My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me,
So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.

-- Emily Dickinson

PREFACE

Unlike the world and the mortals, who thrived upon its being, around me, destiny did not or could not have any jurisdiction over my kind, or rather myself. My even existence was impossible, unfathomable, and more—un-fated. And so I was angelically cursed until the end of the ages.

I bore this bane as well as one who only half belonged to this world, with a tortured acceptance. Without change, I had always been a loner, kept to myself, drifting from town to town; usually the less crowded, for naturally they drew less interest, were—or more appropriately, had been less problematic.

Now—after more than a thousand years—that has changed. In this moment, I was so near of revealing my ancient secret that has remained unsaid for centuries, acknowledged to no mortal soul. But she would know; I realized that she was fated to know.

That was not all. I had believed for as long as I have lived neither dead nor alive that I was the only one of my kind, my extraordinary reality. I was wrong.

I was not alone. I had never been alone.