She came to in the air as it were, floating, hovering somehow weightlessly, there above her own body, staring down at it — that mere human form which she had once encompassed and contained and commanded, now small and wasted … Read More
“After the operation — ah, what a cold word! After… it was done… I fell sick almost immediately.” Victoria was standing now, walking slowly beneath the tree, her long dress dragging immaculately in the dust, her face set in consternation. … Read More
“I remember Mom’s face when I told them,” she continued, a certain heaviness in her voice, her eyes grown, dark, deep. She bit her lip slightly. “I don’t know how Dad looked… That’s funny, isn’t it? I didn’t even notice. … Read More
But even then she seemed unready, somehow, to tell him what her parents had said. Perhaps it was the oath she had made him take that was yet in the back of her mind, that thought that he would not … Read More
Several weeks before her funeral, Victoria Tucker had begun to notice the telltale changes in her body. She had somehow known from the very first, though she had continued for a time in a kind of quietly willful denial of … Read More
When he thought back on it, he remembered above all the impossible scene, the emergence of the girl from her tomb, how she had sat up there in the coffin askance in the grave, gasping amidst the splintered boards that … Read More
The mourners and their companions were moving, slow forms, some black, some pale, in the cemetery, like risen ghosts. The afternoon was high and the day brilliant in spring. A breeze moved languidly in their midst, like a bored and … Read More
The funeral of Victoria Tucker was witnessed by many, and attended by very many tears, as is perhaps no wonder given the youth of the girl and the terrible speed with which she had passed. It was known to all … Read More
