The woman in the bed is old beyond a natural lifespan and paying the price. While her heart beats stubbornly within her pigeon chest, her skin is so fragile it ruptures on anything more than the softest of touches. The open eyes are not focused but move randomly, white, obscured with a haziness so completely that Quasi could no longer tell her eye color. Her husband rose his voice and called out her name softly. "Renee, can you hear me? It's your husband." After no reaction he asked her to raise her arm, nothing. He applied mild pressure to her temple and her hand moves feebly as if to swat him away but missing by many inches. She's still in there alright, her body hurting greatly. "I thought I'd lost you," he whispered, gripping her hand tightly.

"You'll never lose me," Renee encouraged hoarsely. "We had a great life together you and I, Quasi, but it's time to let me go, love. I was a part of your story for several years."

His face crumpled, not wanting to hear those words from her.

"Love, I can't. I—I'm afraid to live without you, sweetheart. And you promised."

"I know, but there is no cheating death, beloved. You'll find me soon. We came back to each other, you and me. More than a few times," she joked weakly. "We gave each other the best lives, Quasi."

"I—I remember those times. They were good times, darling."

"See? You let me go once before, and we found our way back to each other." She gripped her husband's hand as tightly as she could. "Your heart is pure, Quasi. You're a good man, Quasi. And you will find your way back to me again one day. I promise, Quasi."

Death came to her with the slow rattling gasps that had taken Alice from them years before. Her breathing would stop for a time only to reemerge like a drowning victim coming up for one last breath. But in a few moments, she had passed on, her earthly tether separated, and her soul bound for the Lord. It did not escape her husband's attention that she drew her final breath. "Renee?" he whispered in a choking voice, his tone breaking.

Her hand was cold, so cold. "No, Renee, don't go," he pleaded, though he knew she was already gone. "Don't leave me alone." He sobbed into her chest unceasingly, hands clutching at her dress. A tiny lapse let him pull away, blinking lashes heavy with tears, before he collapsed again, his howls of misery worsening. The pain must have come in waves, minutes of sobbing broken apart by short pauses for recovering breaths, before hurling him back into the outstretched arms of his grief. The grief came in waves and threatened to consume him entirely. It was his master, for now. He was at the mercy of its whims and at times it bit at him with such ferocity he feared it would leave him an empty shell. The heartache was like a red hot coal placed in his chest, it glowed and burnt him at the same time, but it did not cool quickly like a coal in water, it throbbed and tortured him in all his hours and there was no relief to be found. His heartache had rung Quasi out until he was dry inside, no more tears would come, long after his wife's corpse had been taken away from him.

His insides still felt as raw as if a winter wind was blowing right through his skin. The last conversation haunted him, taunted him, replaying like an echo. His appetite had dwindled to nothing. He kept the curtains closed so that he wouldn't have to witness life going on as usual. How could it when his world had crumbled and ended now? Quasi knew that he could not live without her by his side. He knew what he had to do to see her again.

God forgive me…

"You loved her." It was a statement. Not a question – as firm and rooted as the wood, as old as the valley, as endless as time itself. She was looking at him accusingly, holding up the small red book. The small letters of her name scribbled in the corner of the notebook. He looked at her, his blue eyes steely.

"The woman who wrote this. You loved her," she continued.

"I did," he said, his tone clipped.

"What was she like?" asked Katrina, his granddaughter.

"Your grandmother," said Quasi harshly. He didn't like the kind of ownership that others could have. He didn't like it – she was still his, she was his and his alone.

"Whichever," said Katrina. She tossed her hair behind, and Quasi involuntarily clenched. It was so like her – so impossibly like her, that he felt a surge of anger.

Quasi shut his eyes. "She looked like you."

When he opened his eyes, Katrina looked surprised. "Like me?" asked Katrina.

"Exactly like you."

"Was that why you—?"

"Yes," said Quasi. When Katrina had come to him – when she had said she was family, how she had no one left, her parents gone, he had been unable to comprehend anything beyond her short blonde hair, her eyes, her body. She wasn't exactly her – not the same tiny fingers, the scar on her back, the same freckles on her shoulders, those were missing. Her dress wasn't torn and messy – like some awful version of her, a version which was neat. And Katrina spoke politely, she didn't demand things of him; she didn't shout at him at all. It was painful. It was too much of a reminder of her – a ghost of her, pressing herself into the places that she had lived, where she had been – the untidy kitchen, which Katrina had cleaned. The room where she had put flowers, and on and on and on.

"Oh," said Katrina. "What was her name?"

"Renee," said Quasi softly.

Her name came alive then – the curtains fluttered; the plants crept a little closer to the window. There was a hush in the kitchen.

She had become a legend over the years, which irritated Quasi more than it should. Not because she ought not to be, he was certain she'd had a ridiculous impact on the villages, on the people – on everyone who needed her to fix some inane idiotic trouble. Fix the knives, Renee; heal the baby – the cow might be sick, Renee. They'd loved her – they'd elevated her beyond, and that meant there was a part of her that was theirs. He didn't care for that – he wanted her whole memory, and he knew he was being entirely too selfish.

"What happened?" asked Katrina. "You don't – have to –" she said. "I just – I just want to know –"

"Plague," Quasi said gruffly.

"But she was nearly seventy years old and still quite healthy," said Katrina quietly. "How could she have died?"

"I suppose falling ill to the godforsaken plague, caused by man, had something to do with it," said Quasi sarcastically. "In the end, Death comes for us, and I need it to come for me soon, to see her."

Katrina touched the notebook. "What was she like?"

Quasi felt the years then – he had aged, he had white hair now. Alice was dead, Jeanne was dead, Clopin was long dead, Marcus was gone, the world had become cold since Renee's passing. He was a monument to a lost people. They were history, almost certainly – every person of the story had inscribed themselves into the books of the world – but the people were gone. The history books would never have remembered Renee the right way. They wouldn't remember how she had sticks in her hair, how she walked barefoot into the wood. They didn't know the way Renee pronounced her words– they didn't know the woman's affinity to get into trouble, they didn't know how she laughed at him, how she impatiently got cross with him. They had gotten soft in their old age. Less shouting matches, more small arguments, grumbled irritations. Kisses pressed by her on his cheek, calming him down – knowing everything he did in the day, and then getting him angry all over again.

"She was damnably intolerable," he said finally. "She was irritating, she got on my nerves every day, but I loved it."

"She was…a mess?" his granddaughter asked, hopefully.

He nodded tightly. "A mess. Just like you. I tried to understand what she did. It is not meant to be understood, I suppose. It's just meant to be worked with."

"That's how you know me so well, Grandpapa," Katrina offered.

"She'd have known better," said Quasi harshly. "She would have said something annoying, like, 'You know none of that matters, Quasi,' and I would have strangled her. I haven't the slightest what she meant – but I knew her. Her magic was a story – not the kind of story that has been printed and written down, but a story that has been told for a long time, over the years, by thousands of voices."

He paused. A beat. "I sound like her," he said, frustrated.

"Are you both the story?" asked Katrina.

"There are a thousand stories about us," said Quasi finally.

Katrina touched her braid. "But there's one story – the one about how she made legendary Quasi the Destroyer fall in love."

Quasi said nothing. "The oldest story in the world, girl," he said crushingly.

"It's a good story," said Katrina in a small voice. "My favorite."

"Love is a good story, nothing more," he said. "How would you know – you're so young, how would you know how much it takes to love? How well you must know the person, how easily you'd be able to hurt her. How many times you did. How they eventually die – the happily ever after doesn't come, girl. You're left alone, just days after her death with barely enough life in you for more stories."

"You miss her, don't you?" asked Katrina.

"How could I not," he said angrily. "Renee was my love. My soulmate. She didn't even have the decency to let me die first."

"I'm sorry," said Katrina. "I didn't mean to –"

"I can see you did not," said Quasi. "Now go away."

