My Second Birthday

He will not stop staring at me. 

It sounds hubristic but men always stare at me. Not in an affectionate way; in a blank hypnotic ‘can’t believe your face’ way. It is unsettling to say the least though I have gotten used to it over the years. Now, on my fourth date of the month, I sit starving because this man would not stop boring his painfully green eyes into my flesh. 

“How are the scallops?” I ask in an attempt to snap him out of it. He blinks and looks down at his untouched plate.

“Delicious,” he says mechanically. I sigh. This one is a loss. I scrape my fork across my bare plate, my meal disappearing slowly in my stomach. Typically the pain of the digestion process makes me end dates early but I’m distracted now by his trance that I accidentally caused and am now responsible for mending. Tonight was not supposed to be about my personal satisfaction; more so about the pleasure of another being’s company, one I squandered when I let my gaze fly off the handle. 

“Fantastic,” I mutter under my breath. I lift my hand to call the server over. “We will take this to go.” The server looks at me in complete confusion, unable to mask his surprise. 

“Certainly,” he says as he glances between the two of us. “Was everything to your liking?” 

I smile kindly. It’s not his fault I’ve now put my date in a stupor. “Yes, it was wonderful. I’m a doctor, you see, and I’ve just been called in. Terribly sorry for the rush out!” The lie comes easily as they always do. The server’s face relaxes, his tip still promising, and takes our plates quickly. I thank him as he breezes away. My date still holds his fork aloft as if preparing to take a bite of the now disappeared food. 

“I’ll get you home, don’t worry,” I tell him though I doubt he can comprehend what I am saying. His glossed over eyes stay glued to mine. “I prefer a challenge anyway.” I shouldn’t say that out loud but considering the two real conversations I’ve had in the last decade where I’ve told the truth, I let it slide. He won’t know when he wakes up in the morning that I shared with him a personal preference of my state of being. If I let him wake up, I think to myself. No, I have to let him wake up. I haven’t taken a life in years. This is not the one to start again with. 

I had longed to be in New Orleans again after many years away. The last time I was in this cast iron city was a time I try to forget. It was the second closest I had come to vanishing from this world in a crumbling of limbs. The first being London where I was twice born and where I shall someday return to when traveling becomes too much a burden to bear. 

It has already taken its toll in many ways. The youth in my flesh does not translate much to my skeleton. My bones are old and tired, the vivacity that comes with drinking to the fullest absent from them for ages. I know what I need to do and yet I hesitate at every instance, knowing what happened here in New Orleans all that time ago and what could easily happen again. Today’s world, luckily, does not seek out creatures like me. We are forgotten and told as complete fantasy. Good. Let it stay that way. 

The firelight in her eyes still flickers in my memory as I stroll with this seemingly drunk man down Bourbon Street. The square where it all happened lies to the west and I can feel a chill on the warm breeze caressing my shoulders as if she is calling out to me. I know I came here to remember her. Why else would I return to a city where I barely kept my head if not for the love of another? I laugh softly to myself, my date grunts in response beside me. “Nothing, my pet,” I whisper soothingly. “One foot in front of the other, if you please.” I’m surprised how easily the smoky voice I once spoke in daily comes crawling back when faced with weakening prey. I had forgotten how rich my powers can be in cities like this where the dead are buried beneath my feet and circling me in the wind. I can hear their voices as the loud, boisterous crowds pouring from bars attempt to drown them out. No such luck tonight. 

We arrive at his modestly priced hotel where I had found him two days prior. I enjoy the bourbon selection at their bar compared to the higher end establishments I typically frequent. It is my own little secret in a city heaving with the weight of so many more. He stumbles up the entryway, startling the doorman. I roll my eyes, acting the part of the annoyed wife to perfection as I always do. He gives me a pitying smile and offers an arm to my date. I thank him by slipping him a twenty and ride the elevator to the third floor, my date’s head slumped on my shoulder. 

“Would you care for dessert?” the man slurs as we crash into his hotel room. Good Lord, I think. How could I have let it get this bad? I am out of practice. 

“Normally, yes,” I answer. Why not at this point? He’s so far gone into the trance I could cut off his feet and he would thank me. This is why I never date. He falls onto the bed, a grin curling on his lips as he spots me standing in the doorway. 

“Come on over then, Jane,” he groans out. I forgot what name I had given him until he says it. I sigh heavily once again. Now he’s merely annoying me and I can feel my hunger rising in my throat. It would be so easy to take care of, here and now. An accident. Drunk, as is common in New Orleans. Alcohol poisoning perhaps. No one would know it was the shadowy woman who walked him home. 

