The Descent by Alma Katsu Page A

young, life would be a series of fiery distractions, nightclubs and dinner parties, teary spats and passionate reconciliations. And then when the companion grew older, if we were still together, life mellowed into quiet evenings and crossword puzzles, and then at the end the hospital, always the hospital. But I’d grown tired of it. My emotional well had run dry and, for the last stretch, I had lived alone.
    So I thought—I honestly thought—that here was a chance to try again with Luke, this nice man who’d put himself on the line for me. He had proven himself dependable; why not stay with him? I owed him my loyalty—after all, he’d saved me from prison. I told myself that it didn’t matter if I didn’t love him. He didn’t love me, either—how could he when he barely knew me?
    And it wasn’t as though I’d deceived him. He knew that I loved Jonathan; I’d told him so, spilling my story out to him on the drive to Quebec as we ran from the law. I confessedwhat an unhappy, possessed creature I’d been for two hundred years, in love with a man who could not remain faithful to me. Anyone with eyes in their head would’ve been able to see that I would be unhappy, and maybe even a little bit insane, for some time to come. You could argue that, in some ways, Luke was as much to blame as I.
    When I confessed this to Adair, however, he cocked his head at me in confusion—or maybe he was only pretending to be confused. “Back in Aspen, when you were pleading with me to spare this man’s life, you told me that you loved him,” he said pointedly.
    “I did. I do,” I fumbled. “I came to love him dearly.”
    “But not passionately,” he countered. “So you feel guilty because you stayed with Luke, even though you didn’t love him with your entire heart and soul.”
    I gave a helpless shrug.
    “Because you still loved Jonathan.” His voice went flat.
    If Adair could see into my heart, he’d know that it was divided. I’d loved Jonathan once, but that love had faded. I loved Luke, too, but he had never stood a chance to be the great love of my life. There was something growing in my heart now, something that had the potential to push everything else aside—but I wasn’t sure I should ever tell Adair about it, and certainly not at that moment. “Yes, because I still loved Jonathan. I’ve felt guilty about it ever since. I’d always felt as though I’d entered into a relationship with Luke under false pretenses, even if everything turned out okay in the end.”
    “Did it?” I’d disappointed him and so he was being mean, poking a spot he knew was tender. “By the time he died, you loved this Luke with all your heart?”
    With most of my heart—but that was not for Adair to know. “Yes.”
    This was not what he wanted to hear, of course. “Then there’s no reason for you to have a guilty conscience, is there?” he said impatiently. “How did you sleep last night? Did you have one of those nightmares?”
    I shook my head. “No, but that’s because I took a sleeping pill.”
    “Well, there is your answer. Sleeping pills.”
    “I don’t want to take sleeping pills forever,” I said sharply, almost in despair.
    His beautiful eyes filled with sadness. He may have thought me a fool, a pitiful wretch for being hopelessly in love with the wrong man; he may have been moved because I sounded so utterly forlorn in asking for his mercy; or I may have been breaking his heart all over again, but he put his anger aside. “It won’t be forever,” he said, trying to reassure me. “I expect these dreams will fade away soon enough. But in the meantime, stay with me. If you have any more dreams, I’ll be right here.”

    Adair’s plan was to distract me until I stopped having the dreams. The island was at my disposal, he said. I could do whatever I pleased. It was the perfect place to get away from the world, that was for sure. Its desolateness made it ideal for losing one’s self in a book or being