Thursday threads time!!! This week . . . . . . . . . find a warm body. . . . . This is what I have come up with. For more tales, visit Siobhan Muir over at The Weird, the Wild and the Wicked.
The Balance of Nature
“Are you sure about this?” Greg asked, trudging after Tess
through the cemetery carrying a shovel and a bulky rucksack. “There are rules
and you’re upsetting the balance of nature.”
“Yes,” Tess hissed. She’d had enough of Greg trying to talk
her out of her plan, trying to get her to talk about her sister’s death. Who
wants to talk about the most painful experience of your life where your sister
was flung through a car windscreen?
Since finding the book buried amongst a sack of musty
clothes in the charity shop, Tess had been consumed with the idea of being able
to bring her sister back. And after three months, she had tracked down all but
one of the ingredients.
Placing everything on the damp grass, Tess checked off her
list as Greg dug; he felt he owed Tess something; he was driving the car,
braking sharply to avoid a dog and Lisa wasn’t buckled up.
He finished digging and sat swigging a beer as he watched
Tess finish her potion. He picked up the fragile book, written in a swirly script,
making it difficult to read especially in the dim candle light under a moonless
sky.
“Tess?” He watched as she toyed with a knife against the palm
of her hand. “It says-”
“I need to find a warm body; I know,” she whispered as he
slumped into the hole, the knife buried deep in his chest. “And you’ll do nicely
. . . . . . . . Balancing nature . . . . You for my sister.”
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