Chapter Text
Approx. 100 years later.
Time passes. The clock ticks, but I no longer make a habit of watching it.
Things break. New things appear in their places.
I learn that the other spirits call me Nosy Hedy. I don’t care. Clara laughs and laughs and eventually says that she likes my curiosity.
Clara is referred to as Vampire-Friend Clara, which while neither inaccurate nor offensive, is an oversimplification of her character.
It is odd to see our home change. With Clara by my side, I find myself inhabiting the past—or a memory of the past. Regardless of my understanding, it is Clara’s soul, not my recollection of her being, that accompanies me through the echoes of our life.
Sometimes we watch our young selves as if they were other people. Other times, we play their parts. It can be disconcerting to suddenly remember that you are dead, but ignoring that truth is not as seductive when the end was not painful.
Eventually we resurface, watching the layers of what has been fold over each other until we observe the present again. It is still recognizable. The bones are the same and even when bones become dust, the spirit of the place will remain.
We still inhabit the present more than most of the spirits. We make a point to manifest when the undying return. It is a comfort to Clara to see her friends.
There are years where they visit every few months. But there are also some decades where they visit every few years.
Once they went twenty-five without returning, not a one of them.
The first of Clara’s friends—the old sailor who sings, I will always remember that, even though Clara’s whispered “Izzy” never sticks—returns after years with a new companion.
This new companion is tall, with dark skin and a halo of inky curls. He grins and looks around with a gleam in his eye I know well. Clara had it, I had it, and I’ve seen it thousands of times since. I can tell he already loves this place.
I know he is friends with the quick-moving sometime keeper whose injury first acquainted us, for he wears a knit sweater that I’ve seen before. The maroon and black stripes are long faded, but I recognize them.
I remember their whispered confession to Clara about fifty years back. Their lowered tone was unnecessary, for they had arrived with only a single fellow (with a kind face smiling out from under a knitted teal hat) at their side. They admitted that he was one of a group of friends, undying ones, who their leader and his advisor thought were long dead. The rest of their associates kept this secret for a century and a half, which I thought was a bit much. Luckily, it was not our opinions they asked for, but our discretion.
We agreed to keep the secret. The knitter’s fellow was as kind as his face implied, and they assured us that the secrecy was necessary for some time, but not forever. We have nothing but time, so it wasn’t too taxing.
Clara and I took to watching the undying one’s projects. Sometimes they wore the garments they created, other times the projects disappeared upon completion. Once, the leader pretended not to watch while a pair of fingerless gloves took shape. When the knitter cast off their final stitch and threw the completed gloves at the leader, he looked truly surprised. It wasn’t unheard of for the knitter’s associates to receive such gifts. The witch had been proudly wearing a variety of knit scarves for decades. It seemed that was the first time the leader had received anything, though.
At present, the old sailor wears something that is clearly the knitter’s work. It has a complex blue and gray pattern—I don’t even think Clara could manage it, but I suppose a century is a great deal of time to practice—which brings out his eyes. It’s a scarf, I suppose, but it seems to have pockets or mittens on the ends. The sailor does not bother to remove his hands as he gestures to his companion, completing their introductory pleasantries.
“I know you won’t remember his name, but this is Roach,” says the sailor.
“Husband?” Clara asks.
“No,” he mock-glares at her, “Presumptuous old—”
“Not yet,” says the tall one, grinning and wrapping an arm wrapped around the sailor.
The sailor goes pink around the edges. He opens his mouth, but no sound comes out.
Clara lets him struggle for a moment. I love her.
“Sam’s great-great-nephew” Clara says, gesturing toward the man, “is the current keeper”.
“I knew your ancestor,” the sailor says, gaining his voice. “Who kept house here, after the old bat died.”
“Good to meet you, then,” says the keeper. “I heard I’m meant to keep a room for ya, but I’ve never had the pleasure, though my Momma knew Jim Jimenez well, I know.”
“A friend of mine,” the sailor says. “They’re in New York.”
“Goddamn,” says the keeper. “That undying shit is crazy.”
The sailor nods slightly.
