Falls

Sabriel knew that it was stupid to return to the Crossing— the one place that her demon was certain to check. But there was a certain comfort in the familiar surroundings, even with the memories that cast shadows over them. There was the meadow, washed in shadows of brown and gold... and darkened by shades of the men she’d loved. Darkened by Solomon, who’d come the first time to claim her, and the second time to free her. What happened— it wasn't your fault. Darkened by Bondurant, who’d given back everything that grief had taken from her. No, Sabriel. I am yours. And darkened the most of all by solitude and sorrow; by memories of the seasons she’d spent there alone. She was the only living thing in a world gone cold and dead. A statue with hard eyes and a hollow heart. Raw and aching, the slender mare felt her strength slipping away; felt her chest heave under the weight of her sorrow.

And with a wrenching leap, Sabriel forced her wooden limbs back into motion.

But even the forest held its share of ghosts. She had fled this way before for an entirely different reason, in a past so distant it felt like another lifetime. She’d followed the same stream, then, or perhaps one of its twins. Ahead, a stand of willows offered a secretive little grotto... ...and the dark woman veered away, either unwilling or unable to face the memories concealed within. Instead, she ran faster, skimming recklessly over soft soil and twisted roots until the trees began to thin. She ran even when her lungs burned with each breath, and her limbs threatened to give out beneath her. She ran as if she would run forever— and stopped only for the sharp need of her thirst.

When she arrived, the Falls were no different than the image held in her mind. It’d been seasons since she was last here, and years since she’d first seen it— but if there was one thing Sabriel had learned, it was the timelessness of earth and stone. It took only moments to transform their kind beyond recognition (Uriah’s death, her twins’ birth), while the permanence of their surroundings served as a bitter reminder of their own mortality. Even the shades that they left in their wake were not immortal— though the silver black had seen Bondurant here for the first time, nothing remained of the spotted stallion now. Nothing but a vague impression of emptiness where his great body had once stood, and a silence where his deep voice had once spoken.

Nothing but Rafe’s peace, for all that proved to be another of his lies.

Sabriel was no more than a ghost herself at the trees’ edge, half-afraid to approach the pool for the memories it might contain. But after a moment— as in the past, in the valley of grief that followed her first parting from Solomon— she drifted forward, not pausing even at the boundary drawn by its pebbled shore. Pressing on and on and on until the cold water rose above the curve of her withers. Only there did she stop, letting it cleanse her of Salem’s dust and the ocean’s salt. Letting it soothe away the aches of her body, and hoping that it might do the same for the ache in her heart.

But it didn’t, and Sabriel— closing her eyes with the wistful sigh of one bracing for a lover’s kiss— started forward again.

Intending to continue until the water rose above her head, and oblivion claimed her.