Of Christmas Past

by Lasgalendil

Some secrets should not be shared, some dark deeds once buried should never see the sun, some spirits once sleeping should not be woken. Leave the dead to silent slumber-they cannot live again, and he is both naïve and fool who tries to raise them.

10. Chapter 10

Nearly fifteen years to the day, the wind mutters mournfully from the mouth of the sea. The soft breeze is salty, cold and clear, no longer a gale-storm of guilt but a pitiful plea. Save a small spike of wood in the crude shape of a cross, there is no more here to mark my sister's grave than the weight in my heavy heart. Someday they both will be gone, and she will sleep forever forgotten, eternally alone. And I, I will not be buried with her, for I love another dearly and my road ends not here with her but with the woman I will soon call wife. In the stillness of a winter's silence my sister pleads with me, a plaintive pittance, for the shore is but distant, churning grey waters and white, shell-strewn sand…

I turn to Elizabeth. "Will you do something for me?"

There are tears in her dark eyes. "Whatever you ask,"