Katrina turned around. She hesitated – and he sensed it. He had turned to the sleeping nook of his bell tower, to where Renee kept her herbs. He needed some of the ginger tea she would make. His throat had been giving him trouble. She turned around again, and she pressed the red book firmly in his hand. "She would be proud of you," said Katrina. She looked, for a minute, as if she'd say something more. As if she'd tell him more about a woman that he knew for decades and she never did. And she was gone. Quasi opened the red book – his now wrinkled fingers floated over the words she had written. How she had laughed when he had been annoyed when they did, how much she shouted at him when he made her cross. There was a rose pressed between the pages. She came to him then – her eyes wide and searching him, their magic mixing together, her lips smiling softly, her skirt already torn in some corner or the other. How impossibly frustrating at times Renee had become – how – how – how capable of causing him tears. The pages of the notebook caught the tears, laughing at him – reminding him as Renee would have, that no matter how cross and angry he had been, how determined to have walls and nothing more – he had loved her. He had loved the impossible person who had written these words.

And there was nothing more he could do about it.


Quasi no longer feared death, only where would he go. For he had sinned so much; he would understand if the Lord sent him to the pits of hell for the things he had done. Or would He forgive him because He knew his heart, knew he was just another innocent soul that allowed himself to be persuaded by wrong things? He had to see her. That was all he wanted, to hold his wife again, to kiss her. They say a man who lives fully is not afraid of death. Yet, I have not lived fully, but I am not afraid of death. In fact, I find death intriguing. Where will I go? Will I be a ghost, or will I sleep forever? Will I go to Heaven or Hell? Valhalla? Reincarnation? Do I become one with the stars? I don't know what I will face when I meet death, and this should scare me. It doesn't, because it's a mystery, and I love mysteries. Many would ask if I suffer from depression if I said this out loud, but I'm quite happy. But it's hard to find people who get what I mean. Death is a painful truth, is what some say. I think Death is a foggy road, and we must get through that fog called life to finally see the clearing. It's yet another path to walk, and who is to say it will be our last? Life may be the beginning, but who is to say Death is our last path? What if Death is the middle of the story, and you must read through that to get to a place beyond death? Is there a place beyond death? But if we go onto the next path after death, will it be our last path, or are we fated to keep walking? I just want to see her. This was Quasi's last conscious thought as the angel of death held his weak form with cold caress. He'd come here, to her grave, to sit with her, and that was when his heart started suffering, though he knew it was not from a complaint of the heart, but rather, from the breaking of it. Having to live without her even for a few days ached, it broke his heart until there was nothing left for him to give. A face Quasi was taught to despise, hate, and fear now suddenly brought him comfort. He did not fear Death. He feared not knowing, what he might do and where he might take him, if he would ever get to see his wife's face again. He caused no pain, beyond that of what life had provided. He was not greedy, nor rude, or rough. He merely walked with Quasi, to a new place, his burning soul brought to a cool rest, where he could stand benumbed of the greed, rudeness, and hatred of the living world and its people. He needed to see her. Renee.

Quasi could not quite recall how exactly he had died, only that he had passed on. One glance down at his body was enough. His body was perfect. Much younger, in his early thirties, healthy, flawless, dressed in a simple pair of black leather breeches, black boots, and a dark black jerkin overtop a white linen shirt. Simple, like he liked it. His deformities were gone. The distraught man stood at the gates of Hell itself, the fire licking at his skin. He wanted the cursed fire to punish him, and he'd lost the only thing left in life and now apparently the afterlife that mattered to him: Renee. He had shouted at their daughter, more often than perhaps he should have in life. Many times, he had raised a hand to her in anger, though he had never once hit her. He was lost without Renee's wisdom and love to guide him home, to her, where he belonged. But if this was the price to pay, so be it.

Now it was time to pay for his transgressions. He lifted his arm that had shielded his face from the flames and put it into the red-hot fire, plunging it into the ashes that sent up glowing embers into the smoky gloom only to feel the kiss of refreshing water. The inferno was gone, and his feet were in a placid ocean, the sunset glowing orange ahead.

Behind him came a gentle voice telling him his sins were forgiven.

His sins were gone. He turned. Jesus stood there, looking nothing like the images he had seen of the man, in flowing white robes, on the sand. "But I never believed in you," he whispered hoarsely, through tears. "Why me? Why did you take Renee away from me?"

To that, God's son only smiled. "I believed in you. Welcome to Heaven. It is Paradise, the Elysian Fields, whatever you want it to be."

"I want to see her. Where is Renee?" Quasi demanded angrily.

