Chapter 6

Decisions

I couldn't help but think about the farmer's family and their future. They were going to a better place and I hoped they would find happiness. I wondered if they would even make it to this California, if their journey would be difficult. It was odd to think about things like that but I was getting used to thinking and feeling odd things. The days of an impassive observer were over, that much was obvious. Now I was awake to the world and there was no going back to simply drifting along with my mind registering people, places, seasons but never fully taking them in.

I thought of the only thing that stirred any kind of emotion in me before, the visions of Jasper, and in particular the one of us in the diner. I seemed alive in it. May be this was something that had to happen for me to be ready to face him and truly know what was happening. Was all of this meant to be or was I making it happen? It was difficult to tell. I saw us together and knew we would be happy even when I knew painfully little about myself, so somehow it was all to come together regardless of what I did. Then again, I was different in that vision, not at all the Alice of even a week ago. I thought of Jasper and how whenever I saw him he was at a crossroads, deciding which course to take. It was as if the decisions he made then shaped the decisions he would make in the future. Just like the first vision I ever had came after I made my first decision to find out how I came to be at that cemetery all alone. It was all about decisions, wasn't it? The choices we made were the key to the puzzle of my visions. The constant desiccated wind seemed to be bringing clarity with it and it was exhilarating. My mind was racing, if I had a heartbeat it would probably be as loud as that of humans when they were agitated. How did I not see this before? As quickly as my mind worked it was amazing how obtuse I could be. Well, better late than never.

After a while I was able to calm down and thought some more of Jasper. So far his choices were directing his path, bringing him to the place where he would make that last decision I've seen – whether to stay with Maria or to go with Peter and Charlotte. He was choosing the path away from the coven and since he was alone when we met that path that would bring us together. I felt a sudden pang of fear – what if he decides to stay with Peter and Charlotte instead of coming to meet me? Then of course he wouldn't. He was on his way right now, except that he didn't know it yet.

I spent the day in the desert, thinking, planning, wondering, and only when the sun completely disappeared behind the horizon and I knew that if anyone were to see me I wouldn't attract more attention than any stranger in a place like this, I dared to enter the town. It was just as brown and dirty as everything else. It was a miracle anything at all grew here and people were able to survive. Then again, they weren't. The farmer was taking his family to California just like others have already done, judging by boarded up windows and doors.

Everything smelled of humans and I couldn't pretend I wasn't thirsty any more. There was no use. Even in the desolate emptiness, despite all the thinking and wondering, the thirst was always there, nudging me to come here, burning my throat and making my insides squeeze in anticipation. Finally being here made it only more blatantly obvious. As much as I felt adverse to killing humans now, with all their futures and plans and possibilities, none of that changed what I was and they were still my prey.

I listened to the small town night, hoping for someone evil, homeless or old and alone so that me taking them would at the very least not make a bit of difference for the life of this town. I stood in the shadows of an alley, listening hard, until I was finally rewarded.

On the other side of town an old man lay in his bed, coughing the most terrible cough I have ever heard. It sounded as if all of his insides were being torn at by it and if he coughed one more time it would all come up through his throat and spill out. The awful sound of lungs strained and phlegm ripping away and moving in clumps. I've heard it before, only that time it was a homeless woman coughing and it wasn't quite as horrible. I knew he was suffering and as I moved closer to his house I heard his whispers and the whispers of his neighbors in the apartment below him. They wished he would either get better or die because sleeping with him coughing all night was impossible. He wished he would die sooner rather than later. He coughed again, groaning in pain and spitting up what I could smell was blood.

"Please, God, take me already," he moaned.

I was not God by any stretch of the imagination but this was invitation enough. I scaled the wall and slid into his bedroom, taking in the scant furniture and the frail human on the narrow bed. The stench of urine and sweat seemed to have precipitated on every surface and I couldn't imagine laying here day after day, smelling it. His nurse was negligent, if he had one at all lately. I stood over him for a moment. I wanted him to know I was there but dared not speak. He opened his pale blue eyes for the last time and as they focused on my face a weak smile tugged at his shriveled lips.

"Thank you," he whispered.

Minutes later I carried his body into the desert, away from the town and buried him deeper than I've ever hidden any body. No one will be looking for him, not really, but I wanted to be thorough this time. For what it was worth.

Having leveled the last boulder with the ground I dusted my clothes of the reddish dirt and looked around. There was something familiar in this barren landscape. It was as if I've seen it before. Not this precisely, but something very similar. The memory I was trying to pinpoint didn't have a picture quality, so it wasn't something I may have noticed in a human's house, it was shimmery somehow. Of course! I was really beginning to doubt my intellect at this point. This vista reminded me of my memories of Jasper when he was with Maria, the same dry expanse of flat ground and not much else. I supposed it was possible that I was near the place where he was at some time in the past. I wondered what would happen if I were to meet her, or someone who knew him, if they would tell me why he left. Then again, he left, there must have been a reason and I imagined Maria wasn't all too happy to lose one of her leaders. May be looking for her wasn't such a good idea after all.

I was still curious and couldn't help but wonder what would happen if we came face to face. But what if I could find out? I closed my eyes and thought of her, remembering as much in detail about her as I could. Picturing myself in a place helped see my future, may be I could see hers. I recreated the long black hair, the porcelain skin, the feverish crimson eyes, the full lips and the high cheekbones. I thought of her in a desert unlike this one, putting all my effort into it and… I couldn't see anything. She wasn't coming alive, she just stood there against the backdrop of a black sky and flat red dirt, just a picture. Frustrated I gave up. This wasn't working. I was trying to see the future of a person I have never even met and I could not. It couldn't be that this only worked for me, I could see Jasper. Very infrequently, granted, but I could see him. It was possible that she simply wasn't alive any more, though I could not imagine what it would take to kill someone like me. I realized that regardless of whether I could meet her or not I wanted to continue west. Knowing that in his lifetime Jasper was in this part of the world and now I could be there too thrilled me. I could be closer to him, even if indirectly, and as curious as I was mere curiosity wasn't enough to search for someone with whom your soul mate was unhappy.

I looked at the lightening sky and realized that I'd better find shelter, otherwise the local farmers might be too tempted to find out what was sparkling out in the desert and it couldn't possibly end well for them. I could think about this decision later.