Saint Anne of Beaumont

The golden glow of the hearth spread across the tiled room bringing warmth and the sharp scent of scorched wood to the nose. The kitchen stretched in a long rectangle, each sidelined with a mix of century-old stone ovens and wifi-enabled appliances. The old and the new coexisting like old tales and new discoveries. A small dot of glowing ember lept from the shadows cast across space and caught his eye. A cigarette, perhaps? One that she always had with her as though they were a lifeline. On the furthest end of the room, she sat, next to the french doors that stood open letting the night air in. The doors led out to the beautiful garden that now sat shrouded in darkness. He knew he would find her here- staring into the flickering flame as if it held the secrets of existence or the solution to every problem. He hoped that he would find those answers as well but was unsure if he would find them in the fire or her burning eyes. He stepped over the threshold and into the kitchen as quietly as he could. Even as he entered she did not turn to look, instead she tapped at her cigarette and let the ash float to the floor. He sought her out because he knew her wisdom was beyond anything he hoped to gain in his lifetime. She blew smoke and finally glanced his way.

“Are you going to stand in the doorway all night or come in?”

“Mademoiselle,” he started.

“Anne, my dear,” she responded.

“Anne…” He was nervous. “Today you said you could tell me more. More about how to cope with who we are.”

“I did, young one, and I meant it. But are you sure you have the time,” she asked with a chuckle.

“I’ve had lots of sleepless nights these days, so I have time.”

“The difference between you and I is that I was born this way. But that is where the difference ends.”

There are many things that I don’t remember and others that I can only recall because I read them in my writings from that time. I do recall that I was born to a king and queen who were like me. Brothers and sisters that looked like me and spoke the same language. And the river! The river was life itself in those times, we began and ended our days on its banks. Most of my memory of that time comes in snippets- the sun warming my skin and sand between my toes- but one day stands out among the rest.

My mother called us from the river that evening when the sun had begun to set. I had taken the children to play along the banks in the early afternoon after the atmosphere in the palace had become tense. My father, our king, had ushered his generals into the Hall of Harmony with my mother by his side. Something was amiss- I knew that with certainty- and my parents were trying desperately to contain it. We were fed and put to bed like any other night, our aunt came to our sides to kiss us and give us the blessing of Isis. I was naive then and believed that the darkness of the halls and the familiar sound of the night patrol nearby meant all was well. I was awoken a few hours later by my subconscious screaming that something was not right. I opened my eyes and sat up immediately. My heart thumped against my chest as if I had paddled up the river and back but everything was silent: the dark halls, the courtyard, everything. The children were still sleeping so for a moment I brushed it off as a night terror.

A chill took over me as I realized what had awoken me. There were no sounds, at all. I did not sense the night guard, no dogs yipping in the distance, nothing. I then made the biggest mistake of my life; I decided I would go see where the night guard had disappeared to. At ten, I knew my father would disapprove of them being away from their posts. I walked out of the sleeping chambers and into the shadowed hallway, heading towards the courtyard of the palace. The stone floors chilled my feet as I walked and the hairs on my neck stood- all warnings signs to run, hide, and keep quiet- and I began to hesitate. It was too late of course. I had finally realized what it was I was looking at. Several of our regular night guards were strewn lifelessly across the courtyard walkway. The white stone was painted a hideous shade of reddish-brown like the ochre mother used to paint our skin. There was so much of it and the entire courtyard stank of iron and death. The shriek had escaped my lungs and burst from my lips before I even thought to stop it.

At the sound, a man that looked to be from far downriver appeared on the walkway. His nose and mouth were covered in sticky reddish stains and I froze, too afraid to run but too afraid to stay. When he caught sight of me, his face contorted into a vile grin- a lion locked onto its prey- and he sprang towards me. I turned and with more strength, than I ever imagined I could muster, my legs carried me back towards my siblings that were still asleep. I ran without crying or screaming although I could feel every heated breath of the madman that pursued me on my back. The last thing I can recall is the entrance to the sleeping chamber before me, then it all faded away. What I do remember of the year that followed is that I woke from a coma later to learn that my entire family had died that day. It had been a massacre. The king from downriver had taken me in and provided me with all the care I needed. Medicine, food, shelter, and clothing. My recovery took months and I was able to walk again but my grief had devoured my heart. It was around this time that I began keeping notes on my experiences.

