Postscriptum

Or nearly all. One thinks something is finished, and then suddenly it isn't, quite.

I have had a visitor.

It was Shadow who was first to notice. I was humming as I packed for our holiday, suitcase open on the bed. Shadow was stepping in and out of it, toying with the idea of making himself a nest on my socks and cardigans, when suddenly he stopped, all intent, and stared toward the door behind me.

She came not as a golden angel, nor as the cloaked specter of death. She was like me: a tallish, thin, brown-haired woman you would not notice if she passed you in the street.

There were a hundred, a thousand things I thought I would want to ask her, but I was so overcome I could hardly even speak her name. She stepped toward me, put her arms around me and pressed me to her side.

"Moira," I managed to whisper, "I was beginning to think you weren't real."

But she was real. Her cheek against mine, her arm across my shoulders, my hand at her waist. Scar to scar we touched, and all my questions faded as I felt her blood flow with mine, her heart beat with mine. It was a moment of wonderment, great and calm; and I knew that I remembered this feeling. It had been locked in me, closed away, and now she had come and released it. This blissful circuitry. This oneness that had once been ordinary and was today, now that I had recovered it, miraculous.

She came and we were together.

I understood that she had come to say good-bye. That next time we met it would be me who went to her. But this next meeting wouldn't be for a very long time. There was no rush. She could wait and so could I.

I felt the touch of her fingers on my face as I brushed away her tears, then, in joy, our fingers found each other and entwined. Her breath on my cheek, her face in my hair, I buried my nose in the crook of her neck and inhaled her sweetness.

Such joy.

No matter that she could not stay. She had come. She had come.

I'm not sure how or when she left. I simply realized that she was no longer there. I sat on the bed, quite calm, quite happy. I felt the curious sensation of my blood rerouting itself, of my heart recalibrating its beat for me alone. Touching my scar, she had brought it alive; now, gradually, it cooled until it felt no different from the rest of my body.

She had come and she had gone. I would not see her again this side of the grave. My life was my own.

In the suitcase, Shadow was asleep. I put out my hand to stroke him. He opened a cool green eye, regarded me for a moment, then closed it again.

Acknowledgments

With thanks to Jo Anson, Gaia Banks, Martyn Bedford, Emily Bestler, Paula Catley, Ross and Colin Catley, Jim Crace, Penny Dolan, Marianne Downie, Mandy Franklin, Anna and Nathan Franklin, Vivien Green, Douglas Gurr, Jenny Jacobs, Caroline le Maréchal, Pauline and Jeffrey Setterfield, Christina Shingler, Janet and Bill Whittall, John Wilkes and Jane Wood.

With special thanks to Owen Staley, who has been a friend to this book from the very beginning, and Peter Whittall, to whom The Thirteenth Tale owes its title and a good deal more besides.