The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

by V.E. Schwab

Seven freckles. One for every love she’d have, that’s what Estele had said, when the girl was still young. One for every life she’d lead. One for every god watching over her.

What is a person, if not the marks they leave behind? She has learned to step between the thorny weeds, but there are some cuts that cannot be avoided—a memory, a photograph, a name.

A safe place to step. She can’t leave her own mark, but if she’s careful, she can give the mark to someone else. Nothing concrete, of course, but inspiration rarely is.

Stories are a way to preserve one’s self. To be remembered. And to forget.

Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives—or to find strength in a very long one.

do not want to belong to anyone but myself. I want to be free. Free to live, and to find my own way, to love, or to be alone, but at least it is my choice, and I am so tired of not having choices, so scared of the years rushing past beneath my feet. I do not want to die as I’ve lived, which is no life at all. I—”

“You want an ending,” she says. “Then take my life when I am done with it. You can have my soul when I don’t want it anymore.”

My name is Addie LaRue, she thinks to herself as she walks. Three hundred years, and some part of her is still afraid of forgetting.

But it is a lonely thing, to be forgotten. To remember when no one else does.

Being forgotten, she thinks, is a bit like going mad. You begin to wonder what is real, if you are real. After all, how can a thing be real if it cannot be remembered? It’s like that Zen koan, the one about the tree falling in the woods. If no one heard it, did it happen? If a person cannot leave a mark, do they exist?

No way to think in days or weeks when she lives in moments. Time begins to lose its meaning—and yet, she has not lost track of time. She cannot seem to misplace it (no matter how she tries) and so Addie knows what month it is, what day, what night, and so she knows it has been a year. A year since she ran from her own wedding.

“I remember you.” Three words, large enough to tip the world. I remember you.

Three hundred years, and no one has said those words, no one has ever, ever remembered.

shoulders. Henry feels himself lean into it. “You want to be loved,” says the stranger, “by all of them. You want to be enough for all of them. And I can give that to you, for the price of something you won’t even miss.”

“You are not capable of love because you cannot understand what it is to care for someone else more than yourself. If you loved me, you would have let me go by now.”

tear slides down her cheek. “All you had to do was set me free.” Luc sighs, and lifts her chin. “I could not.” “Because of the deal.” “Because you are mine.”

“Then go. Spend time with your human love. Bury him, and mourn him, and plant a tree over his grave.” His edges begin to blur into the dark. “I will still be here,” he says. “And so will you.”

That time always ends a second before you’re ready. That life is the minutes you want minus one.

Let Henry go. Let him live. Let him remember me,

“Why would you do it?” “Think of it as a thank-you,” she says, “for seeing me. For showing me what it’s like to be seen. To be loved. Now you get a second chance. But you have to let them see you as you are. You have to find people who see you.”

“Listen to me.” Her voice is urgent now. “Life can feel very long sometimes, but in the end, it goes so fast.” Her eyes are glassy with tears, but she is smiling. “You better live a good life, Henry Strauss.”

But I need you to do one more thing.” Her forehead presses against his. “I need you to remember.”

She’s clutching the rest of the manuscript to her chest, as if to shield it from him. The title page stares back at him. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue.