The Game of Love and Death(81)

“You can’t quit before they find a replacement,” Flora said. “I’ll give you a ride.”

Stunned and angry, Henry turned away and stepped into the twilit air, doing his best to breathe. She couldn’t have said anything worse to him. After all of this, nothing about him meant anything to her. She thought he was replaceable, like a piece of furniture. He turned back to take his parting shots.

“You’d rather risk your life than love me?”

“It’s not that simple,” she said.

An avalanche of hurt made it impossible for him to speak. What was so unlovable about him? Why wouldn’t she try?

“Henry!” Flora said. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not,” he said. “But I don’t know why you were so certain we would lose. I would have fought for you. For every second we had left.”





AND so, Death won.

The moment Flora refused Henry, even knowing the cost, Death felt it. Her senses honed themselves beneath the cover of a moonless sky. Music, car horns, small bites of conversation, laughter … the din of humanity filled her ears. And the smells … smoke and wine and flowers exhaling the last of their perfume.

All she had to do was wait for midnight. And then the hour came.

It was a shame the Thornes had discovered the business with Helen. That was inelegant. But now that the Game was over, it hardly mattered. They’d never guess her real identity, and she had no plans to return to their mansion.

She’d been recalling Love’s little book in a café, puzzling over it as victory arrived. Death was struck with the understanding that she and Love were every bit as different as she imagined and feared. It meant, as ever, that she was alone, the eternal villain.

Love inspired the stories. He wrote them down. She destroyed them and sucked them up. She was a monster. A monster with no choice. A monster who needed to feed. A monster no one wanted.

Ah, well. If she was cursed to be the monster, she would be the worst of them. The only question remaining was when she might claim her prize. She was entitled to it anytime. She was hungry for Flora, though she wanted to hold off. It would be even more satisfying to dine on the girl’s life when the urge was sharper.

Unless …

Unless Henry chose Death.

If he did that, she could have them both. And she could prove beyond doubt the weakness of love.

And weak, it was. As often as not in Death’s vast experience, people preferred the idea of love to the act of it. They wanted to pursue, but grew weary once they’d won the prize. If they were loved, they used it as proof of their worth. In the name of love, they manipulated each other. Out of cowardice, they lied, overtly and by omission. There were so many ways for love to decay. And unlike the decaying of a corpse, which fed worms and grew trees, what did rotting love ever feed?

Love believed Henry loved Flora. He believed in his player’s perfect heart. Death believed no such thing. She suspected Henry loved the idea of being loved and the security that came with it. She would hold off consuming Flora until she’d won Henry as well.

She’d already won the Game as herself. There could be no greater victory than winning as Love too. She transformed her guise into something Henry would not be able to resist. And as she traveled toward him, she felt better than she had in ages.





AFTER Henry disappeared, Flora remembered she was still wearing his coat. For the longest time, she waited in the column of light as the night closed in, expecting he’d return — if not for her, then for his jacket.

She’d even hoped he would, although she did not trust a single thing she felt. How could she, knowing Death had chosen her as a player when she was a baby in an apple crate? And of course she’d been Death’s choice. That she would have been chosen by Love was unthinkable. Her parents had died on Valentine’s Day, for God’s sake. When it came to love, her entire line had been cursed.

Henry did not return. The night grew cool. She checked her watch. Just after midnight. The day had become another, without fanfare, unlike that other midnight she’d spent with Henry, when bells chimed and everything felt so magical. And then, moments later, she’d found Nana’s body. The sadness rang in her bones once more, heartbreak’s echo.

Suddenly cold, she put her hands in the pocket of his jacket. There was paper there. Torn strips of it. She pulled one out and read it.

Someday we will climb the Eiffel Tower.

With a pang, she recognized Henry’s handwriting. Paris. She could go there on her own. It was where Bessie Coleman learned to fly.

Curious, she removed another strip. Another someday, this one about making Saturday breakfast in their small green house. She looked at her watch. The band would be in full swing right now, with or without Henry, because that was what happened in life. It went on.

She pulled out another note. She opened it and began to weep. She could not read about the children she would not have.

Flora read every note until she reached the last one, a series of secret messages that meant the same thing as the heart Nana had sewn into all those quilts.

Someday starts now, it read.

You couldn’t write something and make it true, not on a piece of paper, not with a sheet of music. At best, it would just give you something to want that you couldn’t have. The strength of a father. The warmth of a mother. The devotion of a grandmother. Love was loss. Flora had known that since …