“Oh, yes, sir, I do!”
“Of course you do. What is it, then, that you want to live for, Keturah Reeve?”
My heart nearly broke with sadness, for I realized I had lost feeling in my arms and legs and that the life was indeed going out of me.
“My desire was that I might have my own little cottage to clean, and my own wee baby to hold, and most of all, one true love to be my husband.”
He was unmoved. “That is not too much to ask of life,” he said, “but you must have none of them, since you will not choose someone else to die in your place.” He put his cold hand on my head. It felt heavy, as if it were made of lead instead of flesh. I felt lighter after he released his touch.
“Have you killed me?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “You are still alive. For now.”
“Why did you touch me?”
“It is not for you to question me,” he said.
He had spoken truly—I was very much alive. I heard the birds of the forest singing more clearly than I ever had. Had I never before noticed the pepper-musk scent of fallen leaves and bracken? No, I was not ready to die.
Nor could I bear to think of plague in my village. If only I could speak for but a little time with Lord Temsland, to warn him.
“Sir, please let me say goodbye to my grandmother.”
“To say goodbye is everyone’s wish at the end,” he said, “but never granted. It is time, Keturah.”
He held out his hand. My mind whirled, desperate for a way to live, knowing I could not run away. I could see myself reflected in his shiny black boots, my face pale and bug-bitten.
And then into my mind came a memory of Hatti Pennyworth’ s son, who was dragged by a horse and should have died, but lived. And Jershun South, who went to sleep for two weeks and awoke one day as if he’d slept but a night. And what about my own cousin, who once ate a mushroom that killed big men? Though he was young, he survived. Death often sadly surprised us, but sometimes he gladly surprised us, too.
“Sir, you are not easy to entreat.”
“I am not entreated at all.”
“But I hear you are sometimes cheated.”
He laughed then, and I saw that he was perilously beautiful, at once terrifying and irresistible.
“Good Sir Death,” I said too loudly, “I would tell you a story—a story of love, a love that could not be conquered even by you.”
“Truly?” he asked. “I have seen many loves, and none were so great I could not divide them.”
“This is a story of a beautiful young maiden, who, though she was a peasant, fell in love with the lord of the manor.”
“I have heard this tale before, in a thousand different ways,” he said.
“But my tale, Lord Death, is one that will make even you love, that will heat even your frozen heart.” My boldness astonished me, but I stood to lose nothing.
“Indeed,” said he in disbelief. “Then say on.”
“Once there was a girl—”
“An auspicious beginning.”
“—who loved... no one.”
“A love story in which there is no love—you have caught my attention now,” said Lord Death.
“Though her mother died giving birth to her, and though her father followed his wife to the grave soon after, the girl had been raised on love.”
“I see you have given me a part in the story,” said Lord Death, and if I could trust myself, I might have thought that he said it with a hint of sadness.
“The girl grew with love in the very air she breathed,” I continued. “When her grandparents sat together and Grandmother was not spinning, the couple held hands. They talked together of all the big and small things of life and rarely disagreed. When they did, it became a thing of laughter. Sometimes they shared sadness, especially when they thought of their daughter, who had not lived to hold her own child.
“They danced together at village dances; they prayed together at night before they slept, and then slept close. Often, for no reason, Grandfather would bring his wife a flower. Grandmother in her garden would bring the biggest, reddest strawberry for her husband, the darkest and sweetest raspberries, the newest carrots. She made rose-water from dying roses and splashed it on herself for the sake of Grandfather. They drew the girl into their circle of uncommon love and established in her forever a desire to have such a thing for herself someday.
“After this, the girl longed for a love that could not be ended by death. From the time she was young, she knew that her true love was there, somewhere, living a life that would one day intersect her own. Knowing this made every day full of sweet possibility. Knowing that her true love lived and breathed and went about his day under her same sun made her fears vanish, her sorrows small, and her hopes high. Though she did not yet know his face, the color of his eyes, still she knew him better than anyone else knew him, knew his hopes and dreams, what made him laugh and cry.”
I paused to look at Lord Death. He was regarding me with an unreadable look, a look of great concentration. Had I not seen this same look across the flames of the common fire when I told fairy tales to the villagers?
He leaned back as if to pull himself out of the web of my story. With a gesture of his hand he said, “Every girl dreams of such love. Then they marry and quarrel, and the cares of life drive love out.”
“The girl knew that quarrels would come because their lives were intertwined—how passionately one defends a heart that is vulnerable,” I said.
“The girl and her true love will get old and ugly.” Was his tone defiant? Or was it that he wished—demanded— that I persuade him?
“They will, and yet they will see past the scars of time to view the soul that first loved.”
“Could such a love be?” Lord Death asked, but his voice was not harsh.
“We will never know, for one day Death came for the girl. She knew that her soul’s heart would love as much as her living heart, and that she would long and ache and mourn for eternity for her true love. She tried to persuade Lord Death, tried to make him see how dark and lonely would be the life of her future love without her. She tried to tell Lord Death how even he would rejoice for the sweetness of that hoped-for love, if only he would let it be.” I was weeping now, for a truer story I had never told. “Death would not be persuaded, for he had found her first, and yet...”
“And yet?” Lord Death said quietly.
“The end of the story I cannot tell.”
“Cannot tell?”
“Will not tell—until tomorrow. Let me live, sir,” I begged, “and I will tell you the ending tomorrow.”
The leaves in the trees shushed me. A wind caught some dust and leaves and swirled them into the air. The horse shied and quivered. Lord Death was utterly still. His face went from disbelief to astonishment.
“Are you saying you will not tell me?”
“Take me home, and I swear that I will come to you in the wood and tell you the rest of the story. Only let me live another day.”
The wind blew his hair and his cloak, and even the shadows around him boiled. “You think too highly of love,” he said. “Love is no more than a story spun out of dust and dreams, having no substance. But I would know the end, and I confess I hope you can indeed show me a love that is greater than death. Return to me tomorrow, and you will come with me then.”
He smiled to himself, and the shadows of the forest clotted around him.
“And I grant you a further boon—find this love in the day I have given you, and you will live and not come with me at all. Now I will set you upon my horse and return you to your grandmother, but only until the morrow.”
“You are not angry with me for being more clever than you?”
“In fact—”
He stepped toward me, knelt again on one knee, and reached his ungloved hand as if to put his hand under my chin. I raised it away from his touch. He did not lift his hand to touch me, nor did he lower it. I could feel the cold emanating from his fingers, so cold it burned into my throat.