Chapter 2
Here, on the coast, Mary finds herself settling down properly.
So many from her family seem to have found their way here. Remus and James are fishermen in this life. And wherever James is, Sirius and Regulus are not far off. She finds them working at a tomato farm down the road.
Mary isn’t sure she has someone like that. Yes, they all find each other…but they all leave too. What James and Sirius are is special, and Mary tries every day not to be jealous of it.
Remus fits right in with them, almost like a soul James had collected along the way.
She opens a pottery shop, rents the apartment above it. Life is slow, and times are prosperous. She uses magic frivolously, for sweeter fruits and warmer campfires. They have them often, the six of them. Campfires that last until their eyes are droopy, and until James is retelling the story of when Remus had to untangle him from his own fishnet over and over again. She tells stories too, and not once do they question how she could possibly live a life so grand for someone so young.
The first cold night of the season, Mary has a nightmare.
Pandora.
The woods.
The marketplace centuries later.
Innocent blood on both their hands.
“In this life you choose,” a strange voice echos. It sounds suspiciously like Dorcas, “Who you are. What you become. It’s a choice, Mary.” She’s in the field by the cottage they shared. It’s burning to the ground as poppies grow up Mary's legs, keeping her from running forward. From saving the life she lived inside it.
“They won’t let me,” she screams into the wind. “I can’t.” Nobody responds, and Mary continues to fight the vines now crawling up her arms, now pulling her down, dragging her brutally into the earth.
She fights the thorns pressing into her skin, the flowers maddening brush against her throat. Claws at the mud, the grass and the roots of trees. She breathes it in and chokes on it, still thrashing. But the thing about nature is it doesn’t care if you’re ready. It doesn’t care if you’re still fighting.
Mary has lived through typhoons and hurricanes, floods and forest fires that leave nothing but ash. She’s survived nights that turned her blood to ice, and earthquakes that levelled civilizations. If nature itself wills her survival, Mary is in no position to bargain with it.
It’s Marlene who shakes her awake, calling her name and ripping her out of that place. Through the darkness she can see tight concern on the other woman's face but Mary just reaches back, gripping her tight as sobs wrack her body. There’s no room in her to explain, and though Marlene's face asks questions, she doesn’t voice them aloud.
In the morning, Marlene makes breakfast–a rare event for her. She only tends to cook when she knows one of them is sad. It’s a disaster. She burns the eggs, and the toast, so it ends with Mary taking over and laughing while Marlene still tries to help, but all she ends up doing is spilling a jug of water all over herself and knocking over a jar of dried beans.
When they sit down to eat, Marlene just sighs and kicks her legs up on the chair across from her and gives Mary the look.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Mary states, digging into her now perfectly cooked eggs.
“You have to talk about it.”
Mary narrows her eyes in response, “why?”
“Because,” Marlene throws her hands up, “it’s not good to bottle up feelings.”
“Really? I didn’t know that.”
“Okay, fine. You should talk to me because I’m your friend and I care about you.” For that, Mary gives her a small smile.
“It’s a long story, and…it’s not a particularly easy one.”
Marlene just gives her a grin, and Mary can’t help the flutter in her chest at the sight of it. “Try me.”
“Well,” Mary starts. She considers it. She really does. It can’t be avoided forever, not if she wants this life to be honest–which she does. She so desperately wants to live an honest life. But she’s not quite ready for it yet. “It was about your cooking.”
Marlene snorts, “I’m not that bad!”
“James literally used to bring you meals before you moved in with me so you wouldn’t burn your house down.”
“Okay, fine,” Marlene grins, cutting into her omelet with a smile on her face. “I’m a shit cook.”
Remus is the first one she tells, which is as much a surprise to her as it was to him. He makes a sly comment while Mary is showing him how to make pottery. How her skin never seems to wrinkle despite the time that’s passed and the work she does. She just sort of blurts it out after that.
“I was cursed.”
He stares at her for a long moment. “Oh?”
“With immortality. That’s why I don’t age. I’ve met you before actually, in a past life.” He blinks, staring at her like she’s just pulled a cat out of her ear. “I stole your wallet.”
“Well,” he says after a pause just a second too long. “I must have deserved it then.” He’s able to keep a straight face through it but they both burst into laughter the moment they meet eyes.
“Really though,” Remus chuckles, a big grin on his face. “What the fuck?”
“You were a lion fighter,” she goes on grinning.
“Of course I was,” he stops pushing on the lever that pushes the potter's wheel around and just looks at her. “It would explain a lot, like why you can read Shakespeare so well.”
“He was a dear friend of mine,” she says seriously.
“You–” he narrows his eyes at her. “I don’t believe you.”
“Unfortunately not,” she sighs, “I did see one of his plays live though, it was beautiful.”
“I need a drink,” he sighs, wiping his hands on a rag. “You?”
Mary smiles, standing to wash the clay off her hands. “Lead the way.”
Time keeps passing. Always too quickly, always with a price. The next winter gets so cold, the boys come stay with them. They light every candle, keep their wood stove burning day and night; laugh so hard the cold burns in their lungs, and through the pain it’s one of her favorite memories.
One particularly frigid night in January she wanders out to the porch with a mug of hot tea in her hands and a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Unexpectedly, she finds Regulus. He’s fiddling with a piece of wood about the size of a strawberry in one hand, and holds a small knife in the other.
“What are you making?” She calls, startling him out of whatever daydreams he’s found himself in. “And why are you doing it out here? It’s freezing.”
“It’s hard to make a birthday present for you in your own house,” he says dryly. “Don’t look, it’s not done yet.”
“It’s not my birthday,” she replies.
“I’m thinking ahead,” he says dryly.
“Well, I look forward to it.”
They watch the sun setting in silence for a while before Regulus speaks again. “Mary,” he starts carefully and she braces herself. “I wanted to ask, before you moved here, had we…met anywhere before?”
She furrows her brow and studies his expression. Regulus has always been good at hiding his true thoughts, and doesn’t disappoint with it now. “No,” she says surely. “Why?”
“I’ve had these dreams ever since I was a child. They’re strange, almost like memories. And–it’s just, I understand my brother being there, and James. I’ve known them my whole life. But…there’s you too, sometimes. When we met, I thought it was a trick of my mind, and I can’t piece it together.”
“That is strange,” Mary murmurs, smiling slightly. She knows him too well, and has lived through this conversation too many times to not recognize he already has the answer. “What pieces do you have?”
Realization dawns in his eyes, “I know you understood us too well having only just met us. And that it’s been five years yet you haven’t aged a day.”
“And?”
“I think you have met us before, but not in this lifetime. Not in my lifetime.”
“That would be something, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, I think it would.”
The stars are coming out now, and Mary excuses herself back inside. Regulus follows shortly after, and when she meets his eye he finally confesses that, yes, it is too cold out.
She challenges herself to do something she hasn’t done in centuries. Stay, by her own choice, until the bitter end. Grow with them in all ways but in age. Sit with them through the aches and pains of it. Grieve them, when the time comes.
And it does.
It always does.
Two years after Remus’ death, the last of her family, she spots two women on the beach. One with dark skin and hair tied with ribbons of all colors, and one with eyes like emeralds. Lily and Dorcas. Because of course they would find her in her time of need. Even if they don’t know why, she senses their pull to her.
Instead of a gift, it feels like a madness. There’s too much grief in her heart to watch them, and no warmth in sight. So, she leaves.
She goes into the woods with her jaw set and determination the only thing she’s made of. A long time ago, these woods shaped her. Witnessed her become what she is today. And it is where she will fall.