"She is here. You may see your wife and daughter anytime you wish, for as long as you like, doing whatever the two of you please. You will never age, become sick. An eternity in paradise with your loved ones. This is, as they say, your party," Jesus added happily.

Now, Quasi could smile a little. Thank God for Heaven.

He took a moment to watch the sunset at the beach's horizon, spreading its largess into a grateful, endless sky. Rich hues of reds blended with oranges, purples, crimsons. His spirit soared at the sight as he was transported into a timeless existence, ready for his new life.

"And yet, you aren't here with me, Renee," he whispered sadly.

He cast his eyes around for anything that looked familiar to him.

Nothing. In the cool soft light in Heaven, Quasi felt a rage build inside him like he'd never known before. He wanted to rip God limb from limb, make him hurt like he had, when life had seen fit to take his wife from him. God was there all the time, doing what? Watching them suffer year on year. His head spun, he cast around at the swaying willow trees looking for the bastard, if this meant hell then so be it. An old man was walking toward him, he launched himself in full fury, fingers curled into tight fists, arm muscles tense, ready. He didn't flinch or alter his course; he didn't raise a hand to defend himself. Quasi stopped, breathing heavily, looking into the eyes of one who was only capable of love and fell to his knees, pounding and ripping at the grass. Without meeting His gaze, he asked, "Why?" knowing that no explanation was needed. "Why me, why Renee?"

"I watched over you every day of your life, I felt your pain, I worked through every good heart and mind around you to alleviate your suffering. I never left either of you, not ever." God paused. "You wished to see your wife. She's here, she's been waiting for you."

"Quasi." Her voice came from directly behind him. He turned around. Quasi did not know if it was the warmth of the spring air around them, or if she was there, but Renee stood there. She was beautiful, no longer aged as she had been when the fever took her all those years ago. Her beauty reverted to her early thirties as well, Renee shot him a beautiful white smile. Her form shimmered and waved, and as she walked slowly towards him, she walked like she was painted onto the horizon with a fine brush, the artist constantly touching up and making alterations to her figure. His wife stood in a beautiful flowing white gown that no money could buy or that a human hand could craft such a beautiful garment. Even after all this time, Quasi still admired how her beauty could take his breath away. Her eyes met hers and she smiled, holding out her left hand for him to take. A quick glance downward showed him she proudly still wore her wedding band, never to take it off once.

Her eyes reminded Quasi of the first drink they shared together as an adult, huddled near the warmth of the fire, talking about nothing and everything. They sparkled, reminiscent of the crystal shard Renee had bought from a gypsy woman once at the festival one year.

They reflected all her emotions of love onto Quasi. They sang, a sweet melody that wrapped around Quasi and embraced him with its familiar touch and remembrance. They gazed in wonder and curiosity, fresh soil sprouting newly under spring rain. Danced under the shadows on mahogany walls, relaxed, carefree, and bewitching.

Those eyes are where Quasi started and where he ended, though he knew time in Heaven was endless, so for him, this was not the end. No, it was just the beginning. Her eyes were where he would take his last embrace and always return to. Her earthen depths he had never quite fully explored, would always remain a mystery. She smiled. There was something about the way his wife smiled; the way butterflies seemed to escape from the pits of her stomach and the way the sun had somehow toppled down from the sky and made a home right there in Renee's heart. His wife had the kind of smile that made him happy just to be next to her, that bit more human. Renee said nothing as he closed the gap of space between them, reaching up a trembling hand to caress her cheek with the pads of his thumb. "Didn't I tell you? I knew you'd make it home to me, Quasi."

He kissed her and the world fell away. It was slow and soft, comforting in ways that words would never be. His hand rested below her ear, his thumb caressing her cheek as their breaths mingled. She ran her fingers down his spine, pulling him closer until there was no space left between them and she could feel the beating of his heart against her chest. His lips brushed against hers. Not innocently, like a tease but hot, fiery, passionate and demanding. "Renee," he whispered slowly, prolonging each letter as if to savor them. "I've missed you."

"And I you," she whispered. "I knew you wouldn't keep me waiting. I love you, Quasi," Renee responded, caressing his cheek with her thumb. She smiled again, her heart fluttering at his voice as she clasped her hands on either side of his face. Never had her name ever felt so wonderful, she thought, as she leaned in for another kiss.

