Playing with Forever

Chapter 17: Sam's Truth, Part III

Again, not what I was expecting. "What, is it some sacred bathtub?" I scoffed, then realized that it wouldn't really surprise me if it was. Everything else was so weird—it was a serious possibility.

Sam shook his head. I hadn't realized how tired and sad his eyes had gotten over the progression of the night until right then. Something wasn't right, something was hard for him. Whatever was going on, he didn't like it. "No, it is nothing like that," he replied in the quiet, resigned voice he'd used since I awoke in his bed. "It is a long story."

To tell the truth, I was a little relieved that Sam didn't have a sacred bathtub in his shed. "I've got time," I said, wanting to know the real reason if the bathtub wasn't some crazy immortal-religious-cult thing.

"Wait," I cried out, interrupting myself. "Is all this a cult?"

Sam looked genuinely confused. "What?"

"It sounds like a cult," I reasoned.

He laughed despite his sad expression. "It is not a cult."

"A mafia?"

"No."

"That's what it sounds like, with the 'Council.'" I tried to put an ominous tone to it, but failed.

"It is not a cult, or a mafia, or even a religion," Sam said with a defeated look. "It is just a group of people who were unlucky enough to get involved  in immortality."

"Oh." That made me feel better. I didn't like the idea of Sam being in a cult. I realized I was sitting on the edge of my seat, ramrod straight, so I sat back and rolled my head to relieve some of the tension in my shoulders. "Um, okay. Keep going. Back to the bathtub."

His lips parted a few moments before the words came. "Do you remember me telling you that Emile was married to a woman called Jane?"

The one that died. Of course I remembered. "Yes."

"Jane wasn't immortal. When she found Emile, he explained it to her—"

"Did you throw knives at him?" I interrupted.

He smiled ruefully. "Yes."

"And how did she take it?"

He admitted, "She ran and would not speak to Emile for weeks."

"And you still tried it on me? Smart," I scoffed.

"Can I continue?" he said sternly. I made a little please proceed motion. "Now, this part is hard to explain, but there is a system to the way we immortals fall in love."

My eyebrows raised in surprised confusion. "A system?"

He waved his hand in a dismissive way, obviously not wanting to talk about it. "The basic idea is it is  a sort of one love per eternity thing. When Jane and Emile fell in love, they obviously did not want to be separated. It is a sort of destiny thing, immortals falling in love.

"Emile is immortal, but Jane was not. That did not work for either of them. They went to the Council, and after..." He hesitated, considering his words. "After consulting the system, they got permission to turn Jane immortal. In order to turn her, of course, they needed some of the water from the stream, the stream that started it all.

"After getting the permission necessary to get it, because the Council keeps close tabs on the water, Emile went to France and got water for Jane to drink. However, when he came back, he learned that she had died in a car accident while he was gone."

"Gosh, that sucks," I blurted out stupidly, completely lacking any tact. "I mean, that's just... terrible."

"Believe me, I know," Sam said solemnly. "So, in a fit of depression, Emile dumped the water in the bathtub, and it has been there ever since. The Council told Emile to not throw the water out, but to keep it. It rained the day I moved the bathtub out to the shed and a copious amount of rainwater got mixed in with it. So, it has been in the shed, undisturbed until you came along."

"Am I immortal now, too?" I whispered in fear. I, under no circumstances, wanted to live forever. Having seen and lived through the horrors life could hold, I never wanted to subject myself to a possibility of that happening forever.

"No," he said, and relief flushed through me. I would never want that for myself. "It seems as though you now get a choice of becoming immortal. I have heard stories of those who had washed in the stream, but not drank from it. The Council gave them a year, no less, no more, to decide if they would like to join the ranks of immortality. You fall in this camp now. Either Emile or I have to help you become immortal, however. We'd have to get you the water. Fresh water, not from the bathtub."

I let out a long breath, letting myself absorb all the information I'd been exposed to. "This is so weird," I said. I mean, I'd just been opened up to a whole new part of the universe. I felt like I was Harry Potter getting my letter to Hogwarts, finding out magic existed. Except I was having a lot less fun.

"I imagine it would be from your point of view," Sam agreed.

"So you and Emile are both immortal."

"Yes," he repeated patiently.

"Wait, but you said that you don't age like everybody else."

Automatically, he confirmed, "We do not."

That gave me pause, hesitancy leaking into me. "So how old are you, then?" My voice was no louder than a mouse in a church.

"Old."

"How old?"

"Old."

I sniffed in displeasure. "Fine. How old is Emile?"

"Old, but younger than me."

I was surprised. It seemed like a contradiction. "Wait, but Emile's older. Or at least he looks older. How did that happen?"

"It depends on when you drank the water. I was eighteen, Emile was twenty-four. But I drank it much earlier, chronologically, than Emile."

"Oh."

I was quiet for a while. Somehow, that was the part that I had the hardest time wrapping my mind around. I glanced over at Sam, and realized he could be like, a hundred years old. I involuntarily leaned away, not because it grossed me out, but because it was so strange. Then I saw the sorrow in him as he stared down at his hands, rubbing them together in a nervous habit. What had it been like to live for so long? Was he always as unhappy as he was now?

"Tell me how you were able to order me around earlier," I demanded.

Sam shook his head, sitting forward again. "No. No more tonight."

"Yes more!" I said.

"No. That is all for today. I am tired, and I need more time to think before we continue."

"So you can come up with lies?" I accused.

He looked at me seriously then. "No, I cannot lie to you now. You need all the information there is in order to make your decision."

"My decision... whether I want to be immortal or not."

He nodded.

"I don't want to."

His eyebrows lowered, but he nodded. "Still, you have one year, and you need to hear all the ins and outs of immortality." He sighed, eyes looking even more tired than before. "But not tonight."