“Thank you for the evening,” I say as I walk out the door. He starts laughing to himself as he rolls over into a fetal position and I let the door shut. It is the best choice, I tell myself. If I want to stay here for a period of time, I have to keep a low profile. 

My second birthday is coming up and I want to celebrate in style which is what brought me back to New Orleans. I refer to it as my second birthday because my first birthday I hardly remember. That was a different life, a mortal life filled with years. My second birthday is filled with ages, centuries, revolutions and renaissances. This second birthday is a special one. It is the one I plan to decide if I care to have another. After walking this earth for many decades alone, do I wish to walk hundreds more? 

I’ve been slowly starving myself. It started quite by accident and now I’ve become so accustomed to it, I forget I am dying a forever death. I have not taken a life in over fifty years. The last life I took was in Budapest outside Hősök tere, Heroes’ Square. I typically eat indoors, hotels or apartments. Dining in a dark alleyway was something I did when I was first born again and feverishly hungry. But there he was, a breathtaking man that looked so much like Henry that I thought for certain I was being haunted. The sharp chin, dark eyes, crazed hair that never lies down flat. I had been alone for so long, I couldn’t resist following him as he crossed the square and passed right in front of me.

My Hungarian is passable and the man who was not Henry was happy to help me find my way when I called out for assistance. “There are so many confusing streets!” I explained. “I do not recall where my hotel is.” He smiled a toothy grin. He was less like Henry up close but the minimal resemblance still made my silent heart feel like it was beating. 

“I know that hotel. I’ll show you the way.” And that was how we ended up in the alley and I let my primal instinct take over and I was on him before we were even covered in shadow. It was sloppy, unprofessional, something I am still deeply ashamed of. I put myself in danger and erased his life like a large beast instead of the sophisticated creature I had worked hard to turn myself into. But Henry, my Henry, was there in front of me and hunger can only be controlled for so long before it turns primal. 

I left the man who was not Henry there, propped up against the alley wall, his neck broken in two places for when he was found. Perhaps he fell, they would think. Tripped, slipped on a cobblestone. I stood watching him for a while. His perfect face quieted in death. Something changed in me when I took the life of the man who resembled the husband I once had back before my second birthday even was a glimmer of possibility. When my heart did beat and I ate only inside and the food I enjoyed we had grown or hunted and did not tear holes in my stomach to eat. Our small cabin near the stream. I had loved Henry terribly and the little life we shared before she came to our village. Now I had become such a monster, I destroyed the very resemblance of him without ever wavering to think I should savor it.

That night, I walked the entire city, weighing my options. Could I keep erasing beautiful lives from this world to lengthen my own? Regret was not something I was familiar with. It tugged at me viciously as I wandered down to the Danube. I watched the brightly lit boats drift softly by and the first thoughts of my eternity seeped into my mind. I had never quite contemplated it before. She had made me what I am and I had said yes without hesitation. Forever did not seem so long and it was not until this night that I felt the full weight of it. The breeze off the water calmed me and I strolled back to my hotel to let my body rest as the sun crested over the hill behind the Parliament building. 

The next day, I began to starve myself without knowing I was. I had learned so much from her and yet she had never told me how a fate worse than death could come for me. Perhaps she never knew. I traveled from Budapest to Prague and back to Paris for a spell. In each city, I ate well but I did not drink a full life. Sips here and there but never that massive gulp I had come to crave so vehemently. 

At first, this was quite a fine lifestyle. I could reside longer in every place I stopped. I even made a few friends in Paris: a group of women gossiping near me at a cafe in the 16th arrondissement. I could not help but overhear them trying to decide on a bottle of wine to share. I interrupted in my best French, informing them of a beautiful overlooked bottle from a nearby region. It was a female winemaker, something rare at the time, and had stunning notes of chocolate, berries, and smoke. They took my advice and six bottles later, I was invited to a dinner party the next night. They call me Audrey, a name I was quite fond of and used for several years. I barely remember my own. I only fed on a few of them; they never suspected me of being the cause of the sickly state that followed a night of heavy drinking. 

I started becoming weaker. The days drained me more than they typically did and I lost focus often while reading. The youth that glowed in my skin began to dim and my eyesight even wavered. One night, I became lost in an area of Paris I knew well and I realized something was amiss. Not having her to ask, I dove deep into other resources to find an answer. I came up short. Assessing my past few years and what had changed, I made the connection in a matter of minutes: I had stopped taking lives and it was not enough to sustain my own without doing so. 

When I met her, I was young and curious. I was in the village with Henry to mend our wagon when she came up the path. She wore a long, deep purple cloak that was cinched around her waist with a golden clasp. The hood was pulled back enough to reveal her face: a striking blend of sharp features with the radiance of youth that made her shine from within. She saw me staring and smiled the luscious grin I would come to know so well. 

“Hello,” she said. Her voice was rich with smoke and immediately nested itself in my chest. I can still hear it now as I recall her form. 

“Hello,” I stammered out. I had never been so struck by the appearance of someone as I was her. I recall being slack jawed and hypnotized, something I see often now in those who stare at me. “Can I help you?”

“Why, yes,” she answered. I know now she had made me ask that question. I do it often to my own victims. “I am new to this village and I need a place to stay. Perhaps you can point me to the inn?” 

“You do not wish to stay there. It is not suitable for a woman of your stature,” I heard myself say. Again, this was her doing. “Please, come stay with my husband and I at our cabin. We have a room prepared for a child that has not yet come. You can sleep comfortably there.” 

She beamed. “Oh my, thank you, pet,” she replied. She laced her arm in mine. In spite of this strange gesture, I made no movement to prevent it. “You are too kind.” Henry returned to me, the wagon repaired, his eyes taking in the woman I had invited to stay with us. Joining me under her spell, he was quite accommodating and thrilled at the idea. She came home with us that day before ever revealing her name. 

I decide not to go out today. I realize I should have eaten last night instead of leaving my date to sleep off the trance. I’m weak, lethargic, uninspired. I know I am about to reach the breaking point where I am not sure even feeding to the fullest can save me. I have not lost my beauty entirely but I see it is fading faster with every ticking hour. As my hands drift over my face, feeling the new indents and wrinkles, the dryness of my cheeks, the sunkenness of my eyes, I realize I must eat today. 

I venture out into Jackson Square to scout for tourists. These days it is easy to find one who will be simple to convince to leave their group for the possibility of a night with me. I am far enough away from the part of the city where she was taken from me to no longer feel her presence. I can think straight among the people wandering about, buying trinkets and amatuer art. Their heartbeats ring in my ears and my hunger growls loudly. I find a group of young men and women having their Tarot cards read. One girl stands to the side, shifting her weight uncomfortably. I choose her and walk by, careful to make eye contact and call her to me. 

“I can read for you if you don’t want to wait,” I tell her. Her face lights up. 

“Great! Hey, I’ll just be over here,” she calls to her friends. I see only one of them acknowledge her as she follows me down the street. “Where is it?”

“Just over this way.” I lead her into the park opposite the church. Behind a large tree, I pull her close to me and take her hand. “I do palm readings.” 

“Oh,” she says, disappointed. “Well, what do you see?”

I trace the lines in her palm with my finger. “I see a long marriage in your future and much wealth,” I lie. She’s hooked instantly. Even in my weak state, I can still spin the glamour. I pull her closer to me. “I see a long rest ahead of you. Here, let me look closer.” I draw her wrist up to my mouth and press my lips to the pulse beneath the thin flesh. She doesn’t resist. I sip until she begins to waver on her feet and I let her go. Her wrist drops to her side and she stands as still as stone for a moment before I release her with a smile and point her back through the gate to her friends. 

“Thanks!” she says. I glare as I watch her skip away. She didn’t even offer to pay me for the reading. 

I end up at another favorite bar a ways outside the Bourbon Street ocean of people. I feel my strength returning but I know it is only temporary. The sazerac I sip tastes like only memory and still I will end up ordering another. My second birthday is only days away and I convince myself I will know what to choose by then. A life full of death or a death that never ends. My glass lands on the bar empty and I order another. 

I find myself standing across from the cemetery where it happened. I didn’t want to come here. I knew I would eventually. How can I avoid the inevitable? I wait until the deepest part of the night and slip through the gate. I find the cluster of trees near the back and pass by the crumbling gravestones and Spanish moss on my way to her. They made sure to erase all molecules of her but I know there is something that remains in the soil. Something that lingers and can never quite be terminated. 

I stand under the trees and remember that night. They had chased us here after several weeks of us wreaking havoc on the city. There were many of us then; twelve in total. She had built herself a tiny empire at that point. We had been too greedy. One of our own had gotten sloppy and went for an entire well known and loved family of New Orleans. He went floor by floor of their grand townhouse, sparing no one, not even the servants. A blood soaked alarm bell that we were here and we were real. Soon their mysterious deaths were no longer mysteries. We were being followed, these strangers that had descended upon this jewel of the South and brought death on their shoulders. They cornered us in the cemetery under these trees. We did not fear them at first. Most humans do not know what to do to properly rid us of this world. We were mistaken. This city that is rich with lore was informed of how to dispose of us and they did so with great gusto. Heads rolled, flesh burned, stakes sunk deep into our chests. She and I remained, claws and teeth bared, up against the cemetery wall. I struck a man down and managed to maneuver myself to a point where I could clear the wall. I looked to her and reached out my arm. She was snarling, snapping at two men who flung holy water onto her perfect face and held hawthorne stakes at the ready. 

