A Chance for Charity (The Immortal Ones) (11 page)

“
Grandpa said the same
thing. ‘Keep smiling kid, you remind me of my big brother when you
do.’”

“
He was absolutely right,”
I continued. “But to answer some of your questions – I am not a
vampire. I do not ingest blood. As for the pale skin, tanning is
actually tissue damage and my body... kind of... fixes that, so I
am constantly pale. I am not a witch. I have no powers... well not
exactly what you’d call a power. Honestly, I don’t know why I am
the way I am... or how I got to be this way,” I finished and looked
at his face. It was calmer now.

“
You’re not a seventeen
year old girl,” he accused, now standing far across the room,
needing to say aloud the truth as he now understood it.

“
If you will sit and
listen. I will tell you,” I said, keeping my voice as smooth and
calm as I could. “I will tell you how I came to know what I am.
I’ll start when I met your great uncle, that’s what Roger would
have been to you if you’d had the chance to know him. To me he was
my life, my love, before the war took him away from me, from your
grandpa, from you.”

chapter seven

REVELATION

“
I met Roger when I was
nineteen. I was attending San Diego State College and studying to
become a teacher. He was twenty and worked as a mechanic at a local
service station. I was alone, my parents had died in a car crash
the year before. You said yours died in a crash too so you know how
I felt,” I looked into his eyes.

“
Yes, it was awful for me,”
he said quietly.

“
Roger filled me with joy
in a way that I so desperately needed. We had a six month
courtship. Then he asked me to marry him. We were engaged on March
twenty-second, nineteen hundred forty-one. It was my twentieth
birthday. He gave me a ring and also handed me his enlistment
papers,” I paused, picturing that bittersweet day.

“
Grandpa said he joined the
service before we entered the war.” Link broke the
silence.

“
Yes that’s true. At that
time, much of the world was embattled in World War II, but not the
United States. Roger was sure the U.S. would be joining the fight
soon and wanted to serve his country. He had enlisted in the Navy
and would begin his training in April, right there in San Diego. We
made plans for our future. I would have my degree in two more years
and would teach sixth grade. We painted a rosy picture of his naval
career and my teaching career. I would take time off from work to
have and raise our three children and then would go back to
teaching when the kids were older. We had a plan,” I smiled at the
memory.

“
He finished his training
and was given orders to join the crew of the USS Arizona when it
docked at Long Beach that summer. The ship would sail from Hawaii
for a brief stop on the mainland and then would immediately
return.

“
It was terribly lonely
when he left and I was able to find comfort in the husband and wife
team that ran the clinic next to campus. The majority of students
went there to fix their various ailments. I visited the clinic a
few weeks before Roger shipped out, when I was struck in the arm by
an errant baseball hit from a field near campus. Roger insisted
that we go to the clinic to have it looked at. I told him the arm
was fine but he was always so overprotective of me. The doctor was
kind and had the most reassuring smile. His wife, his nurse, seemed
to take an immediate liking to me and we chatted like old friends.
After proclaiming me to be in perfect health, they invited us over
for dinner,” I took a breath and searched Link’s face to make sure
he was still with me, still okay.

“
The couple who ran the
clinic, are they your ‘aunt’ and ‘uncle’?” Link asked

“
Yes, that’s right. The
night before Roger departed for Long Beach to join the ship, we had
dinner at their house. The conversation edged toward the
predicament the world was in. I didn’t want to think about it. I
only wanted to think about Roger and me – together. We thanked them
for dinner and excused ourselves. Their home was right on the
beach. When you exited their back patio, you walked out onto the
sand. It was there, with our toes in the sand, that Roger and I had
our last tender goodbye, without the shuffle of other people near.
We vowed to love each other forever,” my voice broke and a tear
escaped my eye.

Link reached out to brush the tear away. “Go
on,” he said.

“
Our final, tearful
goodbye, was filled with promises of me coming to Hawaii during the
Christmas break from classes. We would be married on a beach, our
toes in the sand again, joined together as man and wife.

“
I turned to my new friends
often, over the next few months. It seemed I was over their house
for dinner every other weekend. Then it became a routine. Every
Sunday night I would drive down to the beach house. We ate, we
talked, I read to them from Roger’s letters. They alleviated the
loneliness I felt with him so far away.

“
My weekend routine also
included Roger’s family. I had dinner with them almost every
Saturday night. Roger’s little brother carried a toy ship around
with him always. After dinner we would sit on the porch swing and
imagine all the places on the ship that Roger might be and what he
was doing at that exact moment. It was a game that the two of us
played every time we were together. That was your grandfather,” I
said to Link

“
He spoke of you every now
and then. He was sad when you stopped coming around anymore,” he
recalled.

“
One of the last times I
saw that little boy was December sixth, nineteen forty-one. After
dinner we sat on the porch, with the ship as always. Before I went
home, we imagined Roger asleep in his bunk, deep within the ship.
The next day I heard the news on the radio, Pearl Harbor was
attacked. I had dinner as usual with the doctor and his wife that
night, their real names are James and Catherine. I was almost
frantic with worry. They did their best to calm me down. We all
just kept hoping that Roger was among those who escaped
harm.

“
Roger’s family phoned me
when they received official confirmation. He was listed among the
dead, trapped in the ship when it sank to its current resting
place. The fires onboard raged for two days and there was no hope
for finding further survivors. I cried for days, refusing to leave
my apartment. I just stayed in bed and let my grief consume
me.

“
I tried to kill myself. I
sliced my wrists fully expecting to let the blood flow out of me. I
would weaken and my heart would stop. That, I was sure, would end
the pain of losing Roger.” I froze at the memory. “I still can’t
believe I was irrational enough to do that,” I
whispered.

