Immortal

by Pati Nagle

  Caeran hesitated, and I thought it might be because I was right there, so I picked up my pencil and started making a grocery list on one of my sheets of paper. After a moment he opened the book. I kept my eyes on my list and counted to sixty before daring a glance.

  The print was old and fairly dense, and in Spanish. I’d taken a couple of semesters in high school, not enough to really be able to comprehend text without the company of a Spanish dictionary. I figured if I was curious I could always request the book another time and puzzle through it. What I didn’t want was to make Caeran uncomfortable, so I didn’t try to read over his shoulder. I worked on my list, and drank in my impressions of him as he sat beside me.

  I wasn’t quite close enough to register his smell, at least not consciously, but pheromones or something were making me high. I was falling for him, which was probably not a good idea but sometimes your body doesn’t give you a choice about these things. I was hypersensitive to his every movement, all of which were graceful. He never coughed or fidgeted, just sat there silently turning pages.

  He scanned them quickly. I guessed he was skimming, looking for something to catch his eye. He was halfway through the book before he paused to make a note. I glanced up as he picked up his pencil. Nothing special on the page as far as I could tell, but his gaze, his whole attitude, had intensified.

  He wrote down one word—a name—then kept reading.

  I had finished my grocery list, so I made a list of things to do. When that was done I gave up and started doodling.

  Every now and then Caeran would make another note. His page looked like a list, too; a list of surnames, a couple with annotations of place names, I thought. I tried not to snoop too blatantly, but I was curious. What could be so urgent about this centuries-old history? Why couldn’t it wait a week?

  Maybe it hadn’t been the wait, but the twenty dollars that had bothered him. Except that if he could afford airfare, then twenty bucks shouldn’t be a problem.

  Where had he come from? I wondered. The UK? Europe?

  And why come to New Mexico for aspens, when the Colorado Rockies were right next door? Aspen-viewing, and then suddenly an urgent need to research New Mexico’s colonial history? I must not have the whole picture.

  Barb came out from the front desk and started going to each of the patrons, quietly informing them that the facility was about to close. I glanced at my watch, which read 4:55. Caeran seemed not to have noticed, but when Barb came over to us he sat back. He’d gotten about halfway through the book.

  “We’ll be closing in a few minutes,” Barb said.

  Caeran nodded, made a note of the page number, then closed the book and handed it to her. “Thank you.”

  She smiled and headed for the guy with the maps. I pulled off my gloves.

  “Did you get what you needed?” I asked softly.

  A slight frown creased his brow. “Perhaps.”

  “We could come again tomorrow if you want to finish.”

  He turned his head to meet my gaze. “That is kind of you. Thank you.”

  I smiled. “Glad to help.”

  He removed his gloves and picked up his notes, carefully folding it in half. We stood up and I gathered the unused paper, pencils, and the gloves and carried them back to the counter.

  Caeran took the key from his pocket, then stood frowning at the row of lockers.

  I joined him. “I think it’s number four.”

  I pointed to our locker and watched him try to fit the key into the lock. He turned it over a couple of times before he got it to go in. I bit my tongue on an offer to help. He wasn’t stupid, just unfamiliar with the format. My curiosity about him grew.

  He slid his notes into his pack and followed me to the elevator. The map-guy grad student joined us, to my silent regret. Ignoring him, I smiled at Caeran and took my heart in my hands.

  “So, can I buy you a cup of coffee?”

  Caeran looked surprised, then gave me his polite smile. “Thank you, but I must return to my kindred. My family.”

  “Ah. OK.”

  Hiding my disappointment, I folded my page of lists into quarters and stuffed it into my pocket. The elevator opened and we walked out. I waited for the map guy to get out of earshot, then turned to Caeran with a friendly smile.

  “Well, see you tomorrow maybe, if you want to go through the rest of that book. I’ll be working ‘til four again.”

  He turned to me, his glorious face showing mixed emotions that I wasn’t sure I was reading correctly. Doubt? Speculation? He seemed to be looking at me, really looking at me, for the first time. My heart suddenly tried to fly up out of my chest.

