Ageless

Faded Stars

Lilly's hand made a fist and braced itself as it softly knocked upon the door of The General. A frail woman's voice answered in his place, "The master is not well, please give us space."

"'Tis I, Lilly, Madam.." Lilly's fresh lips whispered to the white chipped paint of the aged door.

"Oh, Miss Lilly, do come in.." the voice called out.

The door creaked open and she stepped inside quietly, the room smelled of decay and medicine along with the slight hint of herbal tea. Lilly's eyes glanced from the arrangement of brown bottles to the elderly woman seated on a stool of cedar, she smiled, but sad eyes could say it all.

Lilly took stand by her side and rubbed her shoulders, planting a kiss upon her  grey brow and looking to the bed where the General lay with thin lines all about his body and thicker lines beneath his eyes. He adjusted his spectacles and glanced up at the woman whom he had taken in as his own child through his old aging.

An unsteady hand reached upwards with struggle for the brace of her palm. He looked to her watch and smiled, rubbing his thumb over the face of it. "Still..." he took a long breath, "wearing the watch.."

Lilly nodded and stared down to the floor, unable to meet his eyes. After living here for many years she had learned to love him, and he had learned to be human. The General did not let go, but pulled her closer. She brought herself down to her knees and used her other hand to gently brush back his strands of white.

"You know.." he inhaled once more, "you are, just as beautiful as the day I first saw you." Her eyes ached to tear, but cry they could not. She bent and pressed her lips on his knuckles, watching liquid glass fall from his eye.

"Sir, do not cry.." she tried to smile and leaned her elbows on the bed.

"Do you believe there is a heaven, being an immortal being yourself?" He chuckled, his laugh soon turning into a horse cough.

"I believe there is a place we call heaven that which we will not know until we pass. I know it to be a good place, and I know you will go there."

He relaxed a bit in his sheets and laid his head back down to stare up at the white and green paint of the ceiling. He closed his gentle blues and smiled again, "I know I'm ready Lilly, my war is done."

"Your war may be close to an end, but.." she glanced down, his wife's hand now gentle rubbed her shoulder, "what am I going to do without you..? I love you.."

"Our generation is falling just as I am. Surely now the world has.." he coughed, squeezing his hand around her watch, "surely the world has forgotten Lilly Copper.."

"Yes, but I need you here." The General had become a father to her, she might not have been blood related to anyone in this house, but he and his children had taken her in. Even her own mother had passed in this same way, except her mother did not know her curse. She thought it would be best if her mother died with pride.

"I'm sorry.." he sighed and looked at her once more, "if I could be here forever with you, I would..but I am only human.."

"But I'm human.. I don't want to watch you lay in your death bed. What am I going to do if I never grow old?" She looked at him with worry and dismay. She had never thought of it before. How long it would last, if there was a way to end it, until now she had only focused on keeping herself hidden.

"Go."

"What?" She recoiled in the disbelief of his words.

"Go." He spoke sternly while he lifted his hand from her own and crossed his arms. "I will not let you watch my death. Go find Wesley.."

"How did you know his name..?"

"You still write letters everyday. It's hard to keep that many hidden." The General remembered watching her from the doorway, writing away on fine parchment and sealing it in wax. Every single night she would do this, even then when they were married those short two years, and even now.

"I can't leave you." She stood up demandingly, her grey dress lifting like a mountain beneath her torso.

"I'm afraid, neither of us have choice when it comes to death.." his loving blue eyes searched every feature of her forever youthful face, believing he was a good man for keeping her near. "Death is the end of all life, and you must take the terrible with the great. I know it hurts, Lilly, but only the stars are forever."

"Then I shall watch the stars each night and be watching your soul until the day that I, my death, should follow your own."

"Life has happiness to sell. Spend the time you have searching for loveliness and grace, find that which brings you bliss. Smile for me, Lilly."

She curved the edges of her lips upwards and narrowed her brow, her false joy becoming more realistic with her realization that ignorance can be bliss to his sad eyes. She would be happy, he would not die in vein.

•••

That night, she left his manor by open car, traveling down the road with but a single red rose into the providence of her birth. The graveyard was a garden of stone and memories long forgotten and lost to Time.

She kneeled in front of a stone, running her fingers against the grain of old engravings. She lifted the rose to place it upon the flat top of the stone and looked upwards to the stars. Without the stars, the sky would not have such wonder to it. Without the moon, there would be no hope. The people of her past were her stars, and Wesley was her moon.

Lilly regretted the life she had lead. What might have been slow to her was fast to those whom she had loved. Now that they are gone, the empty void echoes within the depths of her soul. She regretted not treasuring it, not seizing every moment she could.

She looked to the stars for a wisdom of God, the stars slowly fading to the twists of her mind. She imagined them disappearing like the people in her life, one by one slipping away like shooting stars. She could rid the sky of all but the moon, Luna would not bend to her will.

Each night after The Generals death she would come to this place and sit upon the empty grave of Wesley Copper. At her request, The Generals grave had been dug next to his.

A few years later, his mistress had died as well, leaving the house to their children. Although Lilly did inherit a good amount of money, it was not worth the lives that were taken from earth. She told herself she would do anything for a breath of ecstasy.

•••

On a cool winters night she left that providence in a Model-T. Although two of the graves were full, they were empty of soul. She had no more reason to stay. The Generals children thought of miss Lilly as an aunt or cousin, so they made it clear she was to return for holidays. She made this a promise.

When she arrived to the port and climbed aboard a steel vessel which she rode until it disappeared into the sun and sailed a sea of stars to where she had last seen her love. The entire time she was on board she spoke not to a single sailor. Her love was a sad love, the worst kind of love, the kind which is left unspoken to echo only in silence.