The thing about being as old as I am is that oft-times you get lost in your own thoughts and memories. Especially memories. You accumulate a great many over such a long period, of course. Not all of them pleasant. In fact, hardly any of them are terribly pleasant.

That's what unfair about life: you remember all of the bad as easily as if it had just happened, while the good gets forgotten, or at least just doesn't seem as good a thing as it did back when it first occurred.

So when one starts to wander down that well-trodden Memory Lane, it can quickly become an uncomfortable place, if not a downright discomfiting one.

I was in Giles' home, or, I suppose I should just call it 'home' since I lived there too. So, I was at home, sitting on the sofa, a flannel blanket pulled around me in a comforting cocoon, a nice steaming mug of tea nearby, an open book, an old friend, Anne of Green Gables open on my lap.

I blame L.M. Montgomery for my lapse back into memories. She has a way of doing that to me, she's just too good at capturing the whimsy of childhood, when fantasy isn't just fantasy to us, but real. In that moment at least, it's real.

Not to mention I've yet to come across someone who can paint such beautiful word-portraits when describing scenery. I'm always teleported away, every time.

I made a special journey up to Prince Edward Island, just to walk where Anne would have, had she existed. It was one of my most pleasant memories.

I went during autumn and when I took to the forest, the leaves were just about ready to start falling (and a good many of them had) but those that remained were just…breathtaking. I'd never known a brighter, glowing orange than what I saw there, before or since.

I keep meaning to go back, but I always worry that it's changed too much. That's what hurts, you know, having these precious gems of memory about a certain place, a certain person, or how something used to be, and then when you go back to it, whatever it is, and it's changed, it's a bit difficult to not let that tarnish the precious memory you do have.

No doubt where I visited has now been turned into a little housing community, or there's a town now where the beautiful, glowing trees used to be.

Good heavens, that was quite a bit of digressing, wasn't it?

Regardless, I was just sitting there, staring at the floor. In my mind I was trekking through those forests again, feeling insanely free and happy, laughing at how wonderful it all was, and for once in my life actually feeling…young. Even though I had been over 400 years old at the time.

I had never ever gotten a chance to feel young, you know. My mother had seen to that, and my father, too, I suppose. I was never allowed to forget him as long as she lived. And after she died, as well. She'd done too good a job of making sure I knew exactly what I was.

For some reason I had been feeling particularly nostalgic over the past week or so, it was very odd.

I had been so lost in that memory, in fact that I actually jumped a bit when Giles poked me in the shoulder.

"Penny for your thoughts?" he joked. I smiled up at him and rubbed my eyes, as though waking up from being asleep.

"Nothing, really." I said, "Just the musings of an old woman."

Giles gave a chuckle and sat down in an armchair across from me.

"Your eyes were positively sparkling," he said, "and you're smiling more than I've seen you do in a while." He smiled wider and cocked his head a bit, "What were you thinking about?" He even set aside his well-worn copy of the Aenid by Virgil.

"Just some of my travels," I answered, stretching idly back on the sofa and snuggling down in my blanket. It was really too warm to be wrapped up in a blanket, but the thing about being dead is you stay cold a lot of the time.

"Ah, yes," Giles said, his eyes lighting up. I knew what that meant.

"No," I said, laughing even as I said it, "no, no, I already told you it's a bad idea."
"It's a wonderful idea!" he replied, "There's never been a memoir written by a vampire before, or a half-vampire. In fact there's so little written about half-vampires that it would be even more of a novelty."

I rolled my eyes. He'd been pestering me lately about giving a little thought to maybe writing down stories of my travels. Essentially, he wanted me to write an autobiography, but I wasn't at all convinced it was a good idea.

Who'd believe it? People in our sort of circle, perhaps, but I didn't think it was a good idea. And the thought of someone reading about my life, about my travels, about the people I'd loved and lost, or the people I'd hated and left; it was uncomfortable for me.

But Giles wouldn't leave it alone.

I pointed out to him once again, that no one would believe it. He dismissed it with a wave of his hand.

"It'd be an intriguing read, regardless of who is convinced of its authenticity." He answered. I played with the edges of my blanket and shook my head.