“We’ll take over the work for some weeks,” says the sailor. “Should be a month at least, I think. We have time.” He glances at his partner, who just smiles.
“More’n welcome to. Nothing to do tonight, so unless ya want a meal, I was heading to bed just now.”
“We’re not hungry—and if we were, we could cook for ourselves, no worries. Willing to bet I know this kitchen better than you do, lad.”
With a chuckle, the keeper mumbles, “Ah, fair enough. Can’t argue with that… Well, make yourselves at home, then. Good-night.”
He nods at the undying ones and makes himself scarce.
“How’ve you been, Clara?”
“Dead,” says Clara—the partner snorts— ”and bored, too.”
I smack at her, but she steps out of my reach.
The sailor watches with a fond smile. “Regretting turning me down, then, Clara?”
“Not a bit,” Clara says, and reaches for me. I step away from her reach, now, but she chases me. I let her catch me. She kisses my cheek.
“I’m glad.”
“I’m glad for you, too, Israel, but I’m angry with you. You’ve clearly been too busy with your new partner to come see old Clara.”
“I told you she’d give me shit,” the sailor muttered under his breath.
“How horrible it must be,” his partner says aloud, “To have a friend who misses you. My heart goes out to you, Izzy.”
The sailor glares up at him. Clara and I laugh over his complaints.
They remind me of us.
“I’m sorry,” the sailor says, when we catch our breaths. “I really did mean to visit sooner. Was hard, with the war, and then Edward got into smuggling.”
“Yes, yes. I’ve heard it all before. But clearly something happened—how did you find this man? Why him, of all people, after all this time? No offense taken, I hope—” She addresses the partner, “Because my dear, I’m assuming you have some interesting qualities that set you apart from the rest.”
“I do!” says the partner, grinning. “I can juggle and fly at the same time!”
“He can fly,” the sailor affirms. “Two hundred years and he still can’t juggle, though.”
“Fucking—” the partner elbows him. “Take that back, you shit.”
“Won’t lie for you,” the sailor edges away. “No—ow—nope!”
“Be nice,” says Clara. “Settle down and tell us your story, or else.”
They bicker and nudge their way into settling at the table.
They tell us a tale, long into the night. Of the centuries of secrecy, of the reveal that left our sailor shocked into falling on his backside in public—“That’s not what happened,” he protested, as his partner assured us it was, and we laughed—and of the aftermath.
They had to pick up the pieces, it seemed, from a heartbreak hundreds of years old.
The leader had the most to apologize for, it seems, but—
“Izzy was a dick to everyone, especially me, and I wanted an apology, but—”
“He’s still fucking pissed about a fucking sandwich—”
“It was not solely about the sandwich, per se, but perhaps if he had caught it after all of the effort I put in—”
“It’s easier to catch things when you’re fuckin’ warned before it’s chucked at your noggin by a crazy cunt with a knife—”
“Watch yourself, that cunt has had two hundred years to play with knives.”
They hold eye contact.
Our sailor’s gaze flickers to his partner's lips.
“I see,” says Clara, startling them. “This makes sense.”
“What does—the sandwich bullshit?”
“No, absolutely not. That was ridiculous. But—the two of you make sense as a pair. He understands you, doesn’t he?”
“Yeah,” says our sailor, no longer argumentative. “He does.”
“Well then,” she says, “I approve.”
Hilariously, the sailor relaxes around the shoulders.
His partner notices and smiles. I approve, too, though I doubt the sailor would mind half as much if I didn’t. He has always been closer with Clara. I don’t mind, of course. I wouldn’t begrudge her a friend, and I like the witch best of them all, though his visits are rarer by far.
“So, how did you resolve your… history of tension?” I ask because I doubt they will move past the argument without being prompted.
Clara glances at me, and I see the laugh in her eyes.
Our friend clears his throat.
“Well, there was this dance hall…”
Some Time Later
The pair of ex-pirates cook breakfast together in peace, but they bicker as soon as they're fully awake.
Our old sailor gestures rudely when I watch them kiss and make up, as if it isn’t our kitchen they are necking in.
Clara tells him we did it first, and demonstrates.
