The stranger arrived just before the dying time.
I spotted him first. He was so tall that he had to bow his head to enter the Pale Horse. A cool night breeze pushed past him into the tavern—a reminder that he shouldn’t be here so close to winter.
The drunken din hushed as the others noticed him. The stranger’s clothes were caked in mud; every year the autumn rains flood the only road into town, but that obviously hadn’t discouraged him. Scraggly black hair fell over a haggard face, which was further obscured by a thick beard. He dropped his satchel and swayed unsteadily in the open doorway.
“Stop gawking, Sally,” Master Parton whispered and smacked me on my bottom. I had long stopped squealing when he did that—it only encouraged him—but this time I jumped with genuine surprise.
My eyes met the stranger’s before I lowered my head and busied myself drying a mug behind the bar.
“Close that door, boy!” Master Parton said. Though the stranger looked well into manhood, everyone seemed young to Master Parton, who clung to life the way his wife held to every coin that passed through the till.
The stranger turned stiffly and shut the door, cutting off the chill draft. At that, the whispers gradually grew back to their natural volume. Everyone pretended to ignore him, though I knew they followed his movements as closely as I did. We all wondered how he would be received.
Master Parton squeezed his bulk out from behind the bar. “Welcome to the Pale Horse, sir,” he said.
The stranger looked around the room curiously. The customers were gorging on the last of our food at the long tables, a final celebration before autumn ended. His eyes lusted after the thick slices of beef and ham, skewers of roasted vegetables, and heavy mugs of soupy dark ale, the Pale Horse’s signature brew. He placed a hand flat against his stomach and took a few hesitant steps toward the bar, dragging his satchel along the floor behind him.
“What town is this?” he asked.
“We call it Waring,” Master Parton said.
“Waring. I’ve heard the name, but it doesn’t appear on my maps.”
Master Parton shrugged. “It seems late in the season for travel. What brings you here?”
“Just passing through. I hoped to find a place to stay the night.”
“Regrettably, the inn is closed for the season. We don’t get many visitors during the winter.”
The man stumbled toward a stool and collapsed onto it, draping one mud-spattered arm over the oak bar-top for support. The cleaning rag in my hand twitched.
“A shame. I would pay double your usual rates.”
“We can’t send him away in this condition,” I whispered to Master Parton. “We might as well kill him ourselves and do him a favor.” He glanced from me to the stranger and narrowed his eyes.
“Let no one say Waring lacks hospitality.” Master Parton nodded to me. “Make our guest comfortable, Sally.”
The man followed me upstairs. I fumbled the keys at the door to the largest room while I felt his eyes on my back. When the last of the traders had left two weeks before, we had bundled up the bedding and sealed off the rooms, not expecting to take in any more lodgers for the next few months.
I eyed the muddy trail left by his boots on the wooden planks; I would have to mop them myself, since Tess was still laid up, her belly swollen like an overripe melon. She was already several weeks overdue and time was running out, but we all still hoped her baby would make it. Seeing how miserable and scared she was made me a little less bitter about my failure to conceive during the fertility festival.
I bustled about the room, opening the windows to air out the musty smell and dust that had already gathered. That’s how it was in Waring around that time of year—everything covered in dust and decay.
“You should get out of those clothes,” I told the stranger.
“You’re a pretty girl, but I could do with a wash and some food before recreation.”
My face burned, but I wasn’t sure if it was from anger or embarrassment. “I’ll clean them for you,” I said.
“Sally, is it?”
I nodded, careful not to look him in the face. “Sally Cross.”
“Is that because you’re so angry?”
“I’m not,” I said sharply.
“Well. Do you want to know my name?”
I shrugged and went to the chest to pull out linens for the bed.
“I’ll tell you anyway,” he said. “My friends call me Reed.”
I looked up at his face, which was a long ways above mine.
“Is that on account of how tall you are?” I said.
He laughed, sending dried mud cascading from his clothing and beard. The scattered dirt mingled with the thin layer of dust blanketing the floor. His footprints were broad and muddy and pointed out at odd angles, like a duck’s tracks.
“Off with those dirty clothes, Mr. Reed,” I said again. “There are towels and a robe in the drawer under the bed. I’ll ready your bath downstairs.”
“It’s just Reed.”
I headed for the door but paused on the threshold. His back was to me as he unbuttoned his shirt, moving more slowly than old Master Parton. He slid out of the shirt and shook more of the mud off it.
“Please, just leave it.” I reminded myself to fetch a broom to tidy up while he bathed. This room was unfit for the living.
I smelled stale sweat, mixed with something else, a musky odor. I admired the way the muscles moved on his pale back as he carefully folded the soiled shirt.
“Is it really an accident that you’ve turned up here?” I said. His timing was suspicious; I wondered if he were looking for something.
“I don’t believe in coincidences.”
“What are you looking for?”
He turned and grinned when he saw me staring. “You tell me,” he said.
I darted out of the room and scrambled down the stairs to get the water ready for his bath.
Master Parton tasked me with discovering where Reed had come from and what he wanted from us. He promised I could keep whatever I made without paying his usual share. I was curious about the tall stranger anyway and wouldn’t mind spending more time with him. I didn’t admit that to Master Parton of course, or he would have changed his mind.
Reed startled and splashed water out of the tub when I entered the bathhouse. When he spotted me he sighed and sank back under the water to his chin. The tub I had chosen was too small for him; his knees stuck up like the peaks of the Peacemouth Mountains.
“A bit more hot water, Sally,” he said. Then as an afterthought he added, “if you please.”
I picked up a steaming bucket and brought it to his side. I poured the water in slowly, keeping my eyes on his face the way they taught me to pour the ale, for better tips.
He cleaned up pretty well. It turned out his hair was as brown as the water he bathed in, not black like it had looked under all the muck and grime. He hadn’t done a good job of washing though—I could tell he was the type to leave dirt behind his ears.
As I turned to put the bucket down his hand shot out and grabbed my arm. I struggled for a moment in his soapy grasp, but I froze when he stared at me the way he had at the food earlier. His fingers blazed hot against my cold skin—I knew it wasn’t just the hot water that made them burn so. The seasonal change was already working itself on me, and his flesh was still full of life. I felt the fire that had kept him on the road to Waring, when most everyone else would have turned back. I closed my eyes and let his body warm mine.
“Stay a while,” he said.
“That’s… That’s extra,” I said.
“I just want some company.” He relaxed his grip. “I have money, if that’s what you want,” he said gruffly.
I put down the bucket and picked up a washcloth and a loamy brick of soap. I lathered my hands then rubbed them along one of his arms, slicking it along his forearm to his hard bicep. He smiled lazily.
“That feels good.”
I swabbed the dirt from his skin with a washcloth, the heat from the water and his body steaming my face. I blinked sweat from my eyes and made sure I cleaned thoroughly behind his ears.
“You need a shave,” I said, fingering his coarse and tangled beard.
“You don’t like it?” he said. I wrinkled my nose. “Me neither. I suppose the shave will cost extra too.”
While I cut away at his beard with a sharp knife I asked him where he came from.
“Far away,” was the only answer.
I had no better luck when I inquired as to the reason for his journey, or why he was interested in Waring in particular.
“How old are you, Sally?” he asked suddenly.
“How old do I look?”
“Oh no. I know this old trick. There’s no good answer.”
“Tell me honestly.”
“Not much older than sixteen,” he ventured. I smiled and lathered along his jaw.
“Older than that,” I said. I was twenty-two, but I felt no need to tell him that. I slowly scraped the blade against his cheek.
“Then you’re old enough.” The blade slipped and he bellowed as it nicked him under his nose.
I gave him a serviceable haircut too, and by the time I was done I decided that he was quite handsome. He had a square jaw and a long sharp nose that gave him an air of nobility—like those leaders pictured on our old coins. I revised my estimate of his age downward, placing him in his late twenties at the youngest, though his eyes were much older, as though he had seen a lot already in his travels.
