Unbound (9 page)

I
shut up immediately.

Thoroughly
distracted by his physical proximity, I desperately tried to pay attention to
the dialogue and tried not think about how warm and solid and safe he felt. Or
how good he smelled. Or how badly I wanted him to kiss me.
 
I prayed that he could not feel my heart
thumping, so loud it seemed audible to my own ears.

Far
sooner than I would have liked, far sooner than seemed even possible, Macbeth’s
head was presented to us amidst cries of “Hail, King of Scotland” and the play
was over. Sitting up reluctantly, I clapped and smiled my pleasure at Eaden.

“So
you liked it then?” he asked, helping me up. My legs had become stiff from sitting
on the ground for so long.
 

“Yes,
very much so,” I said and meant it. I had read
Macbeth
in tenth grade and I guess I had enjoyed it – as much
as any high school student can enjoy Shakespeare. As tragedies go,
Romeo and Juliet
was far more
captivating for me at that point in my life; Eaden’s random appearances during
my adolescence having favourably disposed me to tales of ill-fated romance. But
now, although
Macbeth
was full of
dark unhappiness and human brutality, I found it far more reassuring than
depressing. The story was more complex than I remembered and unlike the tragedy
of Romeo and Juliet, it was less fatalistic. Whereas Romeo had always seemed
like he was being punished randomly by a cruel, capricious God, Macbeth’s eventual
ruin was entirely predictable from the first act, his fatal flaw presented to
the audience with a wink as if to let them in on the events to come. Too easily
led from his path, Macbeth abandoned his honour and ethics for ambition. The
formula was there for us to follow. Choice and consequence. Action and
reaction. Yet ultimately, even after struggling with temptation and avarice,
Macbeth did the right thing and found redemption in death. There was relief in
a parable that maintains that no matter how badly you fall from grace, no
matter how badly you mess things up, there is a way to make it right. I wanted
to believe that was true.

After
returning the rucksack to Hamish, we walked in silence towards the edge of the
enchanted forest that would lead us back out into the night. I was reluctant to
re-enter the world we had left behind, if only for a few hours. The evening had
been so wonderfully ordinary that it was easy to forget who we were. Eaden’s
unusually bright mood earlier this evening had so helped to complete this
fantasy that I found my feet were leaden as we walked back, my body wanting to
prolong this magical gap between past and present. It felt as if I was just
starting to know Eaden. And yet, knowing him at all, I was aware that at any moment
he might close himself again, his secrets, and his heart, locked up tight
inside, impenetrable.

“What
are you thinking?” Eaden asked, glancing at me curiously.

 
“Just how much I like it here,” I said, embarrassed
to be caught thinking about him. I looked up at the lights sprinkled throughout
the leaves. But I paused, wanting to say something that might bring us closer,
or at least keep him from moving away again.
 
“And... I guess...how different you seem
tonight.”

He
didn’t respond at first. Waiting, I worried that I’d offended him. Glancing at
him furtively, I saw his expression was sombre.

He
sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Rachel, I’m not sure what it is
that I am tonight.
 
Senseless comes
to mind,” he said. He fell silent for a moment. Traces of the emotions that
were becoming so familiar flitted across his features – guilt, fear,
doubt, sadness – all reflected in those steel grey eyes.

Yet,
he seemed resolved in some way, if reluctantly so, and went on, his words
coming out in more of a rush than his usual measured tones. “I realize how
difficult – how confusing – this must be for you and I
promise...from this point on, I will try...I will be more forthcoming.” He
seemed to brace himself as if expecting an attack. “What do you want to know?”

 
“Why are you...,” I stumbled on the
words, “...how did it happen?” I didn’t have a vocabulary for this
conversation. How do you ask someone why they can’t die? I tried again. “Were
you born this way?”

He
shook his head and his shoulders seemed to ease back down. Maybe this wasn’t
the question he had feared. Which only made we wonder what he thought I might
ask. And why it scared him so much.

 
He paused, waiting until we were truly
out from under the canopy of trees and a good distance away from others before
beginning. “For the first eighteen years of my life, I was no different than
anyone else. I was born, grew older, learned my letters, had friends...I almost
died from fever at the age of five and I broke my nose,” he tapped the bridge
of his nose lightly with one finger, “in a fistfight when I was fifteen.” He
looked down at the ground, seeming lost in memories that were, unbelievable to
me, almost 1,500 years old. “It was during my nineteenth year that I began to
understand that I was changing, that my body was becoming...impervious. Truly,
I didn’t understand what it meant in the beginning,” he said, his face neutral,
as if to belie the bitterness I detected just under the surface, “and even when
I did understand, the implications weren’t immediately obvious.”

He
glanced at me briefly, his eyes tight. “I didn’t ask for this condition
,
nor even want it. It’s heritable
– a genetic mutation that has been carefully cultivated.” He said the
words as if they left a bad taste in his mouth. “I was bred,” he said flatly.

“Bred?
But why?” Who – or what – was old enough to breed immortals? It had
a chicken and egg type of logic that was dizzying.

 
There was a long pause; Eaden seemed to
be choosing his words with incredible care. “For the most part, we are bred as
weapons...but not in the conventional sense.” He sighed, and glanced at me
again. Checking. For what, I wasn’t sure. “There is a very powerful group of
people you would be better to know little about.” Resignation crept into his
voice. “It is enough to know that they ensure that there will always be
immortals to witness the events of humankind.”

 
“But...why?” I repeated again, feeling
hopelessly thick. It was like trying to figure out the rules of a game when I
didn’t understand who the players were or what their positions were supposed to
be. Or how they had been picked for the team.

