She always said that there was someone special out there for me and me alone. She never told me who though. “You’ll know when you find them,” she said with a sly smile. “No matter how many lifetimes it may take you to find them.”
Lifetimes? I always wondered about that. How could it take lifetimes when I only had one life? Her answer was always a small, knowing smile as she shook her head at me fondly.
My job took me away from Willow Creek where I was born to the old town of Widenburg. The countryside was vastly different than from that of Willow Creek, more earth-toned rather than spring-like. It was lovely there with the faint chill in the air, and I quickly settled in.
It was several weeks before I noticed her. She, the one who was always in the corner of my eye now that I thought about it, seemed to be following me around the town. I’d see her when I left for work in the morning, when I grabbed lunch at the coffee shop, when I returned my books at the library. Somehow, she was always there, watching silently.
She was an exotic darkness to my fire, and I found myself being drawn to the mysterious woman. “May I sit here?” I asked.
The woman tilted her head, steepling her fingers. “You may,” she responded in a cultured and guarded voice as if afraid of being burned.
I sipped at my coffee in the silence. “What’s your name?”
The woman seemed to smile a bit, reminiscent-like. “Nitya,” she said. “May I inquire as to yours?”
“Seraphine.”
Nitya’s eyes widened for a split second. It happened so fast that I was sure that I had been seeing things.
That was the start of a beautiful friendship. Nitya was calm, collected, soothing to my fire, a yin to my yang. She belonged by my side, and I by hers.
Our friendship was what led to a walk along the beach on the island. It was originally a celebration of my promotion, but it turned into something more. Something neither of us could find the will to regret.
We fell into place, two puzzle pieces woven together in a tapestry that no one could see. My guardian would follow us, a grin on her face and a glimmer in her eyes.
In the weeks we were together, I had never set foot in Nitya’s house, but one day, she requested that I did. “I have to tell you something,” she said. “I have to show you something.”
I followed her up the path to a cottage. It was small but cozy. Warm colors were scattered throughout it, but Nitya didn’t stop in any of the rooms. She led me to a passageway and down the stairs hidden there into a basement, or rather, it was a memorial. A memorial to me, but as I stepped closer, I realized, I couldn’t be this woman grinning in these photographs. Some where taken centuries ago. I turned to Nitya, expecting her to laugh, to claim it was a joke.
Nitya looked right through me, staring at the photographs on the wall with the urns beneath them. “I’m immortal,” she said.
I wanted to laugh. I didn’t. The pain in her eyes told me that this was very real. Nitya stood beside me and pointed at each picture. “Alice, Freya, Victoria, Kim, Jacklyn, Fiona, Louise, Georgia, Margaret, Daisy, Shade.” Names of lost loves. My eyes filled with tears involuntarily. Than Nitya pointed to the first picture, this one a painting. “And Seraphine.”
“They all look like me,” I whispered.
Nitya nodded. “They are you. I have been waiting for so long, loving each reincarnation of my original love,” she said, turning to me with a fierce look in her eyes. “And now, I have her again. My Seraphine.” She reached out and cupped my cheek with her hand.
“Of course,” I said, taking the ring and putting it on my finger. Tears streamed down Nitya’s face as we kissed.
“My love for the Summer, my love forever,” Nitya whispered with a smile through her tears.
AN: This was written for the Short Story Challenge. The theme was Summer Love, and this story was inspired by a Tumblr post about dating an immortal and finding out their previous loves were previous reincarnations of you. It has 779 words and 9 screenshots
