The Dybbuk in Love

by Sonya Taaffe

The color of his eyes had not changed, neither their depth nor their focus; his voice was as relaxed and nasal as the first time he spoke to her in the library. But he was looking through his eyes now, not with panes of stonewashed stained glass, and she said, dead-end recognition, ¿Menachem.¿ Something like ice and brandy sunfished up into her throat, sluice and burn past her heart; she put it from her, as she had weeks ago put away her surprise. Wondering for how long this time, she gave her greeting to this new face. ¿I was wondering when you¿d turn up.¿ plural, dybbuks or dybbukim; from the Hebrew levadek, to cling or cleave. In Eastern Europe, at the end of the nineteenth century, a restless spirit that possesses a living person until exorcised. On the East Coast, at the beginning of the twenty-first, a dead man with a thousand faces and a single desire . . .

Genres: Jewish, Short Stories, Fantasy

46 pages, Paperback

First published September 5, 2000

Reviews

[Shira Glassman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Romantic and creepy little ghost story/dark paranormal romance where a today-Jew and a yesterday-Jew find each other in a lonely, rainy city. I found it for free here: http://www.tor.com/2010/12/10/excerpt... after reading it in the People of the Book: A Decade of Jewish Science Fiction & Fantasy anthology but I'm not sure where they got "48 pages" from because it was shorter than that in the version I read.

[Kylie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid romantic ghost story set in a Jewish cultural context. Carries a sense of melancholy throughout the tale and moves forward in a compelling fashion.

Diversity highlight- Jewish MC