They hold hands when they climb the stairs.
We still climb with them. That is one thing that has not changed. Although a century has passed, the steps are the same wrought iron, though somewhat worn.
Our old sailor sings his ballads still. His companion whistles the melody and joins in the chorus.
They are less morose this way, and just as stirring.
After a few days, they make up dirty lyrics to the first song I heard him sing.
I'm an old lover of the fickle seas
I've sailed waters so cold they made my bollocks freeze
but I once swam in Caribbean waves
hotter than a dockside lay
all this time, I'm a witness
to the changing tides
I'm a silver-haired lover of the fickle seas
I've sailed waters wilder than a bar wench free
but I once was becalmed for weeks
with a crew full willing to fuck me
all this time, I’m a witness
to the changing tides
I'm an achey lover of the fickle seas
I've sailed with the wind at my back
but I was pulled due west by a new lover
He blows better than the strongest gale
all this time, I’m a witness
to the changing tides
all this time, I’m a witness to the changing tides
all this time, I’m a witness to the changing tides
I’ve seen the old sailor’s gruff persona falter before. When he is comfortable, he is light-hearted with his associates.
His relationship with the knitter—who seems to be his equal in rank—is that of kin. They have called him Tío on occasion, when they feel he deserves it. It’s rare, but it has made its appearance more than once over the years. The first sober time, the old sailor was chuckling and teasing them for trying to knit with slim knives and they waved him off with a burst of Spanish that left them both quiet and embarrassed.
I have seen him share laughs with the leader. Although the leader usually comes in times of strife, rather than leisure, he takes comfort in the old sailor. More than once I have watched them sit on the rocks, facing the vast ocean shoulder to shoulder.
I’ve even seen him grow close with Clara. The pair of them were meant to be friends, I’m sure of it. He needed a confidant, and she’s as good of a listener as she is a storyteller. And Clara has always enjoyed cracking a nut with a tough outer shell, as she puts it. Many of her favorite people have been… hard to reach, at first.
One afternoon
The sailor leaves a book open and Clara reads to me. Bless her for remembering to die with her glasses on.
The book is a familiar one—only the witch can gift us new reading material, food, smoke, and the like. That’s all right, though. It is different to reread The Last of the Mohicans in the present than to hear it in the past.
Many of the books we have read together are as filled with drama as our life was before we came here. Although we’ve been content here, there’s something we both enjoy about reading books with exciting deeds and interesting characters.
Clara once told me that she imagines every day on the island to be an adventure. She does battle with a colony of pests, she goes on a quest to the garden to get carrots.
I have never needed that. The stairs are no mountain.The equipment I tend is no beast. Yet I do enjoy a tale about other people. I never missed the folks we left behind in our home town, but I find myself interested in the rich inner lives of people who are brave, kind, and clever.
This made itself clear when the undying began to visit so many years ago. This is why the other spirits call me Nosy Hedy. I invest myself in the business of this old sailor and his companions.
Now, he and his partner sit close and listen as Clara reads. They are comfortable together. The old sailor sits between his partner’s legs and leans his head back against his shoulder. The taller man offers the sailor a drag from his cigarette, and the sailor parts his lips. They communicate wordlessly already—we were the same.
The sailor really has been changing this whole time.
Slowly.
It is like the curtains, which faded and faded until one day the new housekeeper changed them and Clara grumbled about it until she saw them in the morning light—"Oh, the new curtains are a lovely shade, now aren't they, darling?"
The world is changing too. The pattern of the tides shift. The island’s distance from the mainland. One day, a lighthouse won't be needed here.
The wind and the sea are the wind and the sea, though.
And the lighthouse still stands.
And even if it didn't, we can see through time.
Here is where we sat.
Here is where we climbed.
Here is where we read.
Here is where my wife and I danced without music.
In the next room, over a century later, the undying dance to a song that plays from a box with a horn.
The undying ones will go and return again.
People will be called to maintain this rocky outcropping.
Those before us tended our home well, and we changed little.
Change is unavoidable, but people try to keep this place the same.
And then (if they so choose) it will keep them.