Once, as children together, at their secret spot in the woods, James had told Zilpha a story.

The grove was green and still and peaceful. Afternoon sun filtered through the leaves above them and dappled gently over their bodies as they sat beside each other. The woods were nearly quiet, the only sounds to break the silence being the distant trill of a lone bird somewhere in the canopy, and James's low sonorous voice. The story was of a woman named Helga. And then Helga did this and then Helga did that… James's voice rose and fell in boyish excitement as he told it.

Zilpha rose up and took him by the throat and pushed him down to the forest floor. A cold rage flowed through her fingers as she tightened them around his neck. James's hands closed upon hers, digging into her skin with his nails in the desperate violence of his effort to tear them away from him. His legs kicked out under her, flailing, scrambling for purchase. Neither one spoke. Zilpha dug her fingers in deeper. The woods remained silent.

She felt the strength in his limbs begin to flag, saw his eyes flutter closed and his hands drop down to his sides, and pulled her hands away as if scalded. Then James opened his eyes again and looked into hers.

"You love me," James said, his voice full of wonder.

"No…"

"Yes, you love me, you do. I can see it." He took her hand in both of his, licked and sucked hungrily on her fingers. "You love me and you are mine for always." He pulled her close and rolled her body down to lay under him. Covered her face and neck with hot kisses. Slid his hand under her skirts and stroked her until she moaned and pressed herself up against him. Slipped a finger in and twisted it hard inside her, a foretaste of the true fury of his passion, until her head tilted back and her legs opened up for his touch and she let him do what he would with her.

It had been easy for her to forgive him, back then.

Now, fingers trembling with cold rage, Zilpha sits at her writing-table and pens a letter to her brother. A farewell letter, full of pretty words about love, pretty phrases about death and God and Heaven—

—lies upon lies upon lies.