Let my thoughts come to you, when I am gone,
like the afterglow of sunset at the margin of starry silence.

From Stray Birds by Rabindranath Tagore

Eve could see the hotel she'd just been in, and she hoped that none of the customers she'd played against in the hotel's casino over the last few months didn't come in here to this internet café and see her. It wasn't as if she'd be easily recognisable, not in a simple shirt and black jeans and her hair loose and flowing around her shoulders. Certainly not with her face as it was now, unexposed and un-made-up. Still, she didn't want to take that risk.

Hopefully, though, she wouldn't take too long.

It was a rhythm Eve'd fallen into after the years of living this life. After every few towns, she'd stop at a library or an internet café or anywhere else she could access a computer and check on things. Occasionally, she would head to one of the flats she kept for the sake of having an address for the things she couldn't avoid having an address for and use a laptop there. She preferred the anonymous places though, the ones that would be hard to trace. Like this. But wherever she was, she didn't take too long, even with the use of attention-deflection spells that, by now, were as instinctive as breathing. Just enough to check that everything was as it should have been, and then to see what everyone else was up to.

It was this she was doing now.

It had taken a while, but Eve had managed to get across to Delilah that she wasn't returning to a 'normal' life ever, that she wouldn't be coming back the way Delilah wanted. It had taken a little compromise, one that she wasn't too happy about but by now that compromise had become just another rhythm in the background of her life. She'd given Delilah one of her email addresses, and set up a folder that all messages she sent went to, only reading them every so often. She never replied to any of those messages, but usually just before she left a town she sent a postcard, or a little note. By the time it'd reach Delilah, she'd be long gone from the place she sent it. Well on the way to wherever she was going next. She figured that would do, and sure enough Delilah no longer pleaded with her, pushed her to return with her optimistic claims that everything would be just fine if she did. It was nothing like the friendship they'd shared in those distant, dazzling days but it was enough.

It was enough.

Today, in amongst all the other emails she accumulated, there were four from Delilah across the past nine or ten months. Two of them were simply titled as 'hi', Del's usual choice of subject line, but the oldest and newest message were different. She stared at them for a moment, unblinking before taking a deep breath and clicking on the newest one, from a couple of weeks previously, the subject line of which was: meet Zoe.

The first thing she noticed was that this was a forwarded message, the original underneath and clearly addressed to most members of what had been called the 'core group' six years ago as well as a few people whose names Eve didn't recognise. Rather than reading the message directly addressed to her, she looked at this original email instead. Rather than a typed message it appeared to be an e-card of some sorts, dominated by an image of a tiny sleeping baby wrapped in multi-coloured blankets, wearing a pink sleepsuit and a tiny yellow hat with ducks on it. The picture was surrounded by illustrations of flowers and underneath in a curly font it said:

Welcome to the world, Zoe.
Wednesday 9th, Awakening Moon, Taiki 34: Current Era.
with love, Abel and Delilah (and the dogs, Pickle and Atalanta)

Even without that last line, she would have been able to tell just from the look of the baby that she belonged to Del-and not just from the pink hair. The newborn in the photograph looked almost identical to the baby photographs Eve remembered of Delilah, back when she'd see them hanging on the walls of the De Callaway house whenever she'd gone there for the many, many playdates they'd had. Zoe was clearly not just Delilah's child but her blood child. But with Abel? When had that happened?

Though she had never been a 'normal' person, she imagined that in a life where she still fit into the world, she would have known this already. They would have been at a café one day-Eve with black coffee, Delilah with some fruity, frothy thing-and she would have noticed Del's blushing and commanded tell me everything, c'mon, spill, finding it all mindless but not caring really, because it was Delilah's life. Delilah's love. She would've listened to it all even though these were not things that were truly important, she would have listened and still been happy for Delilah. Her Del.

She would have, wouldn't she?

Oh, pull yourself together, she scolded herself. Just find out what she has to say and get on with things. Taking a deep breath, she scrolled back up to read the actual message.

Evie, this is Zoe. She's tiny and perfect and everyone says she looks like me and she does, doesn't she? But her eyes, they're all Abel's and when she's awake she scowls whenever I take a picture. It's a shame, otherwise I'd have sent a picture of her smiling. A few days old and already she has the biggest, best smile. You'd love her. She'd love you.

We named her for you, did you know? Zoe means 'life' just like Eve does and there's some sagas of the Lesser Gods that used the name Zoe and that got translated into Kataru as Eve. I don't know why, that's Abel's thing. He was the one who thought of it after I said I wanted her to be named for you. But it's still her own name and it fits because she completes it, this love and life we're building for ourselves. She completes it. And like I said, you'd love each other.

