The gravestones shone in the sleet and feeble sunlight.
Two years seemed too short a time. It felt like a nightmarish yesterday when the snow-bee blade rotted Mama Annistyn from inside out. The stench had been putrid and powerful, clogging her lungs. Adrenaline had surged through blood and bone, and when it abated, and Kodiak looked at her grandmother's dead body – dead witch body – her breath caught in her throat. Had Mama Annistyn been planning to kill herself as well?
Kodiak had clambered to her feet, head dazed in the aftermath of everything. And then she'd remembered her uncle in the corridor. When she reached him, all she could to replenish his blood had been sparse. Her hands, slippery with his blood, pressing against the wound, helplessly struggling to stop the blood from flowing. Exerted her magic, what little remained from Mama Annistyn's daily dose of snow bees. But the pool of crimson soaked her pyjamas.
Ragged breaths, Uncle Jantzen had clamped a hand over hers, so small was it back then.
"Tell me a story, Uncle," whispered little Kodiak.
Now, Kodiak touched the stone, caressed the name engraved into it, her fingers quivering as she did so. She couldn't help it; tears specked the granite, tracing paths earthward. She swept her trembling hand over both graves.
Bloody and sweating, Uncle Jantzen mustered a weak smile that faltered with every jagged rise and fall of his chest. "Once upon a time..."
A bed of lavender and baby breath burgeoned from the barren ground, enchanting the air with a lovely fragrance, undulating at the brushing kiss of the lamenting north wind. Stirring reminiscence of precious memories.
IN LOVING MEMORY OF
JANTZEN & INAYA SNOW
MAY THEIR SOULS FIND PEACE
YOU ARE READING
THE DREAMER'S LAMENT
Short StoryIn the hearts of dreamers, lament will always linger. Sadness can bloom into the brightest, lambent shades, like the rain giving way to the phantom of a rainbow, like the promise of hope. But sorrow may also wind down a darker, colder path. Our hear...