  The small crease on his brow faded, as if he’d reached a decision. “If I return, shall we meet in the same place?”

  I nodded. “History display. Yeah.”

  He kept gazing at me, and I stared back, mesmerized. He made me feel like I was floating in an exquisite limbo. I didn’t know if he was doing it on purpose, and I didn’t care. I did get the feeling that he was examining me as if I was some interesting specimen. Didn’t care about that either. I could have stood there for hours.

  Suddenly he smiled. “Thank you for your help.”

  I sucked in a giddy breath. “Any time.”

  He turned and strode away. End of interaction.

  I walked after him, knowing it was hopeless to play the moth drawn to the flame, but unable to resist. He went out the doors and turned west, heading for University Boulevard.

  His stride was long and I had to hurry to keep him in sight. At the same time I didn’t want him to catch me following him, so I kept a few other students between us. That got harder as we moved toward the edge of campus and the crowd thinned out. I dropped to a stroll and tried to look like I was just walking along enjoying the day.

  Leaves were turning orange and gold, the fallen ones swirling on the sidewalks and in the gutters. Roses in front of the older buildings on the street were showing a last, glorious pre-winter bloom. It was sunny with a cool breeze, perfect weather.

  Just before reaching University, Caeran turned south along the street that loops the campus. I followed at a careful distance, composing excuses in case he caught me following him and confronted me. If he was aware of me—and it was quite possible he was—he chose not to show it. He walked to the south side of campus, crossed a lawn to Central Avenue, and went to the bus stop.

  I sat down under a tree, watching him, debating whether to join him. Instinct warned me that would be a bad move. Not good if he were to get the idea I was stalking him. Which, basically, I was.

  It didn’t matter anyway. In a few minutes a bus arrived and he got on it, heading for downtown. I watched it roll away.

  I might see him again tomorrow, if he decided to look at the rest of the book. Should I be so lucky, though, it would probably be the last I saw of him, unless I was somehow able to connect with him.

  I rubbed my eyes. I wasn’t good at this. I should let it go—let him go, and just enjoy the memory of his incredible beauty. Maybe tomorrow I’d try to sneak a photo of him as a memento.

  Laughing at myself, I got up and slung my pack over my shoulder. A few yards away a weathered man in filthy, beat-up denims turned bloodshot eyes toward me. Street dudes hung out along this stretch of grass fairly often. I looked away to discourage him from panhandling me, and strode briskly back the way I had come.

  I needed distraction. I had the novel I was currently reading in my backpack, but I knew I’d be too restless to sit and read. A movie might do it, but none of the titles in the theaters interested me. There was always fun, off-beat stuff showing at Student Union Building, but that wouldn’t be until later in the evening.

  And I didn’t really feel like a movie. I wanted something more breathtaking, some environment in which I could fantasize about being with Caeran, since fantasy was likely to be as close as I got.

  I wanted to ride the tram to the top of the mountains and stand looking out over a hundred miles of
beauty. Since tram tickets were pricey, I settled instead on a visit to the bosque. Fall color was just coming in along the river, and the leaves of the cottonwood forest would be all green and gold. I’d have to hurry—the Nature Center would be closed—but I should still have about an hour to wander around on the trails before the sun set.

  Walking across campus to my dorm to get my car, I thought about Caeran. Not only was he gorgeous, he seemed to have a lot of the qualities I liked. He was graceful, and modest. Elegant? Nothing about his appearance said that, but I had to add it to the list of his merits. He felt elegant. Like he’d come from a more gracious time. Or maybe I was just reacting to his slightly unusual behavior—maybe it was a cultural thing.

  So, OK, what did I not like about him? Anything? Other than the fact that he wasn’t as nuts about me as I was about him?

  I couldn’t think of anything. Knowing it was unwise to be so obsessed with a stranger, I tried to think of things that, while I might not mind them, could be warning signals.

  Possibly he didn’t have a lot of money. He’d been reluctant to spring for a Borrower’s Card, and he’d taken the bus. He had also mentioned coming here by plane, but that could have been a lie.