Without his beard and with a leather cord tying his hair in a short ponytail, Reed looked even gaunter than before. I sent him upstairs while I drained the tub and washed his traveling clothes. When I returned to the tavern he was dressed in a plain suit and seated with a huge pile of food before him. Master Parton sat across from him with his pipe clenched in his teeth.
“I actually named this place the Ale House,” Master Parton said. “But some rascals in town climbed up there and painted on some extra letters one day and it stuck.” He nodded at me. “Sally’s father being one of them. Been the Pale Horse ever since.”
“That seems to be inviting trouble,” Reed said. “An omen of death, like.”
Master Parton coughed and lowered his pipe. “Death visits everyone. Whether you see it coming or not.” He heaved himself to his feet and kicked his stool under the table. “Well, I’d best be heading home. It was a pleasure meeting you. Lock up, will you, girl?”
“All right,” I said. I glared at him as he tapped out his pipe on the floor. It wasn’t he who would be sweeping the floors after closing. It didn’t even look like he had cleared the crumbs from the tables, and I didn’t doubt his wife had left me a nice stack of dishes back in the kitchen to deal with.
Master Parton winked. “Make sure our guest is taken care of, Sally.”
Reed sipped his ale then licked foam from his lip, his tongue probing the tiny cut above his mouth. I thought this one occasion where work might seem more like pleasure.
“Yes, sir,” I said.
In my time at the Pale Horse, I’ve learned that most men don’t want what they can get at home, nor can they provide me with anything worth my troubles. A few coins were usually the only compensation for the kinds of things my customers asked for.
Consequently, I hadn’t properly been with a man since the fertility festival. Reed was gentle, as though he were afraid of hurting me, until I showed him how rough he could be. He was thin and muscular all over, and not as tired as he had first appeared. It’s amazing what good food and a hot bath can do for the constitution, though I flattered myself to think that a woman could work even more wonders.
He gave me what I needed, and more. His heat sustained me in the cold night, as I had felt my own warmth slipping away more and more with the passing days.
I watched him while he dozed, studying the flutter of his eyelashes and the steady rise and fall of his chest. I placed my cheek close to his mouth for the touch of his breath against it, and put my palm over his heart to feel the strong beats.
When the sun rose, he finally stirred.
“Good morning, Sally.” He reached for me but I rolled away.
“Haven’t you had enough?” I laughed and pushed my corn-colored hair away from my face.
“If you mean sleep, no, but I don’t miss it.”
“You have to go, Reed.”
“I never want to go.” A shiver passed through me.
“If you stay you might get your wish.”
“I just got here, love. I haven’t even been here twenty-four hours yet and I’m more drained than I was when I arrived. What sort of rest is that?”
“I don’t think even I could handle you for twenty-four hours.”
He grabbed for me again and this time I let him pull me closer. “Now you’re just being modest.” His eyes roved down to my bare breasts and he stroked my stomach with the back of his hand. “So to speak.”
I heard banging downstairs—Master Parton’s subtle way of expressing displeasure that I hadn’t been there for the morning breakfast rush.
“Now I have to go.”
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
I kissed him and he drew me even closer, his hand behind my neck, threaded through my hair. I pulled away and some flaxen hairs came loose, still entwined in his fingers. He stared at the plucked strands in surprise.
“Later,” I promised, but thinking there would be no later.
He ate a hearty breakfast and followed me around the tavern with his eyes, while the others watched us. Then he went out for a walk around the village. I smelled his scent on me all day and worked in good spirits despite my weariness, ignoring everyone’s curious glances.
The looks weren’t because I had slept with someone outside of our village—that happened often enough, especially during the spring trading. It was that I had done it just before winter. Unless you were already pregnant, few risked sex after the fertility festival. Truthfully most people didn’t even have much interest in it as the days grew shorter and colder and life passed from the village, but I had gone without for so long and Reed was so alive.
They couldn’t blame me though, assuming I was just doing my job; of course, if I had charged Reed for the full night, I would be a rich woman indeed. I knew it was foolish to feel too much for a man I barely knew, one who would have to leave all too soon. All I knew was that he was different, and I wanted to hold on to that as long as I could.
