Story: Widow's Walk
It was raining, the sort of deep-seated New England rain that soaked into the bone as well as much as it soaked into the ground. The wind whipped the trees and caused ripples against the reflective surface of the lake, which seemed like an abyss unto itself. Ariel was standing on a worn wooden stool, watching out one of the window and tracing the rivulets of water with pudgy fingers.
"Come away from the window, darling." Her mother called, easily enough. "You know how the trees like to crack the windows."
Ariel rolled her eyes, but stepped away from the window, staring at the high rafters as she pulled herself up onto a chair, across from where her mother was tinkering with the old rusted lantern, that had seen more storms than the old house in which they lived. It had come from Ariel's ancestor, who had been an Irish sailor, who had brought his family to New England before dying in a shipwreck a few months later, leaving his wife a widow and his daughter an orphan.
Rosaline, the mother, made a soft sound as the lantern lit and the match singed her fingers, casting eerie shadows through the uneven hand-blown glass and through her golden hair. "I hate these storms." She said with a shudder. "The wind wails like the dead."
Ariel said nothing for a long moment, and then shivered with conviction as she turned and stared with oddly still tawny eyes into the lantern. "It's time." she said, looking up at her mother. She didn't react as her mother sighed, and then crawled down from her chair onto her mother's lap. "I love you, Mummy."
"I love you, Ariel." Rosaline said, in a dry voice, like a woman who has heard it too many times, and thinks the reassurance is unnecessary. "I know." the reply came, her black curls falling in fat spirals as she leaned down and bit hard on her mother's neck. The blood flowed easily into her mouth and Rosaline's hand tightened in her dress.
The next day dawned bright, the remnants of the storm glowing in the sunlight, refracting light along the grass in the form of dewdrops. "Come, Juliet," the mother said, her hand curling around her daughter's hand as the little girl ran across the rocks on the edge of the peak. "You mustn't fall."
"Yes, mummy." The gold-haired cherub said, bouncing slightly as they headed back to the house, and she bounced slightly as she got the mail from the postbox for Desdemona Collins.