Songs of Love & Death by ed George R R Martin & Gardner Dozois

Author:ed George R R Martin & Gardner Dozois [Martin, ed George R R & Dozois, Gardner]
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

IT HAD BEEN three years. Maybe I expected snakes instead of vines, or razor blades in place of leaves, but everything that touched me was as it should be: a soft tickle of brush, the snag of thorns on my clothing and skin. I was almost blind in the darkness, and I was too loud. I crashed through the woods, crunching leaves and breaking branches, like a wounded creature, breath rasping. Henry moved in perfect silence, and only when he touched me did I know he was close.

“I can smell my brother,” he whispered; and then: “I wish I’d had more time to explain.”

“You had years.” I touched trees to keep from tripping. “Time runs out. When I saw you tonight, I couldn’t imagine how you had pretended for so long to be like everyone else. And I don’t know how they were so blind not to see that you’d changed.”

“Easier to believe,” he said quietly. “Easier to pretend than face the truth. Even when I had you and Steven helping me adjust to my new… instincts… I kept thinking I could be something else. If I prayed hard enough, if I stayed with the old ways.”

My fingernails scraped bark, and I felt heat travel through my skin into my blood, simmering into quiet fire—a sensation similar to knowledge, the same that guided me when blessing fences.

“The world is remaking itself,” I found myself saying. “Men die, forests swallow the cities and bones. And what remains… changes. Life always changes.”

“Not like this,” Henry replied. “Not like us.”

You’re wrong, I wanted to tell him, but heard a low, distant cough. All the calm I had been fighting for disappeared. I reached down, nearly blind, and cats trailed under my shaking hand.

When we found the clearing, it didn’t matter that I couldn’t see well. I felt the open space, I looked up and saw stars, and my teeth began chattering. I gritted them together, trying to stop, but the chills that racked me were violent, sickening. Henry grabbed me around the waist and pressed his lips into my hair.

“I’m here,” he murmured. “Think about what you told my mother. It’s different this time.”

I squeezed shut my eyes. “I didn’t think I’d ever have to come back to this spot.”

“It can’t be the same one.”

I pushed Henry away. “I shouldn’t have visited you that night. I should have run and hid when I heard your mother screaming.”

He froze. So did I. And then he moved again, reaching out, fingers grazing my arm. I staggered backward, clutching the shotgun to my chest.

“Amanda,” he whispered.

“I’m sorry,” I breathed, ashamed. “I’m so sorry I said that.”

But even as I spoke, my throat burned, aching, and when I opened my mouth to draw in a breath, a sob cut free, soft, broken, cracking me open to the heart. I bent over, in such pain, shuddering so hard I could not breathe. Henry touched me. I squeezed shut my eyes, fighting for control. Not now. Not now.

But my mouth opened and words vomited out, whispers, my voice croaking.

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