All Fade Away

All Fade Away

She brought the cold in with her, wrapped around her like a cloak against the elements. She left a trail of fog in her wake as she approached the counter. Droplets of cold fell from her dress as she settled upon a stool, carefully arranging her skirt about her like a debutante of old. She glanced slowly from left to right, as if she were lost and looking for some familiar landmark.
“Can I help you, Miss?” the man behind the counter asked. “You look a little lost.”
She leveled a hollow gaze upon him. “I am not lost,” she said, her voice low, a harmony of perfect notes singing a melody of old.
The man frowned at her odd demeanor. “Can I get you anything?” he asked. “Something to eat? Something hot to drink, at least? A coffee?”
“I have no money,” she told him. “But perhaps I could tell you a story.”
“What kind of story?”
She smiled then; an eerie quirk of her lips that did not extend to her hollow eyes. She sat forward, bringing herself closer to the man. A burst of cold came with her.
“Would you like to hear a ghost story?”
“I don’t believe in ghosts.”
“That’s why they call it a story,” she said with an odd twist to her lips that mimicked a smile.
“Sure, why not. Seems appropriate tonight, don’t you think? All Hallows Eve.” He chuckled with false bravado. “Go ahead. Tell me a ghost story.”
She settled into the task with an eerie smile.
“Once, many years ago, there was a girl who was the pride of her family,” she began. As she spoke, her voice livened with enthusiasm for her subject. “She was a pretty, pretty girl and people from far and wide came to see her, to witness her beauty for themselves. Her parents, who were very poor, put her on display for profit. Her beauty was her only talent. When she opened her mouth, however, ugliness dropped out, so her parents cautioned her not to speak to anyone who came to see her. This only added to her allure. People who came to see her golden hair and perfect features were even more fascinated by her apparent inability to speak. ‘Imagine someone so beautiful,’ they said, ‘who cannot express gratitude for her praise.’”
As the story unfolded, the man behind the counter poured a cup of coffee and placed it before her. It turned to ice when she touched the cup. Neither of them noticed.
“Then one day, the inevitable happened,” she continued, excitement building in her voice. “She found her heart, her one true love. A man beyond compare with a gentle soul and impeccable manners. He could have anyone he wanted, but he chose her. They planned a life together. But, alas, it was not to be…”
The cold intensified around her, became almost a living thing, stirring the tendrils of gold that rested upon her shoulders.
“She was not on an equal level with him, you see, and his family would not allow her to join their ranks. He pled, they said no. He threatened to disobey them, they cut off his inheritance. He could not live below his usual standard, though he did try, for a time. Eventually, he went back to them, groveling, on his knees. He was not cut out to be a common man, you see. He agreed to do whatever his parents deemed proper to get back in their good standing. They told him to denounce her. When he told her what he’d done, she wept rivers of sorrow. ‘What will I do without you?’ she cried. “You will go on,’ he told her. ‘No, without you, it will all fade away.’
“Of course, he tried to convince her that this was not so, but he could not. For once, her beauty had failed her and she was inconsolable. Always, in the past, she’d used her beauty to get whatever she wanted, as her parents had taught her. She became very spoiled. She expected to get whatever she wanted. Always in the past, her beauty was enough to achieve her dreams. Never before had anyone dared to say no to her. So she was quite devastated when her beauty failed her and she couldn’t get him.
“She lost her mind. He tried to console her. She couldn’t be consoled. She wanted forever. He wouldn’t give her today. So she had to sit back and watch as he married another.”
She shuddered then, shaking off puffs of cool air into the restaurant behind her. The man behind the counter answered her shudder with one of his own. The air stilled about them, as if holding its breath in anticipation of her next words.
“But he continued to see her,” she went on, “behind his parents’ backs, behind his wife’s back. She tried to get him to leave his wife for her. He wouldn’t. She became despondent. He tried to love her. His love wasn’t enough. She became enraged. How dare he do this to her? He wouldn’t leave his wife, wouldn’t defy his parents. He wouldn’t choose her over them. She began to fade away. She wouldn’t eat. She couldn’t sleep. Her beauty deserted her.
“Her parents feared for her. There was talk of sending her away. She knew where they intended to send her. She couldn’t let that happen. She stole away in the night without a cent to her name. She went looking for him. She found him in a restaurant much like this…” She waved an arm around in a ballet-like motion, stirring up a cloud of cold. “…He was dining with a woman who was not his wife. She was also not a woman of class, but one of those. Still, it cut her deep to see him with this creature. Her heart shattered at his feet.
“In a rage, she picked up a knife from his table and plunged it into his heart, right there, in front of all those witnesses. They could only watch in horror. As did he. With his last remaining breaths, he asked, ‘Why, Amelia? Why did you do this?’ ‘You took my heart and broke it,’ she said, ‘now I take yours. Without our hearts beating as one, we are nothing. All fade away.’ He gave her a strange look. ‘I am dying…and you speak in riddles.’ She twisted the knife into his chest as she chanted, ‘All fade away, all fade away…’
“When he died at her hand, she left him with his mistress, whose screams tore through the night. But Amelia paid her no mind. She met her own death in the path of a truck, right out front, her words still filling the air. ‘All fade away.’”
The man behind the counter shook the solemnity from his shoulders. “That’s a great story,” he pronounced, a note of skepticism in his deep voice. “But I don’t see how it’s a ghost story.”
She slipped from her stool to stand before him, a smirk curling her lips. “I didn’t tell you the best part,” she said, leaning close for emphasis. “Every year, on the anniversary of her passing, she returns to the scene of her betrayal. To live again, for a moment or two…” She lifted a shoulder in a delicate shrug. “Perhaps to see a different end to her story…” Sadness emanated from her as a phantom scream rent the air behind them. “But not tonight,” she concluded as she backed away from the man at the counter, toward the entrance.
Her form began to shimmer, the definition of her perfect features becoming hazy. She continued to smirk as her form melted into the solid wood of the door, passing through it like a wisp of fog. The sound of her voice echoed into the night as her figure dissolved into nothing.
“All fade away…”

