Radiant by Karina Sumner-Smith

Author:Karina Sumner-Smith [Sumner-Smith, Karina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, Paranormal, Science Fiction, Apocalyptic & Post-Apocalyptic, Dystopian
ISBN: 9781940456102
Google: CU2DngEACAAJ
Goodreads: 20344702
Publisher: Talos
Published: 2014-09-30T07:00:00+00:00

“And another thing,” said the old woman’s ghost. “Those rags on his feet. Those are not socks. It has been years since they resembled socks.” Her white bun had loosened and now flopped about her head with every emphatic gesture.

The old man seated on a nearby crate threw his hands in the air and rolled his eyes dramatically. “Here we go. I can already see it coming.”

“Your socks,” Xhea said. “Your wife feels that they are . . . past their prime.”

“Oh, I’ll bet she does.”

“You think I like having to look at his toes poking through those things? Let me tell you, that’s the worst thing about being dead—never listens when I tell him to get his feet off the coffee table or put on a perfectly good pair of slippers. You tell him to go down to Erikson’s shop and get some of those hand-knit socks. Now that’s quality.”

Xhea turned to the husband, and he waved a dismissive hand. “If she’s talking about the socks from Erikson’s, I don’t want to hear it. Damn itchy things—lumpy too. You ever have to wear lumpy socks, girl? They bunch up in your shoes something fierce, they do, and you limp around like you’re walking on stones. Erikson socks. I’ll be dead first.”

The woman’s ghost snorted. “He will if he spends another winter in those shreds he calls socks. Cheap old man.”

Xhea cheerfully conveyed this message, snort and all. Before he could reply, a small chime sounded from the old man’s watch to announce the end of the hour for which he’d paid.

“Well,” he said and blinked, then pushed back his shoulders as if trying to settle himself in his body, in this place; again seeing only Xhea and not the specter of his wife that he knew was so near, and untouchable. “Well. I suppose that anything else will have to wait until another time.” Xhea had never tried to cut them off, and yet the old man kept the appointments to the hour they had agreed upon, not a second more.

At the sound, his wife had stilled. Slowly, she unbound the last of her bun, letting snow-white hair tumble down her back before coiling it again and securing it at the base of her neck with a worn hair stick. Always the same gestures, easy motions that reflected habit rather than thought. Her voice was low and her eyes never left her husband’s face as she said, “Tell him that I love him. Tell him that I’ll wait for him, however long he has.”

“Your wife said—” Xhea began, and was waved to silence.

“I know what she said. Silly harpy.” He turned away as he spoke, hiding his face, and Xhea ignored the hand he lifted to wipe his eyes.

Since the woman’s death just over two years before, they had come to Xhea once a month to argue with her as their intermediary. Not that they needed her once their arguments got going. She had never questioned their desire to

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