“Ley moves and I am a couple feet behind, waiting.” - winterwolf0100 “Ley you will be fine because we all have magic powers that will protect you.” - WeepingWisteria
“Ley moves and I am a couple feet behind, waiting.” - winterwolf0100 “Ley you will be fine because we all have magic powers that will protect you.” - WeepingWisteria
they both stood at the boundary of sunset-stained earth smoke unspooled through the dead fields, their breaths joined where the soil still breathed heat. and between them, the scythe quivered; its edge reflected their goddesses' moonlight.
she turned toward him and it seemed as though the night turned with her-- frost and ash coated her eyelashes, her breath almost caught in her throat, but when she spoke his name, it left her mouth as vapor, and goosebumps appeared on his sickled skin.
time slowed as he reached for her hand, skin roughened by work, smudged with both of their sins. they were one.
just then, as the moon aligned with their souls, they suspended between the living and the dead, and the scythe lowered.
by dawn, the mist covered the field like rain; crows gathered in black lines along fence posts. the land looked newly fed, as if a love that was once dead could somehow come alive again.
“Ley moves and I am a couple feet behind, waiting.” - winterwolf0100 “Ley you will be fine because we all have magic powers that will protect you.” - WeepingWisteria
"my love, the night is full of breath and ember," he told her when she came back to the orchard, with a box full of memories the moon took from them-- threads of worn cloth, strands of his hair, and the slip of his name that left her lips years ago.
the fruit that hung above them shriveled, and one by one she lit them; pomegranate and sin and the sour taste of blackberries before they'd ripened filled his lungs.
she kneeled in the clearing where the trees bent inwards and built a pyre from the dead wood while he listened to the sound of match against flint, until the fruit of their love was tossed into hellfire.
"I've kept my word," she whispered, and the wind moved through the orchard like an animal, snarling, soft and brittle.
all she saw was him in the flames: the threadbare edge of his sleeve, the curve in his jaw, and the eyes of a killer.
he stayed until the last coal went black, until the smoke poured over the horizon, until she came crawling on her hands and knees back to him.
when she finally rose, her palms were soot and salt, and just as quickly as their love reignited, the wind carried the rest of him away-- into the dark soil, between the moon and stars, until the orchard lit fire again, waiting for her return.
“Ley moves and I am a couple feet behind, waiting.” - winterwolf0100 “Ley you will be fine because we all have magic powers that will protect you.” - WeepingWisteria
two years later, she returned once more. beneath the blackened trees' ribs, she spread torn cloth from an old dress, the one he once untied with shaky hands, and set her offerings down in order: a bowl of grapes gone soft with rot, wine thick enough to suffocate in, and a lock of her thin hair, bound with a thread pulled from the hem of his favorite jeans.
she spread a linen altar over the ash from the night before, and knelt. her knees pressed into the earth's damp mouth and struggled to light the candles, eventually creating flame. above her, her good friend hung low as a sanctified witness-- pale, stationary, devoted.
"my friends," she murmered, as the earth's hand touched her trembling shoulder, "take what's left. be fed. leave me only peace. he is the altar i should have never abandoned." she could hear him, rippling against the leaves, between the cracks of the wax.
the grapes began to split, bleeding their sweetness onto the torn linen, and she watched as rot and sugar and lust rose like prayer. she half-wished the ground would open, half-dreading it just might.
everything went silent. and in that moment, the earth accepted her offerings whole. she waited for his reappearance, but nothing came. only the flames remained, pulling sweetness, envy, and memory beneath her tongue.
still, she could feel it. he was somewhere, someplace, reaching for her.
“Ley moves and I am a couple feet behind, waiting.” - winterwolf0100 “Ley you will be fine because we all have magic powers that will protect you.” - WeepingWisteria
that following night, she lingered too long around dying candles in her home, window blinds closed so tight, that not even the distant streetlight could touch her. when she finally looked up, the moon lowered herself-- she'd seen too many women make altars full of grief.