Del

It was then she noticed the email had an attachment, and she selected 'preview' underneath the paperclip symbol, which then showed her a photograph of the same baby from the birth announcements, with a knitted floral headband instead of a hat, lying in a small crib and, just as Delilah said, scowling up at whoever was taking the photograph. Blinking, Eve hauled her bag from where she had it tucked under the computer desk between her feet and reached into the secret compartment to find the photograph and she held it to the screen, comparing the baby face to the faces of Abel and Delilah and something hurt in that place under her heart, in a way she couldn't ignore.

Even in the old days, when she'd at least vaguely played at normal, when she'd at least fitted into the world she'd never had any interest in babies. It had always been Delilah who carted around baby dolls or stuffed toys swaddled in blankets back in their hazy, hand-in-hand childhood. Delilah who had made lists and lists of baby names and cooed at younger children in the street. Eve had been the one who'd wanted to escape, to grow up, up and away from being a child to the gritty glamour of adulthood. The one who'd aspired to being dangerous and extraordinary. She would never have wanted to even be an aunt or a godmother or anything like that, let alone a mother. She had sneered at the thought.

But, I can still be happy for her from a distance, can't I?

Certainly, Delilah was probably right in that if she met Zoe that she probably would love her, in a way that would be the exception to everything that made Eve who she was. Yes, she still sneered at the thought of settling into such domesticity but she couldn't where Zoe was concerned, because Zoe was pretty much everything that Delilah had wanted. And clearly, Abel was too. Gods, when did that happen? She wondered to herself. Closing the attachment preview and then the message, she quickly tucked the photo away and shoved the bag back down before going to the first message.

This one's subject line was: I wanted you to be the first to know, dated from near the end of the previous year's Harvest Moon.

Lots of news, all in one go this time, Eve read, imagining the words spoken in Delilah's voice. The first is that I met with Abel again, because of Quiet and Hiraga's wedding and well…now we're together. It's sort of a sudden thing but also deliberate. We're going to work at it, you see. Build love up rather than falling in it and…well, it's built pretty high already, I'd say.

We're having a child.

Yes, a blood child. I'm pregnant, and if all goes well the child will be born in the New Year. We'll be telling everyone else today or in the next few days and I'm going to move in with Abel and the dogs while we save up for a proper place and I'm so excited. But I wanted you to be the first to know, so I'm up early, writing this message and wondering if today will be the day you'll check your messages. It's okay if you're not though because either way, you're still the first person apart from the two of us who has been told.

Remembering having checked her emails around the time Delilah had forwarded her information about that wedding, Eve knew that it had been the previous Crane Moon, which made her raise an eyebrow. That…really is fast. She didn't know quite what to make of that but as she read the two 'hi' messages, with all the little mundane-life details that Delilah put in describing her life with Abel and her progressing pregnancy, the hurt under her heart didn't subside. It hadn't hurt this much since those days, since that specific day in the field with her scythe held up against Professor Snow's throat.

It persisted as she opened up social media and opened up the account she used to lurk and watch those of Delilah and the 'core group' and scrolled through the many photographs that Delilah had taken documenting her life. Those with Abel in them were all candids, because in all of them he was too busy either looking at Delilah as if she was the world to notice he was being photographed. The newest photographs showed that same patient, admiring devotion directed to Zoe. There were also a couple of him with his nose buried in a book or playing with two dogs-one large white one and a small frustrated looking black one-but those weren't important. His own social media was emptier, but the photographs he did have were all with Delilah and/or Zoe.

Despite it being social media, with all its limitations, Eve knew that what she was looking at was the realest, truest love she'd ever seen. She couldn't imagine what it'd feel like if she was in Delilah's life, witnessing it in-person and first hand. Not that there was any point in imagining it, though.

She gritted her teeth against the hurt, and noticed she was getting close to the end of her session. Too close-she'd run over the time she'd mentally allotted herself, and a swearword escaped from her as she closed her social media and her emails and cleared her history thoroughly before logging out. Pressing her hand to her chest, she reminded herself that nothing had changed. Nothing. She was not turning her back on her travelling, gambling lifestyle and settling down and pretending that she was 'normal', that she had any right to be a settled, ordinary person. Playing at normal would be the most boring game for her, even if she wanted to try it.

And so, nothing she was going to do would change.

She'd gather her things, leave this place and board the train she was supposed to be getting to take her to the next place. There, she'd find the casino and make the arrangements needed to make her mark and she'd do just that until she felt that she was getting too accustomed to this one venue, at which point the cycle would repeat. On the way to her next place though, she'd stop at a shop, but not for a postcard this time.

No. Because even as she silently repeated this to herself as she carried out these actions, she knew that there was a lie in there. One thing was changing, and it was because for all she was what she was now, there was one thing that the hurt beneath her heart just wouldn't let her ignore:

This time around, a postcard simply wouldn't be enough.

…

The store assaulted her senses with its onslaught of pastel colours and talcum-powder scents and cute faces. It occurred to her that this was exactly the sort of shop in which Del would have felt right at home. Eve most certainly didn't. Indeed, she didn't have the slightest clue about where she should start. She stared at the impossibly tiny clothes and shoes, the rows and rows of toys, and all the other things which babies apparently needed.

