Beatriz’s mother, Abena, was from Maravi (present-day Maláŵi) in South Africa, and lived near the Shire River. She was known for her beauty, and one day she was taken from her village and sold to a brothel in Cape Town. She became pregnant with Beatriz in 1480, by a wealthy Portuguese man. Abena, who was now one of the more wealthy and coveted madams, retired from that life to raise her daughter, who she lovingly called Behati, the Afrikaans translation of Beatriz meaning "blessed she who brings happiness." And they were happy for a time, Abena, Behati, and Abena’s only remaining client, Bea’s father. From him Beatriz learned to read and write. But when Abena got sick and died when she was 7 years old, her father was nowhere to be found and so Bea was sold and boarded a boat to a plantation in Brazil. With the other slaves, she cleaned her master's home, cooked his meals, and worked his land. That is until she was 12, and then she became his personal servant. In this role, Beatriz had her own room in the main house. She had fancy clothes and jewelry. She had a full belly. While at first she was excited about this new attention, Bea soon found that she would trade it all in a heartbeat to be hungry and dressed in rags while working the land, for her master was a cruel man and being at his beck and call day and night was a terrifying thing.
In 1502, at the age of 22, Beatriz was killed in a fall from a horse, but she revived before anyone noticed. Scared, she told no one. She spent another 5 years in slavery, until she was rescued by a woman the slaves had talked about like a myth and called the Silver Woman. The Silver Woman turned out to be an immortal named Samsi, and she took Beatriz under her wing, explaining about immortality and the Game. Through Samsi she learned not only to wield a sword, but to read and write in several languages, as well as the desire to free others from slavery. She remained at Samsi’s side for many years, aiding her dear friend to help as many as possible from the same fate she herself had experienced.
In the decades that followed, Beatriz traveled far beyond Brazil with Samsi, moving through North Africa and into the Ottoman Empire as a translator and scribe. It was during this time she learned the value of stillness and observation, studying calligraphy and illuminated texts while navigating courts and marketplaces where survival depended on subtlety rather than strength.
1587 found Beatriz in Italy when she and Samsi parted ways, where she met and became the lover of immortal Marcus Constantine. Through Marcus, she met a man named Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. Bea was so enthralled with Caravaggio’s work, that she sat for him as a model on several occasions in exchange for painting lessons.
In the early 1600s, she traveled east into Safavid Persia, living for a time in Isfahan under the name Nyara. There she studied miniature painting, poetry, and textile work, immersing herself in beauty and culture. During this period she allowed herself to love a mortal man, a scholar and poet, and remained at his side until his death, a loss that stayed with her long after she had moved on.
Following the death of her lover in Persia, Beatriz withdrew for a time, eventually settling in the Meteora region of Greece in the early 1620s. There, among the towering rock formations and isolated monasteries, she lived quietly on the outskirts of a small, close-knit village. She kept largely to herself, known but not deeply known, and for the first time in many years allowed stillness to take root.
In 1645 she traveled with a musical troupe in England for a time. It was a joy to live a life so vastly different from the one she endured, and she learned to sing and dance and play the lute. While traveling she met immortal Hugh Fitzcairn, and the pair became lovers for a brief time, as the troupe was soon moving on.
In the latter part of the 1600s, Beatriz spent several years at sea, moving between the Caribbean and the Americas under various aliases. Whether aboard merchant vessels or less lawful ships, she learned navigation, star-reading, and the rhythms of the ocean. Though the experience granted her freedom, it also left her with a lasting discomfort of open water and the feeling of being trapped far from land.
Beatriz returned to South Africa in 1720. It was the first time she had set foot on that soil since she was taken as a child. She did not stay long. The land was both familiar and unreachable, filled with ghosts that did not know her and memories that no longer had a place to live.
She crossed the Atlantic again soon after, moving through the American colonies as tensions began to rise. By 1770 she would once again fight slavery beside her teacher and friend, Samsi. Working as a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad, she ferried people from Virginia to Mexico, where slavery was abolished. It was through Samsi and the railroad that Bea met pre-immortal Ezekiel Gideon.
After slavery was abolished, Beatriz spent several years in Mexico, primarily between 1865 and 1878, living under the name Ana Corbin. There, she worked as both an artist and a document forger, helping former slaves and displaced individuals establish new identities and lives beyond the reach of those who would reclaim them. She developed a reputation for creating papers that could withstand scrutiny. During this time, she also studied early photographic techniques, using them not only for art, but as a means of documentation and protection.
In the 1920s, she lived in New York during the Harlem Renaissance, immersing herself in music, dance, and art. It was one of the rare periods in her life where she allowed herself joy without restraint, living among artists and performers and becoming part of a vibrant cultural movement.
During the 1940s, Beatriz found herself moving through occupied Europe. She did not fight, but she resisted in quieter ways -- cataloging, concealing, and occasionally replacing works of art to prevent their destruction or theft. Several pieces attributed as “lost” owe their survival, in part, to her intervention.
In the 1950s, she settled in London under the name Mara Ellery, training formally in ballet. What had once been instinctive movement became discipline, structure, and control—something she found she needed. By 1960, Beatriz had become a noted dancer, her work blending classical ballet with modern movement in a way that drew quiet but growing acclaim. Just as she was beginning to gain wider recognition, Mara Ellery was killed in a car accident. With that identity lost, Bea was forced to disappear once more, leaving behind not only a name, but a life she had carefully built.
In the years that followed, Beatriz lived for a time in Madeira, settling into the rhythm of island life. She kept to fishing villages and open-air markets, where music and storytelling carried easily through the evenings. There, she lived simply—trading small works, sketching, and listening more than speaking. It was a life without pretense, where she could exist without being watched too closely, and for a while, that was enough.
From the 1970s through the 1980s, Beatriz returned to South America, moving between Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. As political tensions rose there, as before, she used her skills to help people disappear when they needed to, resuming the work she knew best -- creating identities, forging documents, and quietly guiding people across borders to safer ground.
By 1990, Beatriz lived in New York City, and was known in certain gallery circles for her sculpture-work that favored the human form, often unfinished in deliberate places, as though memory itself had shaped it. Her pieces sold steadily, praised for their restraint and quiet emotional weight, though she kept her distance from the attention it brought: they were sold under an assumed name and while she attended gallery openings, it with friends that were in on the ruse, and never as the artist. By day, she worked in her studio, hands in clay or plaster, building figures that seemed caught between motion and stillness. By night, she worked more carefully -- drafting documents with the same precision she brings to her art, forging identities, papers, and histories for those who needed to disappear.
In 1994, Beatriz met Sebastian Whitman while on a job in Baltimore. He had not been her assignment, just a complication she had not anticipated. The young man was suicidal, and to her surprise, pre-immortal. At first, she stayed out of obligation, intending only to watch and be present if his immortality was triggered. But distance proved more difficult than she expected. What should have been quiet observation quickly became attachment, and attachment quickly became something deeper than she had intended to allow. They moved into a loft in New York City, where Bea worked in sculpture and Sebastian wrote his novels. It was not a life she had planned, but it was one she chose fully, and without looking for the exit.
In 2002, when Captain Trips struck, Bea was in New Jersey, traveling with Sebastian for a book tour.