He
ran a hand roughly through his hair and grimaced. He seemed to be shifting
through his words, trying to find the right way to explain, trying to keep me
from whatever it was that he didn’t think I was capable of hearing. “Humans are
terrible historians – governments cheat, politicians lie, cultural values
shift. History is not a fixed sequence of events, but a fluid, living entity,
and the path it takes is guided by those with the most power. Knowledge is
power, Rachel, the ultimate power. And those who command history, who determine
that path, are virtually invincible.”
 

“History
is written by the victor?” I offered. Even my high school history courses had at
least touched on this idea. And for the first three weeks of this semester,
Lacey, who’d enrolled in an elective women’s studies course, had refused to say
the word history at all, adamant that as women we should only say
herstory
. I saw her point, but balked
when she asked me to refer to my floor at the library as
herstorical
archives.

“Just
so,” he nodded, seeming pleased I understood. “Now imagine that the victor has
been led to that victory, perhaps unknowingly, but led as surely as one leads a
horse to pasture.”

“How
is that even possible?”

“Human
beliefs, human values are inventions – religion, philosophy, art –
these are social constructions, not laws of nature. The Council, this group,
these –” he seemed to struggle for the word, “...individuals who breed
immortals, they create the blueprints for civilization by manipulating what
humans believe, what they value, what they will fight for.”

Not
wanting to break the spell that had loosened his tongue, I said nothing, hoping
to hear more, but also fearing what he might say. This cut a bit too close to
home for me. Having a sense of control over my environment had given me at
least a precarious grasp on my anxiety. Could I believe that instead, the world
was mapped out by some ancient race? Did I even want to?

“Does
this make any sense? Is it too much?” he asked again. He seemed to be avoiding
my eyes.

Yes
and no, I thought. But my desire to reassure him was strong. I wanted to make
him less apprehensive about my reaction, to let him knew I understood and would
not hold him accountable for whatever sins he thought he’d committed. More than
anything I wanted to erase the look of self-reproach that seemed to mar every
other expression that crossed his face.
 

I
nodded my head slowly, thinking. “I understand what you’ve said about history,
but...I’m still not sure how, or why, you’re involved.”

“An
immortal’s duty is to witness the events of humanity from a single perspective
– it is the closest thing to objectivity that exists. I am a vessel for
knowledge, a live receptacle that holds truth, to be used or ignored as they
see fit. They collect the human experience, Rachel, like children collect
seashells at the beach.” He shook his head. “The truth is that I have endured
more than fifteen hundred years of life and I’m still not sure that I have
contributed meaningfully to the benefit of humankind.
 
I have watched my life stretch beyond
anything remotely human, and the longer I live, the less certain I am that I
have done anyone any good.”

This
wasn’t true, couldn’t be true. He had been nothing but a positive force in my
life; he was the epitome of right action, of goodness. But I knew how juvenile
that would sound out loud. I swallowed my objections. Too scared to risk
sounding as stupid as I felt.
 

 
“Can you... stop?” I bit my lip as soon
as the words left my mouth, knowing that question was just as hopelessly
immature. This wasn’t a job, this was a supernatural legacy.

His
stiff smile was cynical. “We are bound by our very essence to honour our
commitment and to fulfill our destiny. There would be no place on earth to hide
were I to choose to break my vow. The repercussions would be...unpleasant.”
Eaden gripped my arm tightly and I looked up, startled, realizing that we were
approaching a busy intersection. Waiting for a break in traffic, he led me
across the street and then released my arm. He had not been rough, but my skin
tingled where he had touched me, as if the physical contact had left a
permanent trace.

 
On the other side of the street, he
picked up the conversation where he had left off. “There is compensation. We
are denied nothing that the physical world can offer,” his small smile was
grim, “except true fellowship with mortals. Our objectivity is the highest
priority and must be protected. So we are discouraged from active participation
in the world we live in. Forming connections and relationships would build
alliances – and alliances sway beliefs. In essence, the filter through
which we witness would be tainted by our associations with others.” He sounded
remote, disconnected, as if he were reciting a script from memory.

“You’re
not allowed to have relationships?”
 
My voice was high-pitched and harsh, even to my own ears. What was he
telling me? What was all that talk about friendship if he wasn’t permitted to
even associate with me?

He
seemed pained by my question, “We’re discouraged from building lives, from
having identities. I don’t exist in the world you live in, Rachel. You will
find no record of me in any book or document.” He held his hands out in front
of him as if puzzled to find them bare. “The gloves I usually wear are
necessary to ensure I leave no physical trace of myself behind.” He looked at
me. “I don’t exist,” he said again, softly.

He
said nothing for a time, and it seemed that candour warred with indecision.

Candour
won.

His
hand scrubbed through his hair again so ferociously I wondered if immortals
could go bald. “In spite of that edict, it is impossible to live entirely alone
without connections to others and remain rational. Humans are social creatures,
and madness brought on by isolation is not unusual in our race. Instead, there
are guidelines for our interactions with others. It is expected that we be
discreet, that we avoid exposure, and that we protect our real identities. We
are encouraged to,” he cleared his throat, and glanced away from me, “meet our
needs in any way that does not compromise this anonymity.”

His
discomfort affected me in an unexpected way. I felt a flutter of excitement at
this discreet reference to his needs. He had them, it seemed. This was good to
know. My cheeks felt warm as I thought of my dream last week and I hoped the
darkness concealed any blush that coloured them.

“It
sounds unfair,” I said.

He
reached around me and gently guided me around a jagged break in the sidewalk,
partially covered by leaves. “As harsh as these proscriptions seem, they’re
protective in their own way. Immortality is not a trophy, nor a reward –
multiple lifetimes mean multiple losses, and some grief does not lessen over
time.” The impartial tone he had adopted throughout his explanation fell away.
He looked at me with the most bewildering expression in his eyes. “There are
some things worth risking and there are some things worth taking risks for.
I’ve come to know the difference.”