enough to gather his thoughts, sighing loudly as he adds,
“Honestly? I don’t know. I’ve been racking my brain since the day she first told me, but I just can’t recal . It’s her word against my memory and there’s no way to know for sure. Usual y it’s the eyes that give it away, being the window to the soul and al that—but hers are so damaged, they’re completely unrecognizable. She’s not the least bit familiar to me.” He shakes his head, takes a moment to scowl at Lotus, his face softening when he turns back to me. “Ever, you’ve got to remember we’re talking over six hundred years since I last saw these people. And the only reason I didn’t mention it before is because I didn’t want to worry you unnecessarily, especial y when there’s no way to prove it either way. Besides, my only concern is for you—for us—right here in the present, and wel into the future. The past no longer concerns me. Other than Drina and Roman, I have no idea what became of the other orphans. I have no idea where they ended up—”
“But Roman did know,” I cut in, remembering what Haven told me, about what Roman told her, the stories he wrote in his journals.
Damen and Drina may have moved on, but Roman stuck around, kept in touch. Eventual y discovering a way to re-create the elixir, and when the effects began to wear off, sometime around one hundred and fifty years later, when the immortals began to show the ravages of aging, he tracked them al down and had them drink again, repeating the sequence every century and a half, until now. Now that he’s gone, there’s no one to look after them. Not to mention there’s no tel ing just how many he decided to turn on his own. If the number of unrecognizable souls we just released from the Shadowland was any indication, it’s safe to assume there are many, many more.
I study Lotus, wondering how long it’s been since she last drank the elixir. I’ve never seen anyone as old as her, especial y an immortal. Al of the immortals I know are young, beautiful, glowing with health and vitality, physical y perfect in every imaginable way.
Whereas she’s just the opposite—old, weathered, her skin so paper-thin, body so frail, it seems as though the slightest hint of a breeze could tip her right over, break her into a mil ion sharp little pieces.
Damen and I are so lost in thought we’re both caught by surprise when Lotus springs forward and grabs hold of our hands, her ancient eyes beaming brightly as her mind connects with ours, projecting a slew of images I never would’ve expected—images that leave me questioning everything.
twenty-six
Lotus’s fingers entwine with ours, the feel of them dry, cool, but surprisingly strong, as her mind projects a series of portraits, like individual sepia prints, one after another, eventual y streaming and blending into a moving-picture format. Showing a quick glimpse of the orphans, al lined up in a row, looking as they did back then. Damen and Drina flanking one end, Lotus and Roman on the other, the rest gathered in the middle.
Long before she became Lotus, she was a dark-haired, bright-eyed child named Pia, who, not long after drinking the elixir, fled the orphanage with al the others only to be taken in by a family of modest means who, mourning the child they lost to the plague, were eager for a replacement.
She lived normal y at first, having no idea what she’d become. She grew up, married, but it wasn’t long before she realized she was different. Not only could she not bear children, but she couldn’t figure out why everyone around her aged while she stayed the same. A realization that soon forced her to do what al immortals must eventual y do once the subtle questions and curious inquiries begin to grow into rising suspicion, hysteria, and irrational crowd-driven fear—under the cover of night, she grabbed a few belongings and ran, never to return, or at least not for several centuries.
She wandered. Remarried—more than once. Determined to stay in each place, with each husband, for as long as she could until the constant need to flee became so unbearable she determined it emotional y easier to live on her own. Eventual y growing to abhor her immortality, seek ways to reverse it, wanting only to rejoin the natural order of being, to live like everyone else.
She traveled. First to India then on to Tibet, where she studied with mystics, shamans, gurus, a whole host of spiritual seekers and guides who showed her how to purify her body and cleanse her soul, but couldn’t help her reverse the choice she made al those years ago when she was too young to understand the consequences. The irony of her studies being that she’d unknowingly succeeded in strengthening her chakras to the point where she’d rendered herself completely invulnerable, immune to the one thing she sought above everything else—the release that only death can bring about.
Ultimately growing so advanced in her studies, she became known as a celebrated miracle worker, the most sought-after healer. The name she now goes by, Lotus, stemming from her ability to make that beautiful flower bloom right from the center of her palms, simply by closing her eyes and wishing it to be so. An act she was capable of not just in Summerland, but also on the earth plane back home.
Determined to settle into a celibate, solitary existence, but fate had other ideas, and it wasn’t long before she met someone and fel in love. Real love. True love. The kind of love which, despite several husbands, she’d never experienced before.
The kind where she built enough trust to confide the truth of her existence, tried to convince her lover to go to Roman, to drink too, to become like her, so they’d never suffer the pain of losing each other.
But he refused. Chose to grow old. And when the day final y came that she knelt beside his deathbed, fretting at the
simple gold band he’d placed on her finger, he promised to do everything within his power to not reincarnate. To not return to the earth plane. Stating he’d much rather wait for her to find a way to reverse her immortality, so that she cold someday join him in the great hereafter.
He left her on her own to grow older, then older stil . Her body eventual y becoming so decrepit, she prayed the sheer exhaustion of keeping it going would ultimately convince her breath to stop coming, her heart to stop beating, so she could meet up with her lover again—but stil , she lives on.
She continued her studies, continued to search for a way out, ultimately discovering the solution only after she’d grown too old to make the trip.
Though she refused to give up. With the long-held wish of her reunion final y within reach, she spent the last century tracking down al of the remaining orphans, revealing the truth of what she’d learned, hoping to convince one of them to make the journey—to bring back the chance at a new lease on life.
Life as it was intended to be.
To provide them al with a sort of do-over—a second chance to make a ful y informed decision as to whether or not to keep going like they are. Unlike the time when they were too young and scared to realize the consequences—when they al rushed to drink without a second thought.
Drina refused her flat out. Roman laughed in her face. While the others simply shook their heads, gazed upon her with great pity, and told her to go away.
Damen was the last on her list—her last hope.