"Can I help you?"

Eve startled and almost crashed into a display of keepsake boxes. Clearly, she hadn't been making sure to keep up the attention-deflection spells and even worse, she hadn't been paying attention to her surroundings. But sensing that the shop girl who'd approached her was more than slightly concerned she took a deep breath and turned.

"I'm fine."

"Are you sure?" the girl asked. "If you don't mind me saying you seem…very confused."

Eve narrowed her eyes at the girl, studying her. Whenever she went to any shop for any reason, she tried to reduce her interactions as much as possible and she'd been planning to do the same here but in all honesty she was completely stumped. So she read the name off of the girl's tag and said:

"Well, Yue, maybe you can help me."

"Sure! What are you looking for?"

"Well, a friend of mine has recently had a baby," Eve started carefully. "But she…lives quite far away and I'm not going to be able to see her for a while. I wanted to send some gifts for her and the baby but I'm not really around other parents and kids so I don't know what to get."

"Ahhhh."

Eve was faintly irritated by the way the Yue considered her as if trying to work out what her life story could possibly be. She consoled herself with the fact that whatever it was Yue was thinking it wouldn't even be vaguely close. Because your life is an ordinary life, and mine is not. Thankfully, Yue's curiosity seemed only fleeting.

"Well, let me show you some options…" Yue thought for a moment. "Did you want a gift set, or maybe you could buy separate things and then buy a keepsake box to put them in? Oh, and did you want to personalise anything? For certain items we can do that for you right here and now, though it will take an hour."

"Personalising could be an option. Just show me some things."

And Yue, to her credit, did just that and seemed both incredibly perky and incredibly patient as Eve considered everything carefully and in the end found herself purchasing a few full baby outfits, blankets, a baby's dinner set and a small stuffed rabbit with a bow around its neck, all packed in a keepsake box carved with flowers. Since the box was one of the things that could get personalised in-store, she decided to do that and though Yue was clearly trying to make her sales look good by offering to take her to the gift-wrapping area afterwards Eve figured it would save her the trouble of doing so herself. The sooner she could get this sent and continue on her way, the better.

But she had to admit when it was all finally done, and she was presented with the large box wrapped oh-so-carefully in shimmery paper and bright pink ribbons with Delilah's new address neatly printed on the label in the corner, that it was perfect.

…

With the parcel sent, she moved on and barely thought about it. The year went by and she continued moving from town to town, a new mask and outfit colour scheme for each new casino she visited, making a killing and stirring up a cloud of rumour and intrigue to just the right level before leaving richer and more thrilled than she had been before. In one town, she even found a place she could gamble over board games and others not typically used for gambling purposes and although she avoided the chess, in all others she emerged victorious and left bafflement in her wake. In the downtime between gambles, she had drinks and philosophical conversations with strangers in shadowy bars, she visited museums and crashed parties and swam in the ocean and star-gazed. People's lives plodded on and revolved all around her and she existed on the edges of them, pushing at the boundaries in a way none of those people could even imagine. So far from normal, that she couldn't play at it even if she wanted to.

It was exactly as she liked it.

Nonetheless, one day, when she was sitting in a library that overlooked a park with cuttings taken from Professor Yanovi's tree, the colours of its blossoms defiant against the stark winter skies, there was one email that she lingered over after checking all her other assets were as they should be.

Delilah had not typed any words this time, not even in the subject line. Instead, she'd attached three photographs and so Eve opened them to see they were all of Zoe, still a baby but bigger now, more…formed as a person. In one, she chewed thoughtfully on the ear of a toy bunny. In another, she sat on Delilah's lap wearing a little purple dress and matching satin booties and in another she was lying on a starry blanket and batting at something out of the view of the photograph. She wasn't scowling in any of these pictures, but she wasn't looking at the camera either. Indeed, in the one where she was wearing the purple dress, she was looking up at Delilah, the two of them beaming at each other. Zoe was clearly a happy child, a happy child who was making use of the things that Eve had sent her.

And just as the first photographs she'd ever seen of Zoe hurt, so too did these ones. But this time it was different. Nothing had changed, and nothing would change. Delilah would remain where she was, in Fulbright with Abel and little Zoe while Eve continued on her whirlwind path, spinning further and further away from the possibility of 'normal'. It was not as if she wanted to go back to playing at that, even if she could. But she could still be happy from a distance. She could push at the boundaries and live as she wanted but she could still do this. Watch Zoe grow up through photographs and typed words, send her things, love from a distance. She could still do that, and so as she spun from city to city, that was what she'd do.

And that would be enough.

Note: The real life definition/origin of the name Zoe is that it's a Greek name meaning 'life' and that it has been used in Greek translations of the Bible as a translation of 'Eve' and used in this way by Hellenized Jews too.