Magic and Myth by Kathryn Trattner

Author:Kathryn Trattner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kathryn Trattner

And he’d be there, waiting in the sunshine, with my name in his mouth.

After a decade, he became domesticated, my Fire. He would leave and come home again, bring flowers from distant places, bring maple syrup, and, once, crimson silk pajamas. After dinner and time spent with books, he would crawl into our bed, burrow beneath several quilts and too many pillows, and we would laugh and whisper into the night.

And when he said he loved me, I knew it was the truest thing.

It ends.

All of it.

Always.

Sometimes it is happily ever after, sometimes bitter because not everything can be easy or sweet. But mine was painless, mostly because they wished it for me, made me a place without pain, without the biting sorrow of letting go. A sudden and fierce heart attack, seized and tensed and seemingly infinite.

When I woke—because my eyes opened and what else could it be?—I was not alone. He waited, waited as if the end of the world couldn’t stop him, waited as if I’d only ever been the one. And I knew, somehow, all those years, I’d been waiting too.

“And this is after,” he said, holding out a hand for me to take, pulling me to my feet in front of a house that looked very much like our own. “If you wish it, if you want me, this is what comes after.”

I turned with him to look at the cabin, the wide porch filled with potted plants, moss growing on shingles, the warm yellow glow behind the windows, and the open door. Overhead a million and one stars sparkled, a moon lowering in the sky, and at the edges of the world, a hint of dawn.

“I would never want anything else,” I said.

A truth sharper than anything that had come before, as hard as love.

We walked toward the house, arm in arm, and I didn’t have to turn to look into the trees to know they were all there; the Seasons, spirits of rivers and stones. I could feel their joy, their acceptance of me, I could feel them as part of me, and I knew I was now a part of them.

“I made dinner,” Fire said, leading me up the porch and across the threshold. “I burned the chicken, but the mashed potatoes should be okay.

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