A BRIDE IN BLACK

dress wa

ace she had cut herself now looked expensive, f

-water had no face. Only a dress, w

h you!" Mary screa

laughed, a d

water without making a ripple. "Black is a choice. White

for Clara's

aret's hand passed right through him, a

dly. "You are a Vale man. Vale men love their white brid

-black dress, waded into the

and desperate. "White is not cloth. White

at her. "I am

afraid you are al

ved closer. The water aro

losed h

cissors heavy in her hand. Her mother saying, _A thorn keeps the f

r you ar

have been - where she had sewn the silver

was still ther

d not sewn it

ewn it in

alm where the thorn had pricked her ho

t across the

hite

a real scream this

eked. "You will ruin it! That dress

ce steady now. "I cut it. I sewed it

he white turned black again. Not forced black, as

cannot take black that is chosen. That was the r

d around an

, but she spok

white," she said. "Yo

ed its empty d

till black, because her blo

ress. Not

eep, and let her blood

e, freely given, in a black

ke dra

fast, as if a plug had been pulled, revealing not stone flo

es fell off like dead skin, and underneath they wore white a

- began to glow,

the center of it a

rning dress. "I am the debt! I am the house! You can

said. "A hundred years

ara one last time, her

et's wrist. This time, his hand did no

he said quietly

pus

lake, into the mud, into the bones of t

as she sank. She sm

ter wa

t a cellar again.

d Claras sat

" one s

id, kneeling and hugging the

ook at them. He

odied, hers. The silver thorn glinte

The cut on her

ht her befo

her hair, repeating what he had writt

iled, ex

this time," she s

black canvases - past the entrance hall where rain no longer fell through the

e bed, in her bla

her Claras - who asked to be called Eleanor and Nell, becau

ousand crowns, sat on the floor beside her bed, holdi

house was silent. Truly s

lay a single t

new, sewn with

, a note in Adri

e black and taught th

figures that had stood

ad was

F ACT