Trick or Treat, from Margay Leah Justice

This Halloween story, and many others, can be found on the Second Wind Publishing blog. Check it out – if you dare:

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Novel Sisterhood Interview

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My Interview at the Bookworm

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Nora’s Soul Excerpt

“I don’t want there to be any misconceptions or hurt feelings between us, Nora.”
The sound of his harsh voice snapped her attention back to him. “Misconceptions?” she repeated, confused. “About what?”
“About what you and my sister expect is going to happen here.”
“I don’t – “ Her protest died on her lips when he placed a fingertip over them, silencing her. She nearly choked on a shallow breath at the fireball of sensation that roared down to the pit of her stomach at that minute touch. Thankfully, he withdrew the finger before she could do anything really damaging to her pride – like suck it into her mouth – but the fiery sensation lingered in her stomach, quietly banking a fire of old sensations into full life.
“I don’t need a social secretary,” he said, seemingly unaware of her reaction to him. “If I did need a secretary, I’d find one through a headhunter, not my sister.”
“Okay.”
“And I certainly wouldn’t take one whose background is in social services.”
“Well, then, it’s a good thing I’m not here to be your secretary.”
“Good. Now that we’ve got that established, let’s move on.”
“Please do.”
Kyle ignored that last comment as he launched into his speech. As he spoke, he made a leisurely circle about Nora, pausing to lean toward her in punctuation of each sentence.
“I’m not looking for a wife or a new mother for my children – “
“I’m not – “
“ – so if that’s the little scheme you’ve got going with my sister, you can just forget about it now.”
“I don’t have any ‘little scheme’ going with Joelle – or anyone else, for that matter!”
“Glad to hear it,” Kyle said, his tone belying his words. “Let’s move on, shall we?”
“Oh, please do.”
“I live alone. I like that.”
His breath skimmed her right ear as he leaned in close to her, front to front. She tried not to shudder at the pleasurable sensation it sent shimmering down her neck and into her stomach, where it joined the fire still banked there. She feared that she failed miserably. She almost didn’t hear his next words in the aftermath of the sensations he aroused in her.
“I throw my clothes on the floor when I undress.” He slipped around her right shoulder, but circled close to it – too close. “I leave the toilet seat up. I squeeze toothpaste from the middle. I sleep in the nude.” He leaned over her shoulder. His lips pressed to her ear, his breath searing a path down the left side of her neck now that, oddly enough, brought chills to her spine. “I like that.”
As the chills rippled through her, Nora swayed, slightly off-balance. Kyle righted her equilibrium with a quick, painless jab of his knees to the backs of hers. Then he pulled back, abruptly, completed his circle as he drilled home his point. “I don’t want anyone picking up my clothes. I don’t want anyone putting down the toilet seat or telling me where to squeeze my toothpaste.” He paused to quirk his lips in what could almost pass for a smile at the suggestive statement. “And I don’t want anyone buying me silk pajamas. I don’t want to be reformed.” He leaned his face so close to Nora’s then that his features filled her entire realm of vision. “Got that?”
Well, of all the arrogant, insufferable – !  Nora was trembling with rage by the conclusion of Kyle’s little speech. Just who the hell did he think he was, anyway, making demands like that?
“That’s what I missed about you all these years, Kyle,” she said with hard-won calm. “That charming personality.”
Kyle smiled then, but it was just a flexing of the muscles; there was no warmth to it. He leaned nearer to Nora, the tip of his nose in a position to touch hers should either of them make the slightest movement. It was an oddly intimate pose; a slight twist to the left, or a slight twist to the right, and their lips would be touching, even if no other parts of their bodies were. But the heat of his body – emanating from his skin in a wonderfully male scent that reminded her of warm summer days at the beach – did touch her; like a brand, searing another impression of him on her heart. The urge to melt into him wasn’t as hard as the urge to pull away; it took all of her strength to resist it. Oh, no, she wouldn’t give him that.
“Oh, I can be very charming.” He dropped the smile. “Or not.” Withdrawing, he stared down his nose at her, pointed a finger toward her collarbone. “Your choice. Just remember this – I don’t want to be seduced.”
“Oh, I don’t think there’s any chance of that,” Nora said, her voice so thick with sarcasm she nearly choked on it. She thought she detected a flicker of something – admiration, perhaps – in his eyes when she stated, “I’m here to take care of your children’s needs, not yours.” But whatever she thought she saw in his eyes was gone before she could name it. Must be my imagination, she decided.
“See that you remember that.”
“Oh, I will.”
They faced off for an eternal moment, two battle-scarred warriors at an emotional impasse. Each waiting for the other to flinch first. When that didn’t happen, they simultaneously relaxed their stances, as if by some silent agreement.
Kyle took a wary step backward. His eyes never left her face. “Good. Then there’s nothing left to discuss. Is there?”
“Just one thing,” she said when he would’ve turned away. She ignored the annoyed look he cast over his shoulder as he paused on his flight up the stairs. She started down the hall toward the sounds of merriment emanating from the kitchen, but paused when she came abreast of Kyle on the stairs. “I take my responsibilities very seriously.” She hesitated, for effect, then drove the statement home with, “All of them.” And then she was gone, leaving Kyle to stare after her in wonder.

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An Interview with Dante

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