Alina kicked and twisted. She started to slip away.

“Please, God!” Valerica tightened her grip as she floated through the darkness. “ Elizabeth, help me.”

She knew Alina would die. She had known it from the moment she touched the flame. But not alone. She would die with Valerica, safe from the darkness of strigoi magic. And she would go to be with Elizabeth. But still Valerica fought, desperate to give Alina every last second of life.

A hand grabbed her wrist. She tried to twist away. How could her father still survive? The water should have destroyed him. She pulled harder.

And then a quiet, frightened voice said, “I’ve got you, Aunt V.”

Valerica stood with Bill and Alina behind the church, near the back of the cemetery. It was the first time Valerica had visited since Elizabeth ’s funeral.

She coughed, then flinched, but Alina continued to sleep. Her cuts had begun to heal, and she seemed unharmed, aside from a powerful fear of being alone in the dark. Valerica prayed that would fade with time. Until then, she and Bill were scrounging every extra candle they could get their hands on.

“I want it to be here,” Valerica said. She reached out with her bandaged hand to touch the small gravestone. “With her.”

Bill nodded. “Shouldn’t you tell Father Fanshaw?”

“He wouldn’t understand. He thinks I’m damned.” She chuckled. If Father Fanshaw had known the truth, he would have burned her alive.

“You’ve got my word,” said Bill. “I’ll cremate you myself if I have to. God willing, that won’t be for a good long time, though.” He stared at the grave. “Are you really cursed? I mean, would you really come back like him?”

“I don’t know.”

“What about Alina?”

Valerica shook her head. “Alina is innocent. The potential may be in her blood. But the power must be taught, passed down from parent to child. No one will teach Alina while I draw breath.”

“Parent to child,” Bill repeated. “He called Alina your daughter.”

Valerica took a deep breath. Bill must have heard the rumors, but he had never once asked about her relationship with Elizabeth. “Yes,” she said. “Elizabeth’s and mine.”

“Oh.” He pursed his lips. “That’s mighty strange.” Clearly he didn’t understand. Just as clearly, it didn’t matter one whit.

She laughed, tried to smother it so she wouldn’t disturb Alina, and ended up coughing again instead. Alina’s eyes blinked open. Valerica hummed an old folk song, bouncing Alina until her eyes eased shut once more. “Yes, it is,” she whispered.

“She’s got my mama’s face, but your eyes,” Bill said.

Valerica grabbed him and planted a quick kiss on the top of his head. “Thank you.” Gingerly, she lifted Alina and passed her into Bill’s arms. “She needs to be changed. I’ll be back shortly.”

Bill made a face, but didn’t argue. As he took Alina back to their cabin, Valerica knelt and pressed her hand to the headstone of her lover. “Thank you.”

She leaned forward to kiss the dusty stone. For the first time in years, she felt free.

She felt alive.

HANG TEN by Jean Rabe

Jean Rabe is the author of eighteen fantasy novels and more than three dozen short stories. An avid, but truly lousy gardener, she tends lots of tomato plants so her dogs can graze in the late summer months. In her spare time (which she seems to have less of each week), she enjoys role-playing, board, and war games; visiting museums; and riding in the convertible with the top down and the stereo cranked up. Visit her web site at www.jeanrabe.com.

“I DIDN’T CARE much for Tobago Cays.” Jillian rested her knitting in her lap and turned her head so she could better see her companion.

He was stretched out on a lounge chair mere inches away, muscles gleaming from a mix of sweat and suntan oil. She licked her lower lip when she stared at his abs. Not the proverbial ounce of fat on him, she decided, pronouncing him at a little more than eleven stone.

“In the Caribbean, right, Tobago Cays?” His voice was rich and melodic.

She nodded. “The Cays are beautiful, certainly, but they are basically deserted. No one lives there. Just a stop for tourists, snorkeling and drinking and…”

He raised a blond eyebrow and smiled, the sun glinting off his polished teeth. “I would love to be on a deserted island with you, Jillian.”

“We just met.” She blushed and picked up her yarn. Today she knitted with a worsted weight spun from an Angora goat, mohair the label read. A natural fiber, the yarn was “breathable” and slightly elastic, yet warm. She slipped the stitch from the left needle to the right, passing the previously slipped stitch. “I prefer working with cashmere,” she said to change the subject. “Expensive, especially if blended with the hair of baby alpacas and some merino wool. But it is soft to the touch. Or silk. I like the feel of that. I’ve worked with silk yarns a few times, blended with mercerized cotton to make it stronger. But this mohair, it was the only black skein in the ship’s stores. I forgot to pack yarn.”

“When you left for your cruise to Tobago Cays?”

“No, I had a cashmere skein with me then. Black, of course. But I worked all the way through that. I was in such a hurry to make this cruise on time that I didn’t pack one…”

“Andrew. Just call me Drew.”

“Drew.” She smiled sweetly.

“So you cruise often?”

A nod.

“So you just came from the Caribbean, Jillian? From Tobago Cays?”

She let out a sigh, apparently unable to get away from the subject of traveling. She considered leaving to escape it, just getting up and going to another deck. But he was too easy on her eyes. “A few weeks ago, as part of a cruise I’d booked with a group-a knitting circle from Honesdale. We were in Barbados or Martinique first. No, Union Island, I think. Those Caribbean spots are all a blur. Took a charter catamaran from Union Island as part of the package to get to Tobago Cays.” She used her forearm to brush a strand of hair out of her eyes. “Oh, the colors were lovely, a veritable kaleidoscope of turquoise, green, and gold reefs, the sky and water so clear. Colors I’d knit a sweater with some day. But…there was not a single village to be seen on the Cays…”

“Andrew. Drew.”

“Drew. St. Vincent and the Grenadines appealed to me more. I think my favorite stop on that particular cruise was the little islands south of Guadeloupe. Terre-de-Haut is only three miles long, but it’s an especially romantic spot, with a long lane shaded by bougainvillea. Unfortunately, I was there with knitters, all women, and there wasn’t a single man under retirement age on that cruise.”

“Good thing I bumped into you on this cruise. I’ll save you from boredom and bald guys.”

She patted his arm, finding it firm and muscular. “I did have a good time, Drew, in Terre-de-Haut. The highlight? An old cemetery with tombstones dating back centuries. The names you could read-barely-showed the island’s Norman history. Conch shells, they decorated the cemetery and were meant to honor the island’s sailors who were lost at sea.”

“Surely there were better things to occupy you than graveyards.”

“Death…the method of death…interests me,” she said almost too softly for him to hear. Louder: “I remember a charming little village with an art gallery and a superb restaurant in Terre-de-Bas. Illes des Saintes…” She said this with an appealing, but failed, attempt at a French lilt. “…was lovely. Eight islands. Volcanic dots, the guide called them. Pointe-à-Pitre had some excellent shops. The best fishermen in all of the West Indies are said to come from Illes des Saintes. I spent one morning just watching them haul in their blue nets-filets bleus. One late cloudless night I lay on the sand and looked up at the stars. There must have been a million, all sparkling like diamonds on a black velvet dress.”