  My besotted soul instantly objected to the thought that Caeran could possibly be deceitful. Gut feeling told me he was honest. Gut feeling might well be partial, though, so I tried to ignore it.

  Could he be trying to take advantage of me somehow? I didn’t think so. It would have been pathetically easy for him to do so, but he’d declined my offer of coffee. If he’d been looking for a mark, he’d have said yes.

  True, he asked for my help, but only in getting to the book. Which brought me back to wondering why the book was so urgently important. All he’d taken from it was a list of names of people who were long dead.

  Identity theft? Nah—there had to be easier ways. Crooks didn’t draw attention to themselves by requesting rare books in libraries.

  Although … I had done the requesting. I didn’t even know Caeran’s last name.

  I was stumped, and I had reached the dorm parking lot. Giving up the puzzle for the moment, I got in my car and drove through the city toward the Rio Grande.

  = 2 =

  The sun was headed toward the volcanic escarpment west of town, and the late afternoon sunlight slanted through the trees of the North Valley, setting yellow leaves aglow. I parked on a side street near the entrance to the Nature Center, which was already locked up. A gap in the fence nearby gave access to the bike trails along the bosque, via a wide path with cottonwoods behind the fences on either side.

  Grand old trees, going golden for fall, a few leaves already dropping to brighten the cinder path. I inhaled the dry-leaf smell of autumn and sighed with pleasure.

  The path gave onto a walking trail that ran along a flood-control ditch. I crossed the ditch on a footbridge and headed up to the bosque proper—the forest that ran along the Rio’s flood zone, all through the city. A paved bike trail ran between the bosque and the ditch. I crossed it and went into the woods, turning south, away from the most frequented trail.

  Dust rose up from my footfalls to hang in the late afternoon sunshine. Birds chattered and fussed; I heard some geese calling as they flew over, heading for the pond at the Nature Center. I looked up through the tree branches, peering into the blue beyond the golden leaves, hoping to catch sight of a passing “V” of sandhill cranes. I didn’t see any, nor hear any when I paused to listen.

  I closed my eyes, thinking of Caeran, picturing him beside me, thanking me for showing him these trees, which were nearly as beautiful as the aspen groves up in the mountains. I laughed softly at myself, then walked on, content with the fantasy.

  The sun was heading toward the escarpment and would set before long. I could feel the air getting cooler as the sunlight retreated. I kept going, though, giving myself permission to walk until the sun was actually down. Then I should head back. The bosque was fairly safe, but I didn’t care to walk alone there at night, and I was a bit off the beaten path. Still on a trail, though, even if it was little more than a dusty track through the undergrowth.

  I came around a bend where the trail skirted a thicket of olive trees, and stopped. A few yards away a homeless guy was squatting in the dirt, whittling on a stick with a knife. I was about to back away when he turned his head a little and I saw a familiar jawline. My heart jumped.

  “Caeran?”

  He looked up at me in surprise, and I saw that it wasn’t Caeran. It was someone who looked a whole lot like him, though.

  “Oh—sorry! You must be one of Caeran’s family. Is he here?”

  He stood up and faced me, and I saw that what I’d taken for ratty clothes were a shirt and loose trousers a lot like what Caeran wore. This guy was every bit as gorgeous as Caeran, but not as trusting. He was still holding the knife, which didn’t make me as nervous as it had at first, but I took note of it. He frowned at me.

  “How do you know Caeran?”

  “H-he came to the library where I work.”

  The stranger stared at me intently, reminding me of how Caeran had done something similar, though it felt more like a threat with this guy. He didn’t smile at all.

  A tingle started at the back of my neck. The guy’s eyes—green, but darker than Caeran’s—bored into me, and for a moment I thought I saw a faint glow around his head. I felt like he was trying to see right into my heart. Something like a whisper went through the back of my mind. I couldn’t make out the words.

  Then he looked away, leaning against a tree trunk and whittling at his stick again. “Caeran is not here.”