"I love you, Renee," he whispered hoarsely, feeling his tears come.

When she looked at Quasi, it was as if every ounce of breath was taken from his lungs, floating into the air like midnight smoke. Every time she kissed him, it felt like the world stopped, leaving just the two of them to wander the endless limits of Heaven together, as it should be. Every time she held his face between her hands, it felt like she was untying all his knots. Holding him for eternity in the arms he'd grown so accustomed to. This is what falling in love was like, a story you never wanted to end. For so long Quasi had longed for it, and now he can't bear to lose it - lose this thing that made him complete.

Even now, their bodies restored to eternal youth in this place of endless happiness in Heaven, he kept falling in love with Renee, and each time was harder than the last. Every time the feeling got deeper, more complete, more bewitching. There wasn't a thing he wouldn't do to keep Renee safe. He didn't want his wife to ever think that she had to ask for his affection, because she did not, and she never had.

The more love he gave his wife, the more he had bursting inside of him. In his wife's embrace the world stopped still on its axis.

There was no time, no wind, no rain. His mind was at peace. How could it be that he hadn't seen Renee's love for what it was? Pure. Unselfish. Undemanding. Free. He felt his body press in, soft and warm. This was the love he had waited for all his life, prayed for. He inwardly thanked God and hugged Renee all the tighter. A love like this was to be cherished for life, an eternity in heaven was not nearly long enough for him, but he would take it.

She broke apart, the pads of her thumb stroking his cheeks. "Where should we go?" he asked, dumbfounded, glancing around at the beauty before them. The meadow was a glorious expanse of grass and meadow flowers, grass rustling gently in the breeze. There was a narrow brook flowing through it choked with weeds. Tall water-mint with pale lilac flowers, like dozens of tiny bells were growing at the edge of the brook. "Renee, where shall we go?"

She smiled; a soft smile tugged at the corners of her lips.

"Home," she whispered, gesturing with a nod of her head to the left. Quasi turned, wanting to see what she was looking at. "There."

The cottage looked as if it was straight out of those books, the fairytales that Renee had loved to read so much as a young girl.

It looked many things. It was old, wooden, but rather welcoming. His wife, as usual, without waiting for her husband to offer her his arm, took Quasi by the hand, leading him inside, the baby in his arms against his chest. "It's the home you and I always wanted, Quasi," she whispered excitedly. "Look!" The whole cottage was made of wood. A tiny stove, two small wooden chairs, a circular table, a large mattress for the two of them, a wooden crib in the corner for the baby, and that was quite it as far as the interior went. Hedges, vines, and honeysuckles and so much more. A green gate with paint falling off was the door to the property, their little piece of Heaven. Then came the narrow path with small pebbles, a tiny pond with lily pads, and a few ducks, maybe a frog or two. A two-meter hedge surrounded the simple property. Vine grew up the house's archway and the arched wooden door with brown planks. The grass was green and yellow, scorched by the blazing sun towards the end of summer. Two huge trees, one with red and orange leaves signaled the beginning of autumn that was due to arrive soon. One of the trees was hollow. A family of squirrels lived there. Occasionally, a woodpecker or an owl would come to visit too, Quasi and Renee noticed fondly. Life here was plain and simple. Their life now in this eternal place was good and happy. Finally, he was home, reunited with her again. With Renee, where he belonged.

If he was with his wife, all was well.


Moss-laden pillars stood as despairing guards on either side of the graveyard threshold. Behind the wrought-iron gates were rows upon rows of crumbling gravestones, most unmarked, the tombs bathed in light spilt from an ashen moon. Gnarled trees hunched over most of the expanse, plunging the rest into shadow. The place echoed with painful grief and the emptiness of heartfelt loss, including Katrina's. As the bodies of the beloved return their matter to the earth, their souls, ageless since birth, returned to the Maker. Katrina let her feet tread lightly over the soils that supported new spring growth, white-bells and green wands of grass, until she was there, at their unmarked tombs, tears welling in her eyes, a fresh bouquet of lilies in her hands, and a copy of her grandmother's favorite book, Tristan and Iseult, to place at the grave. They had found her grandfather's body lying next to her grandmother's tomb, three days after his sudden disappearance, dead for days. In life, Quasi had a ready smile and knowing eyes. In death, he was ghostly pale, his lips blue from cold of the night