When Reed came back he wanted another bath, but this time he insisted on a larger tub that could accommodate two bodies.
“You’re freezing,” he said. “Get under the water.”
The water did the favor of hiding how dry my skin had become overnight. I dipped low in the tub and slid toward him like an eel.
“I always get this way around winter. Just hold me.”
That suited him fine. As we lay against each other, the water-line tickling my back and shoulders, lapping against his neck and chin, he finally told me what I wanted to know.
“I’m an explorer, Sally. I travel, looking for strange and unusual things.”
“Then what do you do with them? Do you collect and sell them like trinkets?”
He looked at me aghast. “I draw them. I describe them in my journal. And I tell stories about the things I’ve seen.”
The idea of traveling from place to place, just for the experience, excited me. Maybe that was what drew me to Reed; it was a life I could never have for myself.
I dragged my fingernails through the wiry coils of hair on his chest and he twitched.
“Am I strange and unusual?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I wriggled away from him and splashed water into his face. He spluttered then locked his long sturdy legs around my waist and wrestled me back over to him. “Well, I’ve never met another like you anyway,” he said. “This town though, if it’s what I think it is, is truly unique. I never thought I’d find it.”
“What have you heard?” I rested my head against the hollow in his chest and enjoyed the gentle vibration of it as he spoke.
“That this place comes and goes with the seasons. It disappears in the winter.”
“But you’re here. You found us.”
“It wasn’t quite winter when I stumbled onto a part of the trail. And even then I almost didn’t make it. I’ve also heard…” His eyes searched my face but I didn’t know what he was looking for. Did he know about the changes? Would he push me away if he knew the terrible truth about Waring?
“I’ve also heard that those who live here never die,” he said.
I laughed. Never dying sounded pretty good to me. “We aren’t immortal. You’ve seen Master Parton. He’s ready to drop any day now, especially the way he carries on.” It wasn’t a complete lie, I told myself.
Reed’s face relaxed and he smiled. “Well, I’m still fascinated by this place. Do you know, I didn’t see any animals in the fields? No dogs or cats in the streets. Not even birds in the forest on the edge of town.”
I shrugged and his eyes indulged in my breasts as they emerged from the water. I ignored the stiffness in my shoulders and the creeping chill in my bones.
“We slaughtered our livestock. There’s nothing to feed them in the winter,” I said.
“Then what do you eat?”
“We have provisions.” We had preserved a portion of our meat and other supplies in a location only the elders knew about. They were under lock and key until the spring.
“That’s not the only odd thing. Almost every woman your age had a babe on her hip and milk swelling her breasts.” His calloused fingers rubbed like sandpaper over my nipples.
“Haven’t you noticed? The women here are lusty.” I grabbed at him under the water and squeezed softly.
Reed laughed. “I had noticed that. Once I start telling people about Waring, you’ll have a lot more visitors.”
“We don’t want visitors. Not now anyway.”
“I had thought the reception a little cool at first.”
“Reed. You have to leave tomorrow morning.” Master Parton had been upset that Reed had stayed on, but he hadn’t done anything about it yet, which frightened me. “Promise me you will. The next day is the winter solstice, and then it might be too late.”
“Too late?”
I didn’t say anything else. I just mashed my lips against his and slid onto his lap, holding tight to him.
They pulled Reed from our bed in the morning. Despite his larger size, the posse knew what they were doing. When they were done with him they propped him against the wall, his arms and legs held fast by the Parton boys. They asked him what he wanted in Waring.
He looked at me while he spoke. “I came looking for your magic. The secret of eternal youth.”
Master Parton guffawed. “Do I look young to you, boy? If there was any such thing, I’d be the first one in line.”
Reed’s eyes pleaded with me, but all I could do was watch. If I showed how much it hurt me to see them beat him, it would only go worse for him. I covered myself with the blanket when I caught Bobby Ratter ogling me. He had tried to force himself on me in the spring, but he finally listened when I said no with the little dagger I always carried. He had limped for a week afterward, but not for the reason he bragged about.
“There’s something strange here,” Reed said.