“Samira!” I shouted. She turned upwards and locked eyes with me. Her hand shot up for mine and the man to her left took the opportunity he saw. We had underestimated them. He plunged the stake into her heart. Her head shot back and an unearthly shriek rose from her throat. I fumbled for her hand but she pulled it back, clawing at the stake. “Samira!” I yelled and moved to hop down off the wall when her eyes met mine for the last time.

“No!” she snarled. “Go, my pet. GO!” She continued to scream as she raked her fingers across the man’s face as another came up behind her and secured a rope around her neck. She flailed around like a wild animal, sneering and growling, the rope tightening as she did. “GO!” she managed to choke out as they pulled her to the ground and dragged her towards the mob. She disappeared under their writhing bodies, their arms rising and falling with their stakes until the final blow was taken with an axe across her neck. 

I close my eyes and listen for her. I sit in the grass, wishing I could feel the cold the ground must emit. “Are you here?” I ask the empty space. There is no answer. “What should I do?” Nothing but the wind replies. “It is getting harder without you, you know. I don’t know if I should make another one of us or give up. How many years is enough years?” 

“There are never enough years,” she finally whispers. “My pet, I had so many years before you as you have so many without me. Each was worth its weight in gold.”

“I’m so tired, Samira,” I whisper. 

“I know, my pet. You can no longer live this way. It is not how we survive.”

I stare at the wall where I left her to be ripped apart. “I don’t think I want to kill any more. It has lost its luster. So much death for one little life.”

“No,” her voice snarls. “Your life is not little. Your life is achieved perfection. Do not spoil the gift I gave you.” Anger rose from low in my body. Her gift which she offered nonchalantly so many years ago and I accepted without a second thought was currently a curse I could not rid myself of. I did not want to starve myself to a death that is not a full death. I could foresee what I would become: a pile of bones and dust that clung to life somehow. But did I wish to live as a relentless murderer for any longer than I already had? “If there was a way to not…” I began.

“There is not,” she hissed. “There is only one way. Do not disrespect what we have built.” The wind picked up and I knew she was gone again. I let the night continue forward before rising and returning to Bourbon Street for a meal. The glow of life greets me as I stand in the shadows a block away. The scent of jasmine reaches my nose and my hunger surges. Something about that scent is intoxicating, familiar, I know I can not resist it. I blend into the crowd in search of the jasmine scented body that calls to me. 

I find her smoking a cigarette outside a bar. I ask for one and we smoke together. I introduce myself as Jules, a name that feels familiar on my tongue. Perhaps it was close to what I was once called. She stands with one foot on the curb and the other on the street, uneven but balanced. It does not take much convincing for her to follow me into the bathroom of the bar where I take her until she clutches at my shoulders and I know I need to stop. I leave her sitting in a stall, alive. 

The sun rises on my second birthday. The day has come. I stand on my balcony at the hotel and watch the city wake up. I have made my decision after many nights of careful thought. I pack slowly and leave my luggage at the concierge to pick up later as I am departing the city tonight and have a few stops to make prior. I place the tag the concierge gives me in my bag and walk into the sunlight. 

It does not take me long to find him. For a long while when I was first born, I preferred men over women. The last few decades it has been the opposite. Now I find myself craving them again and here is one sitting alone at Carousel Bar, red wine in his hand as he revolves with the rest of the patrons. 

I introduce myself as Jules again. His name is Branson which I find ridiculous but let it slide. It does not matter what his name is; he has one purpose for me and then I will never speak his name again. We chat about the way the city has changed over the years; he is delighted I am also a frequent visitor like him. It turns out I like Branson. He is polite, friendly, a truly charming man. This makes my decision that much easier. A glass of wine turns into a bottle and I decide there is no need to waste any more time. The stare happens quickly and he follows me out of the bar after we pay our tab. 

I watch him pour us drinks from his hotel room’s minibar. He is more resistant than my last date, able to stand and talk as if he is free of the effect. I enjoy it immensely. It is the first real conversation I have had in years. He grows more  interesting the longer it goes on. We talk about art and film, literature and the architecture this fair city is known for. He finally goes in for a kiss as we stand on his balcony and I let him. For a brief moment, I am a girl again, relishing in the heat of a first kiss, the electricity and newness of strange lips on mine. I let myself have this moment. I remember what it was like when my life was measured in moments, in years, not in ages or centuries. 

He hums pleasurably as he pulls back. I hear my choice calling to me and I know it is time to solidify it. My lips brush his neck, his pulse pushing against my mouth. The pain, the memories, the regret slowly fades. I drag my tongue against his skin and smile. 

I decide to live.