24 - The Case of the Broken Promise

"'Til **** do we part,'" Roberta said. "Many people have wished for a love that transcends this life. Wishing does not always make it so. Yet there was one case where—well. I will not say it proved life after ****, but it proved you should be careful what you wish for. I call it...

THE CASE OF THE BROKEN PROMISE

Winter in Dagon's Hollow starts cool and dry. Blizzards could sweep down from the north at any time, but mostly it was cold rain and howling winds that tore through the streets and found every crack and gap in every hut, house, and hovel. They were lucky to get the grave dug before the ground froze.

Asa Thothson was dressed in her widow's weeds. The wet black dress clung to her body, and there was no minister to read any rites. Which suited her fine. There had been no minister when she had married Javier, either. Just a judge. Even their parents hadn't come.

Asa waited until the box was hidden from view by clods of earth. She nodded to the gravedigger, a stopped hunchbacked woman with long, muscled arms, and walked back home through the wet and the wind. In the privacy of their three rented rooms, Asa stripped to the skin. Her mind was on the promise that Javier had extracted from her, that she would always be his and no other's.

It was an easy promise to make at the time. He had been insistent on it, from the very moment they were together. Jealousy did not encompass his emotion. It was an all-encompassing passion for something more than fidelity. Naked in her own room, she stared at the heavy gold ring with the black stone on which she had pledged her troth.

That was when Olivia knocked on the door. She called out Asa's name.

Asa's heart hammered in her chest. She opened the door, not caring that she hadn't a stitch on. Her friend stood there, brown hair in a severe bun, hazel eyes hidden behind spectacles. Olivia raised one gloved hand to her mouth, staring in dumbfounded shock at her friend in the altogether.

Then the widow drew her through the door and pushed her lips against the other woman's. Asa was shorter, stockier, what Javier had called "full-figured," with the heavy swaying breasts and wide hips he wanted in a woman. Olivia was taller, slimmer, one of those spare, small-breasted women that looked as if they lived off soup and wine. The next few minutes were spent undoing buttons, unlacing boots, slipping out of layer after layer of skirt and undershirt and bloomers.

All so that Asa could get at that delicious cunt.

Theirs had been a courtship born of shared poetry and shared books. Javier did not read such things, took no notice of his wife's friendship with the schoolmarm. Did not notice when the novels took a turn. Small pamphlets from France with erotic photographs. Flagellation novels where women disciplined and lay with each other. Hesitantly, Olivia had written Asa her own original poems. Heartfelt sentiments of a love that burned within her. A need that throbbed between her legs. Breasts that she wanted so much to kiss.

Two fingers slid between Olivia's slit. The delicate brown hairs seemed to quiver as Asa slid her fingers inside, like she had seen on one of those obscene photos. Olivia's lips found one of her nipples. It was the culmination of a long, painful relationship held in long abeyance. Javier's **** had been such a blessing that Asa wished she could shake the hand of whoever had pulled the trigger that dark night.

It was late, when they were both sated. The two women lay in each other's arms on the bed, their hair undone. Reciting poetry in the dark room as they waited for sleep to take them. Perhaps people would talk. They might have to come up with a story. That was for tomorrow.

Familiar steps sounded on the wooden boards of the three steps beyond the door. Asa knew that familiar tread, the weight that bespoke a heavy-set man with broad shoulders and a quick backhand. Olivia had one arm drawn across her lover's chest, but suddenly Asa was fully awake.

She heard a key turn in a lock, though there should be no keys save her own.

Heard the hinges as the door opened and closed.

Her left hand was on Oliva's thigh, which covered her own. The heavy ring with its black stone seemed to squeeze her finger painfully.

In the dark, she tried to wrestle the ring off of her fings.

The footsteps came closer. She heard him leave the foyer for the room that served them as kitchen and dining room in one. The door to the bedroom was closed, locked from the inside. There was no key.

The door rattled on its hinges. Something fell against it, a heavy thump that caused Olivia to stir in her sleep.

The ring would not come off. It squeezed tighter, too tight, shooting pains going up Asa's arm.

Another thump. Harder this time. Like a drunken man's fist. It wouldn't be the first time she heard that sound. had waited in the dark as Javier staggered home from the bar, smelling of whiskey, demanding acts that were more fit for whores than wives—

Was it fear that made Asa Thothson slide out of bed? That made her clamber for her sewing things, and the heavy iron scissors? Had she some occult intuition that made her jam the blade between the pinky and middle finger of her left hand, the metal slicing painfully down to the bone? Or was it the desperation of a madwoman that made her grip the handle of the scissors with all of her strength until, with a scream that finally broke Olivia from her rest, she heard the heavy clatter of the ring hit the floor?

The next school year, there were two schoolteachers in Dagon's Hollow. Olivia taught the older children; Asa the younger ones. No one questioned the two women moving in together; it was not unusual for unmarried women to have such arrangements, and everyone could see they were good friends as well as roommates. Whenever Asa caught one of her charges trying to count out a problem on their fingers, she held up her maimed hand and reminded them that would not always be an option for everyone.

Roberta drew forth a small brown book.

"This is Asa's journal. She recorded her experience, and after her ****, Olivia kept it, and added some of her own observations. Which ended up with a niece, who put it in a box in the attic—from whence, eventually, it came to me."

"What happened to the ring?" Anya asked, somewhat unexpectedly.

"It was pawned," Roberta said. "But that is another story."