“You’re the only strange thing, and you’re leaving,” Bobby said. He kicked him in the ribs and Reed gasped. I flinched. “One way or another.”
“Sally—” He coughed, twisting against the hands holding him down.
Master Parton glanced at me. “The whore can’t help you.” The words stung as if he had struck me himself.
“Stop it,” I said. “He doesn’t deserve this. He’s our guest”
“Are you going to kill me?” Reed said.
“There’s too much death already,” Master Parton said. “But you can’t stay here. This is for your own good.”
“Sally?” Reed said.
Silence settled on the room as everyone looked at me.
“Go, Reed. There’s no place for you here.” I closed my eyes but I had already seen the look on his face.
When Reed left he took part of me with him, though he didn’t know it. I felt torn in two, between my ties to Waring and whatever I felt for him. In the end neither of us really had a choice— he couldn’t stay, and I couldn’t leave.
He didn’t speak to me. He just gathered his things, tossed a handful of coins onto the bed beside me, and left.
Things quickly returned to normal as we made our final preparations for winter. We boarded up the village and finished off as much food as we could before it spoiled. After we lost our appetites we burned the rest—we didn’t need rotting food around, when we would soon be rotting ourselves.
It was the dying time.
I left Reed’s room open and began spending nights there, until I couldn’t smell him anymore. I couldn’t smell at all. I cried into his pillow until there were no more tears.
Two weeks after the solstice I discovered that Reed had left something with me as well: a tiny seed, blazing like a beacon in my cold womb. It should have been impossible to carry life within my wasting body.
Tess’s baby hadn’t made it. The night of our solstice celebration she locked herself in her house while the life ebbed from the unborn baby trapped inside her. It had been a boy, we later learned, when we cut it out of her, too late. That’s how it had always been: babies born before the dying time change like the rest of us, but if they were still in the womb as winter settled on the town, they suffered permanent death. We kept trying each spring, hoping that one of them would break the curse.
We hate to look at each other during the walking death of the dying time. While the rest of Waring holed up in their houses to work on their crafts and metalwork, preparing items to trade in the spring, I wandered the empty rooms of the Pale Horse, fretting over my own pregnancy. I didn’t know what it meant yet, but I might never find out. The fire within me flickered like a guttering candle. It would surely die because I couldn’t feed it—then I would have nothing more to worry about.
But I wanted to see that child. I wanted to see Reed again.
Then another impossible thing happened. Someone knocked at the door of the Pale Horse, the sound echoing through the barren tavern.
I swept a cloak around me and lifted the hood to cover my face. I opened the door and Reed lurched inside and into my arms. I caught him and managed to lower him roughly to the floor. Cold air whipped around us but I felt nothing. I pushed the door closed and lit a fire in the hearth, hoping that no one else was outside to see the smoke.
Reed was coated in frozen mud, as he had been on his first arrival. His face was covered in bruises and cuts, red and raw with exposure to cold and wind. His hands were chapped and blackened and his eyelids were rimmed with ice.
The blue faded from his lips as he warmed before the fire. I watched him enviously as he came back to life. He stirred and mumbled something. I leaned closer.
“No way out,” he said.
“Reed…”
His eyes opened and his bleeding lips formed a smile when he saw me. “Sally?”
I nodded under my cloak but he couldn’t see the motion. I stroked his hand reassuringly.
“I’m here,” I said.
“The roads are gone. They don’t lead anywhere except back to Waring. There’s no way out.”
“You’re trapped,” I said. “We all are.” The only difference was that we were unable to leave even during the other seasons.
“I’m so hungry.”
“We have no food.” Another twinge in my belly. The life that grew inside me was hungry too. Should I tell Reed that he was a father? Would he be pleased?
I hunted behind the bar until I found a small, dusty jar of pickles that looked like it dated back a hundred years. I handed it to Reed doubtfully. He lacked the strength to open the lid himself so I did it for him. I fed him and when he had finished the last pickle he drank the brine greedily, the juice matting his wild beard.
Seeing how thirsty he was, I filled a bucket with snow from outside and hung it over the fire.
