Halloween

1958

“You summoned me?”
“Yes,” she said, slowly nodded.
“Despite the consequences?” Marie nodded and she felt a little ashamed. But her want of company was outweighing the guild she felt over someone dying because of it.
“Despite the consequences,” she repeated as she nodded again.

“I just feel so alone, Edward. I can’t stand it,” she admitted as she stepped towards him. “I don’t care if someone has to die, I can’t bring myself to. I’m not going to know who they are.” Edward tilted his head slightly and it was as if he was listening to the face’s whispers again. He hadn’t done that in a long time. Marie wondered what he was hearing, what it was telling him.
“That’s a little unlike you,” he said after a while.
“Well, I suppose this is what happens when you spend so much time alone,” she said quietly.

Edward stepped forward and held her hands.
“There is something different about you, my dear,” he said quietly. “But it is not enough.”
“Not enough?” she asked, furrowing her brow. “Not enough for what?”
“For you to come with us, it’s still waiting.” She sighed and felt tears welling up in her eyes. “It will not take too long, my dear, you have to trust me.”
“How long is that though? A year passes by so quickly when you have lived for over a hundred of them,” she said. He looked away, unable to look at the frown on her face and give her an answer.
“I cannot say.”

“Can you at least stay with me? I don’t want to be alone,” she asked. He looked up at her and it whispered to him again.
“I can stay for a while,” he said. “But not too long.”
“Really?” Marie’s eyes widened, that wasn’t the answer she had been expecting.
“Yes, my dear,” he said as he nodded.

Marie gave a genuine smile and motioned for him to sit down. She sat next to him, with her head resting on his shoulder. She wished this could have happened earlier.
“It really is a shame we never met when I was alive,” he said as he looked at her. She nodded in agreement.
“Maybe all of this could have been avoided,” she said. He wouldn’t have gone to Bedlam and killed all of those people and then himself. And she wouldn’t have become immortal and lost some vision in her third eye. “I wouldn’t have had to deal with all of the people if I had you.” Like Adrian and Alfred. But she wouldn’t have met Leo…

“I’m happy just to sit here,” she said. “We don’t have to talk, there isn’t exactly much to talk about. You sort of know all the important things.”
“I’d be content with that, my dear.”

But eventually he had to leave, to continue on in his search for a freak to take with him. And while Marie didn’t want him to go, she was grateful for their time together.