He humphed, an impatient noise in his throat, but he let the subject drop. I suppose he thought that he'd wear me down slowly to accept the idea. We'd have to see about that.

"So which adventure was it this time?" he asked.

I told him about my little excursion to P.E.I.

All in all, nothing much had really happened while I was there. I walked around, enjoyed the scenery, reveled in all the scents and just the sheer beauty of it, and then had reluctantly gone on my way.

If I could have come to the end of my life there, I would have died happy.

I didn't tell Giles that part.

Nevertheless, he looked intrigued and even a little charmed at the descriptions I gave, and even though it was a short, rather uneventful story, he seemed to enjoy it.

"I've never been," he said, "it sounds lovely. We should go again sometime."

"I've thought about it," I admitted, "but I don't know if I want to risk it."

"I think anyone who could recognized you from back then is probably dead by now." He said, trying to be helpful. I smirked and gave him a baleful look and he caught his mistake.

"Ah," he murmured, "yes, that was rather morbid, wasn't it?"

"I used to eat people," I reminded him, "morbidity is nothing novel to me, dear-heart."

He flushed at the mention of my…rather dark past. His eyebrows knit together for a moment as he thought and a knot formed in my stomach. I had a feeling I knew what he was about to ask, and I didn't want him to. I didn't want to talk about it.

"How did your mother keep you fed?" he asked, "Did she ever consider the fact that you needed blood?"

I nodded.

"She seldom forgot," I answered, "but when I was a small child and couldn't go out on my own, she employed a mute servant to acquire blood from either fresh corpses, or livestock, and bring it to her. She never said what she needed it for, and that was before she let me be seen so there's no telling what the locals thought about it."

His frown deepened and he shifted nervously.

He wanted to inquire further, but he was too polite to pry, bless him.

I smiled gently and gave an encouraging laugh to let him know that I wasn't upset with him. He hadn't asked the question I'd feared he would so things were going well.

"If you're curious about anything, do ask." I told him, "We've been through enough together that I think it won't hurt our friendship. I've never really had the opportunity to discuss it with anyone for a century or two, so it would be a welcome diversion, if ever you get the notion."

"You're too kind," he murmured, "but, I think that's enough for now."

He looked at his wristwatch, "I'd better go get some sleep," he added, "we're having that parent/teacher meeting tomorrow and I need to be rested to deal with the principal."

I smirked. Almost ever since the new principal had arrived, every night Giles would come home with a rant or at least a complaint about him. It was amusing when I wasn't trying to be gravely sympathetic.

He bid me goodnight, took his Ovid with him, and left me to my thoughts once again.

Only now I was in a darker mood than before, and my memories didn't return to the lovely Eden of Prince Edward Island, instead it wandered to the friends I'd had before. I missed them all. I missed them dearly.

All gone now, and for most of them I didn't even know where they were buried.

I always felt sorry that I hadn't gotten to say goodbye to most of them. As ever, I just faded out of their lives as subtly as I faded in.

I couldn't help but wonder if they'd been hurt by my disappearance. Generally I'd tried to just quietly fade out of their lives when I knew I had to go. Not seeing them as much, then hardly ever, then not at all. I'd never gone to see how they were handling it, nor how the rest of their lives had fared.

No, I take that back. There was one I accidentally ran into again, but, the young man I had known was gone. Instead of those lively green eyes I'd come to know and love, they were dulled, sunk into a wrinkled, pallid face beset with age spots, a face twisted from a stroke. Sad eyes, eyes that passed right through you, eyes already looking for the Other Side.

That had been…quite a shock.

He hadn't recognized me. Indeed I didn't think he'd even seen me.

That was the only time that had ever happened, however.

The world is so strange. In so many ways it's a huge place, and in other ways so very small.

It's easy to disappear, and stay disappeared.

I frowned. I hadn't always been the one to disappear, however. There was one, one who disappeared before I could.

I suddenly felt colder and curled my legs into my chest.

Yes, in many ways it is a frighteningly big world, and it is frighteningly easy to disappear without a trace.

Whether you want to or not.