“Sally. Why do you wear that cloak? I’ve missed your pretty face.”
“I’m cold.”
“Then come closer to the fire.”
I didn’t move. “Oh, why didn’t you leave when I told you to? You might have made it then.”
“Can’t you show me the way?”
“The way won’t open for you until March at the earliest.” It was then that I finally felt despair. I would lose him, and I would lose his baby. When the others found out, perhaps I would lose my life for jeopardizing our secret shame. That last thought was consoling—it would be an end to this, a release from my strange half-life.
“What’s happened here?” Reed said. “It’s become a ghost town. Where did everyone go?”
He was going to die anyway, so I decided to tell him.
“Every winter we… Death touches all of us, for a time. When the spring comes, life returns to our bodies and we can go on like normal people. But for now, we’re walking dead.”
Reed was quiet for a long time. “But the stories…”
“It isn’t eternal life. It’s eternal death.” We did live longer because of our strange condition, but it was only an extended lifetime of small half-deaths.
His eyes showed fear. I felt more naked than I ever had with him.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“You were right about one thing: there is magic here. But not the kind you can bottle and sell, if you could find someone who wanted it. You never should have come here.”
“Come closer, Sally.”
I reluctantly sat next to him in front of the fire. “Don’t look at me,” I said. “I can’t bear it.”
“I have to see.” His hands moved toward the hood of my cloak and I flinched. He grabbed the cloth firmly and slowly lowered it, his eyes focused on mine.
To his credit, he didn’t scream. I was glad of that, afraid he would bring the whole of Waring to discover us. He drew back, his eyes wide and his mouth parted in shock.
When he recovered he touched one of my waxy cheeks with one hand and gazed into my clouded eyes. “Strange and unusual,” he said.
His fingers caressed my cadaverous lips and I closed my eyes. Then he surprised me. He kissed me. His lips were feverish against mine.
“No,” I said. I pushed him away. “I don’t want that. It’s disgusting.” I pressed two fingers against my mouth, but the warmth faded too quickly.
“Is it?” he asked.
“If it isn’t then it’s just pity, and I don’t want that from you either.”
“What about what I want?” he asked.
I opened my cloak so he could see how my dress hung on my shrunken frame, and how my decaying flesh was mottled and discolored. The loose clothing hid my engorged stomach.
He jerked back. He lowered his eyes and I was relieved that he couldn’t see my dismay. “Sally, I—”
“Shhh.” There was nothing he could say to make this all right.
He lay by the fire, my cloak draped over him for extra warmth though he still shivered beneath it, coughing. I sat watching him. I thought he might have contracted pneumonia from wandering in the cold forest for two weeks, already weak and injured.
“What will happen to me?” he said finally, when the fire was beginning to die. I could go out for more firewood, but there didn’t seem much point. I would do it for him though, as long as it could keep him alive.
“You’ll starve to death,” I said simply. There was no way to make the outlook any less grim. “And then I’ll bury you.”
“There must be food somewhere.”
“It’s all locked away, Reed, and I don’t know where.” I thought about what would happen if I went to the elders and begged them for the keys. It was better that they didn’t know about Reed. “Even if I could get to it, I wouldn’t. I’m sorry. We need that food in the spring. When we waken, we’re ravenous.”
“Are there no wild animals to hunt? Maybe with your help, with some weapons—” He coughed violently.
“Reed. You’re the only living thing in Waring. You’re the only…”
I trailed a cold finger along his jaw. The fire inside me blazed in response. It was hungry. I was hungry.
“What is it, love?” he asked.
I looked at Reed sadly. “Shhh…” I stilled him with a kiss, my hard lips rasping against his. I leaned into him and pushed him onto his back with me on top of him. He hissed with pain. I cast aside my cloak and I pulled up his shirt, tore it open. Buttons snapped off and scattered on the wooden floor like bones tossed from a gambler’s cup.
His eyes widened. “Sally…”
I ran my hands all over his bare chest. I pressed a palm against his breastbone and held it there for one, two, three beats of his heart. I imagined my own still heart throbbing in time with his, hot blood pumping through my body.
