It was late at night. The air outside Lydia’s window was cold, and the pane felt like ice against the flat of her hand. At midnight Marissa poked her head in through the door to make sure she was in bed. She wasn't. She was reclining in her wheelchair, fingers playing with the curls of her hair. Her gaze was distant, gliding out the window and over the moors, the hands of her eyes cupping a bowlful of stars.


"Liddy," Marissa whispered, "Liddy, go to bed."


The wind outside howled. She swore it was a stampede of wispy grey deer, like the ones that watched her from the moors so pensively when she a child. She remembered how swiftly they ran when her father and his friends came at them with rifles and bullets and pickaxes, and how quietly they died. They accepted death openly, she mused, acknowledged that it was nature. That sometimes, beast fell to man. Or was it beast falling to beast?


"Liddy," Marissa repeated, and then she was behind her, lightly guiding her wheelchair to the bedside.


"You look silly, looking out the window like that. There's nothing worth noting out there." Marissa was shorter and thinner than her sister, but she was able to hoist her onto the bed with ease. "I suppose you're thinking, aren't you? That's all you do now. It's very pretentious of you, contemplating things like that. Life and death, I suppose. You were always like that, even when you were healthy. All thought and no action."


Lydia was staring at the small scar beneath Marissa's right ear. It was a small pink curve, like a crescent moon or a smile. She imagined that it was a smile, and that it was playing peek-a-boo behind a lock of Marissa's hair. She remembered how their father had been stupidly drunk that night, like he usually was. But the knife wasn't supposed to be involved. It was their brother's, and he was careless enough to leave it lying on the coffee table. Their father had picked it up and begun swinging it around. Marissa had been standing too close. The wound was superficial, but it had bled a lot. And it left behind that scar.


It was so tiny. Lydia’s hand trembled as she reached out to stroke it, to once more tell her little sister that she would never again let someone hurt her.


"What are you doing?" Marissa turned around to see what her sister was looking at.


"What? Do you want to hold Johnny's photograph?"


She shook her head.



"What, then?"


Lydia dropped her hand. Forget it, she thought.


Marissa sighed and began tucking her sister in. She was rebuffed, and the blankets were drawn down again.


"You'll catch a cold," she protested.


Lydia shook her head. Marissa sighed, then leaned in to tuck a lock of copper hair behind her sister's ear.


Seizing the opportunity, Lydia reached out to stroke the tiny scar with her thumb. The corners of her mouth tilted upwards slightly.


Marissa raised her hands to cup her sister's, bringing them to her lips for a kiss.


"You'll get better," she said, a smile spreading hopefully on her face. "You'll fight. You've won before."


The corners of Lydia’s lips remained upturned. Her thumb stopped stroking the scar, and her fingers gently began to tug at her sister's hair. Marissa laughed, brushing her hand away and placing it down on the bed.


"Good night, Liddy. Sleep well."


Lydia’s eyes followed her sister as she walked from the bedside to the door. She didn't pause or turn around before disappearing into the shaft of yellow light that tumbled in from the hallway.


She was alone now. Marissa is so beautiful, she thought. The spitting image of their mother.


Their mother, too, had accepted death peacefully. She had remained beautiful even in death. Her face and body were wasted, yet there was the faintest smile on her lips. The beautiful, Lydia thought, never stop being beautiful.


Her eyes were closed now. Her eyelids were heavy, her body dead weight. She was so tired.


A period of time passed that she couldn't quite measure - was it short or long? Had she slept or no? At its end she felt the strangest sensation on her lips, like a kiss. She had never been kissed before.


The sensation was short but lingering. She couldn't place it as being pleasurable or not, but it had roused her. Her eyes opened.


She took in the room with a strange, sharp clarity. Every shadow looked deeper and more distinct than it had before, and every line and curve seemed to jump out at her. The brightness of the moonlight filtering into her room was almost unbearable, and the stars and the moon - all she could think to herself was that they were so, so brilliant.


It took her a moment to notice the boy. He was sitting in her wheelchair. Thin and long, he was maybe fifteen or sixteen, hunched over with his head bowed, arms resting on his knees, hands spread out, palms up. He wore black jeans and a black hoodie, black boots and black gloves. Yet there was something acutely inhuman about him. He was like a bent shadow, a figure drawn in ink and lifted from the page. On further inspection, she found that his face was tilted upwards slightly, so half of it was visible. It was obscured in shadow, but she could just barely discern the trace of a curling, mischievous grin.


She recognized him instantly. Her ghostly smiled returned, and she tilted her head, gazing at him affectionately.


"It's about time you came for me," she whispered hoarsely.


The grin widened. The gloves came off, and two hands reached out, taking her own.



"I'm not late, am I?"


She laughed softly before breaking into a fit of coughing. The boy brushed his fingers gently across her neck, and the coughing seized.


"I'm going to take you away," He said.


"Where to?"


"Anywhere you want."


She could see his whole face now. It made her heart ache.


"Don't lie," she said. "There are only three choices: Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory."


"Well, you don't have a choice in those," The boy replied. "But no, really. I can take you anywhere. To any place, any person. I can take you anywhere you want, Liddy. C’mon, it'll be a real adventure."


She paused a moment, focusing her gaze on the foot of her bed.


"I want to see my brother," she said finally, raising her eyes to his.


His mouth twitched into a lopsided smile. Then he stood, still holding her hands in his. She mused on the warmth of his hands as he led her to the window. Feeling giddy, she twisted her body towards his, smiling as she twiddled with the curves of his thumbs.


"Where is your scythe, oh death?" She teased. "Where is your skeleton face, your long, dark, ominous robe?" Her voice dropped to a whisper. "What if you had missed in kissing me? Would I still be a breathing corpse?"


He shook his head and grinned. She held his hands tighter.


"I want to see my mother, too," she said, looking out the window with a smile. "Wherever my mother and Johnny are, take me there."


He obliged with a long and dramatic bow. Then he took her right hand and pressed it flat against the window pane, his hand gently holding hers.


"My first kiss was with death," she said, softly.


"And it was also your last," he added.


Then they were gone, lost in the stampede of grey deer on the moors and the cascade of stars in the sky. Death had taken her into his arms, and she had fallen into them willingly.