Lou's Life Chap 15 "Moving"

Being immortal does have its drawbacks. For one thing, repetition is the bane of my existence. Something for you to consider. The average human lifespan is 65-75 years world wide. Of course, there are many people that live beyond that, but statistically speaking, that is the average. The oldest, confirmed, recorded age for any human is 122 years. Her name was Jeanne Louise Calment, she was from France and was born on February 21, 1875 and died August 4, 1997. Now think of all the things a human does in their lifetime. You are born, you have a childhood, you go to school, you date, you go to college, you date some more, you marry, you have a career, you have a family, your children leave the nest, you retire, you die. Then consider I don't even get to do half of that. I go to college, I date occasionally, I have a career, and then I disappear. I move myself to another city, re-enroll in college and start the whole process over again. I'll never have another childhood, I'll never have children, and I'll never die. I consider the small part of the timeline that I get to live takes maybe 20 years, from the time I enter college, till the time I "retire" and disappear and have to change locations. I can't hang around any one place to long before people start asking questions and noticing that I haven't aged in the last decade. I have repeated that process 21 times. Usually, I don't get to the point of having a career. I remain a perpetual college student. Most of the time that takes between 6-8 years to get a full degree. I have repeated that process going on 54 times. Even if my life was full of experiences as Ms. Calment, I have still lived her life 4 times over. Is it any wonder why I get bored as easily as I do?

As everyone knows, part of going to college is having to take a certain number of courses each semester that do not particularly pertain to your major. These classes are the courses that I hate the most. Not because they are hard or challenging, mainly for the fact that, I have already taken them so many, many times. Every college I go to, they always advertise that they have the latest, most up to date information. The latest technology, the latest curriculum, the best, most highly educated professors. Then I get there and find that it is all the same information over and over. I have been alive 429 years, you would think that something new would come along. I mean, they may pass a new law, or come out with some medical breakthrough, but all in all change never comes. As much as I try to make things different, things stay the same. I have been feeling ready for change for centuries.

On one hand, I like my life the way it is now, and that kept me busy for a few decades to get it all the way I wanted. I have been enrolled at Harvard, Princeton, Yale, MIT, Stanford, U of Penn, Columbia, Duke University, Dartmouth and Berkeley. I have purchased homes in Cambridge, MA; Princeton, NJ; New Haven, CT; Stanford, CA; Philadelphia, PA; Columbia, NY; Durham, NC; Hanover, NH and Berkeley, CA, and of course, the one I'm living in now, my NY Brownstone in Greenwich Village. Each time I purchased a home, it took time to set up the estate. You can't just show up off the street and buy a $400,000 - $500,000 house and keep it maintained for 30-40 years, without living in it, and have nobody become suspicious. The way I have worked this out is the rather simple. First I had to create proper paper'work that supported my "history" as a heiress with a large trust fund. That's where the cash flow comes from.

My money actually comes from 429 years worth of various forms of investing, but I can't tell them that. The houses were all originally bought by me but under a certain name. I'll use my Brownstone as an example to explain how it works, but the process is the same for each of my homes. The name on the original deed was Antoinette Spencer, that was the name I was using in 1936, when I was going to Syracuse University. Then I (Antoinette) moved away after about nine years, and closed up the house. Each of my houses is fenced in with a security system. A general caretaker is kept on retainer at each residence to check on the place regularly and do general upkeep and maintenence. When I came back here 62 years after I had left, in 2007, I introduced myself to the neighbors as Alexandria Simonette, and I am Antoinette Spencer's great-granddaughter. With each house I have a whole story prepared about how this house has been in my family for 3 generations, and since I'm going to whatever college I'm going to that fall, my family set it up so I could use the old house, rather than pay for room and board at school.

Each time I change residences, I have to hire a decorator to update the decor because, it may have been 50 years since the last time I lived there and everything is outdated. Of course, they do not know about my true identity. All they know is they receive their paychecks from a dummy corporation that I invest a good chunk of money in that I have to close down and rebuild under a new name every 50 years or so. And if, by chance, I move in and meet some elderly neighbor who comments about how I am the "spitting image" of my great-grandmother, I just laugh it off and say I know, everybody tells me that all the time. This keeps me somewhat occupied, playing this game with you humans, fooling you, keeping you from discovering my secret. But I grow tired, it gets old too quickly.

