The cameras and voice recorders had all been disabled at Ostler’s request. Nothing we said would be recorded. She thumbed the button for the microphone and asked him our first question: “Tell us about Rose Chapman.”
“She’s a … mistake,” said Elijah. “I do my best to avoid any contact with the people in my memories, but this is a small city. I saw her first by accident, and it was…” He closed his eyes. “It was so hard. That’s no excuse, but you have to understand. I have every memory of her that her husband ever had. I couldn’t help but love her. I should have stayed away but when Gidri showed up, I knew the city was about to get more dangerous and I convinced myself I had to protect her. I saw her again, on purpose this time, and Gidri figured it out.”
“The grief-counseling session,” said Ostler.
Elijah nodded. “He wanted me to join their war, and when I said no he looked for leverage to convince me. He followed me to the session, saw my connection to Rose, and took her.”
“Rose’s story to the police corroborates that,” said Diana.
Ostler hit the microphone button again. “Thank you, Mr. Sexton. Or should we call you Meshara?”
He looked up in surprise, but after a moment he sagged back down in his chair. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you know that name. Who’s your informer?”
“Just tell us about yourself,” said Ostler.
Elijah sighed and nodded. “They call me Meshara, though I don’t think it’s my original name. I think we’re older than that. My memory fades without a constant source of new ones and over the years I’ve missed too many times, lost too much of what I used to be. A lot of that, I admit, was on purpose. I’ve done a lot of things I was happy to forget.”
Detective Scott had joined us to listen, his opinion of our wild boogeyman stories somewhat altered by the man-shaped tree who’d injured four of his men before dissolving into sludge. Two were in critical condition but none had died. Yet.
“It started, I think, in a city,” said Elijah. “We were all from the same city mostly, though there were a few from other places around the valley. Rack and Ren were the ones who brought it to us, but I don’t remember where they came up with it—and when I say ‘it,’ I don’t mean an object, I mean the idea. Eternal life. We could become so much more than we were. We could be gods.”
“They’re human?” asked Diana.
“Or at least they started that way,” said Ostler.
Nathan was taking notes at a furious pace, his fingers clacking on the keyboard of his notebook computer.
Potash’s oxygen tank beeped. It reminded me of Darth Vader.
Elijah started tracing something on the table, and I craned my neck to see. There didn’t seem to be any pattern to it, just a nervous tic. “There was a ritual, I guess,” he said. “I don’t remember the details, but I suppose that’s to be expected. We had to give something up—something deep, some part of ourselves that defined who we were. It was a way of giving up our humanity, I guess, so we could move on to something bigger, but that might be my own opinion on it, after the fact. It’s hard to separate my original motives from the ten thousand years I’ve had to reconsider it. Giving it up was a freedom, Rack said—the only thing we were losing were the limits that held us back. I guess I believed him because why else would I choose to give up my memory?”
His face darkened. “I’ve wondered, a lot, what horrible thing I must have gone through to make me think that forgetting everything would be a release. I was just a dumb kid I guess—probably a city elder, honestly, if you think about the life expectancy we must have had back then. But still, a kid in comparison. Ten thousand years is a long time to look back on one decision. It didn’t take me long to replace whatever I’d been trying to forget with a thousand new experiences every bit as terrible. A lot of them worse. The human race is truly, truly evil.” He paused. “And unimaginably good.”
I watched him as he spoke, trying to read his face. Trying to see in him some element of Crowley, or Nobody, or Mary Gardner. Who were they, really? Back in the beginning, if there was one, who had they been?
“I don’t remember where that city was,” said Elijah. “There was a mountain nearby, though I know that doesn’t help much. I went east, I think, but eventually I went everywhere. I’ve lived all over the world. I live here now because it’s quiet, and because I have a steady source of memories I can use without hurting anyone.” He went suddenly quiet. “Except…” He paused again, as if warring with himself over how to say the next thing, or whether he should say it at all. I wondered what he was struggling to confess—we already knew about Merrill Evans—but when he finally spoke again it was a question. “Is Rosie okay?”
Ostler looked at Trujillo, then leaned forward and pushed a button. “She’s fine.”
Elijah’s face looked pained. “Does she … know? About me?”