The Story Of Sarelle: The Immortal Years »

Chapter 49

18th January 2005

In time, I came to terms with the loss of my gift but in its place came a new kind of grief. For both of us. Eventually it dawned on us that our old life was gone and whether we wanted to or not we had to build anew.

I tried not to miss my old things. The photos and keepsakes I'd collected. The old battered bag Rose and Emmett had returned to me with my human diaries and the photo albums that accompanied it. They were just things. They had been important but in some ways they had always kept me in the past, and they held no place here.

As days went by and our understanding grew, we discovered this place (whatever it was) wasn't really any different to the other. History was as it had always been. Wars had came and went. Science had moved the world forward exactly as it always had, and humanity had sprawled and thrived.

In the early days, while we were still anxious and unsure, Aslo would joke about what alternate paths we might encounter. He'd theorise over points in time, fleshing out what other routes could have been taken and the what impact that could have. Eventually we realised that no such drastic change had happened and in fact what surrounded us was utterly normal.

Normal, but never mundane. If anything this fresh start had given us a chance to go back to the beginning. We lived as we had always wanted to. Aslo didn't battle with his thirst. I didn't yearn for times gone by. And the ghosts of the people we had loved and lost didn't haunt us. They were there in memory, but they served not as reminders of what we had lost but instead as beacons of what we could have. The happiness we were capable of. The strength we possessed. The love we deserved.

There was one enigma this world still posed and that was how we fit into it. I knew my own history like the back of my hand, so knowing when and where to look was easy, but finding evidence of my existence wasn't. Aslo and I had compiled as many newspaper clippings and images we could find. These snippets of information gave us a glimpse of how my presence had affected this place. We had been able to confirm that my parents had died in a suspected robbery but whether their bodies were recovered or not was still unknown. More digging had turned up an old guest list from the Chicago Halloween Ball in 1917 with Sarelle St Clair marked as attending, so I knew my human self was still jumping. Working along her timeline as I had done. She would be experiencing the same trials and tribulations until one day our timelines would converge and she would become me, or another version of me. This knowledge formed the basis of certain rules. Aslo wasn't aware of them but they were tenants I built this new life around. I knew places I couldn't be because I hadn't been there. And I knew people I couldn't see because I hadn't been seen.

To some it might have sounded restrictive but for once in my vampiric life, I appreciated how vast our lives could be beyond always searching for people from my past.

I had always hopped from era to era, sometimes deliberately chasing the chance of an encounter with the ones I loved. Sometimes by accident when I had gotten to close. But I had rarely stayed and experienced a decade in its entirety. Without my ability I had been forced to do so and it had made me appreciate how much time we had. That realisation was liberating. I knew, when the time was right, we would meet them all again, so I didn't focus on the if, only the when.

When was the question that occupied my mind as I looked at the locket in my palm. Edward's lopsided smile looked up at me, his eyes dancing even in print. It felt like forever since I'd last seen him. I wished I had better memories of our last moments together, but I was grateful that I had enough good ones to outshine the bad. And now, a world away, it was easier to miss him. Back then it was like he was always there but just out of reach and that made it so much harder to be without him. Now the distance had given me some clarity. I would always love him, but I could wait until the time was right. Whenever that was.