At last I have learned that it is not death that makes such a difference; it is life. My life. I kill to live. And it is a fair trade. I suckle the life from small animals, leaving their juiceless remains for the scavengers—three or four a night is plenty—and only twice have I been unable to resist the craving for a human.

I kill to live. I have grown through the passions of the larvae, through the dangerous excitement, the extravaganzas of killing. I have grown through the pupa withdrawal and emerged into adulthood. Now, as my view of eternity is gradually brought into focus, other priorities draw my attention.

For now I have a Student of my own. I have passed through solitude, and have entered into a partnership—an internal realm filled with peace and happiness. I teach, and my teachings are reminiscent of my teacher.

How well I remember Her, and how much She meant to me during those early times.

Will my Student turn out to be a different refraction of my own soul? Or is this Student actually a separate, breathing, warm human being? I have no answers, but I am patient. The answers will come. I know only that my sharing with this One is the very essence of fulfillment.

I am no longer alone.

Tonight when I awoke, I found a little cake the other patients had placed by my bedside. The nurses will take notice in the morning whether I have eaten it or not. They have never seen me eat. But they will find it intact, its chocolate frosting unnibbled, the yellow 21 written in warped hand will be undisturbed.

I am fortunate to have found such peace at this young age.

The cane they gave me is metal tubing and distasteful, but it serves me. I pretend with it, as I pad along the halls, that I hear the grit of the roadway beneath my boots, and the stomp of a solid cherrywood cane with a brass lizard as a knob. I feel the cold wind biting through my cloak, and I talk and laugh with my Student, watching the growth, the progress, growing myself through our association, knowing that I am, that we are, immortal and eternal.

“They put her in an asylum somewhere out in the country. I went to visit her several times when she was in the hospital in Philadelphia, but she was always sleeping.

“I went back to Westwater, got my old construction job back, but after only a week, I quit. Being consumed—obsessed, I guess—by something for years and then having it be over, resolved, left quite a void. I’m not quite sure what I’ll do now. Go back to school, maybe, or do a little traveling. Chasing Angelina all over the country wasn’t exactly traveling, but I’ve kind of got the bug to go explore some.

“I don’t know.