  I blinked. The glow was gone, or I had imagined it. “Oh. Well … when you see him, tell him I said hi. Len, from the library.”

  No acknowledgment. Only the long scrape of the blade along the stick. A curl of pale wood fell to the ground.

  OK, fine. I could take a hint. I went back the way I’d come.

  By the time I got back to my car it was twilight. I paused to inhale one last breath of autumn, and to gaze at Venus blazing above the escarpment in a sky of deep, glowing blue.

  I’d satisfied my itch for the outdoors, but I had even more questions now. Who was Caeran’s look-alike, and why was he so unfriendly? He’d radiated “leave me alone” vibes. Most people who hiked in the bosque were pretty outgoing, but then, he wasn’t from around here.

  I drove back to campus, musing about having met not one, but two drop-dead gorgeous strangers in one day. Weird that I had run into the second one, but then, Caeran had said they were interested in fall color, so the bosque wasn’t an unlikely place for them to go. I hadn’t been thinking about that when I decided to go there—at least, not consciously.

  I wondered if it was just the two of them in town, or if there were more. The actor scenario seemed less and less likely.

  Maybe they were staying at one of the B&B’s in the area. That would make a kind of sense, except why had Caeran taken a bus instead of a rental car?

  Or could be they were visiting friends … but that felt unlikely. A local friend would have told Caeran what to expect at the university’s library, would have given him a ride. No, the more I thought about it, the more Caeran struck me as someone finding his way through a culture that was foreign to him.

  And that might explain his family member’s unfriendliness. Fish out of water, instinctively defensive. Made sense.

  Back at the dorm, I took a long, hot shower. I didn’t feel like going out again for a movie, so I worked on a paper that was due the next week, then read until it was late enough to try to sleep.

  Caeran dominated my thoughts as soon as my head hit the pillow. I let myself daydream about him, hoping to fall asleep. It took a while, and the fantasies got elaborate and a little far-fetched, before my brain finally gave it up.

  I dreamed about him, or maybe my memory got fuzzed with the daydreams. At any rate, when I woke up I was clutching my pillow. I got up, ate a carton of yogurt, went to my ea
rly class, then headed back to the library for my shift.

  Amanda didn’t work Thursdays, so again I had no one to talk to. The first couple of hours were busy, though—lots of folks in on their lunch hours.

  I hoped Caeran was going to show up, but if he didn’t, I’d look through the book and try to figure out what he was after. I might have to resort to a Spanish dictionary. There was probably one in the Wesley Collection that I could use.

  I did better at not looking at the clock, but I was still antsy the last hour of my shift. There was a real chance that Caeran wouldn’t come back. He hadn’t said for sure that he would. I kept telling myself that, trying to stay cool, but my brain was already picturing us sitting together.

  I tried pretending he had said he wouldn’t be returning. That sort of worked, at least so far as allowing me to appear unconcerned. I was very concerned, of course, but was able to hide it.

  I watched the digital clock on my monitor tick away the last sixty seconds of my shift. At four precisely I picked up my pack and logged out. No Dave to harass me in the break room, for which I gave silent thanks. I slung my pack over my shoulder and headed for the history display.

  Caeran was there. My heart jumped with glee. I slowed down, wanting to look at him for a moment before he noticed me.

  He was looking at a section of the display that covered the bosque. He seemed intent on it, but maybe he was just intent about everything. I remembered his look-alike from the evening before and wondered if they had talked about me.

  He sensed my presence and looked up. I smiled.

  “Hi. Back for more?”

  “Yes.”

  “OK, let’s go.”

  We went up to the collection. I’d hoped we would talk in the elevator but there were some exuberant freshmen riding it with us, headed for the stacks. Caeran ignored the glances the girls threw at him, and the surly looks from the guys. I was pretty sure he’d noticed, though he gave no sign of it. I mean it would be hard not to notice the giggling.

  We escaped into the quiet of the Wesley Collection. Barb had the book waiting at the counter and we sailed through checking in. Caeran even had some quarters ready for the locker.