V: First Steps

            The warmth of her face brought her out of her sleep. Through closed eyes, she could tell that sunshine had been the culprit. The light stung her eyes for a moment as she opened them, reflexively closing them shut once more. She tried again. This time the sting was less of a deterrent for her. Her eyes took a moment to adjust to the light flooding the room through the large windows. For a room of its size, it was modestly furnished. Aside from the bed she laid on and its two night stands that flanked it, the only other furnishings consisted of a dresser in the corner, two chairs and a round table a few away from the end of the bed. Taking in the room further, she could see that the curtains hanging in front of the window had been drawn back and tied.

“I doubt this room sees many visitors,” she mumbled out loud. Recalling the previous night, she had a vague memory of a conversation with someone sitting at the now-empty table. The hardwood floor felt surprising cold to her as she continued to walk around the bottom of the purple nightgown swaying as she moved. Finally settling in front of the large windows, a large garden framed by an ornate perimeter fence filled her view. What appeared to be a man sat at the only table in the heart of the garden. After a moment of looking at him through the window, he set his cup down on the table, his head turned to look at her. More time passed as they stared at each other from a distance. The man who she now recalled from the night before as Red motioned her to come down.

             Minutes later she found herself following directions found next to clothes that were left in the corner dresser. What furnishings the rest of the house had followed the same modest yet elegant motif. No other person seemed to be in the house, which seemed strange to her but she continued to follow the instructions despite her curiosity. As she turned down a hallway on the first floor, something caught her eye. The mirror she stared at hadn’t so much been what caught her attention, but what it reflected back at her did. As she stood there, she studied herself curiously, realizing she had no sense of what she actually looked like. She found that the woman who stared back at her had a soft yet pointed chin, and subtle cheekbones flanked her small upturned nose. Her narrow forehead hid behind her shoulder length hair, hair that seemed like it couldn’t decide whether to be wavy or curly, or even a single color for that matter. It was predominantly copper-red with gold and orange-red blended in it. It gave her the impression of a sea of foliage swept up in the wind. She ran a hand through the waves of hair, flowing just as easily through her fingers. She was a little surprised to discover she had slightly gauged ears when she put her hair behind it.

“That’s kind of neat,” she said as she touched her ear lobe, quickly grabbing her other ear lobe with her free hand. “Good, they’re both gauged. It would have been a bit odd if I only had one.” Drawing closer to the mirror, she ran her left hand across her olive skin, settling under her left eye. With her head tilted towards the mirror she inspected her eyes carefully. They had caught her attention when she began looking at herself. Much like her hair color, her eyes hadn’t decided which they wanted to be. They were mainly a subtle bronze with a spider webbing of gold that transitioned into orange. As if the color weren’t interesting enough on its own, the edges of her irises had a fairly pronounced black ring, almost as if it was keeping all that color from escaping her eyes.

“Doubt that many people can say that their hair and eyes match. Well, unless my hair is dyed and I’m wearing contacts, she said as she moved away from the mirror. “Suppose I should get back on track. Hope this guy has some useful information. I don’t even know what my name is, let alone what’s going on or why I woke up here.”

            Finding herself by the garden door, she could see that the man who beckoned her to come still sat at the table in the middle of the garden, some twenty feet away from the door.  The mid-morning breeze was colder then she expected, and the wet grass only amplified it. Warmth from the sun brought some balance to her as she found her way to the center of the garden. He was clearer to her now that she drew closer to him. The impression she got from him was unremarkable, yet she felt subdued as she scrutinized him as she drew closer. Everything about him seemed unassuming to her, from his physical figure, to casual dress clothes he wore. His khakis were a little bit damp at the bottom from the wet grass. The cardigan he wore loosely hung off of him as he sat at the table waiting for her to sit down.

“I hope you slept well. I know what you went through the last few nights. I went through it too. We all did. It’s never easy the first time.” He paused to drink the last of his coffee. He reached over to grab the pot in front of him, filling up the extra cup at the table before topping off his own.