Link put his arm around me, “What happened
next?” he urged.

“
I watched in horror as the
wounds slowly closed. That was impossible, it was inhuman. How
could my body be doing this? I became hysterical, I screamed and
cried. A few minutes later I worked up the nerve to try again, only
to achieve the same results. James found me as I was making my
third attempt with the razor sharp knife. My neighbor had called
him, the screams coming from my apartment had frightened her,” I
explained.

I spoke faster as the story poured out of my
memory, transporting me back to that fateful day, many years
ago.

“‘
Charity, what are you
doing?’ James cried out as I slammed the bathroom door
shut.

‘
James, it won’t work, the
blood won’t flow. I can’t live without Roger, but it won’t work.
Why won’t it work?’ I screamed wildly at him through the closed
door.

‘
Charity, calm down and let
me see your arms. I saw the knife in your hand.’

‘
Something is wrong with
me. I want to die. Why won’t I die? Help me die,’ I cried on the
bathroom floor.

James broke open the door to find me
crumpled on the floor. Wide eyed, staring at the wounds on my
wrists. He saw the last of it close and heal. My blood was
splattered all over the floor tiles. He held me in his arms as my
body let go into a flood of gut wrenching sobs.

‘
Three times, James, I did
it three times. But I couldn’t bleed enough to end my life.
Why?’

‘
Charity, please calm down,
let me take you into your room. You need to sleep. I’ll call
Catherine. She’ll come over and stay with you,’ he soothed as he
stroked my hair, and brushed away my tears. Then he led me to my
bed and excused himself to the other room. I heard him pick up the
phone.

‘
Catherine, please drive
over here without delay. Charity is in a terrible state. She tried
to kill herself...’ he paused listening to her. ‘No I didn’t get
here in time. You don’t understand. She is one of us.’

One of us – that term rattled around in my
brain as I drifted off into exhausted sleep. When I awoke,
Catherine was sitting beside the bed. The perpetually happy smile
that I had come to know so well over the previous few months, was
sitting on her face.

‘
How do you feel dear?’ she
asked. Her eyes held concern, but her face was still
smiling.

‘
My head hurts,’ was my
hoarse whisper. ‘Thank you for being here. I’m sorry to have
bothered you both.’

‘
You are not a bother my
dear. But you must promise me to never do anything so rash and
stupid again.’

I turned my wrists over and searched for the
wounds that I had tried so hard to inflict. All I could find was a
thin, faint, pink line where the knife had gashed open my flesh the
night before. The tears started streaming down my face again.

‘
Why?’ was all I could ask
as I held out my arms.

‘
We don’t know why,’ she
answered.

‘
What did James mean by
–
one of us
?’ I
sniffled.

‘
I don’t want you to upset
yourself again. So you must promise to try to stay
calm.’

‘
Tell me,’ I
pleaded.

‘
If James or I were to do
the same thing, to cut ourselves, our body would quickly heal...
just as your body did last night. Apparently you are one of us, my
dear... Immortal.’

‘
Immortal?’ I
whispered.

‘
We don’t get sick, our
wounds heal, and we stopped aging a long time ago. Does that
frighten you?’ she asked with concern.

‘
No, it more... confuses
me. How do you know I am ... Immortal too?’

‘
Well, James suspected so
when you came into the clinic the first time. There were trace
markings of a bruise and he thought there might have been a
fracture from the baseball hitting you. But you insisted you were
fine. The knife wounds to your wrists healing over and over and
over again. That, my dear, is a clear indication. Only time will
tell, but my guess is that you will stay twenty
forever.’

‘
But I don’t want to... I
want Roger,’ I sobbed.

‘
You have us now dear,
forever.’ Catherine promised.”

I finished my story. What had happened to me
since that moment seemed unimportant right now. Link wanted to know
what I was and that was the simplest explanation.

“
Charity,” he said
aloud.

“
Yes, Charity is my given
name. My parents said I was a gift from God, his charity to
them.”

“
That suits you much better
than Emily,” he half smiled.

“
Yeah, I’m not a big fan of
that one. Catherine picked it out,” I admitted.

“
Catherine and James... not
Rachel and Jason?”

“
We need to switch names,
security reasons,” I offered.

“
You heal yourself,” he was
stuck on half statements, still trying to absorb all the
information I had thrown out there.

“
Yes, my body heals itself.
Blood stops flowing, open wounds close on their own, bones set and
heal. It was broken by the way, my ankle,” I explained.

“
I’m glad I wasn’t crazy on
that one,” he smiled in return.

“
Why aren’t you ordering me
out of here, saying I’m the devil, calling the police, the
government, whatever?” I asked him. “Our biggest fear is being
discovered.”

“
You, whatever you are, you
are a link to my past. You are a part of my history, a part of me.
I told you before... I don’t think I’d ever be able to stay away
from you.”

“
I probably should have
tried harder to keep you away. Look what I’ve gone and done now.
I’ve exposed us all,” I worried, wringing my hands
together.

“
I’m not running to the
press, or to the government. Don’t worry about that,” he said as he
turned my face to look in my eyes. “So you’re not seventeen, you’re
twenty, that makes me feel a bit better.”

“
Closer to ninety, how does
that make you feel?”

“
Wow, I hadn’t thought of
it that way.”

“
I’m sure there are a lot
of things we haven’t thought about. We need to talk to James and
Catherine. I need to let them know what I’ve done.” My voice
strained as I thought of how they might react when they heard of my
betrayal.

“
I’ll be there with you.
We’ll tell them together.” Link held my hand, trying to reassure
me.