over where I sat looking down at me quizzically.
“Are you okay?”
I pushed my hair from my face and nodded, “What are you doing here?”
He looked around and held out his arms, “Oh did I walk into a church, I didn’t notice. It’s a miracle I haven’t burst into flames.”
I moved my coat so that Levi could sit beside me. “I didn’t think that you were this way inclined.”
“When you have lived as long as I, you have to believe in something.”
I looked down at my clasped hands and smiled, “You know something,” I said, as I sat up and looked at him, “I’ve known you for almost a century and half yet I know nothing about you. I think I know more about my electrician in London and I only see him once a year.”
He laughed and held a look in his eyes that I had not seen in him before, “What do you think you need to know about me?”
I met his eyes and delicately pulled the zipper on his jacket down an inch and traced the top of his scar lightly, “What happened to you?”
He put his hand over mine and dropped it onto the bench. He zipped up his jacket and cleared his throat as he turned away from me. “You don’t need to know that.”
I turned to face the alter as Levi was doing and bit my lower lip as I uttered two words that I never thought I would, “I’m sorry.”
He turned his head slightly to look down at me and his lips melted up into a brief smile before he took a breath and stood, “Kate lyn’s expecting me.”
“Oh, I’ll come too.”
He laughed and shook his head, “I didn’t think that you were that way inclined?”
I instantly understood and threw my head back with a disgusted sigh.
“Try not to get yourself killed whilst I’m gone.” He walked towards the church door but before he left, he turned around and called back to me, “Oh and Roseanna, happy birthday.”
Birthday, I hadn’t noticed the date as the days ran past me, forcing me to keep looking ahead. I was one hundred and sixty six. I laughed to myself quietly and took a deep breath, how wonderful to see so much of the world, nothing to stand in my way.
I waited for five or so minutes before I left the church and took a slow walk back to the apartment. It was peaceful, quiet, and alive. In any other situation I would have been happy that it was so, but for the fact that we had all been called to France to prevent a supposed corruption and there wasn’t a speck of death in the air.
I turned on the radio and sat next to the spot in which Levi had made his home. Levi had gone to see Kate which meant only one thing; I had never taken an interest in his love life before, but I felt an urge to protect him, but what from I couldn’t discern, the vulnerability that I had seen in him in the church wouldn’t leave the surface of my mind. I wasn’t certain if they had ever been together, they had always seemed too much like brother and sister to be anything more than friends, but perhaps I was wrong.
As I was singing along to whatever song had been playing on the radio the door to the apartment opened and Levi strolled in with a baguette in hand.
I turned and leant over the back of the sofa, “What happened to Kate?”
He took off his jacket behind the sofa and walked to stand in front of me and shrugged, “I didn’t go.”
I frowned and whatever tension I had been holding for the half hour that he had been gone evaporated and a smile melted onto my lips, “Why?”
“Do you ever stop asking questions?”
“I’m still holding onto the hope that curiosity kills the cat.”
He lifted his brows and held out the baguette.
I looked from the bread up to him and waited for an explanation.
He laughed at my quizzical expression and took out a candle, he buried it into the middle of the baguette and lit it with the lighter that he always kept in the inside pocket of his jacket, “Happy one hundred and sixty sixth birthday little Roseanna.”
I laughed, and stood to blow out the candle, making a silent