I stayed with them for a few years before the king began to talk about my future. I was presented with three choices: the first of which was accepting my parents’ inheritance and leaving under my own free will; the second choice was to return to my home and lead as a part of the King’s kingdom; lastly, I could become an official part of the kings family by marrying his nephew and one day become a queen. The answer was simple. I did not want to leave on my own at such a young age and the mere thought of stepping foot back into my childhood home caused me anguish. The solution was option 3: marry the king’s nephew and gain security for the rest of my life. The day I told the king I would marry his nephew was the first time I smiled since the slaughter of my family. The celebration was arranged the entire month before the harvest and the king prepared everything in the place of my father and mother. I felt like the goddess Isis had seen my suffering and had finally smiled upon me.

The last night of the wedding celebration was full of wine and laughter and this carried us to our wedding chamber in high spirits. I gazed up to see my groom’s handsome face for the first time and it was as if death had tightened his calloused grip around my throat. My husband’s face reminded me of what I had escaped years ago. It reminded me that I was on borrowed time and that I was undeserving. I saw the sticky, crimson-splattered face in the light of the moon, the cold stone walkways soaked in red ochre, the metallic stench of blood everywhere. I opened my mouth to scream as this grinning monster sprang towards me but bile rushed from deep within me. The thick liquid splattering across my feet brought me out of my waking nightmare and I looked up again, begging Amun to prove me wrong. This man, this monster, that stood before me was the same one that had haunted my dreams and hidden in dark corners for the past five years. He was the epitome of all things heinous and vile. Isis had not smiled upon me- she had turned her back to me entirely.

He asked me how I had survived for so long but back then I didn’t know what he meant. Now I know that from the night of the massacre I had been changed. When I thought I was dead, I had been. My innocence had been snatched away but so had my humanity- that monster had taken my life from me and turned me into something else. I attempted to escape but he was much larger and stronger than I, which meant I didn’t stand a chance. He threw me to the ground and the only sound that made it through the ringing of my ears was his awful laughter. I was in severe pain and could barely breathe but when I felt his hands on me... I couldn't bear it. I bit into his neck, drawing blood, and my vision faded into darkness, and then it was over. I had finally killed the monster from my dreams.

“What happened next,” the young man asked after my pause, barely hiding his curiosity.

“I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember?” His curiosity melted into confusion.

“I lost myself that night.”

“I apologize, please continue,” he said, relaxing back into the chair he had pulled from the kitchen table.

I don’t remember the details of those years- centuries in fact- because I had lost everything. There was nothing to remember. I most likely fled the kingdom to escape the wrath of the King for murdering his nephew but after that, I was a lost soul. I gave in to the instincts that now flooded my body because I had no teacher to show me the alternative. I fed, slept, and fed again. I didn’t wake from that haze for a long time. When I did come to understand what I had become, I found myself looking into the eyes of a human child. I saw the beast that I was reflected in that child’s big eyes and I couldn’t go another day living as carelessly as I had been. Unfortunately, I could remember the things I had done during that time. Not the details, but I remember the faces, their screams.

Whenever I could sleep, broken memories would visit me as nightmares. So I decided that I would pay back what I could for as long as I could. I became a midwife and learned to heal the sick, although most of my work was illegal with me being a woman. I helped mothers and their children. I helped prostitutes who were neglected by society and had nowhere else to find help. All in the name of repaying a debt that could never be paid. I was fully devoted to my mission. All the while I hid my true self from them, the humans. They would never understand what I am and I would only end up being stoned as a woman possessed. As the years flowed by, disagreements between the kingdoms and tribes brought on bloody conflicts, so I helped heal those wounded in battle. But, seeing death every single day began to take a toll on me. It reminded me of my haze too much. So I moved on.

It wasn’t until I found myself stepping off of a ship onto familiar soil did I find my life's purpose. I decided to head back to my homeland, anyone that had searched for me was surely dead by now. I returned to the kingdom down the river and marveled at its size. So much had changed in all the time I had wandered the earth. There were fewer people that looked like me, many of them now fairer-skinned than before, which made sense in such a large trading hub. It was now drier and much of the land was sand, but I could still feel the pulse of the river. It was along this river that I looked into the eyes of someone truly special. I had no business falling for a human, but what did I know then? Nothing of love.

