My Soul to Keep (African Immortals, #1)

by Tananarive Due

That’s the difference between us and white folks, she told herself. They don’t stop to say “I can’t” or “Should I,” they just do.

Love that which is constant, like yourself, Khaldun had told them all when they consecrated themselves to the Living Blood in the underground temple in Lalibela. The body heals itself, but the mind does not.

Religion was a crutch, a way people rationalized away their pain in life, like the slaves yearning for a better existence. A denial. When there is no fear of death, David had told her once, there is no need for religion.

All words and deeds will find you, as a tightening noose finds the neck.

And absolutely no women could receive the blood, he said— because women might carry it in their wombs, passing it on to children. Immortals must not become a race ungoverned, Khaldun said. They would remain a select few. Your only Covenant to me in exchange for the Life gift is this: No one must know. No one must join. We are the last.

My mother used to say to me that she collected sorrows and put them in her pocket. Walking around with them that way, by and by, you just learn to carry them all a bit better, to stand up a bit straighter. That’s all life is, on this earth anyway. You’ll see it, too, when your trials come. I wish I could tell you they won’t come, Jessica, but they always do.”

We only waste energy to have horrible fights with the people we love the most.

How else, except through being alone for a while, could you ever discover who you really are?

How ironic it was that mortals, who had the least time of all, were willing to waste so much of it away from people they loved.