The Angel of the Crows

by Katherine Addison

I wasn’t all right, but I was alive, and that would have to do.

“I did the best I could,” I said, “and I know that my best is equal to or better than anyone else’s best. In war, that has to be enough, or the sheer number of dying men you don’t save will kill you—sometimes quite literally, for you leave yourself open to hauntings. Guilt calls to ghosts, often more strongly than grief, and any ghost that can move an object can kill a man. Before you ask, yes, I did once see it happen.”