Lamma's Night (anthology)

'Come back.'

'I don't want to come back,' she said. Reluctantly, she slowed, turning to look over her shoulder.

'There's so much you have left to do. So much life has to offer you.'

'No,' she said, frowning. 'I've done terrible things. I don't want to hurt people anymore. It's best I don't go back. Leave me alone.'

'You've never hurt anyone, Wythen. It was the old woman. You don't deserve to die for her crimes. Please, come back.'

'But it was I who killed you, my hands, I saw them...'

My hands, but not my will within the hands.

'Thank you,' she whispered, stepping forward, moving quickly again.

'Don't leave me!' Narvik begged. 'You can't leave me like this.'

Wythen stopped. He was right.

There seemed to be no space between decision and action here, no hesitation—as if to recognize the right was to do it. The light receded from her, growing smaller and smaller.

Darkness fell.

When she opened her eyes, Narvik was seated beside her, transparent as a reflection on still water. He smiled and took his hand from her brow; a touch so faint she was only conscious of it when it was removed, like a whisper of wind on a calm day.

Wythen licked dry lips and tried to rise. She came to one elbow with an effort that made her moan in pain. One look around and she let herself collapse again.

'The lines are ruined,' she said in despair. Darkened, blurred.

Narvik laughed.

'Wythen,' he said, leaning over her. 'You couldn't feed a kitten milk now, much less raise the dead.' He smiled with amusement and tenderness. 'Go home. Sleep.'

'Oh. But you'll have to wait for...'

'Next year?' He shrugged. 'What's a year, to a ghost?'

'I'll take good care of Parney,' she promised weakly. 'And when the time comes I'll leave without a fuss.'

'When the time comes,' he said leaning over her, 'I shall bind you to me with the strongest bonds I can weave.' He kissed her on the lips.

I felt that! she thought. Then realized what he'd said, and stared.

He laughed.

'You shall have a place, and friends all around you, and a warm hearth in winter.'

'And... you?' she asked.

Narvik stroked the curls back from her high forehead.

'And me most of all,' he promised.

The Road Taken

Laura Anne Gilman

She closed the spellbook carefully in the faint glow of dawn, letting her body slump until her head rested on the book itself, her pale brown hair spilling over the book's leather binding and across the scarred and pitted worktable. It was done. She had worked her magic, for good or ill, and it was done. The presence which had so haunted her was dispersed, the cottage free from any influence save her own. It had taken all of her strength to complete this night's work. All she wanted to do, all she could do now, was sleep.

'Marise.'

The sound was a barest whisper, a voice harsh from disuse, but it jerked her out of her doze, knocking aside the stool she was sitting on, forcing her to her feet and turning her towards the door. A tall figure stood there, his face, indeed all details of him, in shadow. Marise squinted, trying to see who it was. She hoped, as she passed a hand over her eyes, that he did not come to her with an emergency. At this moment, she could not have mustered a spell to save her own life. And with that thought came another—was he a danger to her? She could not think of any who would wish her ill, and yet...

Her body failed her, and she swayed with exhaustion. The stranger was at her side, capable hands lifting her at knee and shoulder, bearing her to the wide rush bed shoved against the far wall.

'You must rest. Then we will talk,' he said, settling her on the bed and adjusting the quilted coverlet under her chin. She reached up to touch the side of his lace, and gasped as sudden familiarity washed over—through— her.

'You!'

She struggled to rise, but he passed one cool hand over her forehead and she fell back against the bed, close to passing out. As she drifted into the darkness, she heard him say, 'There will be time enough for questions, my lady. Questions, and perhaps even answers.'