"you loved him too long," the girl's goddess said, "and yet you never learned to bury him."
the girl wanted to argue, say she had buried him, she watched the smoke carry his soul into the dark horizon. but her wine and sweetness filled her mouth again and she couldn't remember which one she had to swallow first.
"he was never yours to burn, to long for..."
she didn't answer at first, only dragged her finger through the wax, painting circles that never close, "he comes anyway."
the moon laughed. "some spirits don't need doors, child. they don't need an invitation."
"you're wrong." she blinked, and the moon hid behind red storm clouds, leaving the girl alone. the candles gutted low, and she looked at her own reflection in the window.
she turned away, but the monster in the reflection stayed, still watching her.
“Ley moves and I am a couple feet behind, waiting.” - winterwolf0100 “Ley you will be fine because we all have magic powers that will protect you.” - WeepingWisteria
she hadn't spoken his name in months-- not since the night the moon visited her, not since she finally got rid of the monster that he created.
his sweetness remained, just as she said it would, like fruit collapsing onto itself, sugar melting into rot.
nothing satisfied the urge that was him, nothing remained for her to live for-- so she ventured back to the orchard, heart set on bringing back what her goddess stole.
she began with his bones, branches from the trees that burned last spring, candles melted and cooled into his vertebrae. for the heart, she crushed pomegranates with her fists, the juice running down her forearms like tears. she mixed it with dirt from the garden-- the same patch where he'd promised her forever-- and molded it until it pulsed in her palms.
then came the lungs, torn curtains for skin, dice for eyes.
when she stitched him together, she used thread she pulled from her wedding veil, the one she never got to wear.
alas, she sat back and waited.
and waited.
“Ley moves and I am a couple feet behind, waiting.” - winterwolf0100 “Ley you will be fine because we all have magic powers that will protect you.” - WeepingWisteria
he lay before her, chest rising once, and the moon flickered as if it had seen a ghost. mud covered her wrists like bracelets, candlewax residue webbed across her palms, still warm from where she gently sealed his bones. his body was different now-- bones beneath raw feeling, branches as ribs, his mouth temporarily seamed shut until she dared to breathe any life into it.
when his eyes opened, her heart split open, spilling silence into the night. he looked at her, and she'd finally seen the pure ruin she'd made: his gaze distant, mistakes full of soil, voice scraping up from the remnants of selfishness, finally, he spoke, and every little prayer she'd murmured to her goddess spilled from his very lips.
"mother of rot," he gasped, "bride of the moon, keeper of the light, you fed me sweetness. forgive me, for I hold the soil too tight. I am the fruit you buried, so bless this ruin, this ribcage made of charred wood, these eyes made of plastic. if she weeps, let her tears taste like the wine she spilled. if she leaves, let her soul stay."
the moon laughed through the bloody clouds, and the girl fell to her knees-- swept away by the same wind that stole him, before he could reach her.
“Ley moves and I am a couple feet behind, waiting.” - winterwolf0100 “Ley you will be fine because we all have magic powers that will protect you.” - WeepingWisteria
the orchard later became a sanctuary of lost love-- travelers came in the spring and found fruit shaped like hearts, skin freckled with ash, flesh red as sin. when they'd bite into it, the taste always stung, a sweetness that lingered like the wind, and names once whispered through haloed candle smoke.
the trees would tell them about a woman who sang to the dirt, until it breathed for her, who's tears turned to sap and bled through the cracks in the trunks.
some travelers said they could hear her hum on the windiest nights, when the moon hung low and shone heaven-light on the endless fields.
deep beyond where the traveler's roamed, where her goddess's light was neglected, he stood, even still, her creature, her miracle, her true sin; the one who had lived and died in her hands.
he never crossed the threshold. the orchard no longer belonged to him.
it was always hers.
still, every night, he knelt in the thistle and watched as the sky sang her name in syllables of rain.
it was the only way he knew how to keep loving her: quietly painfully
forever.
“Ley moves and I am a couple feet behind, waiting.” - winterwolf0100 “Ley you will be fine because we all have magic powers that will protect you.” - WeepingWisteria
