A Dark and Drowning Tide

by Allison Saft

Anger, at least, was a balm to the rawness of her grief.

She knew Sylvia. Her tells and her fears. The way she wrote and how it exactly mirrored the overexuberant way she spoke. The way she took her tea—with a teeth-rotting amount of sugar—and her favorite color—amethyst, not purple—and the tenderest spots to dig the knife of her words. She was irritatingly forthright. When she was happy, she laughed. When she was sad, she wept. She wouldn’t know subtlety if it threw a dueling gauntlet at her feet.

Kornhunds were wildeleute who took the form of sight hounds. They ran atop gusts of wind with lightning sparking at their paws, bringing bad luck to anyone who gazed into their eyes.

What good is knowledge, she’d say, if it can’t be improved upon?

You’re like something out of a nightmare. And you, Lorelei thought despairingly, are resplendent.

All of them were haunted women. Violence had broken and reforged them, and the sharp edges it left behind made them dangerous.

Secondly, I couldn’t bear to see harm befall you. I couldn’t exist in a world without you. What me is there without you?