kiss me deadly: 13 tales of paranormal love by trisha telep

Author:trisha telep
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: juvenile fiction, fiction/romance fantasy, general
ISBN: 9781742740867
Publisher: Random House Australia
Published: 2009-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Hare Moon

BY CARRIE RYAN

It’s because the paths are forbidden that Tabitha always finds her way to them. She’s tired of being trapped behind the village fences, tired of being told what to do all the time. She wasn’t made for a life like this: sedate, rule-following. Boring.

The first time she opens the gate it’s on a dare to herself. To see if she’s just a dreamer or if she’s someone who can follow through on her promises. She wants to know that she’s more than just desires—she’s action.

She’d like to believe she isn’t terrified. That she doesn’t approach the gate and hesitate. Look through the rusty metal links at the brambles and brush obscuring the path and tremble.

That the dead along the fence don’t frighten her, their cracked and broken fingers reaching, always reaching and the moans calling for her.

It’s the sound of them that gets to her, the way they invade every part of her life. She hears them in her sleep, in her daydreams, during chores and services. She hears them when she’s praying to God.

And on the path there’s no escaping the Unconsecrated. They shuffle along the fences on either side of her, pushing and pulling and grating and needing. She’s never known need like that in her life. Doesn’t understand it.

But all the same she wants it.

Tabitha knows there are rules and rules are meant to be followed. Every morning she attends services and every evening she recites her prayers. She gives deference to her parents, cares for her younger siblings and completes chores without complaint. Well, without too much complaint.

During the winter months she does as she’s asked and smiles and demurs to the eligible young men her age, waiting for a husband to choose her.

They never do.

She’s okay with this because it isn’t the young men who call to her at night. It’s the Forest of Hands and Teeth. It’s the whisper of the trees that there’s a bigger life outside the fences. That there’s still a world that’s bigger and braver than any she could ever comprehend and all she has to do is find the strength to go after it.

At night she writhes in her bed listening to it. Wanting it. Needing it until it causes her cheeks to burn red and tears to run from her eyes. And in the morning she slows her steps as she passes by the gate in the middle of an errand. She promises herself that tomorrow she will sneak through it. Tomorrow the world will be hers.

***

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