Deathless

by Catherynne M. Valente

There is no better teacher of rough necessity than bad luck, and you will have great use of me, I promise. Keep your bread. Keep your tears. Neither will help you, and you will work hard to outgrow need of them.

“I am what I am, Marya Morevna. You cannot be angry with a stove for heating the house. That is what it was built for.”

She was missing vital information, and she hated it.

Instead, he seemed to land heavily within her, like a black stone falling.

He’ll burn you down like wax if you let him. You’ll think it’s love, while he dines on your heart. And maybe it will be. But he’s so hungry, he’ll eat you all in one sitting, and you’ll be in his belly, and what will you do then? Hear me say it, because I know. I ate all of my husbands. First I ate their love, then their will, then their despair, and then I made pies out of their bodies—and those bodies were so dear to me! But marriage is war, and you do what you must to survive—because only one of you will.”

We can hold two terrible ideas at once in our hearts.

After love, no one is what they were before.