“I interact with the spirit world, and there are a lot of tricksters there. You can be tricked into trading your soul, or you can really fuck up and not be able to get the Horror back to the Below. A lot of things can go wrong. But again, I’ve been doing this for over two hundred years. I know what I’m doing.”
His comment about being older than he seems is starting to make a lot more sense.
“You’re telling me with a straight face that you’ve been alive for over two hundred years?”
“That’s right.”
“And you’re not going to die?”
“Correct.”
“Okay. Okay.” I’m trying to make sense of what he told me. “I don’t want to believe you, but like you said, after everything I’ve seen recently, I kind of do.”
“Believe me or don’t. Doesn’t matter. It is what it is.”
“Don’t you get lonely?”
I notice how he seems to flinch at my question.
“I used to,” he says after a brief pause. “Especially when I had to leave Samuel and Lucy. Obviously, a great deal of time has passed, and I’m mostly over it.”
“Mostly? What happened with them?”
“I stayed in touch and they visited me often. I was even with them on their deathbeds. The hardest moments of my life, saying goodbye to the two of them and the woman in New York. Same thing. She grew old, as humans do, and died.”
He’s somber as he gazes into his mug.
“I had hoped maybe somehow she’d be given the opportunity to be a Soul Chaser, but she died a natural death, an old, beautiful woman with a beautiful life behind her.”
“This sounds really fucking sad, Wilder.”
He nods, shifting his gaze out the window. “I suppose it is.”
“Everyone you get attached to or fall in love with will just grow old and die and there’s nothing you can do about that?”
“There is, but again, it hasn’t been applicable to me.”
“What do you mean?”
He waves me off, dismissing my question. “It wouldn’t make any sense to you. Let’s just say I haven’t had a reason to pursue it yet. In my opinion, it’s a selfish choice, and I’ve never felt it was the right thing to ask of another person.”
I nod, hearing the pain in his voice, and even though I want to ask more questions about this, I don’t. I can’t imagine the things he’s had to endure, being alive for so long and having feelings for people, then watching them fade away. It must have been so hard.
“What about your family? What happened to them?”
“We weren’t close, and I left home at an early age to strike out on my own. I was a bit of a disgrace to them.”
“Why?”
“Because of my sexuality. At that time, it was criminal. You would be cast out or even physically harmed. You could be arrested. It would ruin your life and your family name, so I had to keep it hidden, but I had some indiscretions that made it hard to hide the truth. My mother and father were not kind about it, and I decided that moving to a place where nobody knew me would be best. That’s how I ended up in Salem. It had a thriving industry, and I knew I could find work.”
“I know things aren’t perfect for queer people, but they’ve certainly come a long way.”
He nods, chuckling. “Yes, indeed. Now we’re mostly free to do what we want, and sure, there are still some obstacles in the way, but I have faith that the community will overcome them. Things will get better.”
“I believe that too.” I sip my coffee, just absorbing everything. “Thank you for telling me. I get the sense you don’t do that very often.”
“You’re right. I don’t normally have an opportunity to talk with my targets.”