When I touched the broken ribs on his left side, he cried out. “Gently,” he moaned. “Oh, Sally. Dear pretty girl.”
“Gently,” I replied. I leaned over and lapped at his neck with a rough tongue, my mouth watering now at the taste of him. The little fire in me flared in concert with Reed’s quickening pulse. Despite his initial revulsion, even halfway to death, his body was overcome by passion. It still had desires, as did mine.
I straddled his legs.
“I finally realized,” I murmured. “This is why they call you Reed, isn’t it?” I cupped the stiffening bulge at his crotch that strained the fabric of his breeches. I remembered him as a man of tall proportions in every respect. He arched his back and grinded his pelvis urgently against me.
He fumbled to untie the drawstring of his breeches with clumsy, frostbitten fingers. I pulled my dagger from my slack bodice. I stroked the flat edge of the blade up and down the taut front of his breeches. He shuddered and tensed between my legs.
Reed lifted his head to stare at me intensely. A growl lurked in the back of his throat.
As he watched, I sawed through the knotted drawstring of his breeches with the tip of the dagger then eased his pants off him. He shivered, as much from my touch as the chill air against his exposed skin. I rested the blade beside him and licked my lips.
“Don’t torture me, Sally,” he pleaded. “I need you.”
“I need you, too,” I said.
I dipped a corner of my cloak in the hot water over the fire. I wrung out the dripping fabric, heedless of scalding my skin. The nerves in my hands were already dead, depriving me of any sensation of pleasure or pain.
I swabbed Reed’s neck with the damp cloth then rubbed it down the center of his chest. He closed his eyes and moaned as I tenderly washed away the caked-in sweat, dirt, and dried blood from every part of him. I took special care to clean behind his ears.
He opened his eyes as I retrieved my dagger. He smiled. “Let’s skip the shave this time. I remember your light touch with a knife.”
He grabbed me with firm hands at the waist and lifted me up, easing me forward, first gently, then more roughly as I resisted. He was stronger than he’d seemed only moments ago. His fingers dug into my thighs. His chest rose and fell as though he was gasping for breath, and his heart sounded drumbeats in my head.
I leaned over him on spread knees. The point of my dagger hovered only inches away from his throat.
Would this work? It seemed possible, if I was quick. If I didn’t falter.
“Please, Sally.” He voice was thick and ragged with lust.
The silver blade flashed in the glowing embers from the fire. Before I could veer from my chosen course, I plunged it hilt-deep into his heart, putting all of my weight into it while his body convulsed beneath me. Air escaped from his mouth, a soft sigh of surprise.
I leaned close and whispered in his ear, wracked with dry tears. “I’m sorry, Reed. But you’re the only food here.”
His voice gurgled. “You…monster.”
I shook my head and straightened, still sitting astride him. His blood soaked the front of my dress.
“It’s for our baby.” I lifted his hand to my belly and pressed it against the warm bump there.
I thought I saw understanding flicker across his face. Or maybe I just wanted to see it. His pulse faded. His hand fell lifeless from mine, and his eyes stared vacantly up at me, accusingly. My throat tightened as I looked down on him.
There was no time to waste if I wanted a chance at saving our baby, of sustaining it until spring came. I needed to drag Reed to the abattoir before his flesh cooled. I had helped the butcher bleed a pig before, and I felt confident I could do the same with his body. I would need to store as much of the blood as possible, then cut up the flesh and cure it. Reed was a big man—he might just last us the whole winter if I rationed carefully.
I caressed Reed’s cheek and pressed his eyelids shut. It was a more merciful way to die than starvation, and this way his death would have some purpose. I kissed his forehead and tugged the dagger from his body.
I licked the warm blood from the blade. The baby liked it—it yearned for more.
I clasped my hands over my stomach. “Soon, little monster,” I said, wondering what was growing inside of me. I wiped the dagger off on my dress then tucked it away.
I opened the door of the tavern and faced the long night. A few flakes of snow drifted inside and alighted on Reed’s still face. When they melted, they looked like tears.