My life was so much more exciting and full of activity when I was with Quinn. Every day, every week, every month it was a new place, a new experience. After he shared his story with me, the relationship between Quinn and I took on a new aspect. We became more equals, we were lovers and friends, we began to trust one another and rely on each other more and more. As spring grew nearer, one day he informed me he had decided to keep his promise to me and we would leave our cave and travel. It was now 1600 and he wanted us to be in England for the beginning of the Season next April. I looked forward to this with great zeal and anticipation. By that time I would have been a vampire for two years. As the first step in preparation for this, we were to move to Quinn's country house. After his Uncle Gerald had died in 1513, Quinn's cousin, also named Gerald, took over as the 9th Earl of Kildare. Because of his family connections, the king granted Quinn a place at Court, a minor seat in the House of Lords. He was granted this in 1514 right before he was turned, but his life was interrupted so to speak. He didn't actually take up the title until after he left Marius and the family. That was how he gained entrance to the English court, learned English, and became a member of the peerage. Officially, he was Quinn Fitzgerald, Earl of Rothesay.

For the sake of appearances in society, we decided to present ourselves as husband and wife. And with that I became a Countess, Lady Fitzgerald. Of course, Quinn showed me how to create our Letters of Mark and my identification papers. Quinn explained the Season revolved around the seating of Parliament, and usually began in earnest after Easter session break, since many families remained in country until midwinter or even as late as March. It was now mid-February, so we were not able to prepare me for the Season this year because it would take approximately three months for us just to get to England. Plus, all the time I would need for preparation of my wardrobe, all the preparations for the balls and soirees we would hold at the Manor, and all the formal introductions and social calls Quinn was going to have to make with me to get me introduced to the "proper" people.

His country estate was Burghley House in Northamptonshire. Quinn spent the next month telling me about his household, the servants and what I could expect, and what would be expected of me. We had lengthy discussions on the names of each member of Parliament, their names, their wives names, the names of their estates so I could participate in polite conversation and sound like I knew what I was talking about. Finally it was time. Quinn sent a message to his steward, Chilton, to have his livery sent to the local Inn at Le Muy, France. It would take six weeks for his valet to arrive. The Gitan were leaving our cave as well, being gypsies, it was time for them to move on. They did assist us with transporting all our belongings in several wagons to the village.

We made a large caravan, a huge group of people traveling towards Le Muy. I was focused on the fact that this was going to be an odd trip for me because the village of Le Muy was where the abbey and the convent was located. I told Quinn this and we agreed the chances that I would see any of the nuns, or that any of them would recognize me was slim at best. From what I remembered, the Sisters never really left the convent unless it was for a dire need. They had everything they needed there on hand to be self sufficient. We arrived a week and a half after we left our cave, and it was going to be approximately another week before Hewitt, the valet, would arrive. We stationed ourselves at the local Inn and Quinn paid a local farmer to allow us to store our trunks and crates in his barn until Hewitt arrived. The Inn had the dubious name of The Boar's Ale, and all the patrons seemed to be poor peasants. Quinn and I were both dressed in our finest traveling clothes so we stood out as people of means.

It was somewhat disconcerting the way the Innkeeper and the serving maid scurried around seeing to our needs. I was not accustomed to being waited on hand and foot, being asked constantly if I was comfortable, if there was anything else I needed. We were given the best room, the best food, the best of everything they had to offer. That took some getting used to. There was not much to do in this small village, but after a couple of days of sitting in our room in the Inn doing nothing, Quinn and I decided to take a stroll around the town. Mainly because, we had to appear "normal". The story we had given the innkeeper was, we were a newly married Earl and Countess just returning from our honeymoon on the coast of France. There wasn't much to see, the livery, with horses and wagons and the smells of leather, the blacksmith forge, with the black smoke and heat radiating into the street, the Constable's office and the Jail, and the Market, with different stalls for the different merchant guilds and craftsman guilds. Down at the end of the street, was the Chapel and the Abbey.

We were strolling through the Market and we had stopped at the Mercer's booth to look through his different bolts of cloth. Quinn had told me that when we got to England, I was going to spend a signicant amount of time preparing my wardrobe for all the different social activities I would be attending. I was getting much better at being around humans, was almost completely accustomed to the smell of blood in the air. Did not need to react to it. We were looking at a beautiful swatch of blue velvet and discussing, in Gaelic, how I could use this for a dress, a bonnet and even a matching riding habit, when suddenly I heard behind a loud gasp behind us. Quinn and I both turned suddenly and there stood Sister Fincana. My heart went cold, this was it.

She could greet me and allow me to offer a reasonable explanation as to why I was here, with this man, dressed like this. Or, being the ONE of all the Sisters who believed in Vampires and Werewolves, she could recognize us for what we were and scream, run tell the other Sisters, run and get the Constable. This could go either way. She just stood there her eyes wide, her mouth hanging open slightly. Her eyes flitted from my face to Quinn's, back to mine, down to our expensive clothes, and back to Quinn's face. I decided to try to act like nothing was amiss and see how she reacted. I took a step toward her, "Sister, hello! How do you fare? How are the other Sisters? I know it must be a surprise to see me. Allow me to introduce my husband, Quinn Fitzgerald, earl of Rothesay".