. No cause of death could be determined, though his granddaughter surmised he had, at last, after days of suffering without his wife at his side, had died of a broken heart. Not wanting to eat or drink, had simply given up, surrendered his body and soul to God. Well, no matter. Now he could be at peace. When she'd found him, though his eyes were closed, he did not have the appearance of sleep, even after three days going missing, there was a healthy glow to his skin. His corpse, so still on the earth, was his flesh and seeing it was how Katrina knew her cantankerous old grandfather had departed. The man had left them for a new life, for whatever followed this existence. Katrina prayed he was at peace, as was her grandmother, now they were reunited. Her eyes rested on their tombstones bearing their names, her heart hearing both of their voices as if Grandfather and Grandmother were standing right there with her. Perhaps it was the memories that were the real bridge, that sense of love a key to open doors into the worlds beyond this one, yet here Katrina stood in a graveyard, these moments of reflection their everlasting bond for eternity.

Stifling a choked sob, Katrina gingerly placed the leather-bound copy of the book near Renee's tomb, and the lilies, letting the tips of her fingers wander over their gravestones. Slowly sprouting from Quasi' grave was a green leafy briar, strong in branches and carried the scent of flowers. It climbed the chantry and fell to root again by Renee's tomb. "Briar," she whispered, fingering one of the snow-white petals in her hands, Charlotte silent beside her. "Ever has it grown on the tombs of our forebears. Now it shall cover the grave of my grandparents," she said, her voice breaking. "That these evil days should be ours is wicked."

"Your grandparents' death was not of your making. Nor hers. They were strong in this life," said Charlotte calmly, though she too, was fighting back tears. Katrina glanced at Charlotte; her eyes filled with salty un-cried tears. "The world should not be this way."

It was more than crying for Katrina. It was the kind of desolate sobbing that came from a person drained of all hope. She sank to her knees at their graves, not caring for the damp mud that dirtied her brown habit. Her tears mingled with the rain and her cries echoed around the gravestones. The pain the flowed from her was as palpable as the frigid fall wind and soon the only person at her side was her twin sister, struggling to keep her own tears silent, looking up to the watery skies and heaven beyond. They had to believe both were safe up there, comfortable, warm, with each other. To look down would be to imagine Quasi in the ground, and that she couldn't do. As they left the graveyard, Katrina risked one last glance behind her, and was startled to see the pure white flowers growing from her grandparents' tombstones. She was hit by the passage from the book that Grandmother Renee had loved and found herself remembering. She whispered it despite the pain she felt.

"When King Mark heard of the death of these two lovers, he crossed the sea and came into Brittany; and he had two coffins hewn, for Tristan and Iseult, one of chalcedony for Iseult, and one of beryl for Tristan. And he took their beloved bodies away with him upon his ship to Tintagel, and by a chantry to the left and right of the apse he had their tombs built round. But one night, there sprang from the tomb of Tristan a green leafy briar, strong in branches and in the scent of its flowers. It climbed the chantry and fell to root again by Iseult's tomb. Thrice did the peasants cut it down, but thrice it grew again as flowered and as strong. They told the marvel to King Mark, and he forbade them to cut the briar anymore." Katrina allowed herself to smile at seeing briar on Quasi and Renee's tombs, just like the story. Katrina marveled at the simple beauty before her. Renee had seen all her husband's flaws, all of them, and nothing changed her love. Her grandfather had found a person who made him laugh, made him question everything, and changed him for the better. Their love had transcended time, distance, and even their own mortality. She could see it on their graves, at the briar and pristine white flowers that engulfed both of their tombs. The flowers that grew where their graves lay, these tenacious white blossoms of the earth, born to take whatever came their way and make beauty of it. Katrina knew the flowers bound the two lovers together, even in death, and was again reminded of the passage from the book Renee had loved. Quasi and Renee's granddaughter smiled to herself as she remembered it exactly how it was written.

"For apart, the lovers could neither live nor die, for it was life and death together."-Tristan and Iseult.

Author's Note: Still one more chapter to go. It's been a wild ride, and for those who have followed the story, I appreciate your patience with the updates!