The Sacrifice

The Sacrifice











As I stood on the balcony overlooking the lake I could smell fall in the air. The breeze was cool and dry with the smell of burning leaves and cinnamon. It had been a year since my beloved had passed on. We were destined to be together, or so I thought.
  We met, as a lot of people do, by chance. I was researching an Egyptian project for a class I was taking and he was trying to find information about a dig going on at the base of the Sphinx. There was instant chemistry. It was like we had always known each other. The conversations were never awkward or lacking. We spent the first few months laughing and talking into the early morning hours, about anything and everything. He had been hurt, as had I, and we felt each others pain. It was so easy to connect with him. Naturally, we felt the need to move in together, so we did. Everything was so perfect. He would wake early and bring me my breakfast, a cup of coffee, along with a different type of flower every week. He would explain what type of flower it was and explain how its beauty could never compete with mine. Like I said, perfect. We had long walks through the forest, lounged in the boat on the lake, spent hours worshiping each other, we had the relationship ever woman hopes and dreams of. Until, I received a phone call one morning informing me that the person I was living with wasn’t who I thought he was. The caller went on to claim that the man, whom I loved with all of my being, didn't exist.
   I tried to wrap my brain around what I was hearing. I felt nauseous, confused, angry, and I wanted to know who this caller was and why they were trying to ruin the best thing that had ever happened to me. Before I could ask, the phone went dead. I looked at the phone as if I could see who had been on the other side and then threw it across the room. There was no way in hell I was going to believe what this person had just told me. The man I had been living with was dead and had died in 1923. He definitely wasn’t dead, I had been intimate with this man and knew he was real. But why would someone call me and tell me these lies? It had to be an old rival , trying to get back at him for something. I dismissed it as such and continued with my day. But that little seed of doubt played in the back of my mind, haunting me, taunting me all day.
  When he finally arrived back home I decided to tell him about this call and knew he would get such a laugh out of the nonsense, just as I had. Except he didn’t laugh. He stared at me with the saddest eyes I have ever seen. Eyes full of pain, looking at me, into me, staring through me. I was instantly afraid. I had never seen this before from the man that I loved, the perfect guy, the guy who said all the right things, did all the right things, and would never hurt me. I wondered why this call had sparked such pain in him. When I was able to talk I asked him. “Why do you look at me as though you are saying good-bye?” His reply was, “because, with the knowledge of who I am, it will be good-bye” The wind was knocked out of me, my blood ran cold. Why did he feel this was good-bye? We could work through anything. I was the woman who loved him more than life, who would never leave his side.
  He turned his back to me and walked into the bedroom. I stood motionless, frozen with fright, unable to move a muscle for fear of losing him. The man I loved, the man I trusted completely, who was he? He returned with a small box and placed it on the table. This, he explained, was the answer to who he really was. A box? I was so confused and hurt, my mind was racing out of control. I felt like I was going to faint, or vomit or both. He asked me to open the box and told me I would understand.
  I reached for the box with trembling hands, unsure what I was about to find, scared to look inside. What was in this box? I picked up the box and removed the lid. Inside were yellowing papers, old discolored pictures and a locket. I picked up the locket and looked inside. There I saw a small picture, faded with age, of a man and young woman cheek to cheek, smiling. The man was the same one I was standing before. I dropped the locket and started looking at the pictures. Most were pictures of him and the same lady in the locket. A few were of children and they looked like they were asleep. I was confused by all of this as you can imagine. I decided that the answer must lie within the paperwork. I started pulling paperwork out of the box. It was old and yellowed and very fragile. The first was a death record of a child, as was the second. Twins? What had happened to these children at such a young age? The next was some sort of contract. I looked puzzled and he begged me to read on. Written on this contract in horribly scrawled handwriting was my answer.
  The man I loved had given his soul for the lady in the lockets life. The children had died of Spanish influenza, the pictures were their death photos, and his wife had been at deaths door. In a fever induced fit of hopelessness he had promised to give his soul, his body, anything he had if his wife would just live. His screams had been answered immediately. A stranger in an old black hat knocked on his door and offered him his desires. The condition was that he sign away his soul and body to be used however the stranger saw fit. In his desperation he had agreed, not knowing exactly what he was doing. He had been cursed to walk the earth, alone, the puppet of the stranger, until he tired of playing with him. He explained to me that he thought when we met that somehow the curse had been lifted. He had been happy, in love, something he hadn’t been able to feel in years.
  I was speechless. My life as I had come to know it had been turned upside down and inside out. I couldn't believe what I had heard. I broke down in tears and slid to the floor. Someone please wake me. I had to be dreaming. He knelt beside me and explained that the call had to be from the stranger that had gave him the deal. He had grown bored with my beloved being alone and decided to toy with him a little before releasing him from this existence. I looked up through tear filled eyes to see my beloveds face wither before my eyes. His beautiful brown hair turned white, his gorgeous green eyes sunk into his head, and his once fit body shrunk within his clothes and became frail. He looked at me through blood shot eyes and whispered, “at least I got to know love again before I died. Thank you.” As I sat and stared at him I started to notice fine beams of blue light start to radiate from his paper-like skin. He stood on wobbly legs and started to smile. He looked down at me and said, “ The curse has been lifted, My soul is free. I will stand in wait for you, my love...until the end of eternity.” I sat and watched the small blue beams of light became larger and more numerous until he was just a shower of blue sparks. And then he was gone.
  I started investigating the lady in the locket a few weeks later and was sickened to learn that just a few years after being saved by my beloveds sacrifice, she had been murdered in the street and the killer was never found. There were reports that people had seen a stranger walking around that day. A tall man, wearing an old black hat, a dark trench coat, and wearing a look upon his face of joyful death. So here I stand, with my morning cup, the pain as raw as it was a year ago, looking at the lake. What is that, there, laying on the handrail? A tiger lily? It can't be. With a note attached....”until the ends of eternity, my love”. Yes, my beloved, until the ends of eternity.