Don't you just love libraries and book stores? I get all warm and fuzzy when I'm in a book store. It comes from a love for books that began nearly sixty years ago, when mama took us all to the children's room of the public library for the Saturday morning book readings by Miss Amy.

Even now, I can feel that same magic I felt as a child the moment mama opened the heavy library door and herded us into the enormous entrance lobby. With each step up the stairs to the main room, my imagination awoke and grew with eager anticipation. The towering shelves of books rose on either side of me and were visible in any direction I turned. It filled me with such awe and wonder. Stories and adventures were literally everywhere, and I wanted to hear every one of them!

Miss Amy always sat in a rocking chair. "The Chosen Book" was in her lap and her hands rested upon it, as she waited for the oval rug in front of her to fill with children. I sat quietly, struggling to contain my growing excitement. What wonderful book had she picked to read that day? Where would the new adventure take me? Would it be sad, or funny, or maybe, even filled with danger? It didn't really matter. I knew I would ride the invisible roller coaster of the author's words anywhere and everywhere for as long as it lasted.

Then, suddenly, it was time. Miss Amy welcomed us to Story Time, as she slowly opened "The Chosen Book". With the very first sentence, I was captured and the magic began. I was no longer me, sitting on a rug in the children's room of the public library. I was living within her words and magically transported in time and space. That's when I knew I wanted to someday, somehow, create that very same wonder and magic through words.

That little girl is all grown up now, but, magically, I still relive the awesome wonder I knew as a child, when I'm surrounded by books in libraries and book stores. In a book store, of course, I have the added advantage of being able to own the books that I've always loved so much. Oh, and it's always a special treat, when some of the books I'm surrounded by in a book store or library are mine...

I have lived for a very long time. Immortality is not always forever, but for me it has lasted for many centuries.

During this time I have acquainted myself with the kind of loneliness that a mortal could never understand. I have seen years pass by in the way that others measure days... hours... I am alone, not only as a person, but as an entire society. The world I came from is long gone. Every world I have ever known is gone.

Then I found a ray of sunlight. The year was 1982 and I was haunting the gritty streets of Manhattan. It was summer, and the city was alive with the smell of people melting under the heat.

She was a sweet young thing. I occasionally dabble with the emotions of mortals for my own amusement. Nothing serious... I enjoy the company, the feeling of being wanted, being desired. I am one of the lucky few of my kind with enough control to enjoy this.

She was... disarming. I am not usually so drawn to a mortal woman, but she was so full of life. She was as elegant as a Roman princess, as witty as a Greek sophist, and a laugh that set me on fire.

As the night wore on I found myself wondering if I were experiencing blood lust for her. However no, this was a new feeling, something totally unexpected. Something I had only ever seen hints of over the centuries.

I don't know if everyone has a soul mate. It took me many mortal lifetimes to find mine. But I know they exist.

I also know that what I was feeling was love. I know it because the next night, I told her what I was. I had never done that before, spoken the truth to a human. If it had been lust or infatuation I would have seen her a few more times and then would have disappeared into the night. But I told this one.

She didn't believe me of course. But I had proof. It didn't take long before she was running, screaming.

I followed her. I followed her always. I waited in the shadows watching her, even as she married, even as she started a family. I'd like to think that a part of her knew I was there, that maybe a part of her was fond of her pale shadow.

The greatest sign of my love is that I never turned her. Even at the end, as she lay there prone, helpless, passing beyond. I knew she would not want this. By then I knew her well. I understood her soul. She would have rather died.

And so she did, and I was left alone again, to wander the world in eternal, immortal loneliness.