Death was absolute, but she knew better than most that life is measured not by time, but by love.
Day broke the silence, nodding toward Reaper who had sauntered in and was now sniffing the floor like it might cough up a treat.
“You better figure out how to keep the dog. For her, you know.”
I exhaled through my nose, the corner of my mouth twitching. “Working on it. There’s…options.”
Day gave me a look. “Just don’t get sentimental and raise a hellhound.”
I shrugged. I briefly considered leaving Reaper on her doorstep, but disgustingly enough, I’d grown attached. “Sentimentis already the problem.”
She liked the navy sweater best. Pulling it out of the closet, I paired the thick wool with gray trousers and my usual russet leather boots.
Would she remember?
Would she stay?
My thoughts had been plagued by nothing else but my emerald-eyed beauty.
Reaper groaned, stretching out further on Astoria’s side of the bed. I wrung my hands nervously.It’s time.
It was a Sunday. The skies bleak, filled with clouds gray and heavy. Soon, even they would weep their a final goodbye to Astoria. I couldn’t deny that it was fitting. She had spent every Sunday here, in the cemetery down the hill from Scythe Manor.
She felt closest here, curled beneath the yew tree.
Some weeks, she furiously scribbled into her notebooks, pages bleeding her memories and dreams. Other times, she brought the girls—twin daughters with her smile and her mischief—letting them run wild through the fields while she sat at the graves of her children, her parents, telling them about life… the twins… even love.
Yes, she married Gentry.
Gentry was good to her; far better than James. And although I’d never admit it aloud, I was thankful Fate stepped in that day. He needed her as much as she needed him. Their companionship was quiet and constant, a tether she could lean on when grief came calling. He never shamed her past, nor flinched at her scars.
They had built a beautiful life.
Twin girls.
Grandchildren with bright eyes and loud laughter.
And later, great-grandchildren who toddled behind her through the garden paths, sticky fingers full of stolen fruit and wildflowers.
She grew into the woman I once sat beside on a plane—weathered and wise, her face mapped with decades of emotion, but still radiant. Her eyes never lost their glint of silver and she continued to enrapture me. Once she'd feared that she'd wasted the time she was given, but in the end, there was much to show for her years of mortality.
Gentry would drive her to the cemetery these days. He would help her out of the car, walk her to the bench that I had built for her, then quietly slip away so she could sit in peace.
She’d tip her face to the sky, open her palms, hum softly to the breeze. And then she would tell stories. Long ones. Short ones. Some that made no sense at all. Poems, ballads, silly songs made up on the spot.
Her mind had begun to slip in her old age, much to everyone’s quiet heartbreak. The clock had started when she broke the curse, and today was her birthday.
To everyone else, she was ninety-two. A wife. Mother. Grandmother. A great-grandmother. A life, full and well-lived.
To me, she was all of that, and somehow still more. Two hundred and eighteen years old, yet always new to me. The girl with thirteen names, thirteen lives, all of which I knew like scripture. She was a riddle I never wanted solved. My ruin and my redemption. My plague and my savior, braided into one.
Hidden beneath shadows, I watched as their dark car pulled into the lot. Gentry hobbled out, body as worn as hers now, and walked around to open her door. Astoria stared blankly ahead, but a shudder ran down her spine and I knew she felt me.
Shealwaysdid.
They spoke softly to one another, and to my surprise, Gentry took her hand and led her down the worn path toward me…
Away from her usual bench.