She was called Khepri, the morning sun. I was a fool and she was my light. Her skin was the color of burnished clay, kissed by the sun. Her eyes held the depths of the universe in them. Her voice was like the call of a Hoopoe bird, a bright soprano; when she spoke I was drawn to her like a moth to a flame. She was mother earth and I was a meteorite at the mercy of her gravitational pull, flying towards my death but unable to prevent it. We were together for many years; the slowest years of my life. Khepri loved children and we had many- abandoned, orphaned, disabled - we sheltered them all. She cared for the children selflessly, I loved them too, but no one could shine as bright as she did in my eyes. Even now, sadly, I must read my journals just to recall their names; it has been centuries since their deaths, after all. Yet, my one love shines like the sun in my memory. Seared into my memory for an eternity.

I knew the time would come that I would need to let her go but after half of a century, I was no closer to accepting that fact. A plague afflicted our kingdom one summer, it struck the children first, and there was panic throughout the community. The illness brought on fever, sores, and caused the victims pain whenever they tried to move. Initially, Khepri was happy to stay home and care for our family while I assisted the physicians in caring for children in our community. That all changed one day when I arrived home and saw that our youngest had come down with the same fever as the other children. I pleaded for her to leave their care to me and the physicians since we were trained in medicine and even less likely to become sick, but she wouldn’t have it. When I was away she fed them and bathed them. She even tried to lower their fevers and make them more comfortable with home-brewed teas. She was amazing in that way, smart, determined, and resilient.

One particularly difficult day, one full of deaths and mass burials, I arrived home to find that Khepri was feverish. Her eyes had lost their luster and I knew what it could mean if we didn’t act swiftly. I put her to bed and devoted my time to her and the children, barely sleeping, but in a matter of days, like the blink of an eye, she was gone. She just slipped away while she slept in my arms. I felt when her heart ceased to beat in her chest and the blood stilled in her veins. The life drained from her like the light leaves with the setting sun. It tore me apart so much that there were many times that I thought I would regress into the haze. Our children kept me tethered to consciousness because they needed me and I needed them. Reading my journal memories of them still brings me back to earth on bad days.

Silence filled the room once more as she trailed off, seemingly lost in thought.

“I am so sorry,” her quest said. “I never knew you suffered such loss.”

Anne gazed at his melancholic expression.

“You know, most of the myths surrounding our kind are just that, myths. We aren’t numb, heartless creatures like some would like to believe. Our hearts can break just like any human and the wounds take longer to heal. I learned that lesson after that day, that all my years would add up to nothing in the face of my grief.”

“It seems better to not open up to love.”

“Hmm, possibly. But it that is a very human reaction to loss.”

“I apologize… I haven’t shed that way of thinking yet.”

“Yes, you are a newborn in the grand scheme of things,” she said. “It would seem like it is better to close yourself off and protect your soul from being crushed by emotions. When my family was massacred I died and remained dead for centuries. Even when I worked to repay my debt to humanity, I was still but a walking corpse. It wasn’t until I met Khepri that I was able to live again. I was able to taste the sweetness of fresh air and savor the beauty that nature so effortlessly produced. All because I was able to look into her eyes each morning and see the world through a new perspective. I live now in a way that I would call normal, happy even. This would have never been possible if I had not surrendered to life the way I did,” She grasped his hand firmly and looked directly into his eyes.

“But you hurt, even to this day, madame… I don’t understand,” he replied in a desperate voice. The voice of someone already caught in the web of the exact situation they are trying to avoid.

“You will, my dear. First, you will fight and struggle; you will be afraid of having so little control. But after you expend your will to fight, you will realize it is your contention that is causing your agony. Surrender yourself to the current of fate so that it can carry you to your destiny, be that good or bad.”

He had not received any clear advice, no right or wrong answer to his questions, but felt he had learned something profound from her; Anne, the ancient matriarch of his people. Her words hung heavily in the room like a dense fog, swirling around the ceiling, and ringing in his ears with the beautiful and awful truth. It came to rest on his shoulders like a new and lighter burden than his last. It absorbed into the deepest recesses of his mind. He considered his own consensual conversion and how it differed from hers so drastically and of his lover who waited for him back in their room. The room fell into complete silence around them and they sat until the fire died back to red embers and the night melted into the blues and oranges of the coming dawn.