Too Young

Just a prick and it's done.  A simple ceremony.  Too simple for the impact, being bound for life, for eternity, to her new master.  But what choice does she have?  She's dying and she doesn't want to die.

He doesn't seem so bad.  A bit old, a bit weird.  But she can deal with that.

And it's not like she's the only one.  He has other servants as well.

This is fine.  It will all be fine.


Margaret is 23 and she is too young to die.


After the ceremony, a quiet affair to echo its simplicity, she goes to live with him in his house on the hill.  To call it a mansion would be a bit extreme, but it's pretty darn close.

Margaret's job is cleaning.  It would be cooking, too, if anyone in the house were still alive.  But Margaret's new master has a strict rule about such things and no one who still has a beating heart has ever set foot in his home.  Or so he says.

The ceremony he requires in everything is a bit strange.  Strange that there are more rules about what to clean and how and where to go and when than there were about the change that was required to get Margaret here.  But she supposes these rules of the house are his to make, whereas the ceremony to turn her is much older, far older even than he must be.


Margaret does her job.  She speaks to others in the house when needed.  She reads the books available and watches the town where she once lived from afar.  Her parents send her letters sometimes, until they grow old and die.

Everyone grows old and dies outside the house and Margaret watches their burial ceremonies from afar, and Margaret lives on.


They become legends in the house, and even though they have never caused harm and even though they never turned anyone who didn't ask for it, the village grows older and the village grows more fearful.

She never meant to hurt anyone, but when they come to burn the mansion, Margaret has to defend herself.

She is 382 years old, and she is too young to die.


It's strange to think of being ready to move on.  It's stranger still to think that her master had chosen to leave her in charge.

The village has changed by now.  They don't fear the house or those who live there.  Margaret and her brothers and sisters have moved from being legends to being myths.  Some assume no one lives in the house at all, and those who try to come see if the house is empty are politely turned away, unless they happen to be looking for something more.

Margaret has learned much from her master over the centuries, and on the rare occasion that someone  mortal does learn what's really going on, she is the one who must now perform the ceremony to turn them.

There is less choice in the matter now, and more need to force the rest of the town to forget.

Margaret doesn't want to lose anyone in the house ever again, since that day so long ago when she was so young.

And in many ways, Margaret is still young.

Her master had lived in this house for nearly a millennium.

Margaret, on the other hand, is only 517 years old, and she is too young to die.


She considers them her children, though she will never have as many as her master once did.  Some of them decide to leave and she lets them, though she never knows if they can make it on their own.  They leave the safety of the house and go beyond the village.  Maybe she has grandchildren and great-grandchildren now.

She will never know.

Margaret has lived her whole life in this house.  Well, technically she's lived about 97.7% of her life in this house, but those first 23 years hardly count for anything.

It's hard to even remember who she is anymore.

Really, she's all those she's turned and now she finally begins to understand why her master decided to go.


She leaves the house and responsibility to one of the others, one she turned a few centuries ago, and goes to lay out on the roof, to feel the direct sunlight on her face for the first time in nearly 1000 years and the last time in her existence.


She is 987 years old, and finally, she is no longer too young to die.