“What exactly did I go through? I’m completely in the dark. I barely remember somebody talking to me last night. Was that you?” she asked, holding onto the warm cup, her hands now stealing the warmth.

“Yeah, that was me. The first time awake is always a bit hazy. Not surprised that you’re a bit foggy on the details. You can call me Red. That’s what people used to call me. Hardly anyone new comes through here. It’s just me and the very little staff here at the gilded cage,” he said, gently spinning the cup in his hands. “Yet since I had you brought here, I’ve had a visitor come around here unannounced.”

“Why would that be so strange? What do you mean by ‘gilded cage’?”

“This house and the grounds its sits on is a glorified prison, a gilded cage to keep me here. Officially I’m supposed to be an ambassador, but our people have no formal treaties with the other nations or Nova Flats, just simple understandings. So I’ve been here all these years, locked up in this house with a staff who won’t talk to me, with very little to do.”

“How long has that been?” she asked him, sipping from her coffee.

“It’s getting close to being a couple hundred years I think. I lost track a while ago. I barely remember what day of the week it is anymore.”

“Two hundred years? You’re an immortal?” she asked, the curiosity spewing out of her mouth along with a couple of drops of coffee as she spoke.

“Yup. You’re one too now, although you’re only a couple days old or so.”

Her shoulders slumped slightly as she took in the information, unconsciously playing with her cup as it rested on the table. “I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean. I mean, I know what you just said but I don’t know who I am and now I’m an immortal on top of that too? I really don’t understand what’s going on. Why can I remember everything but things about my life and who I was?” her words carried with it frustration, but were fueled by sorrow. Sorrow that still seemed to linger in the far depths of her mind.

“The simplest answer is that you were a human who met a rather unfortunate, violent end. Even more unfortunate still was that you had the potential to become an immortal. All immortals were once humans, but not all humans are immortals,” Red spoke with a calming voice. His gaze shifting away from her, his eyes transfixed on something off in the distance.

Curling up her legs on the chair she sat on, she listened. Her eyes intently staring at him, watching him just as closely as listened to what he said. She wanted to understand not only what he was saying. She needed to figure out who this man was.

“Only a very tiny amount of humanity at any given moment has the potential. The caveat to attaining that immortality, for those lucky few is that they have to die a violent death. Old age, illness and certain types of suicides don’t trigger the immortality. We’ve never really figured out why that is,” taking a sip of his coffee.

“The memory thing, right now it’s bothering you, and rightly so. Over time you’ll sadly accept that you may never regain that. None of us have. There’s a few of us that still cling to that hope. For whatever reason when we die for the first time, all personal memories go with that person. Some of us think that the memories die with whoever we were. A few think that’s a slap in the face: ‘you get to live forever but you’ll just be a shell of a person starting over again!’” Another sip, his gaze still fixed on some far-off point. “Somebody once told me that she was glad she couldn’t remember her past life.”

“Why is that?”

“I still recall that day clearly. Her name was Abigail. We used to call her Abby. At any rate, she says to me one day out of nowhere ‘You know what Red? I’m glad I can’t and couldn’t remember my past. If I could I would have mourned all of the loved ones as they all died and I stayed the same. Or I could have had nobody in a sad little life. Worse still, I could have been a horrible person. But that’s all dead and in the past now. No sense worrying about what was or could have been.’”

“I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.”

“You need a name. Have you thought of something to call yourself?”

Hugging her legs, she rested her chin on her knees and thought hard. “All these names keep popping up in my head but nothing rings out to me.” A cool soft breeze blew across the garden, pushing her hair onto her face. As she looked through her different-colored locks of her, now obscuring her eyesight, she once again thought of foliage. “Hmm, what do you think about Autumn?” She asked as she lifted her head, clearing her hair of her face.

“I think it suits you. Welcome to eternity, Autumn. You have a lot to learn.”