Epilogue: Seven hundred years later

I still remember it, the moment I let her go. Her face as I slipped away. Her brown eyes steady on mine. Her voice, strong despite her tears as she told me to be who I always was, inside. I have a Faye's memory. I don't remember much after that. Alex's hands, so steady on my shoulders. Warm Hysteria being poured down my throat. That was when I changed. My face became sculpted, my hair fell past my waist, and my wide green eyes became wild. I changed, but I did not forget.

Then came the mourning years. I do not know how long this time lasted, but I am told it was the first hundred or so years of my new life. I spent most of this time not fully aware, sitting by the side of the pond in my garden, trying to see my human life in the ripples on the surface. Alex was there, a constant, the only constant. I don't know what happened exactly, but one day I woke up. I woke up, and I realized that a hundred or so years had past. I would have been miserable if I had stayed. Everyone I loved on earth would have died, and I would have lived on. Sure, I would have moved on, I would have moved to another continent, even another planet, but they would still all be dead. And I would be alive, and I would be alone. Another time, another place, but still me. Still alone. So I woke up. And I stopped crying for my old life.

The wild years came next. I was always in the sun, alive in the colors. I was a queen. I remember still the lavish parties, the dancing for days straight, always by Alex's side. We were together even during those changeable years. Sure, I partied. I ran away, I allowed him to catch me. I fell in love with others, I allowed him to reclaim my heart. I was fragile, I broke. I was strong, I was weak. Those years are the best in a Fayerie's life. I never tired of the constant Hysteria.

But, of course, I became tired. I always felt the crushing weight of my then 600 year life pressing down on me, drowning me in a melancholy ocean of memories. The sheer volume of my thoughts threatened to drag me away. I saw everything. Every day under the human sun, every night under the Fay moon. Every emotion I'd ever felt, everything I'd ever seen, the good and the bad. The sour and the sweet. The cold and the warm. Every beat of every drum. Every whisper, every word. Ever human memory, and every Fay memory. I remember ALL of it. All of it. All of it and I couldn't, no, I can't! I can't process all that.


This is the Fay curse. We are smart enough to remember every single moment of our long, long lives. We are not, however, smart enough to keep the memories from driving us to madness. We might be an immortal race, I do not know. None of us have ever been able to keep going, to keep living with these memories past a thousand years. The eldest of our race is one thousand and two. He is barely even human. Well, he never was really human, but now he is barely even alive. His body is as perfect as ever, but his mind is lost in such a dark place that he can barely force himself to keep going. But he does. We do not know why, but he does keep going. I am not like that.


You see, Alex died three days ago. He said he wanted to stay with me, but he could not. We went to bed like always. We are so old that we no longer have physical desire we had for each other like we did when we were young, but we always hold each other in the darkness, because warmth is still warmth. I woke later that night to find that he was gone. I walked to the woods, a terrible sense of dread heavy inside me. I always thought I would be the first to go, after all, I was half human once. Part of me is still mortal. But I found him on the ground, in the clearing where we go to hold the hands of the very old when they decide to die. I knew it was his time when I saw his face. His gold eyes were so sad, so heavy, that I wondered how I hadn't noticed how old he was, just like me. He was staring at the stars, like he couldn't bear to look at anything else. I didn't panic. I didn't want to make him feel guilty if it really was his time. He saw me, then. "Elouise". I love how he always said my name like it was the only thing that mattered. His voice was heavy, then. Eight hundred thirty-four years. Eight hundred thirty-four years of life. One hundred sixty-six before he met me. "Yes", I said. "Lie down next to me, until morning". We both knew what would happen when morning came. All of the summer Fay would come to bid their King farewell. They would cover his body in flowers, and sing. I would sing with them. "I cannot go with you", I say. All Fay must eventually die alone, two can't be reclaimed by the earth at the same time. "I know, but could you stay with me until they come?" "Until the first bend in the river", I say, quoting an old Fay holy text. We believe in reincarnation, we believe that this life we live now will be gone past a curve in the river. Humans love the idea of an afterlife, we imagine that to live on after death would be Hell, in purest form. When die, we die because we cannot live anymore with these memories, so to be reincarnated as a tree or a flower, to live on without our crushing memories, that would be heaven.


I lay with him for the next hours. We did not speak, for what do you say to your one great love as he prepares to die? We watched the stars, then the sunrise. The last sunrise he would see in this body. I held his hand, remembering when we were young, when we thought we were invincible, that our own minds would never turn against us. I looked over at him as he watched his last sunrise. His beautiful eyes were filled with tears, but I don't think he was afraid.

The mourners arrived shortly after his last sunrise. When they saw us, they left and returned with a flower for each of them. I squeezed his hand. The last time I touched him, the last time I heard his voice, was when he asked me to close his eyes. I brushed them closed, feeling his soft skin and thick eyelashes for the last time. I think he smiled then. Still alive. For now.


I joined the circle of mourners to sing him away from this life. The song started out soft, purely sweet like springtime. It rose and fell, speaking of a wandering soul and a restless heart. It crescendoed in a wild, free sort of frenzy, like summertime, too free and clear and warm to be held on to, falling away slowly, so bittersweet it broke me inside. He slipped away with the song, slowly and bittersweetly, fading. The moss and wildflowers all around him covered him slowly, soft tendrils covering his body first, and then his face. I stood there for a second, paralyzed by a single thought; never again. No more light in this world. Never happy again. Never see his face again. Never again.


I am lying here now, amongst the moss and wildflowers in the clearing. The stars overhead are painfully bright, and I think of all the people I've ever loved. Two stars shine brighter than the others; my mother with her soft brown eyes, Alex with his restless heart. Seven hundred nineteen years. The stars are burning out now, and I am burning out with them. The day will come. The sun will rise. And. I. Will. Be. Free. Finally.